"Time to relax, rewind, and remodel the brain."

Chronically stressed rats lose their behavioral plasticity -- their adaptability and cunning -- and fall back upon ineffective rote responses. The change occurs at the neural level: "regions associated with executive decision-making and goal-directed behaviors had shriveled, while, conversely, brain sectors linked to habit formation had bloomed."

The rats succumbed to the rat race.

Robert Sapolsky, a neuroscientist who is also a first-rate writer, says, "we're lousy at recognizing when our normal coping mechanisms aren't working. Our response is usually to do it five times more, instead of thinking, maybe it's time to try something new."

But genuine hope arrives fast: "with only four weeks’ vacation in a supportive setting free of bullies and Tasers, the formerly stressed rats looked just like the controls, able to innovate, discriminate and lay off the bar." (The bar they press to get a food pellet.)

“The brain is a very resilient and plastic organ....Dendrites and synapses retract and reform, and reversible remodeling can occur throughout life.”

And too many pellets can make you fat.

How to Get Lucky

As one who'd like to get lucky someday, my attention was drawn to this teaser on the cover of the August issue of Psychology Today:

"Four Traits of Lucky People.

Then I decided I could write the article without having to read it. Here were my predictions:

1. They work hard but take vacations.

2. They learn from their mistakes/ don’t let failure get them down.

3. They associate with successful, positive people.

4. They’re oriented to process, not results.


The actuality:

1. Break routine – meet new people, walk a different route to work, etc etc.

2. Turn bad into good – “if something upsetting happens consider how it could have been worse, and try to draw something positive from it.

3. Follow your gut -- “decisions informed by intuition often produce happier outcomes.”

4. Look up – “positive expectations are often self-fulfilling because they increase motivation and persistence.”

I got 100%! That’s because I’m looking up.

Shades of blue creativity...

Blue Makes You More Creative

Hence my template.

“It may be nothing more than an association with big skies and the open seas, but beholding the colour blue makes you more creative. Juliet Zhu at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, compared the effects of red and blue on people's behaviour. While red tended to sharpen the memories of her undergraduate volunteers, blue helped to unlock their imaginations. For example, when they were given toy parts in either blue or red, the toys that the volunteers constructed in blue were rated as much more creative than those made with red.”
-- New Scientist May 6, 2009. Subscription required for full article.

UPDATE:

For those who don't subscribe to New Scientist, here are the eight ways "to have brilliant ideas," as the cover puts it:

1. Embrace your inner grouch [i.e., dissatisfaction breeds innovation]
2, Let your mind wander
3. Play the piano [or other ambidextrous activities, to encourage communication between both sides of your brain. I'm ambidextrous]
4. Colour your world blue
5. Two's creative company [i.e., collaborate with others]
6. Live abroad [i.e., necessity of adapting to another culture stimulates problem-solving thought and flexibility]
7. Be more playful [see "wild and outrageous"]
8. Raise a glass [Their little joke. "Drinking alcohol does not make you more creative, it just makes you feel that you are."]

In ther words, New Scientist is trying to act like Psychology Today.

What's the Time?

I have no idea what the current theories of time are, but here are questions whose answers I would like explained in such a simple, clear form that I wouldn’t have to exert any energy trying to understand them. That’s the same approach I take toward gardening: throw a lot of wildflower seeds around and do the minimum necessary.

• Is time continuous or discontinuous? If the latter, what exists between time positions? In either case, what pushes time -- what force moves time forward? Is there time-inertia, time-acceleration, time-entropy?
• The attributes of space are shaped by physical forces such as gravity and acceleration. What forces shape the attributes of time?
• What is the speed of time? Spatial phenomena have speeds: the speed of light, of the expansion of the universe, etc. Time flows at a speed: one second per second. Are there other time-speeds, actual or potential, to which our time-speed can be compared?
• Is the speed of time constant throughout the universe?