Bugs Bunny Was Right

Headlines

Bugs Bunny was absolutely right; Beta Carotene (four carrots daily) improves
your memory and reduces dementia. Ok, you have to chew up a slew of
carrots daily, or a pill with 50 milligrams of Beta Carotene taken 3x a week.

So far the scientific evidence is for men only; if you want to avoid memory leak
and reduce the risk of Alzheimer so common with normal aging, go carrots.

Who says so the Carrot Institute? Nyet, Dr. Francine Grodstein, professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. The evidence appears
in 11.12.07 Archives of Internal Medicine. The research involved 6 thousand
men followed for 18 years.

If you can improve your verbal memory, that’s nice. What is significant is a
side effect of eating bunny food is the rate of dementia flips downward.
How about this: you will live to your late eighties.

Aha, but 50% of adults over the age of 80, suffer a substantial degree of dementia, including Alzheimer. So Bugs was right, carrots are preventive-medicine.

Dinero is The Great Motivator

That is half the equation; the second half, accord to serious research at the
University of Bonn (Ger.) says money is our motivator, but knowing you
get more than your colleagues, is the real secret.

Homo Sapiens Like Competition

Forget social workers who write books abhorring the theory of a competitive economic society. Competition is genetic and proves out under Magnetic Resonance Tomographs (scanning).

We are talking about our self-image, emotions and feelings; we work
for a reward. Sure, it is the size of check, but knowing we are beating the
competition (our peers) makes it go down better and feels sweeter.

Sorry, but the basis for both success and war is less economic, than the emotional reward of beating out the other guy (country).

For the Vital 20% (according to Pareto), Google: ventral striatum, part of
our reward (pleasure) system.

Standard Economic Theory

For the past three centuries economists believed it was the absolute size of the
reward that governed human motivation. Now we know our brain’s reward system
(ventral tegmental area (VTA), nucleus accumbens, vental striatum and the neuroprocessor, Dopamine) is activated by m-o-n-e-y and the size of yours compared to Tom, Dick and Harry.

We get a reward jolt from our Limbic System when we are right; it registers on
your brain image. Now it you want to give your ventral striatum a thrill and
excite your self-image long-term, win the competition and receive 120 Euros
when your opponent (competitor) receives 60 Euros.

Economics is war without the killing, just getting much more than the enemy.
Want to motivate the team? Show the rewards for winning (money, points,
prizes) as #1 getting 2x the reward as the runner up. See, size of the winnings
matters in spades.

Kalirin-7

You probable don’t remember the names of proteins, but here is a good one.
Professor Peter Penzes, Northwestern University School of Medicine, recently discovered the brain protein Karlirin (sounds like Caroline). So what?

It’s #1 and critical in learning and remembering what you learned. See: the
Journal Neuron, 11.21.07.

Kalirin gives muscles to your Synaptic Spines located in your brain. Get this:
the more repetition, the bigger and stronger these synaptic spines.

Now you asking what synaptic spine are, right? It is the sites where neurons
hold conversations with each other (communicate). Bigger sites, the clearer
the neuro-talk. Kalirin is the protein that makes synaptic spines grow.

Profound Fact: Continued intellectual activity (life-long-learning) – delays
and often avoids cognitive decline through normal aging. According to Dr.
Penzes, the reason to keep learning is to maintain healthy synapses.

Mystery Moods

This research by Dr. Tanya Chartrand at Ohio State University answers a
curious question about good and bad moods. She tested 109 students about
their moods changes and discovered humans have unconscious goals as well
as goals we set consciously.

When we fail at an unconscious goal we did not know we had, it can put us
into a blind funk. It causes us to change how we feel, act and behave
toward achiving our major goals. We don’t get it; it is a negative, mystery mood.

Examples

An example is how we present ourselves to others in business or
recreational activities. Repetition of social bonding becomes automatic
(auto-pilot) and it becomes a non-conscious goal. If we fail at it, (rejected) we are upset (negative mood) even though it was not a conscious goal.

Another result of failing, when we did not know about the goal, is we tend
to disparage and stereotype others (insult them) to lift our own spirits and
enhance our self-esteem.

Think about it. When you fail at a conscious goal and get into a blue funk about
it, at least you know why the bad mood. You flunked the exam, were rejected
at the interview, but humans have a dozen non-conscious goals.

Another example is be attractive to others, appear smarter than we are, and to continue to be admired by your friends, co-workers and significant other.

It is a fact all of us are succeeding and failing 24/7 at non-conscious goals.
If you are aware that non-conscious goals cause mystery moods, you can
begin to take control of your feelings and behaviors.

Last thing, the reason for non-conscious goals is to avoid the necessity of
thinking about too many goals. It would tax our cognitive system to be
constantly analyzing our goals in each situation we approach. It goes
on auto-pilot.

Is all this important? These mystery moods directly affect our judgments
about people, places and things, and how we perform. Knowledge is not
power, but it is potential power when know-how meets practical life.
It applies to school and career success.

Endwords

When you think of your talents and skills as fixed (what you see is what you got), or consider your gifts and abilities as changeable (improvable), the difference is life-
altering. Fixed brainers (no further growth) often self-sabotage when face with
success.

We like living in a world that is stable, and we can predict and control our outcomes. It is part of our comfort-zone; a change in the status-quo is often
scary. Good news that goes against our expectations is a violation of our
expectations and shakes us.

Those who are brain changeable and expect improvement, but it does not
occur, fall into panic attacks, frustration and stress. It violates our comfort-zone.
Coda: Check out both changeable and fixed thinking, and realize our potential requires understanding we have a mixed bag brain.

Ask us how to 3x your learning skills and 2x your memory – permanently.

See ya,
copyright 2007
www.speedlearning.org
hbw@speedlearning.org
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