Body ~ Mind ~ Soul --- Being Human

[Stryder50]

The Science of How Your Body Ages​

Live longer, happier, and healthier. Starting here.

The Science of How Your Body Ages

Live longer, happier, and healthier. Starting here.

getpocket.com

 

[Stryder50]

Admittedly, perhaps more a subjective opinion, yet, FWIW ...

Top 10 Design Flaws in the Human Body​

From our knees to our eyeballs, our bodies are full of hack solutions.

Top 10 Design Flaws in the Human Body

From our knees to our eyeballs, our bodies are full of hack solutions.

getpocket.com

 

[Aaliyah]

Stryder50 thank you so much for posting this here , very helpful for those with mental health issues and for loved ones as well ,

 

[Stryder50]

Here is one of the more challenging concepts for many to deal with. If the "Soul" is eternal, than by definition there is neither a beginning nor end, and hence, the possibility of numerous lifetimes, past to future, may be a part of the existence we have.

Meet the People Who Believe They’ve Traveled to a Past Life​

Christopher was an ancient Egyptian prisoner. Stephanie's dating the man who had her murdered. They and many others swear by the controversial benefits of past-life regression.
...
EXCERPT:
...
Some who engage in past-life regression do so simply out of curiosity about their former selves, perhaps discovering they were a knight in shining armor — or the town wench who waited on one. But others hope to treat a range of mental health issues, including phobias, addictions, anxiety and depression, which they believe could have sprung from a past-life trauma. By reliving their trauma’s origin story, they hope to better understand, and possibly ameliorate, the emotional damage lingering in their current life.

The American Psychological Association is deeply skeptical of past-life regression’s viability, and there are serious questions about the ethics of using it as a treatment. But the practice’s most steadfast backers contend that its impact can be immediate, and far less time-consuming and costly than traditional forms of psychotherapy.
...

Meet the People Who Believe They’ve Traveled to a Past Life

Christopher was an ancient Egyptian prisoner. Stephanie's dating the man who had her murdered. They and many others swear by the controversial benefits of past-life regression.

getpocket.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Then we have a case like this, which is one of the most profound reads on this subject I've come across. As an historian, especially Military~aviation~WWII, I found myself anticipating many of the developments of this persons saga ...
~~~~~~~~​

Soul Survivor: The Reincarnation of a World War II Fighter Pilot​

​

by
Andrea Leininger,
Bruce Leininger,
Ken Gross (Contributor),
Carol Bowman (Foreword)
...
This is the story of James Leininger, who-- a little more than two weeks after his second birthday-- began having blood-curdling nightmares that just would not stop. When James began screaming out recurring phrases like, "Plane on fire! Little man can't get out!" the Leiningers finally admitted that they truly had to take notice.

When details of planes and war tragedies no two-year-old boy could know continued-- even in stark daylight-- Bruce and Andrea Leininger began to realize that this was an incredible situation. SOUL SURVIVOR is the story of how the Leiningers pieced together what their son was communicating and eventually discovered that he was reliving the past life of World War II fighter pilot James Huston. As Bruce Leininger struggled to understand what was happening to his son, he also uncovered details of James Huston's life-- and death-- as a pilot that will fascinate military buffs everywhere.

In SOUL SURVIVOR, we are taken for a gripping ride as the Leiningers' belief system is shaken to the core, and both of these families come to know a little boy who, against all odds and even in the face of true skeptics, harbors the soul of this man who died long ago.
...

Soul Survivor

This is the story of James Leininger, who-- a little more than two weeks after his second birthday-- began having blood-curdling nightmar...

www.goodreads.com

 

[Stryder50]

Discover magazine limits your "free" articles, so bare in mind before clicking;

Can Science Explain Near Death Experiences?​

An estimated 9 million people in the U.S. alone have had a transformative near-death experience. Scientists are grappling with what’s happening inside their heads.​

Can Science Explain Near Death Experiences?

An estimated 9 million people in the U.S. alone have had a transformative near-death experience. Scientists are grappling with what’s happening inside their heads.

www.discovermagazine.com

Probably should present some copy-paste excerpts, FWIW:
...
This article appeared in the September/October 2021 issue of Discover magazine as "Death Defying." ...
...

---

At the end of Plato’s Republic, the philosopher Socrates shares the myth of Er, a warrior who was killed in battle. Twelve days later, the man comes back to life to tell of the other world he had seen. His soul, he says, left his body to arrive in “a mysterious place,” where others were judged for their deeds and luminous beings descended from above.

While Er’s experience sounds like the stuff of legends, strikingly similar accounts have been reported by real people, stretching across cultures and entire eras in human history. From ancient Greece to the present day, people who survive brushes with death often recount a sense of shedding the physical body and entering another realm or dimension. Some describe intense feelings of peace, passing through a dark tunnel toward a bright light, and reexperiencing life events in rich, panoramic detail. Scientists and doctors categorize these events as near-death experiences, or NDEs.

While there is no widely accepted definition of NDEs, the term typically refers to the mystical, profound experiences that people report when they are close to death. They’re most common in patients who survive severe head trauma or cardiac arrest. In other words, “conditions in which you would die, and stay dead, unless somebody instituted emergency medical procedures to help you,” says Bruce Greyson, a psychiatrist at the University of Virginia who has studied NDEs for nearly 50 years.

Such events happen more often than you might think: In the U.S., an estimated 9 million people have reported an NDE, according to a 2011 study in Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. These individuals — or NDErs — are often deeply changed afterwards. Some find they have a greater gusto for life, more compassion for others and a diminished fear of death. Others struggle to readjust to everyday routine, baffling loved ones with their new beliefs or divorcing their spouses. Even blissful or euphoric NDEs can leave survivors feeling angry or dismayed to be alive again.

In the past 40 years, more and more scientists have probed the phenomenon. Yet despite almost half a century of investigation, researchers still don’t agree on what’s happening during NDEs, or whether they can be explained at all. Some attribute them to hallucinatory flights of imagination, the last gasps of a dying brain. But others are exploring what NDEs may unlock about our understanding of human consciousness — and the possibility that it continues even after our bodies and brains power down.
...
It wasn’t until the 18th century that a physician first recorded his own observation — and scientific analysis — of the phenomenon. Around 1740, the first medical report of an NDE came from a military doctor from northern France. Pierre-Jean du Monchaux describes a patient who lost consciousness after having too much blood drawn to treat a fever. The patient later reported that he “saw such a pure and extreme light that he thought he was in Heaven […] and affirmed that never of all his life had he had a nicer moment.” Du Monchaux speculated that too much blood flow to the brain had caused these strong, serene feelings, comparing it to similar reports from people who had survived drowning, hypothermia and hanging.

More than 200 years would pass before research into NDEs really took off. In his 1975 book, Life After Life, psychiatrist Raymond Moody coined the term “near-death experiences” to describe these episodes. The label stuck, as did Moody’s descriptions of the common features reported by survivors, including immense feelings of peace and love, meeting dead loved ones and reaching a barrier or “point of no return.” The research that’s piled up since Moody brought NDEs into the spotlight has largely affirmed this original description.

For much of human history, death was seen as a simple — and permanent — affair. “When people died, whether they had a car accident or were at war or had an infection, the final thing that would occur is that their heart would stop,” says Sam Parnia, director of critical care and resuscitation research at New York University Langone Health medical center. “That was irreversible.”

Since the heart is intimately intertwined with the functioning of the lungs and brain stem, any process that leads one organ to stop working will inevitably lead to the termination of the other two. In short, if any of those three vital organs ceases functioning, death soon follows. Even today, doctors still often declare death at the precise point in time when a patient’s heartbeat comes to a halt.

But in 1960, just 15 years before Moody would popularize the term NDEs, physicians combined mouth-to-mouth breathing with chest compressions to create cardiopulmonary resuscitation. CPR, as we call it today, has made death far less black-and-white. The arrival of CPR, as well as the emergence of intensive-care medicine, enabled people who had passed the threshold of biological death to come back, kept alive through life-support machines, like ventilators.

Parnia thinks that, someday, scientists might be able to push the threshold of death even further. “Actually, the cells inside your body don’t die when you die,” he says. A 2019 discovery showed how brain activity could be restored in pigs more than 10 hours after the animals were killed, a study that Parnia says was worthy of a Nobel Prize. Even when all signs of life have vanished, and brain cells have been deprived of oxygen, those underlying cells don’t die for many hours, and possibly even days. In other words, says Parnia, what we call the “irreversibility” of death is simply a lack of medical means to bring someone back to life.

Advances in medical resuscitation have helped fuel NDE studies, since researchers can now analyze data from large cohorts of cardiac-arrest survivors. For example, in a 2001 study of 344 patients who were successfully resuscitated in Dutch hospitals, 18 percent reported an NDE. More recent studies have even attempted to illuminate what happens to our consciousness when we die, a mystery that’s kept humans awake at night for thousands of years.
...

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Mind

Can Science Explain Near Death Experiences?​

An estimated 9 million people in the U.S. alone have had a transformative near-death experience. Scientists are grappling with what’s happening inside their heads.​

By Alex OrlandoAug 23, 2021 7:00 AM

People who have NDEs are often fundamentally changed by their experience. (Credit: Lumezia/Shutterstock)

Newsletter​

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This article appeared in the September/October 2021 issue of Discover magazine as "Death Defying." Become a subscriber for unlimited access to our archive.

---

At the end of Plato’s Republic, the philosopher Socrates shares the myth of Er, a warrior who was killed in battle. Twelve days later, the man comes back to life to tell of the other world he had seen. His soul, he says, left his body to arrive in “a mysterious place,” where others were judged for their deeds and luminous beings descended from above.

While Er’s experience sounds like the stuff of legends, strikingly similar accounts have been reported by real people, stretching across cultures and entire eras in human history. From ancient Greece to the present day, people who survive brushes with death often recount a sense of shedding the physical body and entering another realm or dimension. Some describe intense feelings of peace, passing through a dark tunnel toward a bright light, and reexperiencing life events in rich, panoramic detail. Scientists and doctors categorize these events as near-death experiences, or NDEs.

While there is no widely accepted definition of NDEs, the term typically refers to the mystical, profound experiences that people report when they are close to death. They’re most common in patients who survive severe head trauma or cardiac arrest. In other words, “conditions in which you would die, and stay dead, unless somebody instituted emergency medical procedures to help you,” says Bruce Greyson, a psychiatrist at the University of Virginia who has studied NDEs for nearly 50 years.

Such events happen more often than you might think: In the U.S., an estimated 9 million people have reported an NDE, according to a 2011 study in Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. These individuals — or NDErs — are often deeply changed afterwards. Some find they have a greater gusto for life, more compassion for others and a diminished fear of death. Others struggle to readjust to everyday routine, baffling loved ones with their new beliefs or divorcing their spouses. Even blissful or euphoric NDEs can leave survivors feeling angry or dismayed to be alive again.

In the past 40 years, more and more scientists have probed the phenomenon. Yet despite almost half a century of investigation, researchers still don’t agree on what’s happening during NDEs, or whether they can be explained at all. Some attribute them to hallucinatory flights of imagination, the last gasps of a dying brain. But others are exploring what NDEs may unlock about our understanding of human consciousness — and the possibility that it continues even after our bodies and brains power down.

Bruce Greyson, a psychiatrist at the University of Virginia and author of After: A Doctor Explores What Near-Death Experiences Reveal About Life and Beyond. (Credit: Jen Fariello)

Rethinking Death​

What happens to us after we die? The question has lingered over human activity for at least 34,000 years, given records of ancient peoples in Sungir, Russia, burying their dead with ivory beads and other ornamental accessories, which suggests some conception of life beyond the grave. Similarly, reports of NDEs have been referenced by humans wrestling with the possibility of an afterlife since antiquity. They’ve cropped up in the Egyptian Book of the Dead, the Bardo Thödol (or the Tibetan Book of the Dead), the Bible and even the works of Ernest Hemingway.

It wasn’t until the 18th century that a physician first recorded his own observation — and scientific analysis — of the phenomenon. Around 1740, the first medical report of an NDE came from a military doctor from northern France. Pierre-Jean du Monchaux describes a patient who lost consciousness after having too much blood drawn to treat a fever. The patient later reported that he “saw such a pure and extreme light that he thought he was in Heaven […] and affirmed that never of all his life had he had a nicer moment.” Du Monchaux speculated that too much blood flow to the brain had caused these strong, serene feelings, comparing it to similar reports from people who had survived drowning, hypothermia and hanging.

More than 200 years would pass before research into NDEs really took off. In his 1975 book, Life After Life, psychiatrist Raymond Moody coined the term “near-death experiences” to describe these episodes. The label stuck, as did Moody’s descriptions of the common features reported by survivors, including immense feelings of peace and love, meeting dead loved ones and reaching a barrier or “point of no return.” The research that’s piled up since Moody brought NDEs into the spotlight has largely affirmed this original description.

For much of human history, death was seen as a simple — and permanent — affair. “When people died, whether they had a car accident or were at war or had an infection, the final thing that would occur is that their heart would stop,” says Sam Parnia, director of critical care and resuscitation research at New York University Langone Health medical center. “That was irreversible.”

Since the heart is intimately intertwined with the functioning of the lungs and brain stem, any process that leads one organ to stop working will inevitably lead to the termination of the other two. In short, if any of those three vital organs ceases functioning, death soon follows. Even today, doctors still often declare death at the precise point in time when a patient’s heartbeat comes to a halt.

But in 1960, just 15 years before Moody would popularize the term NDEs, physicians combined mouth-to-mouth breathing with chest compressions to create cardiopulmonary resuscitation. CPR, as we call it today, has made death far less black-and-white. The arrival of CPR, as well as the emergence of intensive-care medicine, enabled people who had passed the threshold of biological death to come back, kept alive through life-support machines, like ventilators.

Parnia thinks that, someday, scientists might be able to push the threshold of death even further. “Actually, the cells inside your body don’t die when you die,” he says. A 2019 discovery showed how brain activity could be restored in pigs more than 10 hours after the animals were killed, a study that Parnia says was worthy of a Nobel Prize. Even when all signs of life have vanished, and brain cells have been deprived of oxygen, those underlying cells don’t die for many hours, and possibly even days. In other words, says Parnia, what we call the “irreversibility” of death is simply a lack of medical means to bring someone back to life.

Advances in medical resuscitation have helped fuel NDE studies, since researchers can now analyze data from large cohorts of cardiac-arrest survivors. For example, in a 2001 study of 344 patients who were successfully resuscitated in Dutch hospitals, 18 percent reported an NDE. More recent studies have even attempted to illuminate what happens to our consciousness when we die, a mystery that’s kept humans awake at night for thousands of years.
...

Some features of NDEs — like those in John’s case report, detailed in a 2014 paper written by Parnia — seem to defy explanation. Parnia, who also led a four-year study of more than 100 cardiac arrest survivors, notes that some NDErs see scenes from their lives flash before their eyes, a phenomenon researchers call the life review. He also says that most tend to focus on their intentions toward other people. “You end up judging yourself based on your worth as a human being,” Parnia says. “The part that’s particularly inexplicable is they end up experiencing this through the prism of the other person’s perspective.” Beyond that, many of these events depict things that you’d normally be unable to remember, like moments from early childhood.

Another seemingly inexplicable NDE hallmark is the out-of-body experience, or OBE. Many people report that their consciousness seems to float above their body — and, in rare cases, observe and remember what’s happening around them with startling accuracy. In Greyson’s 2021 book, After, the psychiatrist describes how Holly, a patient of his who’d overdosed, was able to recall precise details from his conversation with her roommate (in another room, for that matter) while she was unconscious. Holly even noted the striped tie that Greyson had dribbled spaghetti sauce on. “I was totally flustered by it,” Greyson says. “The only way it could have happened was if she had left her body, and that made no sense to me at all.”
...
There’s no denying the transformative power of NDEs. These deeply mystical experiences can prompt major psychological and spiritual changes, like enhanced empathy and less concern for wealth or social status. Beyond that, simply knowing about them can trigger big life changes. Greyson points to research on students who have studied NDEs; even a year after learning about them, they often became more caring and altruistic. “The idea of the near-death experience touches something that we all know deep in our being,” he says. “We are not here alone. We are part of something greater than ourselves.”

Yet not all NDEs are positive. While euphoric NDEs get the most press, other experiences can be deeply disturbing, dominated by feelings of terror, isolation and agony. And while NDEs often precipitate personal growth, they can also trigger symptoms of PTSD and cause major disruptions in people’s lives. “I’ve seen lots of careers end,” says Greyson. “In addition to that, many people were so enraptured by their NDE that they were depressed or angry to be back alive again.”
...
Greyson has challenged several of these theories. The REM intrusion theory, he says, is refuted by NDEs that take place under certain conditions that inhibit REM sleep, such as with anesthesia. He also mentions studies that show NDErs have the same, or even higher, oxygen levels as those who have never experienced near-death, addressing the notion that fading cerebral blood flow helps trigger the event. Greyson parsed through many of the supposed explanations in a 2013 paper. “We can go on and on with all of these hypotheses that have been proposed,” he says. “And it sounds plausible. But when you look at the data, it contradicts it.”

Parnia makes even bolder claims regarding his research — namely, that consciousness appears to continue when the brain is shut down completely. He suggests this is possible because thought is a “fundamentally different entity” from the synaptic activity we’ve detected in brain cells. “From a scientific perspective, there’s not a single piece of evidence that demonstrates how brain cells could generate thoughts,” he says. “We [don’t] have the tools yet to measure it. That’s something for future generations of scientists.”
...
Researchers like Parnia, however, are continuing to harness rigorous research approaches in their work. In a follow-up study, AWARE II, Parnia and his colleagues are looking at 20 hospitals across the U.S. and Europe, using modern tech like brain oximeters and EEGs to monitor brain functioning during and after cardiac arrest. Whatever these studies show, Parnia says that the empirical science should inform people’s philosophical and spiritual beliefs, not the other way around; as such, these events shouldn’t be treated as hallucinations. He even prefers to avoid the term NDE, because of how it has been used and interpreted. “You have millions of people all over the world who are basically telling you the same thing,” he says. “That means you can use all kinds of research methods to understand what it’s like to experience certain things.”

Greyson echoes Parnia’s belief that NDEs are not hallucinations, pointing to the accuracy of out-of-body reports. But he also acknowledges that we can’t confirm that NDErs have truly brushed against the afterlife. “Those are just subjective experiences,” he adds. With the research tools available today, explaining those experiences, whatever scientists decide to call them, will likely remain an exercise in philosophy just as much as hard science.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Can Science Explain Near Death Experiences?

An estimated 9 million people in the U.S. alone have had a transformative near-death experience. Scientists are grappling with what’s happening inside their heads.

www.discovermagazine.com

 

[Stryder50]

^^^^
I tried to edit some of the duplication copy-paste in above post but hit the wall of the 60 minute time-limit on "edit". Apologies on that and hope the mods have the power to fix it.

 

[Stryder50]

Reflecting the eclectic nature of this thread;
~~~~~~~~~~~~

How Your Brain Conjures Dreams​

This illustration shows some of what we know about this enigmatic process.

You dream for two hours every night, but for something so common, it’s a remarkably enigmatic process. Only in the past few decades, with the advance of technology like fMRIs that lets us record and visualize activity in the brain, have neuroscientists begun to figure out how and why we experience these reveries. While sleepy interludes seem to rely on many of the same mental processes we use while awake, researchers are still trying to understand the way they work together during slumber. Here’s how we think our brains drive our nocturnal hallucinations.

How Your Brain Conjures Dreams

This illustration shows some of what we know about this enigmatic process.

getpocket.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

How to Survive a Prolonged Power Outage​

Approach appliances with caution, use gas to cook, and more tips on how to safely get through a period with no electricity
...

How to Survive a Prolonged Power Outage - Consumer Reports

Consumer Reports' expert advice on how to safely operate in and around your house if you've had a prolonged power outage from a storm.

www.consumerreports.org

 

[Stryder50]

I'd bet a few here have been subject to this, especially in the process of job applications/interviews;

What personality are you? How the Myers-Briggs test took over the world​

...
Deemed ‘astrology for businessmen’ for some, lauded as life-saving by others, the personality tests are a ‘springboard’ for people to think about who they are
...

I am a born executive. I am obsessed with efficiency and detached from my emotions. I share similarities with Margaret Thatcher and Harrison Ford. I am among 2% of the general population, and 1% of women.

People like us are highly motivated by personal growth, and occasionally ruthless in the pursuit. We make difficult partners and parents, but good landscape architects. We are ENTJs: extroverted, intuitive, thinking, judging – also known as the executive type or, sometimes, “the Commander”.

This, over a decade ago, was my auspicious entry into the world of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). Based on psychiatrist Carl Jung’s theories of personality, the assessment maintains that we are all born with a preference for extroversion or introversion, intuition or sensing, thinking or feeling, and judging or perceiving.

The different permutations amount to 16 types of personality, each with innate strengths and “blind spots”. By understanding which one we are, so the theory goes, we might apply ourselves more effectively in our personal and professional lives.
...

What personality are you? How the Myers-Briggs test took over the world

Deemed ‘astrology for businessmen’ for some, lauded as life-saving by others, the personality tests are a ‘springboard’ for people to think about who they are

www.theguardian.com

 

[Stryder50]

I'd bet a few here have been subject to this, especially in the process of job applications/interviews;

What personality are you? How the Myers-Briggs test took over the world​

...
Deemed ‘astrology for businessmen’ for some, lauded as life-saving by others, the personality tests are a ‘springboard’ for people to think about who they are
...

I am a born executive. I am obsessed with efficiency and detached from my emotions. I share similarities with Margaret Thatcher and Harrison Ford. I am among 2% of the general population, and 1% of women.

People like us are highly motivated by personal growth, and occasionally ruthless in the pursuit. We make difficult partners and parents, but good landscape architects. We are ENTJs: extroverted, intuitive, thinking, judging – also known as the executive type or, sometimes, “the Commander”.

This, over a decade ago, was my auspicious entry into the world of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). Based on psychiatrist Carl Jung’s theories of personality, the assessment maintains that we are all born with a preference for extroversion or introversion, intuition or sensing, thinking or feeling, and judging or perceiving.

The different permutations amount to 16 types of personality, each with innate strengths and “blind spots”. By understanding which one we are, so the theory goes, we might apply ourselves more effectively in our personal and professional lives.
...

What personality are you? How the Myers-Briggs test took over the world

Deemed ‘astrology for businessmen’ for some, lauded as life-saving by others, the personality tests are a ‘springboard’ for people to think about who they are

www.theguardian.com

So a few more excerpts from the above linked article ...
...
The business of “typing” people generates the Myers-Briggs Company a reported $20m annually from public and private institutions, militaries and universities, charities and sports teams who make use of it – not to mention 88 of the Fortune 100 companies. Away from the corporate world, the Myers-Briggs theory of personality has been embraced by enthusiasts as a hobby – even a way of life.

As an insecure teenager, finding out my type online was like being handed an instruction manual; ENTJ became as much part of my identity as my astrological sign. Even a decade later, I will still catch myself reaching for Myers-Briggs terms – talking about “thinkers versus feelers”, or having mostly “intuitive” friends.

About 50 million people have taken the MBTI since the 1960s; 2 million continue to do so every year. Why is the idea of there being just 16 types still so seductive?
...
Briggs’s pseudo-scientific interest in personality was tested in “baby training” the young Briggs Myers, then later found a focal point in Jung’s theories of “psychological types”. She received his 1921 book on the subject as both an intellectual and spiritual awakening, writing that she had embarked on “a quest for the Self” with Jung as not just her guide but her “personal god”. (They later became correspondents, though this belies the depth of Briggs’s erotically charged obsession with her “teacher”.)

Briggs Myers, meanwhile, grew from precocious child to prize-winning novelist. Her promising career was derailed when she wrote “a sort of miscegenation mystery”, says Emre, wherein characters committed suicide on learning that they had African American blood. Even in 1934, reviewers were repelled by the racism of the premise.

It reflects the troubling and at times dangerous ideology underpinning the impulse for “people sorting”. Emre quotes the social theorist Theodor Adorno’s critique of then nascent “typology” in 1950: “The desire to construct types was itself indicative of the potentially fascist character.” (He himself developed his own personality test, to determine potential fascists.)

Briggs Myers’s intentions, by contrast, were idealistic: she envisaged type as a way of achieving society-wide equilibrium, helping people to be efficient and at ease at work and home. In 1943, having abandoned her writerly aspirations, Briggs Myers was hired by the pioneering personnel consultant Edward N Hay. Desperate to contribute to the war effort, she drew from her mother’s study of Jung to devise her own “type indicator”, matching people to suitable jobs.

What Briggs Myers grasped, says Emre, was that the system would be more effective if it showed everyone to be good at something. “She intuited that it would yield higher productivity, and it would convince workers to bind themselves to their jobs freely and gladly.”
...
The Myers-Briggs Company only allows certified practitioners to deliver its assessment tool, and for a fee. Online, however, imitations abound for free on websites such as 16Personalities.com (“why you do the things you do”) and Truity.com (“light up your life”).
...
Learning to work with our preferences, not against them, is central to the MBTI’s promise “to turn insights into action”. By understanding how we like to operate and others might differ, it claims, we create a stable foundation for lasting change.

The thrill of facilitating these breakthroughs was what led Maggie Oglesby to become a certified MBTI practitioner two years ago. She now runs her own consultancy, supporting team-building through type, in Pennsylvania.

Over her 20-year professional career, Oglesby says she has “seen nothing else that builds awareness like the Myers-Briggs – nothing.” Colleagues recount feelings of frustration or resentment melting away, while managers describe “a dark cloud lifting” from over their teams.
...
The Myers-Briggs Company strongly cautions against using type to predict romantic compatibility; Oglesby declines to answer such questions as beyond her expertise. “If you understand any person’s differences, and they understand yours, almost any relationship can work, whether you’re using the Myers-Briggs or not,” she says.

But it is nonetheless true, Oglesby goes on, that her husband is ISTJ – in type terms, almost her exact opposite – and that their early days as a couple were marred by “so many little misunderstandings”.

“If you manage to stay married, you figure these things out the hard way over time,” she says. “But the Myers-Briggs helps you figure out so many things ahead of time – the easy way, if you will.”
...
Yet what the MTBI’s mainstream impact belies is that most psychologists believe it to be deeply flawed – if not meaningless.

With neither Jung, nor Briggs and Briggs Myers testing their theories against controlled experiments or data, it has no basis in clinical psychology. It parses people through false binaries, when most of us fall somewhere along a spectrum; and it produces inconsistent and inaccurate results.

The MBTI is considered dubious even compared with other personality tests. The Big Five, for instance, grades five traits along a spectrum and has been shown to effectively predict behavior. Yet, despite being considered “far and away more scientifically valid”, the Big Five comes nowhere close to the MBTI in terms of interest or impact.
...
Indeed, the MBTI seeded the idea of work serving as our identity in the 1940s, long before the contemporary “hustle culture” made it explicit.

Today, though the Myers-Briggs Company forbids unethical use of its assessment, its underlying logic of “people sorting” has been absorbed by the growing use of data in human resources. As exposed in the recent HBO Max Documentary Persona (of which Emre is an executive producer), sophisticated psychometric testing is used to streamline hiring processes and filter candidates.


Most unsuccessful applicants do not even know that they have “failed” – allowing these “people analytics” to serve as a side door to discriminatory hiring practices, such as screening for mental illness.

Briggs Myers would be horrified. For her and her mother, and many who later came to their invention, type was always about so much more than job satisfaction or productivity, says Emre: it represented a “kind of liberation from these rigid identities of wife and mother” through the creation of new and different ones.
...
Ultimately, he says, the MBTI is not a test with a right or wrong answer: “It’s a process for you to find out for yourself, what type fits you best.” What you do with that information, he says, “is entirely up to you – but it’s yours”.
...

What personality are you? How the Myers-Briggs test took over the world

Deemed ‘astrology for businessmen’ for some, lauded as life-saving by others, the personality tests are a ‘springboard’ for people to think about who they are

www.theguardian.com

See also:

Free personality test, type descriptions, relationship and career advice | 16Personalities

www.16personalities.com

Free Personality Tests and Career Assessments - Truity

Free personality tests and career assessments based on Myers and Briggs' types, Enneagram, DISC, Holland Code and more.

www.truity.com

Official Myers Briggs Test & Personality Assessment | MBTIonline

Take the official Myers Briggs test and personality assessment to explore career, relationship, and personal guidance based on your MBTI personality type.

www.mbtionline.com

Colby Personality Lab | Psychology

www.colby.edu

Personality Cafe

A forum community dedicated to all ranges of personality types and people. Come join the discussion about health, behavior, care, testing, personality types, and more!

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[Stryder50]

What Would Happen If Everyone Truly Believed Everything Is One?​

Research suggests a belief in oneness has broad implications for psychological functioning and compassion for those outside of our immediate circle.
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"We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness." — Albert Einstein

"In our quest for happiness and the avoidance of suffering, we are all fundamentally the same, and therefore equal. Despite the characteristics that differentiate us - race, language, religion, gender, wealth and many others - we are all equal in terms of our basic humanity." — Dalai Lama (on twitter)

The belief that everything in the universe is part of the same fundamental whole exists throughout many cultures and philosophical, religious, spiritual, and scientific traditions, as captured by the phrase 'all that is.' The Nobel winner Erwin Schrodinger once observed that quantum physics is compatible with the notion that there is indeed a basic oneness of the universe. Therefore, despite it seeming as though the world is full of many divisions, many people throughout the course of human history and even today truly believe that individual things are part of some fundamental entity.

Despite the prevalence of this belief, there has been a lack of a well validated measure in psychology that captures this belief. While certain measures of spirituality do exist, the belief in oneness questions are typically combined with other questions that assess other aspects of spirituality, such as meaning, purpose, sacredness, or having a relationship with God. What happens when we secularize the belief in oneness?

In a series of studies, Kate Diebels and Mark Leary set out to find out. In their first study, they found that only 20.3% of participants had thought about the oneness of all things "often" or "many times", while 25.9% of people "seldom" thought about the oneness of all things, and 12.5% of people "never" had thought about it.

The researchers also created a 6-item "Belief in Oneness Scale" consisting of the following items:
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What Would Happen If Everyone Truly Believed Everything Is One?

Research suggests a belief in oneness has broad implications for psychological functioning and compassion for those outside of our immediate circle.

getpocket.com

 

[Stryder50]

The Six Morning Routines that Will Make You Happier, Healthier and More Productive​

Start your morning off right with these simple but effective routines.

The Six Morning Routines that Will Make You Happier, Healthier and More Productive - Scott H Young

How you start your morning determines the rest of the day. Do you want to start with energy, productivity and the right intention? Try these six routines.

getpocket.com

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Napping in the Afternoon Can Improve Memory and Alertness – Here’s Why​

Sleeping for a bit in the afternoon can benefit both motor skills and your ability to recall facts.

Napping in the Afternoon Can Improve Memory and Alertness – Here’s Why

Sleeping for a bit in the afternoon can benefit both motor skills and your ability to recall facts.

getpocket.com

 

[Stryder50]

Remember People’s Names Once and for All — by Using This Technique From Memory Champs​

Take the strategy employed by memory athletes to memorize decks of cards and thousands of digits of pi, and adapt it to get over stranger-name forgetfulness.

Remember People’s Names Once and for All — by Using This Technique From Memory Champs

Take the strategy employed by memory athletes to memorize decks of cards and thousands of digits of pi, and adapt it to get over stranger-name forgetfulness.

getpocket.com

 

[Stryder50]

Our Brains Were Not Built for This Much Uncertainty​

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Given that habits and recognizable patterns are kind of its “thing,” the brain evolved to be uncertainty-averse. When things become less predictable — and therefore less controllable — we experience a strong state of threat. You may already know that threat leads to “fight, freeze, or flight” responses in the brain. You may not know that it also leads to decreases in motivation, focus, agility, cooperative behavior, self-control, sense of purpose and meaning, and overall well-being. In addition, threat creates significant impairments in your working memory: You can’t hold as many ideas in your mind to solve problems, nor can you pull as much information from your long-term memory when you need it. Threats of uncertainty literally make us less capable, because dealing with them is just not something our brains evolved to do.

The good news is that, from decades of studying human brains and human behavior, we know quite a bit about how to take the experience of threat from something overwhelming to something manageable. Whether you’re trying to keep yourself motivated and engaged, or you’re a leader trying to help those in your care, here are three strategies based in science that can keep the brain in a good place.
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Our Brains Were Not Built for This Much Uncertainty

As the pandemic wears on, leaders across industries are feverishly trying to figure out what the “new normal” needs to look like, which seems to be constantly shifting under their feet. To stay motivated as we encounter unprecedented levels of uncertainty in every aspect of our lives, we should...

hbr.org

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You’re a Bad Listener: Here’s How to Remember What People Say​

We come into conversations with our own agendas and low attention spans, but if you want to build better relationships you need to master active listening.

Youâre a Bad Listener: Hereâs How to Remember What People Say

We come into conversations with our own agendas and low attention spans, but if you want to build better relationships you need to master active listening.

getpocket.com

 

[Stryder50]

How Political Opinions Change​

A clever experiment shows it's surprisingly easy to change someone’s political views, revealing how flexible we are.

How Political Opinions Change

A clever experiment shows it's surprisingly easy to change someone’s political views, revealing how flexible we are.

getpocket.com

 

[Stryder50]

How to Sleep: Try Japan’s Kaizen Method to Cure Insomnia and Sleep Anxiety​

Having trouble falling asleep? The Japanese word ‘Kaizen’, which means ‘change’, could transform your bedtime routine and help tackle insomnia.

How to get to sleep: Japanese method of Kaizen can help you sleep

Can't sleep? Want help on how to get to sleep? Want to beat insomnia? A new book called Kaizen by Sarah Harvey explains how the Japanese method can help you fall asleep.

getpocket.com

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Why Do We Wake Around 3am and Dwell on Our Fears?​

The thoughts are often distressing and punitive. Strikingly, these concerns vaporise in the daylight, proving that the 3am thinking was completely irrational and unproductive. But why?

Why Do We Wake Around 3am and Dwell on Our Fears?

The thoughts are often distressing and punitive. Strikingly, these concerns vaporise in the daylight, proving that the 3am thinking was completely irrational and unproductive. But why?

getpocket.com

 

[Stryder50]

Growing Up Surrounded by Books Could Have Powerful, Lasting Effect on the Mind​

Research suggests that exposure to large home libraries may have a long-term impact on proficiency in three key areas.​

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Research has already suggested that opening a book may help improve brain function, reduce stress, and even make us more empathetic. Now, a team led by Joanna Sikora of the Australian National University is looking into the benefits of growing up around a book-filled environment; as Alison Flood of the Guardian reports, the researchers' expansive new study suggests that homes with ample libraries can arm children with skills that persist into adulthood.

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The effects were most marked when it came to literacy. Growing up with few books in the home resulted in below average literacy levels. Being surrounded by 80 books boosted the levels to average, and literacy continued to improve until libraries reached about 350 books, at which point the literacy rates leveled off. The researchers observed similar trends when it came to numeracy; the effects were not as pronounced with information communication technology tests, but skills did improve with increased numbers of books.

So, what are the implications of the new study? Take, for instance, adults who grew up with hardly any books in the home, but went on to obtain a university degree in comparison to an adult who grew up with a large home library, but only had nine years of schooling. The study found that both of their literacy levels were roughly average. “So, literacy-wise, bookish adolescence makes up for a good deal of educational advantage,” the study authors write.

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Growing Up Surrounded by Books Could Have Powerful, Lasting Effect on the Mind

Research suggests that exposure to large home libraries may have a long-term impact on proficiency in three key areas.

getpocket.com

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This Is The Scientific Way To Win Any Argument (And Not Make Enemies)​

It’s not about the specific points you make, it’s all about how you position them.​

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You’re in the middle of a heated discussion–or fine, let’s just call it an argument–and the person whom you’re trying convince seems unable or unwilling to grasp your point of view. What should you do?

For starters, you should realize that your odds aren’t exactly superb. Belief change, as psychologist and Fast Company contributor Art Markman put it, is frequently “a war of attrition. There’s usually no one argument that can suddenly get someone to see the light.” Still, some fascinating research suggests that reframing your ideas can boost your opponent’s receptiveness to them. Here’s how it works.

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This Is The Scientific Way To Win Any Argument (And Not Make Enemies)

It’s not about the specific points you make, it’s all about how you position them.

getpocket.com

 

[Stryder50]

This could be bucking nature, but then the nurture factor is worth a consider;

How to Raise a Boy: Bringing Up a Son Fit for the 21st Century​

Increasing awareness of the price of toxic masculinity has led many parents to wonder how best to prepare the young men of the future. One father consults the experts.
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How to raise a boy: my mission to bring up a son fit for the 21st century

Increasing awareness of the price of toxic masculinity has led many parents to wonder how best to prepare the young men of the future. One father consults the experts

getpocket.com

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A flip side of the coin;​

How Onscreen Fashion Is Rewriting History for Women​

From Monica Lewinsky to Pamela Anderson, a closer look at the costumes that are reclaiming the feminist narrative in TV and film.
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How Onscreen Fashion Is Rewriting History for Women

From Monica Lewinsky to Pamela Anderson, a closer look at the costumes that are reclaiming the feminist narrative in TV and film.

www.elle.com

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How Farming Saved My Body Image​

After giving up competitive running, cycling, and triathlon, I bought a farm in Tennessee. I didn’t know at the time how challenging—and life-affirming—growing my own food would be.

How Farming Saved My Body Image

After giving up competitive running, cycling, and triathlon, I bought a farm in Tennessee. I didn’t know at the time how challenging—and life-affirming—growing my own food would be.

getpocket.com

 

[Stryder50]

Ahhh ... Morpheus ...
Morpheus ('Fashioner', derived from the Ancient Greek: μορφή meaning 'form, shape')[1] is a god associated with sleep and dreams. In Ovid's Metamorphoses he is the son of Somnus and appears in dreams in human form. From the medieval period, the name began to stand more generally for the god of dreams, or of sleep
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Here's a couple of recent "click baits" on what some of us find a favorite pastime ...
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‘Napping Is Not What Lazy People Do:’ How to Take a Proper Nap​

Yes, it’s possible to level up your naps. Amanda Ripley, host of Slate’s How To podcast, breaks it down.​

Pocket

getpocket.com

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If You Love Staying Up Late and Sleeping In, Doing Otherwise Might Actually Hurt Your Health​

Here’s one more way our modern sleep schedules might be hurting us.

If You Love Staying Up Late and Sleeping In, Doing Otherwise Might Actually Hurt Your Health

Here’s one more way our modern sleep schedules might be hurting us.

getpocket.com

 

[Stryder50]

Here's another interesting perspective;

Superhero cosplay makes you a better person for one science-backed reason​

The scientific reason dressing up like a superhero is good for you

Research suggests we're hardwired to seek out tales of heroic adventures. Studies show just thinking about these characters can influence how we feel and act.

www.inverse.com

 

[Stryder50]

On the physical fitness/exercise scene;

Why You Might Need to Do More Low-Intensity, Steady-State (LISS) Cardio​

No, killing yourself at high intensity won’t get you to your goal faster—but slowing down, even more than your “recovery” pace, just might.

Why You Might Need to Do More Low-Intensity, Steady-State (LISS) Cardio

No, killing yourself at high intensity won’t get you to your goal faster—but slowing down, even more than your “recovery” pace, just might.

getpocket.com