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NLP Practitioners be aware for yourself and your clients how important a good night’s sleep is. It is great that through New Code processes we can probably get a few more choices for how to resolve this for yourself or for others. If your client is trying to perform optimally, than any signs that indicate a lack of good sleeping patterns should also be addressed.
Lack of sleep ‘linked to early death’ from the BBC.
Insomnia
Not too little sleep, yet not too much, the experts advise
Excerpt…
Getting less than six hours sleep a night can lead to an early grave, UK and Italian researchers have warned. They said people regularly having such little sleep were 12% more likely to die over a 25-year period than those who got an “ideal” six to eight hours. They also found an association between sleeping for more than nine hours and early death, although that much sleep may merely be a marker of ill health.
Sleep journal reports the findings, based on 1.5m people in 16 studies.
Read the rest of this entry »
One of the most important things you need to identify when creating change is “For what purpose”. Too often we hear clients saying “I need to change X, Y, Z” or complaining to us that for years they have been trying to improve their ability to do X, Y, Z but failed. Yet, when we probed, they have no clear idea of the purpose for making such a change.
Knowing the purpose for creating change is a bit like going on an expedition with clear direction in mind. There might be many paths that will lead you there and you might even find some exotic experiences on the way. The crucial thing is if you have a purpose in mind, you will get there; often you will find find more options to get to where you want to be.
When you know the purpose, you will know where you are going, and the behaviour you need to foster to create change and you will be able to communicate clearly about the change.
We can’t touch time, or smell it. Yet it is utterly inescapable. But, research shows, time is – at least partly – something we control in our heads.
Although we rely on other ques when they are available, have you ever woken from a good sleep because you have told yourself you must get up at a certain time? I know many times when I set an alarm for getting up for a specific event, my body wakes me about 2-10 minutes early.
The Caveman experiment (from BBC article)
The body clock determines our most fundamental behaviours: when we wake up, go to sleep, and eat. But it also determines our physical strength and performance over a day.
However basic the clock’s functions seem to us today, its existence was only proved in 1962, by a French caver.
19th September 1962: Michel Siffre, the scientist who spent nine weeks alone in a cave 400 ft underground in southern France has his eyes covered to protect them from the light. He is being helped by two gendarmes to a helicopter on his way to Nice. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)
Michel Siffre had been planning to study the movement of a glacier through an underground cave, when he realised the enormous potential of his experiment for the field of biology.
“I had the idea of my life: I decided not to take a watch in the cave. I decided to live without time cues,” he said.
By isolating himself underground, away from daylight, clocks or routines, he hoped to discover whether the body had its own rhythm. And if so, what it was.
The continuation of the newspaper article is in French also.
“I decided to live following my feelings of hunger, my feelings of going to sleep. In the cave it’s always dark, then your body follows its own sense,” said Mr Siffre.
His plan was to call a surface-team of assistants every time he woke, ate, exercised or urinated so every one of his biological functions could be monitored.
Each time, he would give an estimate of the date and time, and the surface-team would compare this with the real time. This he did for two months, before emerging into the real world. Mentally, he had completely lost track of time, but the results showed his body had kept up a rhythm.
While the length of Siffre’s waking days varied widely, from 40 hours to just six, a clear pattern emerged. The average length of his days was just over 24 hours. Evolution, it seems, had tailored his body’s clock to run closely to the Earth’s day length.
It’s now known that the body clock is controlled by a tiny pea-sized organ in the brain called the suprachiasmatic nucleus, or SCN. This tiny region commands a chain of chemical and nervous instructions that ripple through the body, controlling how each organ and tissue functions over the 24-hour day.
“I can’t believe I just said that, I am sorry – it came out all wrong that is not what I meant. I am sorry, I should think before I speak …” As my friend, Jan, trying to explain the situation over the phone with her boyfriend, Chris, responded “yes, you should have” and he then hung up on her. This happened six years ago.
Have you ever experienced the “I shouldn’t have done that” moment? May that be the email you have just sent, things you said or the action you just did? While with Microsoft Word, you can click on “Undo”, or with Gmail you can use “Undo Sent” in 5 seconds or with LinkedIn you can have “15 seconds to un-publish”, but when you are interacting with another person, there is no way to “undo” what had just happened. Worst of all, as my grandma puts it “I can forgive, but I won’t forget” and “by the time that one says sorry, it is already too late”.
The best thing is “don’t do it”; stop before it happens. It seems simple, but to Jan, it sounds like “Mission Impossible”. This article will explain to you how our response is formed and how we can create change with NLP.
It is all because of the Amygdala
I first heard about the Amygdala when I learned about the “fight-or-flight responses”. Listed in the Gray’s Anatomy as the nucleus amygdalæ), the Amygdalae are almond-shaped groups of nuclei located deep the brain in complex vertebrates, including humans.
The amygdalae perform primary roles in the formation and storage of memories associated with emotional events, where they form associations with memories of the stimuli. This is for both fear and appetitive (positive) conditioning. In his recent interview with Harvart Business Review writer, Peter Bregman, Assistant Professor Joshua Gordon, a Neuroscientist at Columbia University, “There are direct pathways from sensory stimuli into the amygdala …, the emotional response centre of the brain. When something unsettling happens in the outside world, it immediately evokes an emotion”.
The Interplays of Mind and Body
Figure 1. An Illustration of the different parts of human brain
I remember the time that I was an IT project auditor, appointed to check on the quality of a project delivery as was carried out by a group of contractors. To ensure the quality was up to standard before it was handed back to in house support staff, I as a junior programmer and the only permanent staff member representing the company, was requested to carry out a series of auditing activities. As I carried out my work diligently and finding multiple areas that required re-work, the program manager and project manager (both contractors) become very unsettled.
One night as I was working late, they invited me to go into their office, which is situated in a rather prestigious club. The program manager, in front of her team of six people sitting on either side of her, pointed her finger at me with one hand and slammed the table with the other and roared “How dare you second guess me with your audit report”. Unsettling, was an understatement, my first reaction was to cry and slap her face for humiliating me in front of a group of strangers. My heart was pumping hard, my breath was fast and I felt my brain become very fuzzy. I heard myself saying in side “No you can’t slap her, she is just trying to scare you; take a deep breath, wait a minute, then respond.”
What happens at the moment of facing an unsettling situation is that our body is ready to respond; in the past it was “fight or flight” response. When we perceive or sense that there is danger, the sensory information is relayed through hypothalamus to the brainstem (The brainstem (or brain stem) is the lower part of the brain, adjoining and structurally continuous with the spinal cord.)
Figure 2. Hypothalamus in our brain
That rate of signalling increases the rate of noradrenergic activity, which means that the stress hormone – norepinephrine is produced and affects parts of the brain where attention and response actions are controlled. Both epinephrine and norepinephrine, directly increases the heart rate, triggers the release of glucose from energy stores, and increases blood flow to the skeletal muscle. The person experiencing the stress now becomes alert and attentive to the environment and ready to act.
This chain of events creates various degrees of changes and reactions within us chemically and physically. In NLP, the easiest way to explain is by understanding New Code NLP’s “Chain of Excellence”, simply put; your level of performance (or behaviour) is dependent on your emotional state (which is related to your brain chemical productions), which will have a corresponding physiology and breathing pattern (respiration).
When I ask myself to wait and take a deep breath, I am asking myself to change my breathing pattern, physiology and emotional state so that I can perform or behave in the way that is optimal for the situation.
At the same time, I am also allowing myself the time for my prefrontal cortex to work. According to Dr. Gordon “The key is cognitive control of the amygdyla by the prefrontal cortex. If you take a breath and delay your action, you give the prefrontal cortex time to control the emotional response”. And he says it only take the prefrontal cortex a second or two to respond.
It seems Google’s 5 seconds is a good guide. So, go back to my experience at the club, I took a breath to calm myself down and wait for a while and responded in a way that no face was slapped, no tears were shed and the issue was resolved with the right level of escalation within the company hierarchy.
As to Jan, after calming her down through breathing exercises, I asked her to mentally play out how she would like to respond and step into Chris’s shoes to notice how he might re-act. Based on how Chris might re-act, Jan made changes to her approach to convey her feelings and messages differently. Six years later, Jan shared that “that day when we (Chris) argued over the phone, marked the turning point in our relationship, because we learned how to manage our emotions as well as being considerate to each other’s feelings”.
How NLP techniques can help you
One of the fundamental skills that NLP teaches is the individual’s ability to self observe and become very self aware of how they are contributing to the current relationships that they are observing. In other words, we are observing the role that each of us play in a current situation and create alternate behaviour accordingly.
Not only do we teach people how to become self-aware, with NLP we also teach students how to really step into another person’s shoes and consider other people’s perspectives, not just our own. To be able to self-observe and consider other people’s perspective is key for building successful relationships, creating harmony and makes us human.
Another fundamental skill that one can learn from NLP Practitioner training is how to re-program our own responses or neural-pathways to create change. The simplest way that you can do is remember a time that you might have lost your temper and reacted very strongly, only to regret what you said or did later. This is a bit like watching a movie frame by frame, right to the end of the event.
As you watch this mental movie, notice the frame that presents the behaviour that you would like to change. While noticing the frames you would like to change, pay attention to note your alternative behaviours that might be more suited. It is like you are the producer in the editing room, chopping and changing the sequence of the film over and over again until you are satisfied with the film. Once you feel good and satisfied with your new film, act it out mentally or physically as if you are in the film. Pick three more potential situations that might happen in the future where your new behaviour would be useful, create a new film and act it out mentally or physically, as if you are rehearsing a role.
Another simple way is using NLP’s “Chain of Excellence”. These days, whenever I notice I am about to react in a way that will only make things worse, based on the NLP “Chain of Excellence”, I might change my breathing pattern, my physiology or simply pause to give my prefrontal cortex the time to respond differently and change my emotional state.
There you are – a few very simply ways you can use NLP to enhance and improve the quality of your life today. Improving the quality of life is one of the main benefits that our students get from our NLP training programs. Now is a good time to become aware of how to improve your lot in life, because our next NLP Practitioner course is starting very soon in Brisbane.
Improving the quality of your life and your emotional intelligence is an investment for the rest of your life.
This year we will reach out to the Sunshine Coast and the Gold Coast as well. So, an invitation from us to you to make improving your quality of life a priority this year, learning NLP will be a good way to achieve that. If you want an NLP training course that is as good as you will find, contact us. We value our reputation for attracting the best students who really want to make a difference in their own life as well as others.
John Grinder interviewed by Peter Salisbury in Paris November 2009.
John Grinder talks about the importance of unconscious signals in New Code NLP. Use this link if the embedded version doesn’t work for your browser.
Emotional intelligence expert Lisa Caldas Kappesser unveils how to identify, use, and enhance emotional intelligence to make a smart career choice, find the best job, and score the job offer. Her book, The Smart New Way to Get Hired, provides a quiz that helps job seekers assess their level of emotional intelligence. Practical exercises and examples teach them how to stand out in the job search, by using four areas of emotional intelligence: self awareness, self-management, social awareness, and social skills. Readers also learn how to overcome job search roadblocks and gain confidence and skills in understanding themselves and in dealing with employers and colleagues. The Smart New Way to Get Hired is highly practical and spends less time on theory and research and more time on how readers can make the most of their emotional intelligence.
Hire Ground, January 21, 2010
Do hiring managers know your ‘emotional IQ’?
By Randy Woods, NWjobs
[excerpt] original article
Ever wonder how some people manage to sail through the job search process? Even though you plan your answers meticulously and research positions as much as possible, there are some people who seem to know how to make a connection quickly and nail the interview every time.
True, an abundance of brains, charm and luck may have something to do with it. Career coach Lisa Caldas Kappesser, however, says something far more subtle is more often at work. The hiring managers are picking up on what she calls “emotional intelligence” coming from the interviewee. This isn’t intelligence that shows up in someone’s resume or work history, it comes across in the way a person communicates, both verbally and nonverbally.
In her new book “The Smart New Way to Get Hired: Use Emotional Intelligence and Land the Right Job,” Kappesser describes how emotional intelligence can be measured by a combination of four skill sets: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and social skills.
“Employers look for emotional intelligence when they hire or promote employees,” says Kappesser, president of EQ Coaching Solutions. “They’re developing structured interview questions and giving assessments that tap into emotional intelligence, because research has convinced them that such intelligence is a critical part of developing high potentials, star performers and leaders.”
Here are a few techniques from Kappesser’s book to help strengthen your four main skill sets and boost your confidence in time for your next interview.
Focus on three main points. Choose three messages that should be highlighted throughout your overall interview performance. It could be technical skills, experience or ability to solve problems. Whatever works for your particular situation, “plan how you will get these points across through your answers to interview questions,” Kappesser says.
Research what the company needs. It’s amazing how many job candidates still don’t bother to read any further about potential employers beyond the job listings. “Employers admire candidates who show genuine interest in their company by being knowledgeable,” she says. “Share with them how you plan to meet those needs.”
Know your brand. “Ask yourself how you want others to think of you and remember you when you leave the interview,” Kappesser says. If you emphasize what is unique about yourself, this image will remain in the hiring manager’s mind and could help you stand out from the crowd.
Create a good communication flow. Demonstrate your interest and communication skills by asking questions, especially if you don’t understand something, she says. But remember to be brief. “Let the interviewer ask for more details about any information you share,” she adds.
Smile and show a sense of humor. It seems obvious, but many interviewees are too nervous to allow their sense of humor show through. A little levity, Kappesser says, “helps create a positive connection with the interviewer, which can give you the edge over other qualified candidates.”
Writer and editor Randy Woods has filled out more job applications than he can count — so you don’t have to. Email him at hireground@nwjobs.com.
Loneliness is infectious according to a study cited in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology for Dec/09. http://www.apa.org/journals/psp
Is this the work of those Mirror Neurons again? “Before losing their friends, lonely people transmit feelings of loneliness to their remaining friends, who also become lonely. Because loneliness is associated with mental and physical diseases that can shorten life, Cacioppo said it is important for people to recognize loneliness and help those affected before they move away to the edges.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology for Dec/09. http://www.apa.org/journals/psp/
Any wonder our mothers told us to stay away from people who were healthy in some way….
Our question would be – what if there are alternatives to implants with NLP? This is not to say we should stop research or have any ill feelings to anyone who has already benefited from these devices, but if there is an alternative that we can provide through NLP or a related modality – then let us do it. We certainly have had clients who have had many pre-existing physical conditions healed or resolved during sessions.
Here is the article to think of the opportunities we have.
Business Week March 2005
Rewiring The Body
First came pacemakers. Now exotic implants are bringing new hope to victims of epilepsy, paralysis, depression, and other diseases
Rewiring The Body - First came pacemakers. Now exotic implants are bringing new hope to victims of epilepsy, paralysis, depression, and other diseases
The Body Electric
Devices emitting microshocks and electrical signals are helping patients with more and more kinds of ailments:
EPILEPSY AND DEPRESSION
Electrical pulses hit the vagus nerve in the neck to treat both of these disorders. They’re generated by a device implanted in the chest, with wires running up the neck. (Cyberonics)
BLADDER INCONTINENCE
A device in the abdomen pulses the sacral nerve as it emerges from the lower spinal chord, causing the bladder to tighten. (Medtronic, Advanced Neuromodulation, and Boston Scientific’s Advanced Bionics unit)
CHRONIC PAIN IN THE BACK OR LEGS
Electrical stimulation of the sacral nerve as it emerges from the lower spinal cord overrides pain impulses. The source is a device implanted in the abdomen. (Medtronic, Advanced Neuromodulation, and Boston Scientific’s Advanced Bionics unit)
DEAFNESS
Cochlear implants transmit electrical signals from the inner ear to the brain, which interprets them as sound. An external apparatus is also worn behind the outer ear. (Boston Scientific’s Advanced Bionics unit)
MIGRAINE HEADACHES
Electrical pulses are directed to the occipital lobe of the brain. The implant site is at the base of the skull. (Medtronic and Boston Scientific’s Advanced Bionics unit)
POST-STROKE PARALYSIS
Embedded in the chest, a device stimulates part of the fibrous membrane surrounding the brain. The voltage is delivered by wires running up the neck and through the skull to a site directly above the area damaged by stroke. (Northstar Neuroscience)
PARKINSON’S DISEASE
Electrical stimulation of the thalamus, deep within the brain, halts otherwise uncontrollable tremors. The device is placed in the chest near the collarbone, with wires running up the neck and through the skull. (Medtronic) See also Most people with Parkinson’s disease in Europe are being denied a treatment hailed as the most significant advance in more than 30 years. BBC report Suitable patients receiving the therapy each year, Switzerland 29.4%, France 9.8%, Netherlands 9.3%, Spain 8.4%, Italy 5.3%, Germany 5.2%, UK 4.6%
The potential is great. Unlike most drugs, these implants produce few side effects. The devices also are aimed at prevalent diseases that can’t always be treated with drugs. As a result, medical-products executives and their surgeon partners predict that such implants could one day become as common as cardiac devices, which are currently helping 2 million Americans.
Little wonder, then, that some of the biggest names in health care are in a scramble to get into the market. Most recently, in December, Johnson & Johnson (JNJ ) bought implant-maker Guidant Corp. (GDT ) for $23.9 billion. “Any organ that a nerve can influence — and that’s every organ in the body — can be affected using this technology,” says Dr. Ali R. Rezai, who is director of functional neurosurgery at the Cleveland Clinic. “It’s a new era in neurology.”
The use of implantable mini-generators is more widespread than you probably think. Already, 190,000 patients are wearing electrodes in their heads to control Parkinson’s disease tremors or spinal-cord stimulators to relieve pain or prevent urinary incontinence. Some 30,000 have wires threaded to the vagus nerve in the neck to treat epilepsy, while 60,000 have microtransmitters in the inner ear enabling them to hear. These numbers are likely to grow — and quickly. One of the most promising devices is a $15,000 neurostimulator for chronic depression from Cyberonics Inc. (CYBX ), which the Food & Drug Administration conditionally approved on Feb. 2.
Candy Bradshaw can testify to the power of neurostimulation. She had a gastric pacemaker implanted in her abdomen in 1999 at Tufts-New England Medical Center in Boston as part of an early-stage trial sponsored by Transneuronix Inc. Today, Bradshaw, 47, weighs 200 pounds, down from 280 before surgery. She still has to watch her diet and exercise regularly. But the device makes her feel full sooner than before, so she eats less. “What it has done is fantastic,” says Bradshaw, an office manager in Worcester, Mass. Executives of Transneuronix in Mt. Arlington, N.J., say the implant, now in a pivotal trial, could be available as a less-invasive alternative to stomach stapling within three years.
At Indiana University Medical Center in Indianapolis, researchers hope neurostimulators might enable paraplegics to walk again. Their device beams microvolts of electricity through six surgically installed electrodes to the site of a spinal cord injury. The electric field reverses direction, or oscillates, every 15 minutes. In a just-completed experiment on 10 volunteers, oscillating stimulation helped nerves regenerate after 14 weeks of treatment, say doctors in the study, a joint venture between Indiana University and Purdue University. Two patients even recovered some movement in their legs, and one man who had been impotent regained sexual functions. Doctors, fully aware that earlier efforts in this area failed to achieve results, now are screening paraplegics for a second round of trials.
As neurostimulators get even smaller and their microchips more powerful, researchers foresee new uses for these implants. Advanced Bionics Corp., a startup that Boston Scientific Corp (BSX ). acquired in 2004, is testing a rechargeable device so tiny that it can be injected almost anywhere in the body to treat pain or muscle dysfunction. Implants also could act as sensors, telling a miniature pump when to deliver a drug or customized protein to a precise location in the body. “The body is on fire with electricity,” says Dr. Stephen N. Oesterle, chief medical officer at Medtronic Inc (MDT )., the No. 1 maker of implantable electrical devices. “If you start with that concept, then all you need is imagination.”
The neuromodulation market is potentially enormous. There are up to 3 million Americans with chronic migraines and 4 million with depression who do not respond to drugs. The number of morbidly obese American adults is also estimated at 4 million. An additional 5 million Americans have been crippled to some degree by stroke, and the number grows by about 750,000 each year. Most of these people won’t rush out and have surgery. But if only a fraction get an implant, executives at medical-device companies project that overall sales of noncardiac pulse generators should balloon from $1.6 billion today to $10 billion in 10 to 15 years, depending on how quickly the FDA approves new uses. “Ultimately,” says Todd K. Whitehurst, vice-president for emerging indications at Advanced Bionics in Valencia, Calif., “this is going to be as big as cardiac-rhythm management.”
The returns for investors may also be substantial. Today, most neurostimulators don’t make money because years of research and development and marketing outlays overwhelm what are, in the beginning, only trickling revenue streams. Still, Advanced Neuromodulation Systems Inc. (ANSI ), of Plano, Tex., averages gross margins of 70% on its spinal-cord device for chronic pain. Houston’s Cyberonics, Medtronic, and Boston Scientific — the other companies with FDA- approved neuromodulators — all boast even fatter margins.
As sales grow, device makers will be able to spread their expenses over a wider base and become more efficient manufacturers. If the FDA approves their new treatments, says Jan D. Wald, a medical-device analyst at A.G. Edwards & Sons Inc. (AGE ) in Boston, pretax earnings at the smaller companies should rise to 20% to 30% of revenue, equalling the return on more established products such as pacemakers. “The market is close to an inflection point,” he says. Mark Landy, an analyst at Susquehanna Financial Group in Bala Cynwyd, Pa., also sees the market growing by 20% for the next several years. For now, though, he cautions against buying these stocks, saying the share prices are already based on outsize returns.
Over time, however, these devices may restore more than lives; they could save money, too. In a comprehensive review of spinal-cord stimulation, a doctor and an economist at Maastricht University Hospital in the Netherlands reported in 2002 that the cost of implanting the device was offset by savings on physical therapy and other expenses in 2 1/2 years. The study’s authors, who tracked 54 patients over five years, also extrapolated that over a lifetime, each patient would save $60,000. CMS and most major private health plans such as Blue Cross Blue Shield Assn. cover implants for FDA-allowed devices, although reimbursement rates and prerequisites for surgery vary.
Neurostimulation has another selling point: Because the implants alter tissue only at their points of contact, side effects are generally negligible. Most say they can’t sense the stimulation at all. Contrast that with the most common drug treatment, Dilantin, which can cause dizziness and nausea and can lead to liver damage. “Think of the device as a smart bomb“says Advanced Neuromodulation (ANSI ) CEO Christopher G. Chavez.
Medical-device executives and surgeons point out that today’s implants are not generally intended to be a first-line treatment. Someone with heart trouble, for instance, would start off on a cholesterol-reducing drug and a stricter diet before getting outfitted with an implantable defibrillator. The same goes for neurostimulators, which are meant for patients with illnesses or disabilities for which there are no other treatments. People like Judith Walsh of Elmwood Park, Ill. In 1999, when Walsh was just 54, she suffered a stroke that paralyzed her entire left side. Thanks to aggressive physical therapy, she recovered the ability to speak — and also learned how to walk again. But her left arm remained atrophied, with her left hand permanently clenched in an almost-useless fist.
Last February, Walsh began electrical-stimulation therapy. In a clinical study sponsored by Northstar Neuroscience Inc., doctors at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago implanted a pacemaker in her chest and tunneled wires up her neck to her head. They drilled through her skull to place an electrode patch about the size of a postage stamp on the protective membrane surrounding her brain, close to the swatch that had been killed by the stroke. The surgery took 90 minutes. For the next six weeks, even though she couldn’t feel it, the device bathed the target site with electricity as she willed her left arm and hand to move during 3 1/2 hours of supervised rehab every day. Then the implant and electrodes were surgically removed.
Today, Walsh can make a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich and grip the steering wheel of her car with her left hand. More gratifying, she says, she can feed and dress her five-month-old granddaughter, Emma, things she couldn’t do with her three older grandchildren when they were babies. “It’s hard, as a grandmother, not to be able to hold the grandchildren — and now I’m able to do that,” she says. “It’s the thrill of my life.” Executives at Northstar, a Seattle startup financed by J&J and Boston Scientific, among others, are now negotiating the parameters of a final-stage clinical trial with the FDA.
On Feb. 2, the FDA cleared Cyberonics’ vagus-nerve stimulator for chronic depression, pending some clarification on the labelling of the device. Chairman and CEO Robert P. “Skip” Cummins says Cyberonics analyzed results from 240 people with long-term depression after two years of neurostimulation. All of the subjects had failed to respond to drugs. The analysis found that half the patients were markedly better, with 18% reporting they were no longer depressed. With the FDA’s go-ahead, Cummins says, Cyberonics will begin pilot studies on Alzheimer’s disease, headache, anxiety disorders, and bulimia. Medtronic also may be closing in on a number of new therapies. Its products are in clinical tests to pulse the thalamus to treat epilepsy; another region of the deep brain to treat migraines, depression, and obsessive-compulsive disorder; the hypoglossal nerve in the neck to treat sleep apnea; the sacral nerve to treat bowel disorders; and the stomach to treat obesity. Medtronic may have a deep-brain treatment for epilepsy in two or three years.
New treatments may become feasible as device sizes shrink and rechargeable batteries evolve. Advanced Bionics, for example, has developed a rechargeable implant that is about the size of an ink tube from a ballpoint pen cut to a one-inch length. Its first use, already permitted in Europe, is to prevent bladder incontinence by stimulating the organ directly, rather than through the sacral nerve. The Boston Scientific subsidiary also has begun a stage-one trial to see whether the device can alleviate chronic headaches by injecting it into the base of the skull to stimulate the brain’s occipital lobe. And soon, company executives say, they hope to start testing the device in the leg and arm as a therapy for pain or carpal-tunnel syndrome.
The leading cardiac-device makers are packing their newest implants with enough computing power to sense the environment around them and alter a patient’s treatment as needed. A next step would be to link sensor-laden neurostimulators to miniature drug pumps. In this way, a patient could be dosed exactly when needed and at the precise site where the medication is most effective. Researchers say this could reduce dosages by a thousandfold and avert side effects. Such systems would also enable a patient to be treated with bioengineered drugs and proteins too large to be absorbed by swallowing a pill. The combined therapy seems most promising in the brain, where many disorders might be tackled with protein drugs complemented by electrical pulses.
As these new therapies move closer to reality, the medical-products companies are putting down their markers. Last June, Boston Scientific paid $740 million in cash to acquire Advanced Bionics. Boston Scientific also holds a 14% stake in Cyberonics. Then in December came J&J’s megadeal with Guidant. Although Guidant does not have any neurostimulators in clinical trials, the Indianapolis company has been earmarking an increasing share of its R&D budget for these devices. Some medical-products executives predict J&J or Boston Scientific could buy Cyberonics or Advanced Neuromodulation next.
NLP Practice evening, Thursday 29 Oct 09, 18:30 – 20:30, New Farm Library
Thursday 29 Oct 09
Topic: Have you elicited Unconscious Signals yet?
This is for NLP practitioners and NLP Master practitioners only.
Come and join us for this special session on Thursday 29 Oct 09
Topics:
1. Foundation Skills – Sub-modality fest (quick drill, different to our last week)
2. Main topic – Have you elicited Unconscious Signals yet?
3. New Code Change Format
RSVP required
Date: Thursday 29 Oct 09
Food: Some snacks, fruits, tea and coffee are provided. There is microwave to heat up food as well.
Time:
6:00 – Cafe Door Opens – Feel free to bring some food to heat up in the Microwave, have some snacks or have a cuppa (Tea and Coffee supplied)
6:30 – Session Starts
8:30 – Cafe Closes
Location: New Farm Library, 135 Sydney St, New Farm, (07) 3403 1062 and our number 0439 307585
Fees: $5.00 at the door
Benefits
- For Therapist: Enhance your skills by learning in an environment that stretches your capabilities in New Code NLP and possibly a new process for you.
- For anyone: Connection with your unconscious will be a feature.
RSVP Required: NLPCafeBrisbane@gmail.com for more details
I Didn’t Sin—It Was My Brain Brain researchers have found the sources of many of our darkest thoughts, from envy to wrath.
by Kathleen McGowan; illustrations by Christopher Buzelli
From the September 2009 issue, published online October 5, 2009
This article talks about the research neuroscience has begun into such things as inhibitory cognitive control networks involving the front of the brain activate to squelch the impulse and other brain regions such as the caudate—partly responsible for body movement and coordination—suppress the physical impulse. These are interesting to follow, but as yet do not yet seem to have identified the solutions that many have already found in other modalities such as NLP.
Creator: Priamo della Quercia Date: 1444-1452 Medium: manuscript illumination Source: Yates Thompson 36. Reprinted with permission of the British Library.
More disagreeable forms of sin such as wrath and envy enlist the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC). This area, buried in the front of the brain, is often called the brain’s “conflict detector,” coming online when you are confronted with contradictory information, or even simply when you feel pain…. In the annals of sin, weaknesses of the flesh—lust, gluttony, sloth—are considered second-tier offenses, less odious than the “spiritual” sins of envy and pride. That’s good news for us, since these yearnings are notoriously difficult to suppress.
Why does being bad feel so good? Pride, envy, greed, wrath, lust, gluttony, and sloth: It might sound like just one more episode of The Real Housewives of New Jersey, but this enduring formulation of the worst of human failures has inspired great art for thousands of years. In the 14th century Dante depicted ghoulish evildoers suffering for eternity in his masterpiece, The Divine Comedy. Medieval muralists put the fear of God into churchgoers with lurid scenarios of demons and devils. More recently George Balanchine choreographed their dance.….
For most of us, it takes less mental energy to puff ourselves up than to think critically about our own abilities. In one recent neuroimaging study by Hidehiko Takahashi of the National Institute of Radiological Sciences in Japan, volunteers who imagined themselves winning a prize or trouncing an opponent showed less activation in brain regions associated with introspection and self-conscious thought than people induced to feel negative emotions such as embarrassment. We accept positive feedback about ourselves readily, Takahashi says: “Compared with guilt or embarrassment, pride might be processed more automatically.”
The most notable thing about lust is that it sets nearly the whole brain buzzing.
Pride gets its swagger from the self-related processing of the mPFC, which Keenan calls “a very interesting area of the brain, involved in all these wonderful human characteristics, from planning to abstract thinking to self-awareness.” Using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), in which a magnetic field applied to the scalp temporarily scrambles the signal in small areas of the brain, he was able to briefly shut off the mPFC in volunteers. With TMS switched on, his subjects’ normal, healthy arrogance melted away. “They saw themselves as they really were, without glossing over negative characteristics,” he says….
It makes sense that we are so sensitive to being cheated, notes Matthew Lieberman, a professor of psychology at the University of California at Los Angeles. “Mammalian survival depends on social bonds, and fairness is a really important social cue,” he says. Inequitable treatment might be an important sign that we are not valued by the group, he says, so we had better pay attention.
In response to unfair offers, the brain activates the pain detection process that takes place in the multitasking dACC. Interestingly, it also engages the bilateral anterior insula, an area implicated in negative emotions such as anger, disgust, and social rejection. The picture that emerges from fMRI is that of a brain weighing an emotional response (the urge to punish the guy who cheated you) against a logical response (the appeal of the cash)….
See the full article at I Didn’t Sin—It Was My Brain from the Discover Magazine, Sep 2009
This is a link to the transcript of a Catalyst Report which is about the Synaesthesia. This use of the term Synaesthesia is basically the same concept that NLP has had from many years ealier. See our previous article on Synaesthesia to understand a little more about the concept from both an NLP perspective, and also from other research teams in Sydney.
The interest in this documentary is mainstream research of synaesthesia going on in Australia. The researchers also propose that synaesthetes have extra brain regions devoted to colour imagery. I am not sure if they are getting their information from fMRI scans or similar, or experience with their studies. I do wonder how they would cope with the knowledge that the average NLP Practitioner that often overlaps representations to see if we can give the client more choice.
From the Catalyst Report (ABC) on Synaesthesia:
Around 10,000 Australians have this condition, where the five senses – sight, sound, taste, smell and touch – are mingled in some way….. It’s early days yet but already the researchers have found that people with synaesthesia do seem to use their brains differently and this can actually help them in certain tasks. For example, it seems a surprisingly large number of synaesthetes are artists…Jennifer and Catherine are…and a tantalising theory is… the reason for that is that synaesthetes have extra brain regions devoted to colour imagery.
Unravelling the secrets of synaesthesia could even ultimately advance medical science, by revealing how the brain puts the information from the senses together in all of us. But in the meantime the goal is to find an explanation for Jennifer and Catherine’s colourful world. A world that really makes you think you’re missing out on something here….
Sources for this story
Catalyst Report (ABC) on Synaesthesia and a site to Check if you have a Synaesthesia
Story Contacts
- Anina Rich, PhD Student in Department of Psychology, University of Melbourne
- Dr Jason Mattingley, Research Fellow in Department of Psychology, University of Melbourne
- Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, School of Behavioural Science, University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia
Opera 2.0
See also TIME Magazine which is of interest, where entertainment is pushing the boundaries and combining two senses in the one event – Opera 2.0
where audience members listen to and smell “Green Aria,” described by its writer and director Stewart Matthew as a “scent opera” at the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao, Spain.
The Synaesthetic Phenomenon Excerpt… When we speak of various types of communication that are perceived through the combination of two or more senses and are integrated and focused at the level of meaning, we are, of course, speaking about the phenomenon that goes under the name of synaesthesia. Grosso modo, synaesthesia is a kind of intertransposition based on the interaction of the sensory experience during the act of perception. As such, it belongs to the realm of metaphor. Yet it can be considered more than a simple metaphor.
Wheel of the Five Senses, a medieval wall painting in Longthorpo Tower (near Peterborough, England) discovered some fifty years ago and said to have been made before 1340.
Surrounding the wheel, from the king’s right to his left, at the points where the spokes connect to the rim, are five animals: a spider in its web, a eagle or vulture, a monkey, a cock, and a boar. According to a passage from De rerum natura by Thomas of Cantimpré, each of the five animals represents a sense18. Now for our purpose, this painting may be considered as the first known visual representation19 of the connections among the five senses, both in relation to the sense of touch (scholastically understood as the most important sense, in that it is the foundation of all senses and the closest “to the fontal root”, that is common sense)20 and in relation to the king, who may be considered to represent man’s ratio.
Below are two links to videos of a presentation which is about the Synaesthesia. This use of the term Synaesthesia is basically the same concept that NLP has had from many years ealier. In NLP, the phenomenon of “overlap” has many applications, but specifically it is where we are either as a practitioner observing a synaesthesia, bringing awareness of the synaesthesia to client to, or undoing the connections between the senses. We can “overlap” an image and a sound or feeling together, for example. In the broad sense, a synaesthesia can be useful for the client or it can be limiting the client’s choices.
As the phenomenon of overlap demonstrates, not all of our mental experiences are clearly distinguishable in terms of the five senses. Sometimes experiences become connected and overlapped so completely that it is not possible to easily distinguish one from the other.
In NLP, this connection is called a synaesthesia, and the term means “a synthesizing of the senses.” Synaesthesias are usually more than perceiving something through a single sense alone. Some artists increase the richness of their visual experience and some record memory with colours assoicated that help them recall or associate the memory with another aspect of the experience.
The interest in this presentation is that it demonstrates some of the mainstream research into ‘natural’ synaesthesia’s that have been observed in humans and how science is measuring trends and liklehoods of the types of connections that occur.
Synesthesia: Hearing colours, tasting sounds. David Eagleman, July 2009
Imagine a world of magenta Tuesdays, tastes of blue, and symphonies seen as well as heard. At least one in a hundred otherwise normal people experience the world this way in a condition called synesthesia, in which stimulation of one sense triggers an experience in a different sense. Synesthesia is a fusion of different sensory perceptions, though most synesthetes are unaware their experiences are in any way unusual.
Synesthesia is far more important scientifically than a mere curiosity. In this CHAST lecture at the University of Sydney, world authority David Eagleman explains its wild variety of forms, and shows how his laboratory studies these experiences in the brain, using tools from genetics to advanced neuroimaging.
Videos of the presentation
Video – Synesthesia: Hearing colours, tasting sounds (Part 1) Duration: 23m 38s
Video – Synesthesia: Hearing colours, tasting sounds (Part 2) Duration: 26m 15s
Find out if you are a Synesthete
Source: CHAST, University of Sydney
