My Favorite Two Words R – So What?
One of my law professors once called me a Miscreant, and I
could not get mad until I looked it up. It turns out I was evil,
depraved, wicked, and base. Wait – immoral, degenerate,
a villain, and a rascal. Latin: beyond belief. It was political.
Get this: words are not just empty, random letters arbitrarily constructed.
Hearing, reading, speaking emotional words (positive-negative-neutral) involuntarily trigger our brain into moods and behaviors. Hardwired or conditioned?
Why should you believe me?
Major joint study by University of Kansas and Gallup. Interviewed 150,000 folks in 140 countries. Released March 5, 2009 at the American Psychosomatic Society convention. Lead author – Professor Sarah Pressman. She lives to see her name cited.
N.B. (nota bene < L note well) adults and young people, English or Spanish speaking know 50% more negative Emotional words, compared to 30% positive Emotional words, and 20% neutral Emotional words. This statistic holds up regardless of age (young, adult, or country).
So What
Positive and neutral words we hear, read or say are generally not as important as negative words. Nothing has to be done about positive comments except note them, and maybe say Thanks-a-lot-your-Honor. Our brain does not pay as much
attention to Positive and Neural – no danger, so they get a superficial processing.
Negative words of emotion like Miscreant, present a threat, danger, and arouse fear and anger. Your brain slows down processing your reaction to negative emotionally charged words to pay attention to discover any subtleties in the cracks.
We think about Negative words longer and harder. Could it be evolution (genes and eons of experience) warning us a rattlesnake is crossing our path?
One-more-once: Homo sapiens know a lot more negative emotional words (50%),
compared to Positive (30%) or neural emotional words – 20%.
Gist
You know this - right? Human emotions affect your health, but Positive
emotions play a critical role in your physical-mental health. Self-evident? When you intentionally use positive emotional words daily, read corny self-help books, and hang out with folks who are crazy about Positive Thinking and Positive Attitudes, your health (mental and physical) improve statistically.
Can we prove it or is it another Urban Myth put out by Self-Help Publishers?
The headline in the research report is – Positive Emotions are a reliable predictor of
good health. The AMA cites this research, and psychiatrists act on it. Recommendation: stop watching the Evening news report, and start laughing with Leno. Don’t watch anymore Michael Jackson’s death stories.
A Duchenne smile (eyes and teeth) for thirty seconds daily influences your nervous
and immune systems to operate up to 25% better. Wanna lower your blood pressure
without drugs or exercise? Smile and laugh more. Yes, really.
Leno
“For lunch I went to McDonald’s and said, “Please give me an order of fries.”
The kid said, “Would you like some fries with that?” Programming lives.
Google: American Psychosomatic Society: health and linguistics.
Dr. Sarah Pressman, University of Kansas, and Gallup Poll.
Do About It
If you want to waste my time – tell me pointless stories about stuff that is beyond my
control. Example: U.S. annual Death rate: 2, 400,000, and U.S. annual Birth rate – 4,317,000.
How about in the World? 146,000 folks die each and every day. Internationally, 353,000 babies are born each and every day.
So What? “When you are Green, you are growing, when you are Ripe, you Stink.” Who said that? Ray Krok, (1902-84) – founder of McDonald’s.
We produce up to double new-babies to old-corpses. It means we are growing. Japan does not have population growth. Where will they be economically in the next 20 years?
Senior citizens are not new homebuyers, and do not need original furniture and garden supplies. Seniors also do not buy Green Bananas.
Care About Eye Movements
If you intentionally and voluntarily move your eyes in specific patterns, you learn and remember significantly more. We believe it is up to 40% better.
Google: September 10th 2009 journal Neuron. Lead author Dr. Deborah Hannula, neuroscientist at University of California, Davis. New Insights – Eye Movements.
Bottom line: using fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imagery), scientists can
retrieve information (learning and memories) by tracking your eye movements.
How come? There is a relationship between the primary memory structure – hippocampus, and your eye movements for both conscious and nonconscious memories.
Answer to So What
Can you keep your head staring straight ahead, and move your eyes Upward-Left?
Raise your eyebrows. You want to know why, right?
If you want to absolute, positively, remember a fact, statistic or idea, make a symbolic image of it (mental movie, pix or cartoon) and insert it for deposit in your
upper left visual Quadrant. That is the storage step.
To retrieve stored memories, go back to looking straight ahead and raising your eyebrows to access the Eye Movement tracking memory. If you learn this Speedlearning strategy you improve your personal productivity and self-confidence.
Regardless of age, Kids to Seniors, you increase your self-worth, hopefulness, and helpfulness, by improving your Episodic, Semantic, short and long-term memory.
Once-more-once. Store stuff in your Upper Left Visual Quadrant. It is a Right-Hemispheric skill involving Spatial knowledge and Pattern Recognition.
I wanted to remember a series of three elements for motivation: Autonomy (independent, self-governing) – Mastery (expertise) and Purpose (beyond my self-interest). Could not retain the three concepts.
Made a Pix of a car to remind me of auto in autonomy, Karate Master for Mastery,
and a flying fish – a Porpoise – to remind me of Purpose. Where did I place the 3 pixs?
Upper left Quad three-times, and blink after each insertion. Takes 30 seconds total.
Later for retrieval, back to Upper Left Quad and blink three times. I gave it a name – AMP – like the electricity term. A: Autonomy M: Mastery, and P: Purpose.
It works like electricity – See ya,
copyright © H. Bernard Wechsler
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Author of BestSeller, Speed Reading For Professionals, published by Barron's. Business partner of Evelyn Wood, creator of speed reading, graduating 2 million, including the White Half staffs of four U.S. Presidents.
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