Ilchi Lee

Finding the beauty in life’s challenges can move you closer to your goals

Stretching along the coast of southern Oregon to central California, the coastal redwoods are among the world’s largest living objects. They can grow to a height of more than 300 feet…in just a couple of hundred years. Chances are, you’re impressed by everything but their growth cycle.

Two hundred years is a long time. As humans, with technology at our fingertips, we’re able to accomplish what once seemed impossible in minutes. However, the determination of who we are—the goals we set for ourselves and the achievements that help define us—is often not so easy.

Ilchi Lee, originator of Brain Education System Training (BEST) and author of Principles of Brain Management and the forthcoming In Full Bloom: A Brain Education Guide for Successful Aging, writes: “No matter how enthusiastic and confident you are about the attainment of your dreams, difficulties will arise.” It is acknowledging and persevering through these difficulties, Lee suggests, that makes life beautiful. For those who dream big, Lee offers the following exercise for “Counting Your Other Blessings.”

From Ilchi Lee (Excerpted from Principles of Brain Management)

You have probably been told at some time in your life to count your blessings. But have you considered that everything in your life is a blessing? Think of a difficult period in your life that has passed or a giant obstacle you have overcome. Consider how that event was a blessing to you.

Music can help you pay attention

The cocktail party effect is not, as its name suggests, the term used to describe alcohol-induced lack of judgment. Rather, to the contrary, it is the term used to describe the auditory phenomenon by which we are able to focus on one conversation in a room full of conversations.

According to a research team from Stanford University’s School of Medicine, hints at the cause of the cocktail effect may lie in the music of eighteenth-century composer William Boyce. Brain images of people that listened to Boyce’s short symphonies showed that the music engaged two areas of the brain: the area that helps us pay attention and the area that allows us to make predictions and update events in our memory. However, when the music stopped, the brain did not.

The study examined the process of event segmentation, using eight symphonies with well-defined transitions between short movements—transitions spanning only a few seconds. According to the researchers, the brain used the short breaks to update working memories.

“Music engages the brain over a period of time, and the process of listening to music could be a way that the brain sharpens its ability to anticipate events and sustain attention,” stated Jonathan Berger, PhD, associate professor of music and co-author of the study.

Just don’t listen to the music too loud. The next time you’re in a crowded room you want to make sure you can actually hear what your brain is allowing you to pay attention to.

Why it makes your head spin

The optical illusion here is from coolopticalillusions.com. When you look at it, what do you see? Rotating spirals?

This is called an illusory movement or a peripheral drift illusion. It occurs by creating a repeating pattern, called sawtooth luminance gradients, which are used to create a movement sensation as your eyes move around the periphery of the image. If you were to keep your eyes focused at the center point of one of the spirals, it will remain fixed in its position.

The effect was first written about by Jocelyn Faubert and Andrew M. Herbert in their 1998 paper, “The peripheral drift illusion: A motion illusion in the visual periphery.” They assert that the primary cause of the effect is luminance, or the amount of light that can be seen by the eye based upon the angle of view. In this case, movement of the eyes shifts the brightness of the colors, which then results in the perception of a moving image. This effect is enhanced by the strong contrast between the black, yellow and blue rectangles.

These two elements, luminance and contrast, cause temporal differences that trick the brain’s motion system. So it’s really not your head that’s spinning; it’s your brain.

Exercise can treat depression

“Exercise is the easiest and least expensive cure for depression,” offers noted psychotherapist and media personality Barton Goldsmith. “Just walking 30 minutes a day will help you.”

Some experts suggest exercise may improve mental health by helping the brain cope with stress, while others believe that it is the release of chemicals linked to the brain’s mood control center during exercise. Whichever way you look at it, the outcome is the same—improved mental health.

Jim Blumenthal of Duke University conducted a study on patients with major depressive disorder by placing them in one of three groups: medication, exercise or a combination of medication and exercise. After four months, patients in each of the three groups showed improvement.

Another study from the University of Texas Southwest Medical Center at Dallas showed that 30 minutes of exercise three to five days a week cut down the incidence of depressive symptoms by nearly 50 percent. “The effect you find using aerobic exercise alone in treating clinical depression is similar to what you find with antidepressant medications,” said Dr. Madhukar Trivedi, professor of psychiatry and director of the school’s Mood Disorders Research Program.

So the next time you’re feeling blue, try taking a walk. It’s a quick-acting, side-effect-free prescription for feeling better.

Catching enough zzz’s is an exercise in cognitive restoration

You’ve heard the expression: “why don’t you sleep on it.” According to Michael Strykers, a research professor at the University of California-San Francisco, there’s some merit to this figure of speech that suggests that while we rest, our minds work.

“If you reviewed your notes and then slept,” Strykers said, “you’d achieve as much plasticity, or ‘learning,’ in the brain as if you’d pulled an all-nighter.”

Many studies, like Strykers’ study of cats, suggest that getting a good night’s sleep, at least seven to eight hours, can do wonders for our brains. While scientists struggle to pinpoint the exact reason why, they generally agree that when we sleep our brain engages in two activities:

1)Repairing neurons.
2)Processing and reorganizing information and memories.

We can even find answers to problems in our sleep, which explains why we sometimes wake up with a solution to a problem that wrenched our mind the previous day.

If we don’t get enough sleep, the neurons in the brain begin to break down and our cognitive abilities are lowered. This leads to impaired memory, increased mood swings, lowered performance and a general lack of concentration.

The average person spends up to one-third of her or his life sleeping. Without sleep, we would die. Yet no one really knows why. Apparently it’s something we need to “sleep on” a little more.

Can brain scans predict voting behavior?

In the days leading up to last month’s New Hampshire Democratic Primary, scores of political analyst and media pundits forecasted a resounding victory for presidential candidate Barack Obama. He was fresh off his win in Iowa, his speeches were stirring and opinion polls clearly tilted in his favor.

Even his rival, Hillary Clinton, conceded, stating that a close second would still be a victory.

Then the votes were counted. To everybody’s surprise, Clinton came out on top. The reason, analysts agreed, was that Clinton’s supporters remained unswayed as they cast their ballots on primary day. Big change, as Obama promises, just didn’t appeal to them.

According to researchers, the result might have been more predictable than forecasted. In a study conducted by David Amodio of New York University, the brain scans of liberal and conservative voters were conducted while they performed a simple push-button test. Results showed that there is a marked difference in the brain activity between conservatives and liberals.

In general, the greatest difference was between extreme conservatives and extreme liberals. Based on the scans, liberals exhibited twice as much activity in the anterior cingular cortex, the portion of the brain that refrains people from following habitual actions when presented with conflicting stimuli.

Does this mean that Republicans are stubborn and Democrats adjust better to change? Not really. The benefits of either way of thinking are situational. It just means that our political beliefs may be more hard-wired than we realize and that perhaps the outcomes of elections might be about pushing buttons after all—just not the figurative buttons of opposing candidates.

How a hippopotamus can put the hippocampus to work

Did you know that the hippocampus—a sheet of neurons located within the temporal lobes on either side of the brain—gets its name because of its shapely appearance?

It resembles a seahorse, a genus (Hippocampus) of the fish family.

Memories put the hippocampus to work. It is the region of the brain that has an essential role in forming, sorting and storing new memories about experienced events and their associated emotions. It is where short-term memory is converted to more permanent memory and spatial relationships are navigated.

For example, the memory of the word hippopotamus is semantic. It is not related to a specific experience. However, if you’ve ever seen a hippopotamus run, and they can run up to 30 miles per hour, it’s likely the spectacle would put your hippocampus to work, and it would be a scene you’d remember forever.

If the hippocampus is damaged, the ability to form new long-term memories ceases even though procedural memories may still be learned. This is called anterograde amnesia. For people diagnosed with schizophrenia and certain types of severe depression, as well as illnesses like Alzheimer’s disease, the hippocampus it often the first part of the brain to exhibit damage.

Psychologists and neuroscientists are not precisely sure of the whole role the hippocampus plays in the brain, but in general they agree that its role in memory formation, like the physical stature of the hippopotamus, is quite large.

Challenge yourself to develop your mind and spirit, fulfillment and growth will follow

Abraham Lincoln, in a time of depression, once said, “I would just as soon die, but I’ve done nothing yet to make anyone remember that I have lived.”

Truth is, many of us have a yearning to make an impact. We want our hard work, determination and talent to be quantified by something larger than ourselves. We want to make a difference, in our community, in the world and, ultimately, within ourselves.

This desire is not accidental. It is rooted in our brains. We are, in fact, wired for charity.

In a study published by Science in June 2007, “Neural Responses to Taxation and Voluntary Giving Reveal Motives for Charitable Donations,” researchers at the University of Oregon, observing brain activity via fMRI, found that responses to donating money triggered activity in the same areas of the brain traditionally stimulated by food, sex, sweets, shelter and social connection.

Ilchi Lee, originator of Brain Education System Training (BEST) and author of Principles of Brain Management and the forthcoming In Full Bloom: A Brain Education Guide for Successful Aging, believes this connection satisfies one life’s most core values—to find true, lasting happiness. Lee even suggests that this lasting happiness is attainable, but it first requires you to “Seek Fulfillment.”

From Ilchi Lee (Excerpted from Principles of Brain Management)

On a piece of paper, write down a list of the values and attributes that are most desperately needed in the world. To what extent are you currently helping to provide these to the world? Is there more you can do to help provide these?

Use meditation to do your job better

If you want to improve on-the-job performance, take a deep breath—literally. Studies of workplace efficiency have long shown that stress is the leading cause of worker burnout, lack of innovation, lost productivity and aggression.

Or, in the words of well-respected author and lifetime librarian, Frederick Saunders: “Brain cells create ideas. Stress kills brain cells. Stress is not a good idea.”

If you want to lower your stress at work, the best way to do it is to incorporate meditation techniques. Meditation is the practice of calming your mind through insight and reflection. To help you do this, here are some basic exercises and behaviors to practice.

Breathe –Close your eyes and sit with your back straight. Then breathe through your nostrils, concentrating only on the sensation of your breath entering and exiting your nose.

Sweep away distraction – Place your hands where your head and neck meet. Then, in a quick motion, slide your hands up your head and over your hair. Complete the motion with a flicking of your fingers. It’s like dusting away your worries.

Crunch numbers – Count down from 10...or 100. It’s a great way to ward off distraction and relax the mind.

As you try relaxing your mind, you might be overwhelmed by how busy it actually is. This is normal and part of heightened self awareness. Keep at it, and don’t get discouraged. The more you practice meditating and relaxing, the easier it will be to let go of stress. The less stress you carry, the more “you” you’ll have to give to your work and the more effective and happy you’ll be in your job.