Use It or Lose It: The Hidden Power of Attention
What if "use it or lose it" applies to far more than muscles and physical skills? The hidden power of attention shapes everything from intuition and empathy to habits, dreams,...
It is the most well known – and perhaps infamous – theory of dreams in the Western world. At the turn of last century, Sigmund Freud published his book, The Interpretation of Dreams, arguing that our dreams are nothing more than wishes that we are looking to fulfil in our waking lives.
Two of the most common causes of night waking in children are night terrors and nightmares. Parents often get them confused but they are different, as is how they should be managed.
Scientists have for the first time watched the human brain making a purely voluntary decision to act. Unlike in brain imaging studies where researchers watch as people respond to cues or commands, Johns Hopkins researchers found a way to observe people’s brain activity as they made choices entirely on their own.
It is generally thought that science helps good ideas triumph over bad. The weight of evidence eventually pushes false claims aside.
People are notoriously overconfident. Regardless of the context - sports, finance, politics - people believe that their judgements and decisions are better than they really are.
Whenever someone is called out for using sexist language, as in the recent case involving Collingwood AFL president Eddie McGuire’s comments about journalist Caroline Wilson, the first line of defence is always “but it was just a joke”.
Why do people sext? Why do they send racy or naked photos or videos and sexually loaded texts? For a short-term hookup, sexting might seem like a direct way to get what you want
About 50 per cent of us will at some point in our lives experience “waking up” and being conscious while still in a dream – possibly, we may even be able to act with intention in it. Such “lucid dreams” are not only a vivid and memorable experience for the dreamer, they are also of huge interest to neuroscientists and psychologists.
Thousands of case studies proved beyond any reasonable doubt that cancer can be cured by a change in one’s thinking! In the patients who were able to resolve the conflict through recognizing their innocence and mistaken self-blame and guilt, not only did the pattern in the scan resolve itself (disappear), but so did the cancer.
Most of us don’t have any memories from the first three to four years of our lives – in fact, we tend to remember very little of life before the age of seven.
Since everyone has an Inner Compass, this means that children do too. But what does this mean in practice for parents and teachers? How do we respect the fact that each child has an Inner Compass without allowing children to become "spoiled brats" or "petty tyrants"?
Pretend, for a minute, that we’ve all come to Earth to learn something. Since we may not care for little boxy classrooms, instead we have a whole planet for our current lessons. Now pretend that there’s not one of us who isn’t in the test of some major challenge.
Have you ever felt deserving of an apology and been upset when you didn’t get one? Have you ever found it hard to deliver the words, I’m sorry?
The Binewskis are no ordinary family. Arty has flippers instead of limbs; Iphy and Elly are Siamese twins; Chick has telekinetic powers. These traveling circus performers see their differences as talents, but others consider them freaks with “no values or morals.”
The notion that our minds produce thoughts automatically was a breakthrough insight for me. For years, I battled to still my mind, to stop thinking. Once I embraced the perspective that my thoughts are another sense, my relationship with thinking changed.
What the most confident-seeming people have is not brazen ballsiness, impressive bravery, courage or any of that elusive stuff really...it’s PASSION. It’s enthusiasm. It’s WILLINGNESS. It’s RESILIENCE and FLEXIBILITY.
Many parts of the federal education law called No Child Left Behind were highly visible, but one of the less known provisions, the Supplemental Educational Services provision, set aside funds to allow low-income students in poorly performing schools to get free access to after-school tutoring.
Each of us has a Default Mechanism, a subconscious pattern of returning to memories of previous experiences in your mind to find a response to a current experience. Your default powers your very first, almost automatic, reaction in response to the events of your life.
We live in an increasingly competitive world where we are always looking to gain an advantage over our rivals, sometimes even our own colleagues. In some cases, it can push people to extreme, unethical and illegitimate methods – something we’ve seen recently in the doping scandal that has hit the athletics world.
As social species, the social networks of lizards, hyenas, and dolphins influence every pivotal aspect of their lives: finding a mate, reproducing, getting sick, or surviving.
When rats are given an anti-anxiety medication they become less empathetic and are less likely to help free companions that are trapped.