KonMari: A Look At 'Decluttering Queen' Marie Kondo’s Tidy Mind

                                                           

 

                                    

The younger you start,the easier it will be. The young man in the video appears to be single and still living at home.Being a female, and married with children will take quite an effort but it can still be done.

Marie Kondo may be the biggest Japanese export since miso soup, but her wild international popularity is mysterious and no one, least of all the superstar herself, is convincingly able to explain it.

Since the English-language publication of her first book, a guide to keeping things tidy, she has achieved the kind of sales usually associated with teenage wizards and middle-class mum-porn. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying has spent more than a year on The New York Times bestseller list, and achieved similar status in Russia, France and Brazil. Kondo has drawn crowds in New York and San Francisco, Paris, Warsaw and Milan. But at the core of her books are ideas that, to most of her foreign readers at least, can only come across as utterly bizarre.
                                                              

“It’s when I explain that things have souls,” she says. “For Japanese people, that’s perfectly natural. In Japan, people feel that inanimate things are their equals. But people in Europe, for example, find it difficult to understand.”

Kondo’s books are not just about folding and packing and shelving and storing (although they include useful and original advice on all of these matters). They are about achieving an intimate personal relationship with the spirit immanent in your humblest possessions — and talking to them. “Dear old screwdriver,” begins a soliloquy in her new book.

 “I may not use you much, but when I need you, why, you’re a genius. Thanks to you, I put this shelf together in no time. You saved my fingernails, too. I would have ruined them if I had used them to turn the screws. And what a design! Strong, ­vigorous and cool to the touch, with a modern air that makes you really stand out.”

                                                                  

                                   

This, it becomes clear, is a dimension beyond Prince Charles-style mumbling to your pot plants. True disciples of Kondo thank their ­earrings, salute their jackets and high-five their handbags. No household item is too mundane to be the object of empathy and indulgence. “Have you ever had the experience where you thought that what you were doing was a good thing but later learnt that it hurt someone?” she asks in her first book, with the raw anguish of personal experience. “This is somewhat similar to the way many of us treat our socks.”

Even to find a publisher for this sort of stuff might be regarded as a lucky break, but The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying has gone a great deal further than that. It has been published in 21 countries, from Romania to Thailand, with 17 more in the pipeline; Arabic and Lithuanian are the newest languages to be added to the list, alongside Hebrew, Bulgarian and Vietnamese. The KonMari method, as it is known in ­Japanese, is brilliant, singular and bonkers, and it has sold 4.8 million copies around the world.

                                                               

Kondo’s name — often in the form of the hashtag #kondoed — has even entered the ­English language. Twitter users speak of ­kondoing their bedrooms, their email inboxes, even the excess apps on their iPhones.

I’d like to say that I knew Marie Kondo before she was famous, but that would be true only in a relative sense. The first time I met her, early last year, she was merely a bestseller in Japan, ­Germany and South Korea. I invited her to my Tokyo flat to perform an abbreviated version of the six-month-long, multi-session tidying consultations — a kind of psychotherapy for the home — that she has conducted over the years with hundreds of clients, and which served as the laboratory in which she developed her ideas.

Like all the best mental revolutions, it is disarmingly simple. Forget about finding the perfect drawers or cupboards. The first and most important step is simply to take your possessions, starting with clothes of the same type, tip them out on the floor, hold each one individually to the light and ask yourself, “Does this spark joy?” If joy is indeed kindled, the item must be retained, carefully assigned a place of storage, folded in the regulation Kondo style, and regularly and lavishly praised. Objects that fail to spark joy are to be thanked, stroked, apologised to and then ruthlessly consigned to the rubbish. The result, Kondo insists, is not only a tidier home, but a life enhanced.

                                                               

Kondo’s clients report profound consequences from the simple act of having uncluttered their homes. Some have lost weight, or finally walked out of dead-end jobs. Some have found the ­conviction to get married; others the strength to divorce. “If you feel anxious all the time but are not sure why, try putting your things in order,” Kondo writes in her new book, Spark Joy: An Illustrated Guide to the Japanese Art of Tidying. 

I enjoyed my brief encounter with Kondo — the underwear drawer on which she worked her magic remains the most orderly part of my home. I have no interest in conventional self-help, but I completely saw the point of her distinctive method and her observation that external clutter can be a symptom of inner unhappiness. But neither I, nor anyone else, imagined that, barely a year later, she would be ranked alongside Angela Merkel, Pope Francis and Kim Jong-un in Time’s list of the world’s 100 most influential people. And so I went to see Kondo again to try to work out who she is, and how on Earth all of this happened.

In Japan, people often become remoter and less interesting the more famous they become — and at first I feared this had happened to Kondo. Setting up our meeting required 39 emails, relayed from my office in Tokyo, through a ­publicist in London, an agent in New York, to a publisher in Tokyo — with the answers returning from Japan to Japan via the reverse route. 

I had assumed that since she had not only been to my flat but run her hands over my underwear, this time I could expect to visit Kondo’s place and have a nose around the home of the world’s tidiest person — but this, it was firmly explained, was out of the question. Having negotiated these obstacles and found my way to her office, however, Kondo was just as I remembered — sweet, self-deprecating, unpompous and faintly mysterious.

                                                                
The first thing that strikes you is how little of her there is. Even by local standards, she is elfin, almost childlike, in stature and build. She is 30 years old and, like many Japanese women, could pass for eight years younger. It is no ­surprise to find that she is neatly turned out, but there is a quality about her beyond mere tidiness, an air of deep restraint and conservatism. 

This immaculate exterior is all the more remarkable for the other transformation, apart from international bestsellerdom, that has come over Kondo. After marrying last year, in July she gave birth to a baby girl, Satsuki. “It’s a drastic change,” she says, “because my life is not my own any more. Until I had a daughter, my life was devoted to the work of tidying. I was totally focused on my work. So this way of life is quite new. Now my happiness is her, and looking after her, and watching her grow up.”

Kondo’s husband, Takumi Kawahara, was her university boyfriend, and now serves as her manager and photographer. Not surprisingly, she says, he is an orderly fellow; indeed, this seems to have been a central part of his attraction. “After we married, when we moved in together, he brought only five cardboard boxes with him.” Five boxes: in the Kondo universe, such asceticism is as thrilling as a rippling six-pack or a powerful sports car.

“It was a surprise,” she says of her huge ­international sales. “My publisher warned me that it’s rare for a Japanese bestseller to become a bestseller overseas, particularly in America. But it’s difficult to say what has changed, really.” What, after all, is a woman whose life is dedicated to uncluttering to spend her riches on? A new home — a humble-sounding two-bedroom apartment in central Tokyo.

The beginnings of all this can be precisely pinpointed to an afternoon in 2001, when Kondo was 16. She grew up in a middle-class home, the second of three children. Her father is a salaryman, her mother a housewife, and an avid reader of women’s magazines. By the age of five, Marie was already poring over them for their housekeeping techniques. “As far as everything else went — cleaning, washing, sewing — I could do it,” she says. “The only thing I couldn’t do was tidying up.” The failure became an obsession. “At school, while other kids were playing dodgeball or skipping,” she wrote, “I’d slip away to arrange the bookshelves in our classroom, or check the contents of the mop cupboard … I had begun to see my things and even my house as an adversary that I had to beat.”

One day, without warning or consultation, she threw out one of her father’s suits and her mother’s handbag. Her defence — that they were never used — went unheard: Marie’s tidying activities were banned. “I thought that tidying up meant throwing things out — I saw it only in negative terms,” she says. “That was what led to my nervous breakdown. One day, I came home from school. There was no one else at home. I still had my uniform on. I was already looking for something I could get rid of. I walked into my room with the rubbish bag in my hand. And I looked at my room, and felt that I wanted to throw out everything in it. That was the ­climax of my stress, and at that moment I ­collapsed unconscious.”

Two hours passed before young Marie came round. “I stood up and in my mind came the words, ‘Look at things more carefully.’ I don’t know if it was an actual voice, or a feeling that came from myself. I believe it was the god of tidying.” It came to her that she had been looking at things the wrong way round — rather than seeking out unneeded objects to throw out, she should be identifying the things she loved and wanted to keep. “That was the moment when I had my inspiration,” she said. “That was when the KonMari method was born.”

I can’t be alone in suspecting that there must be more to this story. For a 16-year-old girl to feel irritable about clutter in her bedroom is one thing, but to fall unconscious suggests much deeper unhappiness. “I can say that when I collapsed I was unhappy,” she agrees. “I didn’t like anything I had — the clothes, the odds and ends in my room.” But was she unhappy in other ways? “I don’t remember clearly, but I didn’t feel unhappy in relationships, including my parents and friends. I just wanted to tidy up.” Surely there must have been something else going wrong in her life, apart from mess? “I’d say that I had lost the balance in myself, balance of any kind, because all I was interested in was tidying up. I didn’t like any of my things. I thought about them in a mean way. That’s why I collapsed.”

A period of anguish. A moment of spiritual crisis and breakdown. 

Then rebirth, divine ­revelation and enlightenment. Even if this doesn’t make sense as a story about a teenager in her bedroom, it makes one thing clear — the ­KonMari method has as much to do with religion as it does with spring cleaning. As a young woman, Kondo served as an attendant “maiden” in a shrine dedicated to Shinto, the indigenous religion of Japan.

 Shinto has no scripture, no commandments, no code of ethics or system of philosophical speculation. Its deities are to be found in mountains, trees, rocks and man-made objects such as cooking stoves and individual grains of rice. Its rituals are concerned not with morality but with purification; the contrast between clean and unclean is as strong in Shinto as the dualism of right and wrong in other religions. Kondo’s white blouse, her love of cleansing hot springs, and her insistence on the souls of socks all derive from this source.

                                                                   

“Japan has many earthquakes,” Kondo says. “The earthquakes cause fires, and traditionally houses were all made of wood, which burnt so easily. In the past, many Japanese have had the experience of destruction in which they lost everything and had to rebuild from scratch. So I think that Japanese find it easier to get rid of things than Westerners do. They can accept that what they possess now will not be with them always, because that kind of thinking is part of their DNA.” Few of them will be aware of it, but the inhabitants of city lofts and suburban townhouses who excitedly kondo their closets are acting out a secular version of an ancient nature religion, rooted in thousands of years of catastrophic Japanese history.
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By Richard Lloyd Parry

With Many thanks to The Australian
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It Takes More Time To Change A Habit Than You Think

                                                                    

An unconscious crack of the knuckles, an automatic grab for the salt shaker, a seemingly innocuous eye roll in front of the boss. Bad habits are way too easy to come by and, despite whatever quick-remedy self-help cure-all is blowing up the Internet this week, often way too hard to break.

Whether it's that innocent flip of the hair or something much more insidious, behaviors learned over time — and reinforced time and time again — mostly can't be changed in a couple weeks. That was the major takeaway of a study done in 2009, the results of which appeared in the European Journal of Social Psychology.

Certainly, bad habits can be changed. That's the good news. People stop smoking, give up chocolate, get off the couch to start exercising and stop torturing their poor knuckles all the time. Good habits can be formed to replace bad ones, too. In fact, switching out nasty for nice is something scientists and psychologists have been preaching for years.

But changing a lifetime of cola-guzzling, for just an example, in a couple weeks? In 21 days?

Well, it's possible. Maybe. But you'd better plan for it to take a lot longer than that.

"I think that's one of the biggest problems, when people think they can do anything in three weeks," Amy Morin, a psychotherapist, clinical social worker and author of "13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do," told MNN. "I think that can set us up for failure."

Number 13 on Morin's list — which first appeared as a blog post on lifehack.org, then went practically viral in other places, with more than 10 million total views — is especially pertinent when it comes to breaking bad habits. Mentally strong people, Morin insists at the bottom of her list, don't expect immediate results.

"When you think about it, even from a logical level, it makes no sense," Morin said of the 21 days to a miracle movement. "We really like our habits. [Breaking them] requires a lot of hard work. I think we underestimate how hard it's going to be. And we overestimate our abilities [to break the habits]."

The paper in the European Journal of Social Psychology studied the length of time it took participants in a study to replace bad habits with good ones. The fastest was an astonishing 18 days. But the average time to change, among the participants who self-reported their results, was not three weeks but closer to three months (66 days). The high end of the spectrum, for replacing bad with good, was a whopping 254 days.

So someone expecting to change a life habit in 21 days — no matter how motivated that someone might be, or who that someone might be — is probably expecting a little too much. Still, huge numbers of books (just check out this Amazon list) all but promise that it can be done in 21 days or so by following a few easy steps. And, of course, by shelling out a few bucks for the book. Plus shipping and handling.

"The more you do it," Patricia A. Farrell, PhD, a clinical psychologist in Englewood, New Jersey, and author of "How to Be your Own Therapist," told WebMD, "the more difficult it is to get rid if it."

It's hard to pinpoint where the idea that it takes just 21 days to kick a bad habit began. Many cite a 1960 work from a plastic surgeon, Dr. Maxwell Maltz, who is regarded as a pioneer in the self-help book industry. His book, "Psycho-Cybernetics: A New Way to Get More Living Out of Life," centers on improving a person's self-image. Some of his advice for breaking bad habits: "To change a habit, make a conscious decision," he said, "then act out the new behavior."

Ahhh, if only it were that simple.

A lot of psychological and biological reasons exist to explain why it's so difficult to lose a bad habit. One important one: Some of our most enjoyable or satisfying actions (say, reaching for the salt or pulling off that oh-so-sweet crack of the knuckles) trigger the production of dopamine in the brain. Dopamine is present when we do it over and over again, creating the habit, Dr. Russell Poldrack, a neurobiologist at the University of Texas at Austin, says in this National Institute of Health feature. And dopamine creates a craving to repeat the behavior. Again and again and again.

So even when the behavior itself does not provide the satisfaction we crave — that salt just isn't making those fries taste any better, and that knuckle-crack was just okay — the body is telling you to keep going for it anyway.

It's important to keep in mind, as experts everywhere will tell you, that kicking a habit, even the nastiest of habits, is doable. Whole books — heck, whole libraries — are available to explain the steps that must be taken to break a bad habit and keep it broken. First off: acknowledging that there is a bad habit. Writing down your goals.  And "put your gym shoes where the remote is," Morin suggests for a start to kicking that TV addiction and getting in shape.

The better news is that trashing those bad habits and replacing them with good ones can be absolutely transformational. Even if it might take a little more than three weeks to do it.
By John Donovan

With thanks to MNN

Andrew Jobling: I'm Scared, You're Scared, We Are All Scared!

                                                                     

Have you ever looked at another person and thought to yourself, ‘I wish I had the same confidence and courage they have … why aren’t they scared like I am?’ Well, I’m about to let you in on a little secret about that seemingly ‘confident & courageous’ person … in fact about all (apparently) fearless people. They are just as scared as you are! The only difference is … they don’t let the fear stop them!

The only people that aren’t scared – yet – are babies. 

They are not scared about waking up the household or the neighbours at 2am. They are not scared about screeching until they get what they want … no matter how long it takes! They are not scared about what others will say if they poop their pants! They are not scared about failing when they try something new, like walking. They are not scared about fitting in socially. They are not scared about hurting themselves. They are not scared about losing their favourite dummy! Babies just inherently believe they will get whatever they want … but then what happens? 

They grow up!! They start to understand the conversations going on with them and around them. They begin to be influenced by their environment. They start to hear words & statements like; ‘no’, ‘you can’t’, don’t hurt yourself’, ‘that’s dangerous’, ‘be careful’, ‘you’ll never be able to …’ and so on. They begin to be influenced by TV, radio and media. They start to find out about crime, violence, death, failure, disappointment and fear.

Guess what happens next? This naïve little baby, who started out in life with an innocent belief that everything will be okay, starts getting poisoned & polluted by the environment.

This child, through observing the insecurities & fears of parents, siblings, family members, friends and the community starts to inherit fear. Over time and automatically, for no good reason at all, this child starts to become scared of … many things! This baby is you and every person on the planet!

Why are we so scared?!
There you have it … we are all scaredy cats!! We are all afraid of things we have no control over. We are all scared of things for, really, no good reason. We are all scared of things that we don’t even understand. I took my ferocious hounds out for a walk this morning … actually they are cute and fluffy and weight 12kg between them! I had to wonder why the small boy, I just walked passed, was so terrifed of them, even though they are clearly cute, friendly, harmless and were on a leash!

I, myself, am a classic, and totally unfounded, scaredy-cat … just like you! I am scared of what others will think about me … why, when I am actually a good person? Why do I care anyway? I am scared of making cold calls, yet I have never had a bad experience … apart from a ‘no’. I am scared of failing in business, when I have already had so much success. My fear is totally illogical … so is yours!

The first step to overcoming fear is to acknowledge it … simply accept that there are things you are scared of and that’s okay! Secondly understand and believe that fear is not just reserved for you, it is felt by every single person on the planet! Doesn’t that make you feel better? It sure did for me. When I realised that everyone else, no matter how confident, polished or fearless they seemed are scared about certain things, it made me feel better about myself. Now for the key to moving forward in your life and achieving the things you want …
 
Be scared, but act anyway!
It is common to look at successful or courageous people and wonder how they overcome fear. They don’t! They are just as scared as you and I, but they do what scares them anyway. I love this quote by writer Ambrose Redmoon; ‘Courage is not the the absense of fear, but rather the judgement that something is more important than fear!’

Do you get that? We are all scared, but that fear will only stop you if you don’t have a reason more important than that fear. Is the achievement of your goal more important than your fear of other peoples opinions? Is your desire to be successful in your business more important than the fear of picking up the phone?  Is finishing your book more important than the fear that no-one will read it? Is the feeling of success in the long term more important than succumbing to your fear right now? 

Ask yourself what is a stronger motivator ... the fear of short term discomfort or the fear of regret about not achieving your long term dreams? 

The answer to this question will determine how your life turns out.

 My advice this week is ... be a scaredy cat and do it anyway!!

With many thanks to Andrew Jobling.

Thanks to George or sending me this.

Top picture: 'The Scream' - A Painting by Edvard Munch

                                                                       

Why Chocolate Really Is The Secret To Happiness

                                                                     

Sadly I am not a "chocoholic" but I know many people who are.

Money may not buy happiness or grow on trees but when it comes to chocolate, it seems you can have both. Chocolate really does grow on trees and the chemical feel-good factor comes from the world’s most widely consumed psychoactive drug.

The Theobroma cacao is an evergreen that is native to tropical regions of the American continent and its seeds or beans are the source of the 4m metric tonnes of chocolate produced each year, and much of it from countries like the Ivory Coast and Indonesia.

Chocolate consumption goes back at least 4,000 years, to the peoples of present day Mexico: the Mayans, Aztecs and their predecessors, the Olmec. Just as today, they roasted the fermented seeds from cocoa pods, grinding the roast to a powder which they used to make a chocolate beverage, a cold, foaming drink that was very different to the substance we consume today. Sometimes they added honey to sweeten it and the Aztecs also added chili-pepper to give the phrase “hot chocolate” a whole new meaning.

Two thousand years ago the Mayan people, of what is now known as Guatemala, even came up with the original “chocolate teapot”, a ceramic vessel used to pour the foaming drink and archaeologists have found evidence that chocolate drinks were served up at the celebrations after the interment of sacrificial victims (though I’m not sure that the condemned would have been made any happier with a bar of chocolate).

Montezuma’s secret

The last Aztec emperor Montezuma II consumed a lot of this drink every day, and it was hinted that this enhanced his virility. No wonder the Spaniards were interested. Of course, it was the Spaniards who brought this wonder drink back to Europe, but adding sugar and spices like cinnamon and vanilla, another import from the Americas, transformed it into the much sweeter drink we have now. Chocolate drinking became the thing to do in fashionable society.

Less than 200 years ago, the invention of the chocolate press by Casparus van Houten senior made it possible to separate roasted cocoa beans into cocoa butter and a solid that could be made into cocoa powder. This powder could be recombined with sugar and cocoa butter to produce an eating chocolate, and in 1847 the Bristol Quaker firm of Fry’s, closely followed by Cadbury’s in Birmingham, made the first chocolate bar. The Swiss came up with milk chocolate bars in the 1870s, and to this day Switzerland and Britain are two of the top nations for chocolate consumption. Chocolate Easter Eggs were invented in the 1870s, and we haven’t looked back since.

Chemical sensations

The taste of chocolate comes from a mixture of chemicals, many resulting from the roasting process, in which sugars and amino acids combine, forming members of a family of molecules called pyrazines, which contribute the nutty, roasted and chocolately sensations.

But what about the “feel-good” side of chocolate? For a start, there is the world’s most widely consumed psychoactive drug: 1, 3, 7-trimethylxanthine by name. You may have heard of it: we call it caffeine. It works by counteracting the natural neurotransmitter adenosine, resulting in an increase in heart-rate and muscle contraction. There is also a significant presence of theobromine in chocolate, a similar stimulant which also happens to be the molecule that makes chocolate poisonous to dogs. Then there is serotonin, a natural neurotransmitter which controls many functions in the brain, including mood and behaviour. The body makes it from the natural amino acid tryptophan and chocolate contains both serotonin and tryptophan.

Another chocolate molecule believed to be important was discovered less than 20 years ago: anandamide. This binds to receptors in the brain known as cannabinoid receptors. These receptors were originally found to be sensitive to the most important psychoactive molecule in cannabis, Δ9-THC. Likewise, anandamide and similar molecules found in chocolate are also thought to affect mood.

Phenylethylamine, another family of chemicals, is found in chocolate in very small amounts. It is a naturally occurring substance with a structure that is closely related to synthetic amphetamines, which of course, are also stimulants. It is often said that our brain produces phenylethylamine when we fall in love, and it acts by producing endorphins, the brain’s natural “feel-good” molecules. The bad news, however, is that eating chocolate is probably not the best way of getting our hands on phenylethylamine as enzymes in our liver degrade it before it can reach the brain.

There are yet more other molecules in chocolate – especially in dark chocolate – like flavonoids, which some scientists think may help improve cardiovascular health (but chocolate manufacturers have been known to remove bitter flavanols from dark chocolate).
There is one feel-good factor I’ve not mentioned, which isn’t a molecule – the melt-in-your mouth sensation. The fatty triglycerides in cocoa butter can stack together in six different ways, each resulting in a different melting point. Only one of these forms has the right melting point of about 34 degrees, so that it “melts in your mouth, not in your hand”. Getting the chocolate to crystallise to give this form is a very skillful process, the product of very careful chocolate engineering.

There is still much yet to know about chocolate and some are now even sequencing the genome of cultivated cacao. But the continuing intricacies in chocolate and cacao that we are discovering through science can only add to the very simple human pleasure of breaking off a piece and popping it in our mouths.

With thanks to The Conversation

Further reading: Chocolate could PREVENT obesity: Scientists say antioxidant in cocoa stops weight gain and lowers blood sugar

This post is for Annie who loves chocolate, especially Tim Tam biscuits! 

“My therapist told me the way to achieve true inner peace is to finish what I start. So far today, I have finished 2 bags of M&M’s and a chocolate cake. I feel better already.” —Dave Barry

Why Do We Dream?

                                                               

                                                                                                                                          

We all have them. Some are good others not so much.But it seems it is hard to ascertain why we have them and what they mean.

by Charles W. Bryant
The human brain is a mysterious little ball of gray matter. After all these years, researchers are still baffled by many aspects of how and why it operates like it does. Scientists have been performing sleep and dream studies for decades now, and we still aren't 100 percent sure about the function of sleep, or exactly how and why we dream. We do know that our dream cycle is typically most abundant and best remembered during the REM stage of sleep.

 It's also pretty commonly accepted among the scientific community that we all dream, though the frequency in which dreams are remembered varies from person to person.

The question of whether dreams actually have a physiological, biological or psychological function has yet to be answered. But that hasn't stopped scientists from researching and speculating. 

There are several theories as to why we dream. One is that dreams work hand in hand with sleep to help the brain sort through everything it collects during the waking hours. Your brain is met with hundreds of thousands, if not millions of inputs each day. Some are minor sensory details like the color of a passing car, while others are far more complex, like the big presentation you're putting together for your job. 

During sleep, the brain works to plow through all of this information to decide what to hang on to and what to forget. Some researchers feel like dreams play a role in this process.

It's not just a stab in the dark though -- there is some research to back up the ideas that dreams are tied to how we form memories. Studies indicate that as we're learning new things in our waking hours, dreams increase while we sleep. Participants in a dream study who were taking a language course showed more dream activity than those who were not. In light of such studies, the idea that we use our dreams to sort through and convert short-term memories into long-term memories has gained some momentum in recent years.

Another theory is that dreams typically reflect our emotions. During the day, our brains are working hard to make connections to achieve certain functions. When posed with a tough math problem, your brain is incredibly focused on that one thing. And the brain doesn't only serve mental functions. If you're building a bench, your brain is focused on making the right connections to allow your hands to work in concert with a saw and some wood to make an exact cut. The same goes for simple tasks like hitting a nail with a hammer. 

Have you ever lost focus and smashed your finger because your mind was elsewhere?

Some have proposed that at night everything slows down. We aren't required to focus on anything during sleep, so our brains make very loose connections. It's during sleep that the emotions of the day battle it out in our dream cycle. If something is weighing heavily on your mind during the day, chances are you might dream about it either specifically, or through obvious imagery. 

For instance, if you're worried about losing your job to company downsizing, you may dream you're a shrunken person living in a world of giants, or you're wandering aimlessly through a great desert abyss.

There's also a theory, definitely the least intriguing of the bunch, that dreams don't really serve any function at all, that they're just a pointless byproduct of the brain firing while we slumber. 

We know that the rear portion of our brain gets pretty active during REM sleep, when most dreaming occurs. Some think that it's just the brain winding down for the night and that dreams are random and meaningless firings of the brain that we don't have when we're awake. 

The truth is, as long as the brain remains such a mystery, we probably won't be able to pinpoint with absolute certainty exactly why we dream.

With thanks to How Stuff Works

Picture Credit: Huffington Post and more “Recurring Dreams:Your Dreams Are Trying to Tell You Something. Lots more information there.

See also

A day in the life of dreams

SWEET dreams are made of leaves. Who am I to dis a tree? That is at least one conclusion of a study into how sounds influence sleep, which found that those who listened to a recording of the rustling of a breeze through trees were likelier to have pleasant dreams. 

The same was true when they listened to a relaxing beachscape. Conversely, those whose unconscious mind heard a jarring cityscape reported more bizarre and disjointed dreams.

The results came after 500,000 people downloaded an iPhone app called Dream:ON that is primed to play different music for the final phase of sleep. Placed under the pillow, it uses motion sensors to play the music while users are dreaming.

They are asked to write down their dreams when they wake up, and have produced more than a million such reports.

One thousand of the most coherent were selected and compared with placebo reports where no music was played.

Richard Wiseman, of the University of Hertfordshire, who conducted the study, said: “One of our most regular dreams is having an imaginary affair with George Clooney.”

He cited an indisputably happy dream. “The two of them first met when George asked if she would like to go for a walk with his imaginary giraffe.”

From the Australian

Managing Stress: A Simple and Effective Exercise

                                                                

By Jo Williams

Stressed?  I am!

Suffer from stress?  I do!

But what to do, what to do???

There are many things that you can do but sometimes we find that the list and options in themselves can be the one thing that we actually find stressful, therefore we avoid the thing or things that we know will bring us peace.

It’s OK, calm down.  Take a deep breath and relax. 

 You are your authority in life not me, not the television or someone you have only just met.  YOU, it’s always you, and you need to trust you.


First, write down 5 things you love doing that you know will help you manage your stress.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Now, write down 5 things that you know won’t help you manage your stress.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Now ask yourself for 5 things that you know you are currently doing that you shouldn’t be doing that are causing you stress.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Well done! 

These tools, although simple are the first steps to you regaining control and controlling your stress.  We all lead busy lives and some of us have better ways of dealing with stress than others but self preservation is the key and to begin is very easy.

So, stop what you are doing, take a deep breath and relax, as you have brought this to you, you may as well do the steps being asked of you.  Give yourself a few minutes is all you have to do!  Then ‘poof’ like a puff of smoke everything seems new !

  Jo Williams, Life’s Answers From Within, 2013 - see link on blog roll.
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With many thanks to Jo Williams.

Picture credit: Psychology 101: Ways to Manage Stress

According to Scientists, This Is The most Relaxing Song Of All Time

                                                                   

                                                                         

  

                                                                     
                                                               

This eight minute song is a beautiful combination of arranged harmonies, rhythms and bass lines and thus helps to slow the heart rate, reduce blood pressure and lower levels of the stress. The song features guitar, piano and electronic samples of natural soundscapes.

A study was conducted on 40 women, who were connected to sensors and had been given challenging puzzles to complete against the clock in order to induce a level of stress. Different songs were then played, to test their heart rate, blood pressure, breathing and brain activity.

The results showed that the song Weightless was 11 per cent more relaxing than any other song and even caused drowsiness among women in the lab. 

It induced a 65 per cent reduction in overall anxiety and brought them to a level 35 per cent lower than their usual resting rates. 

Moreover, sound therapies have been used for thousands of years to help people relax and improve health and well-being. Among indigenous cultures, music has been the heart of healing and worship. The song, weightless is ideal for unwinding and putting an end to a stressful day.

According to Dr David Lewis-Hodgson, from Mindlab International, which conducted the research, this song induced the greatest relaxation, higher than any other music tested till date. In accordance to the Brain imaging studies, music works at a very deep level within the brain, stimulating not only those regions responsible for processing sound but also ones associated with emotions. 

The song Weightless can make one drowsy and hence should not be heard while driving.

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With thanks to Daily Health Post

From You Tube:

It slows your breathing and reduces brain activity to such an extent that Weightless, written by Manchester band Marconi Union, is said to be the 'most relaxing song ever'.

The eight-minute track is so effective at inducing sleep, motorists have now been warned they should not listen to it whilst driving.

The band worked with sound therapists to get advice on how to make the most effective use of harmonies, rhythms and bass lines. The result on listeners is a slowing of the heart rate, reduced blood pressure and lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol." (Daily Mail, David Gerges)

Marconi Union are a British musical trio Richard Talbot, Jamie Crossley and Duncan Meadows, with strong links to the Manchester based DOTCA arts collective. Their music incorporates elements of electronica, ambient, jazz and dub.