Cognitive Restructuring Exercises

• Track the Accuracy of a Thought - Example: Your rumination-related thought is "If I think a lot about my problem, it'll help me find a solution." For this example, you might write down each time you notice yourself ruminating (overthinking) in one column, and in a second column note if the rumination actually lead to useful problem solving. At the end of the week, determine what percentage of the times you ruminated it led to useful problem solving? Another great idea is to record the approximate number of minutes you were ruminating each time you notice it. Then you can determine how many minutes of rumination you did for each useful problem solving idea.
• Behaviorally Testing Your Thought - Example: Your thought is "I don't have time to take breaks." For a week (week 1), you could follow your usual routine and at the end of each day, rate your productivity on a 0-10 scale. For week 2, you could take a five minute break every 60 minutes and do the same ratings. You would then compare your productivity ratings across the two weeks.
• Evaluate the Evidence For/Against Your Thought - Example: Your thought is "I can never do anything right." You could write one column of objective evidence (column A) that supports the idea that you can never do anything right, and one column of objective evidence that your thought is not true (column B). Then, you'd write a couple of balanced thoughts that accurately reflect the evidence, for example: "I've made some mistakes that I feel embarrassed about but a lot of the time, I make good choices." You don't need to completely believe the new thoughts. For a start, just experiment with trying them on for size.
• Mindfulness Meditation - Mindfulness meditation involves picking a focus of attention, such as your breathing. For a set number of minutes, you focus on experiencing the sensations of your breathing, as opposed to thinking "about" your breathing.  Whenever any thoughts come into your mind, gently (and without self-criticism) bring your attention back to experiencing the sensations of your breathing. Mindfulness meditation isn't specifically a tool for cognitive restructuring but it's a great way to train yourself to be mindful (aware) of when you've become lost in thought. Mindful awareness of what thoughts you're having is an essential first step in cognitive restructuring.
• Self-Compassion - Self-compassion involves talking to yourself kindly whenever you have a sense of suffering. Like mindfulness meditation, self-compassion isn't specifically a tool for cognitive restructuring, but it has that effect. Example: you've done something silly and normally you'd call yourself a "stupid idiot." Instead you take a self-compassion approach. You acknowledge you've made a mistake, that you feel embarrassed, and that this is part of the universal human experience. Over time, if you replace self-criticism with self-compassion, your thoughts will change. As you do this, you might notice your thoughts about other people becoming kinder and more accepting too.

- More Here

Quote of the Day

The books we need are the kind that act upon us like a misfortune, that make us suffer like the death of someone we love more than ourselves, that make us feel as though we were on the verge of suicide, or lost in a forest remote from all human habitation—a book should serve as the ax for the frozen sea within us.

- Franz Kafka

Wisdom Of The Week

Last year while I was reading Susan Cain's brilliant book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, the theory of restorative niche made sense but I was able to live through it only this year.

“Restorative niche” is term for the place you go when you want to return to your true self. It can be a physical place, like the path beside the Richelieu River, or a temporal one, like the quiet breaks you plan between sales calls. It can mean canceling your social plans on the weekend before a big meeting at work, practicing yoga or meditation, or choosing e-mail over an in-person meeting. Acting out of character too long without restorative niches might lead to health and emotional issues. 

I had tooth ache, fever, cold within span of 3 weeks. I had forgotten about the power of restorative niche and kept running on that out of character treadmill. Last weekend, I forced myself to dwell in that niche and Voila! I bought back to life the person who lived for Max again. 

Quote of the Day

Don’t be afraid to be confused. Try to remain permanently confused. Anything is possible. Stay open, forever, so open it hurts, and then open up some more, until the day you die, world without end, amen.

- George Saunders and his new book is Tenth of December: Stories is his best ever!!

New Sensitivity Gene Discovered

Rising superstar Rachael Grazioplene and colleagues focused on the cholinergic system— a biological system crucially involved in neural plasticity and learning. Situations that activate the cholinergic system involve “expected uncertainty” such as going to a new country you’ve never been before and knowing that you’re going to face things you’ve never faced before. This stands in contrast to “unexpected uncertainty”, which occurs when your expectations are violated, such as thinking you're going to a Las Vegas family friendly Cirque Di Soleil only to realize you’ve actually gotten a ticket to an all-male dance revue called "Thunder from Down Under" (I have no idea where that example came from). Those sorts of experiences are more strongly related to the neurotransmitter norepinephrine.

Since the cholinergic system is most active in situations when a person can predict that learning is possible, this makes the system a prime candidate for the differential susceptibility effect. As the researchers note, unpredictable and novel environments could function as either threats or incentive rewards. When the significance of the environment is uncertain, both caution and exploration are adaptive. Therefore, traits relating to anxiety or curiosity should be influenced by cholinergic genetic variants, with developmental experiences determining whether individuals find expected uncertainty either more threatening or more promising.

To test their hypothesis, they focused on a polymorphism in the CHRNA4 gene, which builds a certain kind of neural receptor that the neurotransmitter binds to. These acetylcholine receptors are distributed throughout the brain, and are especially involved in the functioning of dopamine in the striatum. Genetic differences in the CHRNA4 gene seem to change the sensitivity of the brain's acetylcholine system because small structural changes in these receptors make acetylcholine binding more or less likely. Previous studies have shown associations between variation in the CHRNA4 gene and neuroticism as well as laboratory tests of attention and working memory.

Individuals with the T/T variation of the CHRNA4 gene who were maltreated showed higher levels of anxiety (Neuroticism) compared to those with the C allele of this gene. They appeared to be more likely to learn anxious and fearful responses to situations with higher levels of uncertainty. In contrast, those with the T/T allele who were not maltreated were low in anxiety (Neuroticism) and high in curiosity (Openness to Experience). What’s more, this effect was independent of age, race, and sex. These results suggest that under normal parenting environments, the T/T allele (which is much rarer in the general population than the C allele) may be beneficial, bringing out lower levels of anxiety and increased curiosity in response to situations containing expected uncertainty.

- More Here and don't forgot to read David Dobbs brilliant 2009 piece The Science of Success

Quote of the Day

Before you go to college, or send your child to a four-year school you better check their balance sheet. How much debt does the school have? How many administrators making more than $200,000 do they have? How much are they spending on building new buildings — none of which add value to your child's education, but as enrollments decline will force the school to increase their tuition and nail you with other costs. They just create a debtor university that risks going out of business.

There will be colleges and universities that fail, declare bankruptcy or have to re-capitalize much like the newspaper industry has and long before the class of 2018 graduates.

The smart high school grad no longer just picks a school, borrows money and wings it. Your future depends on your ability to assemble an educational plan that gets you on your path of knowledge and discovery without putting you at risk of attending a school that is doomed to fail , and/or saddling you with a debt heavy balance sheet that prevents you from taking the chances, searching for the opportunities or just being a fuck up for a while. We each take our own path, but nothing shortcuts the dreams of a 22 year old more than oweing a shitload of money.

- Mark Cuban

Thrun, Koller & Theil on On-line Education

- via MR

Quote of the Day

If we’re to avoid the most disastrous of foreseeable futures, we must use every means at our disposal to lower stress and boost the abundance and variety of life in the sea. It could just buy nature enough time for us to stabilize our own population, transition to energy sources other than fossil fuels, and to find ways of living within the limits of a finite planet. 

There are many ecological services that we cannot artificially re-create or which would simply be too expensive or impractical to engineer.

- The Ocean of Life: The Fate of Man and the Sea by Callum Roberts

How To Design A Presentation Like Apple

1. “The quality has to be carried all the way through. … High quality design is all-encompassing.” A good presentation has a clear message, a strong opening, compelling content, an appropriate balance between logic and emotion, good supporting material and a strong conclusion. And it all fits together tightly. Remove even one of these elements and you will end up with weaker product.

2. “[You] must truly understand what the product is, how it works and how it will benefit customers or society …” For every presentation that you give, you must be able to answer these two questions: (a) What is my key message? (b) Why should the audience care? The answers must be absolutely clear if you hope to deliver a presentation that is in any way meaningful for your audience.

3. “Good design is produced by people who are motivated by failures and optimistic about change.” Not every presentation goes as planned. Do you learn from such experiences? Do you seek feedback? Do you act on the feedback that you receive? If you present frequently on the same subject, do you regularly update and refine your presentation? Are you always looking for ways in which to improve?

4. “One of Steve Jobs’ most well-known mantras was ‘Focus and Simplicity’. … It’s harder to design something that is simply beautiful than it is to just stuff a product that is full of bells and whistles.” So many presentations fall short of the mark because the presenter tries to cover too many points and crams every slide with too much text. A good presenter is like a sculptor; she works to remove everything that is unnecessary and extraneous to the key message. A good presenter focuses with laser-like intensity on her key message. Everything in the presentation supports the key message in some way. A good presenter keeps things simple. Simple is good; simple is memorable; simple works.

5. “Product design isn’t meant to stick out like a sore thumb, but rather seamlessly integrate with a high quality product that people come to recognize as an extension of themselves.” If a presentation is well planned, well structured and well delivered, people might remember certain parts of it; however, and more importantly, they will remember the key message and why it is important for them. And, one hopes, they will act on it.

- More Here

Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds is one my favorite books in this genre.

Quote of the Day

Do not leave your reputation to chance or gossip; it is your life's artwork, and you must craft it, hone it, and display it with the care of an artist.

- Robert Greene, Art of Seduction