Mind Matters: Jonah Lehrer Talks to Terry Gross about How We Decide

Have you wondered how you make profound decisions or why making them can take so much energy? Check out this interview of Jonah Lehrer on NPR’s Fresh Air. May give you insight as to why you choose chocolate cake when it might be better to choose the fruit salad.

Tags: Brain, How We Decide, Jonah Lehrer, Terry Gross

Great Expectations…of Your Brain

Think about this. When people have expectations that are met, they get a happy level of dopamine in the brain, a chemical critical to the ability to think clearly. And, when people aren’t expecting positive outcomes and get them, their levels get even higher. The reverse is also true. Positive expectation plus negative outcome equals lower levels of dopamine. Negative expectation plus negative result equals even lower levels of dopamine.

Tags: Brain, dopamine, expectation, making decisions, neurotransmitters, prefrontal cortex

When You Don’t have All the Answers

Knowing is safe. Knowing is comfortable. And, there is a part of our nature whose very purpose it is to keep us safe. So, where knowing equals safety, not knowing can often be uncomfortable and for some, even paralyzing

Tags: Brain, Fear, Marie Forleo, the unknown

Limitations of the Brain

Scientists are investigating the brain’s limitations based on genetics. Pierce Howard, Ph.D. and director of research at the Center for Applied Cognitive Studies says “behavior is inherited”. He said that for nearly 70 years we have been operating on the fact that anyone can do anything. Meaning, give me a capable student and the right situation, and I can teach him to do anything.

Tags: Brain, brain mass, cognitive studies, expectations, stress

Money or Fairness – Which is More Important?

Did you know that social pain and physical pain light up the same regions of the brain on an MRI and that as far as the brain goes, social pain is just as harmful as physical pain? The brain also finds fairness intrinsically important. When people’s brains are being monitored, scientist have concluded that when people judge a situation to be fair, reward centers of the brain light up just like they do when they see a loved one or taste great food.

Tags: brains, fairness, Fear, regions of the brain, serotonin

Your Brain Can Only Take So Much

According to a recent article in HR Magazine called “Your Brain at Work” by Adrienne Fox, researchers are now able to map what happens in the brain during learning, engagement and social interaction. And, technological advances make it possible for scientists to study neural connections as they happen in the living brain. Cool!

Tags: basal ganglia, brain at work, brains, memory consolidation, motivation, neural connections, part of the brain, working memory

Change or Die Part III

Scientists used to believe that the brain became “hardwired” early in life and couldn’t change later on. Now researchers such as Dr. Michael Merzenich, a professor at the University of California at San Francisco, say that the brain’s ability to change — its “plasticity” — is lifelong. The key is to keep up the brain’s machinery for learning.

Tags: Alan Deutchman, Brain, Change, Michael Merzenich

Change or Die Part II

Why do we fight even what we know to be in our own best interests? It turns out that one of the most important factors in helping people change habits and behaviors has to do with motivation. See what Dean Ornish did.

Tags: Change, Dean Ornish, George Lakoff, mind

Change or Die Part I

What if a well-informed, trusted authority figure said you had to make difficult and sustained changes in the way you think and act? If you didn’t, you would die — a lot sooner than necessary. Could you change when change really mattered? When it mattered most?

You’re probably thinking yes, of course I would. But, you’d be deluding yourself.
That’s right. Scientific research has shown the odds are in fact 9 to 1 against you.

Tags: Brain, Change, Edward Miller, mind, Rapheael Levey

Change Your Beliefs in 2 Simple Steps

In Awaken the Giant Within Tony Robbins talks about 2 ways to change your beliefs. The most effective way is to instruct your brain to associate massive pain with the old belief. For example, one of my old beliefs was that I could not earn the kind of money I wanted and that I would [...]

Tags: beliefs, Money, Success, Tony Robbins