Thursday, October 31, 2013
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Why Alcohol Is Addicting? (Part I)
Drinking alcohol leads to the
release of endorphins in areas of the brain that produce feelings of pleasure
and reward, according to a study led by researchers at the Ernest Gallo Clinic
and Research Center at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).
Endorphins
are small proteins with opiate-like effects
that
are produced naturally in the brain.
The researchers used positron
emission tomography, or
PET
imaging,
to observe the immediate
effects of alcohol in the brains of 13 heavy drinkers and 12 matched
"control" subjects who were not heavy drinkers.
In all of the subjects,
alcohol intake led to a release of endorphins. And, in all of the subjects, the more endorphins released in the nucleus
accumbens,
the
nucleus accumbens
the
greater the feelings of pleasure reported by each drinker.
orbitofrontal
cortex
In addition, the more
endorphins released in the orbitofrontal cortex, the greater the feelings of
intoxication in the heavy drinkers, but not in the control subjects.
Orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) green area on diagram
The human OFC is involved in
sensory integration, in representing the affective value of reinforcers, in decision-making
and expectation.
In particular, the OFC is
important in signaling the expected rewards/punishments of an action given the
particular details of a situation.
In doing this, the brain is
capable of comparing the expected reward/punishment with the actual delivery of
reward/punishment.
To be continued…
Love,
Natalia Levis-Fox
Journal Reference
J. M. Mitchell, J. P. O'Neil,
M. Janabi, S. M. Marks, W. J. Jagust, H. L. Fields. Alcohol Consumption Induces
Endogenous Opioid Release in the Human Orbitofrontal Cortex and Nucleus
Accumbens. Science
Translational Medicine, 2012; 4 (116): 116ra6 DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.3002902
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
Sunday, October 27, 2013
What Is the Soul Mate?
Voluntary or involuntary men and women search for
their ‘halves” or ‘soul mates’. To understand what it is, let us take the
analogy with apples and consider what the ‘mismatching’ is.
Suppose, these are two admirable people - a man and a
woman. They are nice, talented, sexy, good-looking, intelligent and possess other
human super qualities.
mismatching unity
However, married or living together makes them
unhappy. To support their ‘couple-being’ or ‘social image of a decent family’,
they:
- play games;
- quarrel often;
- find faults with each other;
- feel displeased, disappointed and unsatisfied;
- try to dominate over each other;
- look for better relationships outside family or their union;
- often tell lies to each other;
- accuse each other;
- pretend to be a happy couple,
each of them, nevertheless, remaining just a nice
person, out of family context.
On the contrary, soul mates, no matter how different
they may seem at first
…make a
lovely unity…
- feel comfort in each other’s presence;
- miss each other, when part temporarily;
- live and communicate in a very friendly atmosphere;
- enjoy each other’s company;
- have a lot of common interests;
- support each other;
- feel sincerely happy, when their partner gains success;
- joke and mock at each other friendly;
- take genuine care of each other, especially in non-favorable situations;
- never interfere in private space, time and activities of a partner;
- cook for each other with pleasure;
- easily find topics for discussion, so they never feel bored together.
Did you find your soul mate?
If not, some ideas of how to attract lovely relationships might help and guide
you to success.
Love,
Natalia Levis-Fox
Friday, October 25, 2013
Self-Confidence and Power Posing
Do you feel nervous about an
upcoming presentation or job interview or some important meeting?
Don’t!
People often are more
influenced by how they feel about you than by what you're saying.
Research discovered
two
poses of “weakness” and “uncertainty.”
Do you find yourself be in one
of these two poses from time to time?
Aggressive people feel
unconsciously your social fears (i.e., your
expectation to be valued and appreciated)
…and
dominate you…
Forget about your weakness!
In "Power Posing: Brief
Nonverbal Displays Affect Neuroendocrine Levels and Risk Tolerance", Cuddy
shows that simply holding one's body in expansive,
"high-power"
poses for as little as two minutes,
stimulates higher levels of testosterone
(the hormone linked to power and dominance in the animal and human worlds) and
lower levels of cortisol (the "stress" hormone that can, over time,
cause impaired immune functioning, hypertension, and memory loss).
Holding your body in
"high-power" poses for as little as two minutes a day can summon an
extra surge of power and sense of well-being when it's needed.
In addition to causing
hormonal shifts, power poses lead to increased feelings of power and a greater
tolerance for risk and challenge.
Warmth versus competence
It is very important how we
connect to one another.
In general, people form
impressions of others through a matrix of how much we trust and like them and
how much we think they're competent and respect them.
For the most part people
underestimate the powerful connection of warmth and overestimate the importance
of competence.
How warm are you? Do you smile
sincerely? Do you emanate genuine friendliness going with your power?
Natalia Levis-Fox
References
- Dana R. Carney, D.R., Cuddy A.M., Yap A.J. Powerful Postures Versus Powerful Roles: Which Is the Proximate Correlate of Thought and Behavior? Psychological Science January 2011 22: 95-102, first published on December 13, 2010
- Carney, D.R., Hall, J.A., & Smith LeBeau, L. (2005). Beliefs about the nonverbal expression of social power. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 29, 105–123.
- Hall, J.A., Coats, E.J., & Smith LeBeau, L. (2005). Nonverbal behavior and the vertical dimension of social relations: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 131, 898–924.
Thursday, October 24, 2013
Caucasus: Indian Summer in Chegem
Indian summer in the Caucasus is in a full swing. This
time I want to show you the pictures from Chegem gorge I made yesterday and last
winter.
When you travel in beautiful places, you become
overfilled with marvelous healthy energy, Even if you see pictures and admire wild
nature, the effect is practically the same.
Chegem
waterfalls area has 330 sunny days a year!
When not frozen,
the falls spread chrystal water dust on
you,
refreshing
your skin and soul.
Ancient tower in Chegem gorge, built in 12th
century
This is how Chegem waterfalls look in winter
Life is an adventure itself!
Natalia Levis-Fox
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Monday, October 21, 2013
How To Measure Self-Confidence and Success (Part II)
Continued from Part I
Looking To The
Past To Predict The Future
The truth is that past performance
is the best predictor of future performance. This is not only true for
individuals, but for teams and companies.
If you want to know where your
current path is taking you - look to your past. That’s the best way to predict
where you’re headed.
Looking to your past is more
reliable than looking at your goals and intentions.
Consider some of
the people in your life — people you know pretty well. Can you reasonably
predict where they’ll be a year from now? Can you make a decent guess at where
they’ll be in terms of their career, finances, relationships, health, spiritual
growth, etc?
It is not asking
you to predict the exact outcome. It is about asking you to paint a general
picture of what you expect each person’s life will look like in a year or so. You
will be pretty accurate because you can be objective.
Predicting Your Future
Sometimes it’s easier to make
predictions about other people instead of ourselves. When we look at other
people’s lives, we are much more objective.
It can be pretty tough to look
at ourselves objectively, especially when we don’t like what we see. No one
wants to predict that a year from now, they’ll have lost their home due to
foreclosure, gained 20
pounds of fat, and endured a string of bad
relationships.
Try this: Make some
predictions about where you’ll be in a year, but base your predictions only on hard
factual evidence from the past 90 days of your life.
Assume those same patterns
will continue for another 12 months. Where will they lead if you largely
repeated the patterns of the past 90 days for a full 12 months?
In order to make accurate predictions,
you cannot use your goals or intentions as an accurate indicator of where you
will be in the future.
When you study and learn from
your past, you’ll notice certain patterns that come up repeatedly that keep you
stuck. All of these patterns are rooted in your lack of Self-Confidence to
follow through and make the changes.
One of those patterns is the
“start-stop” approach.
This is when someone gets a
strong desire to change. They feel a surge of positive emotion and decide that finally
things will be different. They usually believe it too.
They set some new goals and
intentions and start taking some actions, but because of a lack of
Self-Confidence their actions are inconsistent. Most of their actions are
one-offs, meaning that they never get integrated as permanent habits. For
example they get highly motivated to change - usually after reading a book or
taking a personal development program - then they will get started, but that’s
usually as far as it goes.
Eventually the excitement over
the new direction and information fizzles, and the person stops changing and
gets sucked back into their old under-confident patterns from the past. No real
lasting change occurs.
We all know that goals and
intentions are powerful. Having clarity about what you’re going to do next is
important. But deciding what you want is only the first step. And if that’s all
you do, then it is predictable that you
will have some occasional success, but for the most part your life will be a
repeated pattern of “start-stop” mediocrity.
The Root Cause
The root cause of our
“start-stop” behavior is the inability to feel confident enough to follow
through and make the necessary changes until we get the results we desire. Not
if, but until.
Most people do not have enough
Self-Confidence to create the life they deserve.
There are four things that
keep most people from expressing their full force
1. Lack of fulfilling work
(not doing what they love, not contributing)
2. Financial struggle (too
much debt, not earning enough money, not experiencing financial flow)
3. Lack of loving
relationships (unsupportive, disempowering, apathetic or negative social
circle; no one to love and be loved by)
4. Poor health (lack of energy
and vitality, feeling tired, struggling with health issues.)
These are the most common
killers of long term happiness.
But here is something
important for you to know.
All of these problems are
really just symptoms. The real issues go much deeper.
Most personal development
books and programs are focused fixing these symptoms. But they never identify
and treat the root cause that gives rise to those symptoms.
Consequently, even people who
study personal growth for most of their life never seem to be able to
"lock on" to success. It always eludes them.
But some people succeed in a
really big way with:
1. Deeply fulfilling work that
expresses their creativity and contributes to the world
3. Loving and supportive
relationships with people who genuinely care about them.
4. High levels of energy,
vitality, and excitement -- mentally, physically, and emotionally
This is because they have Unstoppable
Self-Confidence.
Do you think that knowing how
to build Unstoppable Self-Confidence to achieve these results might serve you?
When you have Unstoppable Self
Confidence you can tackle -- and defeat -- the three demons that keep you
stuck.
1. Denial
2. Disconnection
3. Inaction
Let's briefly discuss each
one.
Denial -
First, in order to get unstuck be honest enough to admit the truth of your
current situation. If you're stuck, don't pretend that you're making progress.
Denial cannot help you change your situation.
It's imperative that you start
being honest with yourself. Look to the past 90 days, as well as look at your
past patterns and see what sort of progress you're REALLY making. Stop kidding
yourself that things will somehow magically get better in the future.
Your future is actually quite
predictable. If you keep doing the same things over and over again, and they
haven't worked in the past, it's safe to say you won't make much progress in
the future.
Giving up denial and
identifying and eliminating the thought patterns, beliefs and behaviors that
are eroding your Self-Confidence is an essential part of permanent and lasting
change.
Disconnection -
The second confidence killer is disconnection. This is when you lose sight of
your passion, dreams, and desires. Disconnection leads to hopelessness.
If you want to have a
successful and happy life it's your responsibility to stay plugged in to your
desires. Don't let them die. What do you want to experience? Think about your
desires often. Make connecting with your desires a central part of your life,
but you can only do this if you feel Self-Confident.
When people are plugged in to
their desires, their eyes are sparkling and full of life. Take a moment to go
look at yourself in a mirror. Do you see that sparkle in your eyes? Does your
image reflect happiness, fulfillment and a feeling of Self-Confidence? Or is it
reflecting disappointment, regret and a lack of Self-Confidence? You can break
the feeling of disconnection once and for all by creating Unstoppable
Self-Confidence.
Inaction – Inaction is the
third confidence killer. This can take the form of procrastination,
indecisiveness and low levels of self-discipline. The lack of inspired action
consists of the inability to maintain momentum in the face of external
pressures and follow through on your goals and plans.
The proven antidote for
inaction is to deliberately train yourself to become more confident in your
ability to succeed.
Realize that the denial,
disconnection or the inability to take inspired action is not a permanent condition.
You Can Reinvent Yourself
At every moment, you get to
choose your identity. You get to appoint yourself and anoint yourself to be the
person you want to be. You can literally reinvent yourself.
Don't allow your current lack
of Self-Confidence to become a life sentence! Do something about it now. If
you're stuck at all today - let me be your outside force!
Dr. Robert Anthony ‘Self-Confidence Creator’ can help you. I have
made it practical, easy-to-learn, and easy-to-apply. And, you will begin to see
a noticeable increase in your Self-Confidence in 7 days or less!
In his book “The Hero’s
Journey” Joseph Campbell sums it up when he says –
"We
must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned,
to
have the life that is waiting for us."
Your new life is waiting for
you.
After Dr. Robert Anthony
Note from
Natalia Levis-Fox:
Self-Confidence can be
installed within one hour. You can order on-line consultation with me through my
website or by email: love.formula.book@gmail.com
Love,
Natalia Levis-Fox
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