Body ~ Mind ~ Soul --- Being Human

[Stryder50]

On the "Quality of Life" sector;

The Key to a Good Life? Lose Yourself in Something.​

Whether it’s you that benefits most or someone else, don’t be afraid to go all in.

The Key to a Good Life? Lose Yourself in Something.

Whether it’s you that benefits most or someone else, don’t be afraid to go all in.

getpocket.com

 

[Stryder50]

This is a rather long article, and may be seen as subjective, the author's opinion, but still interesting;

The Empty Brain​

Your brain does not process information, retrieve knowledge, or store memories. In short: Your brain is not a computer.
...
EXCERPT:
...
No matter how hard they try, brain scientists and cognitive psychologists will never find a copy of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony in the brain – or copies of words, pictures, grammatical rules or any other kinds of environmental stimuli. The human brain isn’t really empty, of course. But it does not contain most of the things people think it does – not even simple things such as ‘memories’.

Our shoddy thinking about the brain has deep historical roots, but the invention of computers in the 1940s got us especially confused. For more than half a century now, psychologists, linguists, neuroscientists and other experts on human behaviour have been asserting that the human brain works like a computer.

To see how vacuous this idea is, consider the brains of babies. Thanks to evolution, human neonates, like the newborns of all other mammalian species, enter the world prepared to interact with it effectively. A baby’s vision is blurry, but it pays special attention to faces, and is quickly able to identify its mother’s. It prefers the sound of voices to non-speech sounds, and can distinguish one basic speech sound from another. We are, without doubt, built to make social connections.
...

The Empty Brain

Your brain does not process information, retrieve knowledge, or store memories. In short: Your brain is not a computer.

getpocket.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Then there's this flip side to the coin of mind and brain;
​

What Do Near-Death Experiences Mean, and Why Do They Fascinate Us?​

Psychiatrist Bruce Greyson has spent decades talking to people about near-death experiences. His work raises questions about what happens when we die, and how we ought to choose to live.
....
Excerpt;
...
Nome recounted this story at a support group in Connecticut, in 1985, four years after the experience. He had survived, but now he hoped to understand why, during a moment of extreme mortal crisis, his mind had behaved the way it did. The meeting had been organised by Bruce Greyson, now a professor emeritus in psychiatry at the University of Virginia. (Some of the group’s members had responded to an ad Greyson placed in a local newspaper.) As Nome spoke, Greyson sat in a circle of 30 or so others, as if at an AA meeting, listening intently, nodding along.

Greyson had been hearing of events like these for years. A month into his psychiatric training, in the 1960s, he had been “confronted by a patient who claimed to have left her body” while unconscious on a hospital bed, and who later provided an accurate description of events that had taken place “in a different room”. This made no sense to him. “I was raised in a scientific household,” he says, over Zoom. “My father was a chemist. Growing up, the physical world was all there was.” He felt certain someone had slipped the patient the information. He also thought, “What does that even mean, to leave your body?”
...

What Do Near-Death Experiences Mean, and Why Do They Fascinate Us?

Psychiatrist Bruce Greyson has spent decades talking to people about near-death experiences. His work raises questions about what happens when we die, and how we ought to choose to live.

getpocket.com

 

[Stryder50]

The Five Universal Laws of Human Stupidity​

We underestimate the stupid, and we do so at our own peril.
...
In 1976, a professor of economic history at the University of California, Berkeley published an essay outlining the fundamental laws of a force he perceived as humanity’s greatest existential threat: Stupidity.

Stupid people, Carlo M. Cipolla explained, share several identifying traits: they are abundant, they are irrational, and they cause problems for others without apparent benefit to themselves, thereby lowering society’s total well-being. There are no defenses against stupidity, argued the Italian-born professor, who died in 2000. The only way a society can avoid being crushed by the burden of its idiots is if the non-stupid work even harder to offset the losses of their stupid brethren.

Let’s take a look at Cipolla’s five basic laws of human stupidity:

Law 1: Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.
...
Law 2: The probability that a certain person be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.
...
Law 3. A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.
...
Law 4: Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and places and under any circumstances to deal and/or associate with stupid people always turns out to be a costly mistake.
...
Law 5: A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.
And its corollary:
A stupid person is more dangerous than a bandit.
...

The Five Universal Laws of Human Stupidity

We underestimate the stupid, and we do so at our own peril.

getpocket.com

​

 

[Stryder50]

How Video Games Satisfy Basic Human Needs​

Only in the digital realm of video games are people given the opportunity to act as they never would in daily life or as they would act every day in an ideal world ... and then try again if they don’t like the results.
...
Grand Theft Auto, that most lavish and notorious of all modern videogames, offers countless ways for players to behave. Much of this conduct, if acted out in our reality, would be considered somewhere between impolite and morally reprehensible. Want to pull a driver from her car, take the wheel, and motor along a sidewalk? Go for it. Eager to steal a bicycle from a 10-year-old boy? Get pedaling. Want to stave off boredom by standing on a clifftop to take pot shots at the screaming gulls? You’re doing the local tourism board a favor. For a tabloid journalist in search of a hysteric headline, the game offers a trove of misdemeanors certain to outrage any non-player.

Except, of course, aside from its pre-set storyline, Grand Theft Auto doesn’t prescribe any of these things. It merely offers us a playpen, one that, like our own cities, is filled with opportunities, and arbitrated by rules and consequences. And unless you’re deliberately playing against type, or are simply clumsy, you can’t help but bring yourself into interactive fiction. In Grand Theft Auto, your interests and predilections will eventually be reflected in your activity, be it hunting wild animals, racing jet-skis, hiring prostitutes, buying property, planning heists, or taking a bracing hike first thing in the morning. If you are feeling hateful in the real world, the game provides a space in which to act hatefully. As the philosophers say: wherever you go, there you will be.

For these researchers, incredibly, enjoyment is not the primary reason why we play video games.

For the British artificial intelligence researcher and computer game designer Richard Bartle, the kaleidoscopic variety of human personality and interest is reflected in the video game arena. In his 1996 article “Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, Spades: Players Who Suit MUDs,” he identified four primary types of video game player (the Killers, Achievers, Explorers, and Socializers). The results of his research were, for Bartle, one of the creators of MUD, the formative multiplayer role-playing game of the 1980s, obvious. “I published my findings not because I wanted to say, ‘These are the four player types,’” he recently told me, “but rather because I wanted to say to game designers: ‘People have different reasons for playing your games; they don’t all play for the same reason you do.’”

Bartle’s research showed that, in general, people were consistent in these preferred ways of being in online video game worlds. Regardless of the game, he found that “Socialisers,” for example, spend the majority of their time forming relationships with other players. “Achievers” meanwhile focus fully on the accumulation of status tokens (experience points, currency or, in Grand Theft Auto’s case, gleaming cars and gold-plated M16s).

Our disposition can often be reflected in our choice of character, too. In online role-playing games, for example, players who assume the role of medics, keeping the rest of the team alive in battle will, Bartle found, tend to play the same role across games. “These kinds of games are a search for identity,” he said. While players sometimes experiment by, for example, playing an evil character just to see what it’s like, Bartle found that such experiments usually lead to affirmation rather than transformation. “Basically,” he said, “if you’re a jerk in real life, you’re going to be a jerk in any kind of social setting, and if you’re not, you’re not.”

In a 2012 study, titled “The Ideal Self at Play: The Appeal of Video Games That Let You Be All You Can Be,” a team of five psychologists more closely examined the way in which players experiment with “type” in video games. They found that video games that allowed players to play out their “ideal selves” (embodying roles that allow them to be, for example, braver, fairer, more generous, or more glorious) were not only the most intrinsically rewarding, but also had the greatest influence on our emotions. “Humans are drawn to video and computer games because such games provide players with access to ideal aspects of themselves,” the authors concluded. Video games are at their most alluring, in other words, when they allow a person to close the distance between how they are, and how they wish to be.

“It’s the very reason that people play online RPGs,” Bartle said. “In this world we are subject to all kinds of pressures to behave in a certain way and think a certain way and interact a certain way. In video games, those pressures aren’t there.” In video games, we are free to be who we really are—or at least find out who we really are if we don’t already know. “Self-actualization is there at the top of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, and it’s what many games deliver,” Bartle added. “That’s all people ever truly want: to be.”
...

How Video Games Satisfy Basic Human Needs

Only in the digital realm of video games are people given the opportunity to act as they never would in daily life or as they would act every day in an ideal world ... and then try again if they don’t like the results.

getpocket.com

 

[Stryder50]

7 Harsh Truths That Will Improve Your Leadership Skills Overnight​

This is taking your leadership to a whole new level, again.​

7 Harsh Truths That Will Improve Your Leadership Skills Overnight

This is taking your leadership to a whole new level, again.

getpocket.com

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

Want to Retain Information Better? Try This Popular, 70-Year-Old Note-Taking Method​

At a conference, in a conference room, or in a classroom, this method is proven and powerful.
...
Anyone who has ever attended a keynote, lecture, or presentation of any kind knows how important it is to take good notes. How many times have you been at a presentation for work and afterward wished you had written down that key idea that you somehow can’t remember?

A while back, in my corporate days, I was experiencing this far too often. So I went back to my college days and pulled out a note-taking method I used to use, one of the most popular note-taking methods of all time, the “Cornell Note-taking System.” It’s named after a Cornell University educator who invented the system in the 1940s. Here’s how it works, as explained on the Cornell System official website.

Say you’re at a conference for work and you’re about to take notes on a sheet of paper. Imagine drawing a horizontal line across the bottom of the piece of paper, leaving a section about two inches tall below that line. Now imagine drawing a vertical line that runs from the horizontal line to the top of the page, in a way that divides the paper into two columns, one roughly two inches wide to the left, one six inches wide to the right.

So now the piece of paper is divided into three sections. The one on the bottom is the “summary” section, the column to the left is the “cue” column, and the column to the right is the “note-taking” column.

The note-taking column is where you jot your standard notes. The cue column is where you crisply summarize the key points from your notes in your own words (using keywords and looking for relationships between ideas). It’s also here that you develop and write down your own “test questions,” as if you were the person teaching the material and wanted to test the audience on it later.

Questions might include: Why do these facts matter? What principle are they based on? How can I apply them? How do they fit in with what I already know? In this way, you’re creating your own quiz you can take later on as you review the materials.

In the summary row at the bottom, you summarize the overall key takeaways from that page of notes.
...

Want to Retain Information Better? Try This Popular, 70-Year-Old Note-Taking Method

At a conference, in a conference room, or in a classroom, this method is proven and powerful.

getpocket.com

 

[Stryder50]

How to Survive for Three Days in the Wilderness​

This 72-hour plan will buy you enough time to wait for search and rescue to arrive.​

...
The fundamentals of survival boil down to the Rule of Three: You can live three minutes without breathing, three hours when exposed to freezing temperatures, and three days without water. Concerning hunters and fishermen, it’s practical to think of survival in relation to the time it takes search and rescue (SAR) to do its job: With rare exceptions, sportsmen will be found within 72 hours of being reported missing.

The military stresses this same mindset in its survival schools, where the focus has shifted from long-term survival to waiting for rescue. This is due in part to the increased efficiency of SAR, as well as the understanding that skills such as trapping and hunting food waste precious energy. Even navigational skills are deemphasized, because it’s easier for search teams to locate a stationary target. A 72-hour plan elevates the importance of fundamentals like fire building and signaling

As the person who’s lost, injured, or stranded, it’s your job to stay put and stay alive. So calm those panicky voices in your head, stick to the plan detailed here, and you’ll likely be found within 72 hours.
...

How to Survive for Three Days in the Wilderness

This 72-hour plan will buy you enough time to wait for search and rescue to arrive.

getpocket.com

 

[Stryder50]

Why You Don’t Have to Be a Rocket Scientist to Think Like One​

Author Ozan Varol shares why you should aim higher in life.​

...​

If you looked up the word “polymath” in the dictionary, you may see a picture of Ozan Varol. He teaches at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon and has written a widely cited book on comparative politics. Most surprisingly, however, he was part of the NASA operations team that sent two rovers–Spirit and Opportunity–to Mars.

What I love most about Varol is that he is a contrarian. He relishes challenging conventional wisdom and exposing the common thinking errors most people make every day. In this interview, we discuss Varol’s book, Think Like a Rocket Scientist, which argues that “we should switch our default from convincing others that we’re right to convincing ourselves that we’re wrong.”

...​

Why You Don’t Have to Be a Rocket Scientist to Think Like One

Author Ozan Varol shares why you should aim higher in life.

getpocket.com

 

[Stryder50]

How to Improve Your Math Skills​

You need math, but you don’t have to struggle.

How to Improve Your Math Skills

You need math, but you don’t have to struggle.

getpocket.com

 

[Stryder50]

How to Survive for Three Days in the Wilderness​

This 72-hour plan will buy you enough time to wait for search and rescue to arrive.​

...
The fundamentals of survival boil down to the Rule of Three: You can live three minutes without breathing, three hours when exposed to freezing temperatures, and three days without water. Concerning hunters and fishermen, it’s practical to think of survival in relation to the time it takes search and rescue (SAR) to do its job: With rare exceptions, sportsmen will be found within 72 hours of being reported missing.

The military stresses this same mindset in its survival schools, where the focus has shifted from long-term survival to waiting for rescue. This is due in part to the increased efficiency of SAR, as well as the understanding that skills such as trapping and hunting food waste precious energy. Even navigational skills are deemphasized, because it’s easier for search teams to locate a stationary target. A 72-hour plan elevates the importance of fundamentals like fire building and signaling

As the person who’s lost, injured, or stranded, it’s your job to stay put and stay alive. So calm those panicky voices in your head, stick to the plan detailed here, and you’ll likely be found within 72 hours.
...

How to Survive for Three Days in the Wilderness

This 72-hour plan will buy you enough time to wait for search and rescue to arrive.

getpocket.com

A related topic here;

How to Survive Encounters with Dangerous Animals​

Breaking down the skills required for dealing with 40 different creatures.

How to Survive Encounters with Dangerous Animals

Breaking down the skills required for dealing with 40 different creatures.

getpocket.com

 

[Stryder50]

The 5 Most Common Regrets of the Dying—and What We Can Learn From Them​

Bronnie Ware, a former palliative care nurse and bestselling author, shares the five most common regrets of the dying—and her advice on how to live a life full of happiness and joy.​

(Spoiler, I'll list the theme/titles ...)

Regrets of the Dying: I Wish I’d Lived a Life True to Myself, Not the Life Others Expected of Me​

...

I Wish I Hadn’t Worked so Hard​

...

I Wish I’d Had the Courage to Express My Feelings​

...

I Wish I Had Stayed in Touch With My Friends​

...

I Wish I Had Allowed Myself to Be Happier​

.............

The 5 Most Common Regrets of the Dying—and What We Can Learn From Them

Bronnie Ware, a former palliative care nurse and bestselling author, shares the five most common regrets of the dying—and her advice on how to live a life full of happiness and joy.

getpocket.com

 

[Stryder50]

Your Brain Can Only Take So Much Focus​

Studies show that concentrating for too long on one task makes us less productive. Turns out, our brains need to wander a bit throughout the day.

Your Brain Can Only Take So Much Focus

Research has shed light on the power of focus and its role as a hidden driver of success. Yet as helpful as focus can be, research also shows there’s a downside to it: excessive focus exhausts the focus circuits in your brain. It can drain your energy, make you lose self-control, impair your...

getpocket.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~​

Overloaded: is there simply too much culture?​

Overloaded: is there simply too much culture?

With so much film, TV, music, books, streaming, games and podcasts easily available and vying for our attention, how can we absorb it all? And should we even try, asks Anne Helen Petersen

www.theguardian.com

 

[Stryder50]

Some eclectic items parked here, for now, as losely related to the OP;

A Power Law Keeps the Brain’s Perceptions Balanced​

Researchers have discovered a surprising mathematical relationship in the brain’s representations of sensory information, with possible applications to AI research.

A Power Law Keeps the Brainâs Perceptions Balanced

Researchers have discovered a surprising mathematical relationship in the brain’s representations of sensory information, with possible applications to AI research.

getpocket.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~​

The escalating costs of being single in America​

Why is life in this country so hostile to single people?

In America, being single is expensive by design

Why life in this country is so hostile to single people.

www.vox.com

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When Did Americans Lose Their British Accents?​

The absence of audio recording technology makes “when” a tough question to answer. But there are some theories as to “why.”

When Did Americans Lose Their British Accents?

The absence of audio recording technology makes “when” a tough question to answer. But there are some theories as to “why.”

getpocket.com

 

[Stryder50]

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.

Meet the People Who Believe Theyâve 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

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~​

A Nobel Prize winner explained his simple technique for learning anything quickly and effectively​

A Nobel Prize winner's simple technique for learning anything quickly and effectively

Richard Feynman thought simplicity was key to learning: you truly understand a topic when you can explain it in the simplest way possible.

www.businessinsider.com

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

The 60-Second Migraine Massage a Neurologist Swears by for Instant Relief​

A little peppermint essential oil will do the trick.

The 60-Second Migraine Massage a Neurologist Swears by for Instant Relief

A little peppermint essential oil will do the trick.

getpocket.com

 

[Stryder50]

Perhaps not in the order presented, but still . . .

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

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

getpocket.com

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

100 ways to slightly improve your life without really trying​

Whether it’s taking fruit to work (and to the bedroom!), being polite to rude strangers or taking up skinny-dipping, here’s a century of ways to make life better, with little effort involved …

100 ways to slightly improve your life without really trying

Whether it’s taking fruit to work (and to the bedroom!), being polite to rude strangers or taking up skinny-dipping, here’s a century of ways to make life better, with little effort involved …

www.theguardian.com

 

[Stryder50]

The Unique Science of Left-Handedness​

The Unique Science of Left-Handedness

Being a lefty goes beyond just a hand preference.

getpocket.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~​

Top 10 Design Flaws in the Human Body​

Top 10 Design Flaws in the Human Body

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

getpocket.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~​

People With Creative Personalities Really Do See the World Differently​

People With Creative Personalities Really Do See the World Differently

Not only do open people bring a different perspective, but they genuinely see things differently than most.

getpocket.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Could Being Cold Actually Be Good for You?

Could Being Cold Actually Be Good for You?

Researchers are exploring the health benefits of literally chilling out.

www.wired.com

 

[Stryder50]

Ugly Side Effects of Drinking Alcohol Every Day, According to the Mayo Clinic​

MSN

www.msn.com

 

[Stryder50]

Longevity Linked to Proteins That Calm Overexcited Neurons​

New research makes a molecular connection between the brain and aging — and shows that overactive neurons can shorten life span.
...
A thousand seemingly insignificant things change as an organism ages. Beyond the obvious signs like graying hair and memory problems are myriad shifts both subtler and more consequential: Metabolic processes run less smoothly; neurons respond less swiftly; the replication of DNA grows faultier.

But while bodies may seem to just gradually wear out, many researchers believe instead that aging is controlled at the cellular and biochemical level. They find evidence for this in the throng of biological mechanisms that are linked to aging but also conserved across species as distantly related as roundworms and humans. Whole subfields of research have grown up around biologists’ attempts to understand the relationships among the core genes involved in aging, which seem to connect highly disparate biological functions, like metabolism and perception. If scientists can pinpoint which of the changes in these processes induce aging, rather than result from it, it may be possible to intervene and extend the human life span.
...

Longevity Linked to Proteins That Calm Overexcited Neurons

New research makes a molecular connection between the brain and aging — and shows that overactive neurons can shorten life span.

getpocket.com

 

[Stryder50]

The forgotten medieval habit of 'two sleeps'

The forgotten medieval habit of 'two sleeps'

For millennia, people slept in two shifts – once in the evening, and once in the morning. But why? And how did the habit disappear?

www.bbc.com

 

[Stryder50]

I may have presented this earlier, but always worth a repeat;

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.

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.

getpocket.com

 

[Stryder50]

Becoming a centaur​

The horse is a prey animal, the human a predator. Our shared trust and athleticism is a neurobiological miracle

Horse-human cooperation is a neurobiological miracle | Aeon Essays

The horse is a prey animal, the human a predator. Our shared trust and athleticism is a neurobiological miracle

aeon.co

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

The Unexpected Philosophy Icelanders Live By​

If Iceland were to have a national slogan, it would be ‘þetta reddast’, which roughly translates to the idea that everything will work out all right in the end.

The Unexpected Philosophy Icelanders Live By

If Iceland were to have a national slogan, it would be ‘þetta reddast’, which roughly translates to the idea that everything will work out all right in the end.

getpocket.com