Researchers think that you should.

Intuition Is More Than Just A Hunch, According To Leeds Research

Most of us experience 'gut feelings' we can't explain, such as instantly loving - or hating - a new property when we're househunting or the snap judgements we make on meeting new people. Now researchers at Leeds say these feelings - or intuitions - are real and we should take our hunches seriously.

According to a team led by Professor Gerard Hodgkinson of the Centre for Organisational Strategy, Learning and Change at Leeds University Business School, intuition is the result of the way our brains store, process and retrieve information on a subconscious level and so is a real psychological phenomenon which needs further study to help us harness its potential.

There are many recorded incidences where intuition prevented catastrophes and cases of remarkable recoveries when doctors followed their gut feelings. Yet science has historically ridiculed the concept of intuition, putting it in the same box as parapsychology, phrenology and other 'pseudoscientific' practices.

Through analysis of a wide range of research papers examining the phenomenon, the researchers conclude that intuition is the brain drawing on past experiences and external cues to make a decision - but one that happens so fast the reaction is at a non-conscious level. All we're aware of is a general feeling that something is right or wrong.

"People usually experience true intuition when they are under severe time pressure or in a situation of information overload or acute danger, where conscious analysis of the situation may be difficult or impossible," says Prof Hodgkinson.

He cites the recorded case of a Formula One driver who braked sharply when nearing a hairpin bend without knowing why - and as a result avoided hitting a pile-up of cars on the track ahead, undoubtedly saving his life.

"The driver couldn't explain why he felt he should stop, but the urge was much stronger than his desire to win the race," explains Professor Hodgkinson. "The driver underwent forensic analysis by psychologists afterwards, where he was shown a video to mentally relive the event. In hindsight he realised that the crowd, which would have normally been cheering him on, wasn't looking at him coming up to the bend but was looking the other way in a static, frozen way. That was the cue. He didn't consciously process this, but he knew something was wrong and stopped in time."

Prof Hodgkinson believes that all intuitive experiences are based on the instantaneous evaluation of such internal and external cues - but does not speculate on whether intuitive decisions are necessarily the right ones.

"Humans clearly need both conscious and non-conscious thought processes, but it's likely that neither is intrinsically 'better' than the other," he says.

As a Chartered occupational psychologist, Prof Hodgkinson is particularly interested in the impact of intuition within business, where many executives and managers claim to use intuition over deliberate analysis when a swift decision is required. "We'd like to identify when business people choose to switch from one mode to the other and why - and also analyse when their decision is the correct one. By understanding this phenomenon, we could then help organisations to harness and hone intuitive skills in their executives and managers."

This conference happened in October of last year (2007), but Psychiatric Times is just getting around to reporting on it. Still, it's a good article. Psychology, more than any other field, is beginning to get that Buddhism offers valuable tools and understanding about how the mind works, and how to re-balance a mind that is damaged by life experience or chemical imbalances. Mindfulness and meditation aren't the only answers, but they are increasingly becoming central parts of many therapy programs -- even cognitive-behavioral therapists have added a mindfulness component (MBCT).

Buddhists Meet Mind Scientists in Conference on Meditation and Depression

Charles L. Raison, MD

On October 20, 2007, leading researchers in the fields of mood disorders and meditation discussed the promise—and limitations—of meditation for the prevention and treatment of major depression. Participating in a day-long symposium titled "Mindfulness, Compassion, and the Treatment of Depression" was His Holiness the Dalai Lama. The event, which drew an audience of more than 3000, was cosponsored by Emory University in Atlanta and the Mind & Life Institute and was the 15th time that the Dalai Lama has met with Western scientists under the aegis of the Mind & Life Institute to engage in dialogue about points of intersection and divergence between Buddhist and scientific worldviews.

The conference focused on the role that meditation might play in promoting cognitive, emotional, and physiological states that are protective against depression. This issue was examined within the broader context of whether developing mindfulness and greater compassion through meditation training in adulthood might help individuals compensate for the depressogenic effects of adversity, trauma, and lack of nurturance early in life, all of which are primary environmental contributors to major depression.

During the conference, researchers presented data that suggested that mindfulness practices may help prevent the recurrence of major depression and that meditation practices specifically designed to promote compassionate cognitions and emotions toward others may have effects on the brain and body that are directly relevant to depression.

The Dalai Lama opened the conference by acknowledging the unique relationship that exists between Emory University and several leading institutions of higher education within the Tibetan exile community, a relationship that has culminated in the Dalai Lama joining the Emory faculty as a Distinguished Presidential Professor. He expressed his conviction that Western physical sciences and Buddhist traditions of studying the mind have much to offer each other in better understanding mind-body interactions relevant to health.

To set the stage for a discussion of the therapeutic potential of meditation, Charles B. Nemeroff, MD, PhD, Reunette W. Harris Professor and chairman of the Emory department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, and Helen S. Mayberg, MD, professor of psychiatry at Emory, provided the Dalai Lama with an overview of current scientific understandings of the risk factors for, and neurobiology of, major depression.

Dr Nemeroff recounted the tremendous cost in human suffering inflicted by depression and noted that people with major depression are more than twice as likely to die, not just of suicide, but of medical conditions such as cardiovascular disease. He reviewed data that showed that most of the risk for depression comes from environmental factors and highlighted the importance of a history of trauma, adversity, and/or lack of parental nurturance early in life, especially in individuals with vulnerability genes for depression. He showed evidence that individuals who were exposed to early adversity have lifelong biological changes relevant to depression, including hyperactivity of stress-response pathways and reductions in CNS oxytocin, a hormone known to contribute to social bonding.

Dr Mayberg reviewed recent findings regarding the neurobiology of depression, focusing on her team's work with deep brain stimulation (DBS) in the white matter surrounding the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex as a treatment for severe, treatment-resistant major depression.¹ In addition to showing remarkable video footage of rapid and sustained mood improvements brought on by DBS, Dr Mayberg made the stronger point—with which the Dalai Lama very much agreed—that when depression reaches a certain degree of severity it may require biological interventions to normalize the brain to a degree sufficient to engage in behavioral strategies such as meditation.

Read the rest.

A classic skit from Fry & Laurie. (There are some other skits embedded in this video as well, for those who enjoy British humor.)

Today's Daily Om:

A Full Embrace Excluding Nothing
Finding Peace Within

Most people agree that a more peaceful world would be an ideal situation for all living creatures. However, we often seem stumped as to how to bring this ideal situation into being. If we are to have true peace in this world, each one of us must find it in ourselves first. If we don’t like ourselves, for example, we probably won’t like those around us. If we are in a constant state of inner conflict, then we will probably manifest conflict in the world. If we have fighting within our families, there can be no peace in the world. We must shine the light of inquiry on our internal struggles, because this is the only place we can really create change.

When we initiate the process of looking inside ourselves for the meaning of peace, we will begin to understand why it has always been so difficult to come by. This in itself will enable us to be compassionate toward the many people in the world who find themselves caught up in conflicts both personal and universal. We may have an experience of peace that we can call up in ourselves to remind us of what we want to create, but if we are human we will also feel the pull in the opposite direction—the desire to defend ourselves, to keep what we feel belongs to us, to protect our loved ones and our cherished ideals, and the anger we feel when threatened. This awareness is important because we cannot truly know peace until we understand the many tendencies and passions that threaten our ability to find it. Peace necessarily includes, even as it transcends, all of our primal energy, much of which has been expressed in ways that contradict peace.

Being at peace with ourselves is not about denying or rejecting any part of ourselves. On the contrary, in order to be at peace we must be willing and able to hold ourselves, in all our complexity, in a full embrace that excludes nothing. This is perhaps the most difficult part for many of us, because we want so much to disown the negative aspects of our humanity. Ironically, though, true peace begins with a willingness to take responsibility for our humanity so that we might ultimately transform it in the light of our love.

A cool article from the Scientific American Mind Matters blog.

About 15 years ago, I began to suspect that the body is the unconscious mind. At the time, there was very little scientific evidence, but a lot of experiential proof. Now the science is catching up with that body workers and mystics have known for centuries.

Really, from a developmental perspective, it makes sense. We live in our bodies and know the world with our bodies long before we become rational beings. That knowing doesn't stop, it just gets buried beneath rational thought. All the while, our bodies sense the world around us, store emotions and memories, and we seldom pay attention to what the body can teach us.

Emodied Cognition

Art Glenberg, Arizona State University

It has become commonplace in neuroscience - and even in everyday conversation - to compare human cognition to that of computers. We know that computers work by using rules to manipulate symbols composed of zeros and ones. According to this metaphor, people also use rules to manipulate abstract and arbitrary symbols. The brain, in other words, was a computer that processed data largely independently of the body. A newer theory that is gaining ground among neuroscientists, embodied cognition, departs from the "computer-as-mind" metaphor. Instead, the body is seen as playing an important role in cognitive processes. Cognition evolved to guide real bodies in the real world, argue the researchers in favor of this idea. Our thoughts are constrained and influenced by the details of our flesh. How you move your arm or leg actually shapes the way you perceive, think and remember.

The latest research in embodied cognition demonstrates just how entangled the body and brain are. Holt and Beilock's research plays the embodiment card in two ways. First, they show that when trying to understand written language, people invoke perceptual and action experiences. The words we use when reading (and perhaps also when listening) point to particular shared bodily experiences, and these experiences, in turn, are used by the reader to understand sentences. In the second important advance, Holt and Beilock also show that when people have had different personal experiences they will understand the same sentences differently.

A Picture vs. A Thousand Words
How did they show this? Holt and Beilock had people read sentences (for instance, "The child saw the balloon in the air") and then determine whether a picture that they were shown depicted an object named in the sentence. Sometimes the picture depicted an object as it would look in the context described by the sentence (an inflated balloon), and sometimes the picture depicted the object differently (a deflated balloon). The scientists demonstrated that people had a faster response time when the picture corresponded to real world scenarios, as in the first sentence. (Deflated balloons don't float.) This suggests that, when trying to comprehend the sentence, people were invoking their actual experiences with real balloons.

Holt and Beilock then looked at more specialized domains of body knowledge. They demonstrated that athletes bring to bear their sport-specific knowledge when comprehending written sentences about that sport. In other words, hockey players rely on their bodily experiences playing hockey when reading about hockey.

Body English
At first glance, this might not sound very surprising. But the implications of embodied cognition extend far beyond balloons and hockey plays. Consider what happens to your thought process when you wiggle your hand. Most of us learned to count using our fingers. It turns out that we rely on these early bodily experiences when we make rudimentary mathematical judgments, such as whether a number is even or odd. Or consider the act of smiling. If we are smiling, it is actually easier for us to understand sentences that describe pleasant events. We have even been able to demonstrate that fatiguing a particular action system (for example, the system that controls the arm when it moves in a "giving" motion) changes the way we understand language about giving and receiving both concrete objects (say, a pencil) and abstractions (such as responsibilities). Apparently, the same neural systems used in guiding action are also used in comprehending language about these actions. This research has numerous applications.

Look, for instance, at the field of education. If thinking requires bodily experiences and bodily action, it might be possible to take advantage of embodied cognition in order to facilitate the learning process.

Read the rest.

Daniel Goleman is the man most people associate with emotional intelligence. He's a highly sought-after author and speaker, so it is quite impressive that Sharp Brains got him to do a guest post.

Here is the beginning of his article, called The Power of Mindsight:

How can we free ourselves from prisons of the past?

-- By Daniel Goleman

When you were young, which of these did you feel more often?

a) No matter what I do, my parents love me;

b) I can’t seem to please my parents, no matter what I do;

c) My parents don’t really notice me.

The answers to such questions don’t just reveal truths about our childhood. They also tend to predict how we act in our closest relationships as adults.

Our childhood shapes our brain in many ways—and so it determines our most basic ways of reacting to others, for better and for worse. When parents consistently practice empathy toward a child—that is, they tune in to the way that child views and feels about her world—they help instill in that child a sense of security and an ability to empathize with others later in life. But when parents act dismissively toward a child, they can make it harder for that child to be in touch with her emotions and connect with other people.

Daniel Siegel has done years of research to support these conclusions. Siegel, a psychiatrist at the University of California, Los Angeles, founded the field of “interpersonal neurobiology,” which explains the brain basis for our habits of bonding with others. His research shows how we can overcome emotional disadvantages that might have arisen from difficult childhoods.

Read the rest.

Today's Daily Dharma from Tricycle:

Our unsubdued mind

 

If we let a wild elephant loose in a populated area it will cause massive destruction, but the uncontrolled wild mind can cause much more harm than such a crazed beast. If the deluded, wild elephant of our mind is not subdued, it will create much suffering for us in this life and will cause us to experience the sufferings of the deepest hell in the future. In fact, if we investigate we can see that the creator of all the sufferings of this and future lives is nothing but our unsubdued mind. To subdue this wild beast is much more important than bringing a jungle elephant under our control.

Many benefits follow from taming our mind. If we take the rope of mindfulness and tie our elephant mind securely to the post of virtue, all of our fears will swiftly come to an end…

If we do not develop mindfulness, our meditations will be hollow and empty. There will be nothing to keep our wild elephant mind from running back and forth in its customary, uncontrolled manner between objects of attachment, anger, jealousy and so forth.

- Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Meaningful to Behold; from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book.

 

OK, this one is for the guys out there (and some of the women). But if you are woman with a man who works out, pass this along -- you'll love the difference a little attention to testosterone can make in his physique.

Chad Waterbury is the man -- I've been using his training programs for years now with great success. None of the points he makes here are new to me, but he provides a good overall approach, and throws in a program for training at the end.

Testosterone is the father of all muscle-building hormones, because it promotes protein synthesis. Whether you're training to get bigger, faster, leaner, or stronger, Testosterone is the steroid hormone that can make a world of difference. Too little of it and you'll get nowhere, too much of it (synthetically) and you'll end up with some nasty side effects.

The human body doesn't like supra-physiological levels of anything, much less Testosterone. But if you maximize it naturally you'll see newfound strength, size and leanness faster than ever.

Testosterone makes you bigger, leaner, stronger, smarter, more energetic, and better in the sack.

The role of Testosterone goes far beyond big biceps and a monstrous deadlift. When it's high you'll boost libido, have more energy, and protect yourself against osteoporosis. The brain loves Testosterone, too. When you have high physiological levels of T it boosts cognitive functions such as memory and attentiveness.

Of course, that means when T levels are low you're heading down a cognitive slope. Slide down far enough and you might be susceptible to all kinds of nasty neurological disorders.

So it probably doesn't warrant any real arm-twisting to convince you that you need to maximize Testosterone to reap all of the health, athletic, and aesthetic benefits you surely desire.

Here are the five steps you should follow.

Go read the whole article.

This is today's Daily Om from Tricycle, a reminder that being present is the primary goal of daily practice.

Connect with the present

 

It is often the case that whatever we are doing, be it sitting, walking, standing, or lying, the mind is frequently disengaged from the immediate reality and is instead absorbed in compulsive conceptualization about the future or past. While we are walking, we think about arriving, and when we arrive, we think about leaving. When we are eating, we think about the dishes, and as we do the dishes, we think about watching television.

This is a weird way to run a mind. We are not connected with the present situation, but we are always thinking about something else. Too often we are consumed with anxiety and cravings, regrets about the past and anticipation for the future, completely missing the crisp simplicity of the moment.

- B. Alan Wallace, Tibetan Buddhism from the Ground Up; from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book.

 

This is a great point that Wallace makes, as usual.

One way that I practice this in my daily life is when I am working out with weights. There are few other times in my life when being fully in the present moment is so crucial. A failure to do so can get me hurt very badly.

While focusing the mind with 365 lbs on my back is pretty easy, comparatively speaking, it can be harder to do so when I am with my clients. Still, this is another opportunity for me to practice being present. My clients can tell if I am not present -- and they are paying me to be fully there with them.

Generally, I am counting reps, checking their form, or changing weights. But more than anything else, I am listening ... being present to their stories about their lives. I ask questions, share my own experience when appropriate, but mostly I simply listen with as much presence as possible.

This, it seems to me, is the key to therapy. My best therapists listened well and asked good questions. Sometimes, they offered suggestions or insights, but as often as not, the insights came from me simply through thinking out loud with a good listener.

How much better might our relationships be if we simply applied this skill there? Skillful listening and being fully present are two of the most important things we can do with our partners. We all want to know that we are heard and understood, and that when we are with the one person who means most to us in the world, that person is fully with us, not creating a grocery list or planning tomorrow's wardrobe.

Finally, in the realm of relationships, how great would your sex life be if you were fully present for every moment of that shared experience? No thinking about what to do next, no focus on climaxing, no worries about technique or performance -- just full presence in each breath, each kiss, each touch of skin on skin.

No matter what we are doing, connecting with the present is as good as it gets.
.

Today's Daily Dharma from Tricycle is an old parable retold by Thich Nhat Hanh.

A conversation between the Buddha and a philosopher

 

I remember a short conversation between the Buddha and a philosopher of his time.

“I have heard that Buddhism is a doctrine of enlightenment. What is your method? What do you practice every day?”

“We walk, we eat, we wash ourselves, we sit down.”

“What is so special about that? Everyone walks, eats, washes, sits down…”

“Sir, when we walk, we are aware that we are walking; when we eat, we are aware that we are eating…. When others walk, eat, wash, or sit down, they are generally not aware of what they are doing.”

- Thich Nhat Hanh, Zen Keys; from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book.