Diary Drawings: Mental Illness and Me

I first got to know about this book from a post on Brain Pickings and the illustrations just drew me right in, that I had to find out more about this amazing woman who drew them.

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Gottman’s Four Horsemen of Apocalypse

Found this in my old blog on blogger:
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1. Criticism:

Attacking your partner’s personality or character, usually with the intent of making someone right and someone wrong:

Generalizations: “you always…” “you never…”“you’re the type of person who …” “why are you so …”

2. Contempt:

Attacking your partner’s sense of self with the intention to insult or psychologically abuse him/her:

- Insults and name-calling: “bitch, bastard, wimp, fat, stupid, ugly, slob, lazy…”
- Hostile humor, sarcasm or mockery
- Body language & tone of voice: sneering, rolling your eyes, curling your upper lip

3. Defensiveness:

Seeing self as the victim, warding off a perceived attack:

- Making excuses (e.g., external circumstances beyond your control forced you to act in a certain way) “It’s not my fault…”, “I didn’t…”
- Cross-complaining: meeting your partner’s complaint, or criticism with a complaint of your own, ignoring what your partner said
- Disagreeing and then cross-complaining “That’s not true, you’re the one who …” “I did this because you did that…”
- Yes-butting: start off agreeing but end up disagreeing - Repeating yourself without paying attention to what the other person is saying - Whining “It’s not fair.”

4. Stonewalling:

Withdrawing from the relationship as a way to avoid conflict. Partners may think they are trying to be “neutral” but stonewalling conveys disapproval, icy distance, separation, disconnection, and/or smugness:
- Stony silence
- Monosyllabic mutterings
- Changing the subject
- Removing yourself physically
- Silent Treatment

Remedies:

- Learn to make specific complaints & requests (when X happened, I felt Y, I want Z)
- Conscious communication: Speaking the unarguable truth & listening generously
- Validate your partner (let your partner know what makes sense to you about what they are saying; let them know you understand what they are feeling, see through their eyes)
- Shift to appreciation (5 times as much positive feeling & interaction as negative) - Claim responsibility: “What can I learn from this?” & “What can I do about it?”
- Re-write your inner script (replace thoughts of righteous indignation or innocent victimization with thoughts of appreciation, responsibility that are soothing & validating)
- Practice getting undefended (allowing your partner’s utterances to be what they really are: just thoughts and puffs of air) and let go of the stories that you are making up

Source: © Bob & Marlene Neufeld and Mary Ann Carmichael, 2005; www.marleneandbob.com based on Gottman, John. 1994. Why Marriages Succeed or Fail

Brain gets high on all-nighters

A research finding show that those who pulled all-nighters tend to rate a series of pictures as more positive than those who had a normal dose of sleep. They tend to either feel more positive than usual, something that I really agree from personal experience. However, this heightened euphoria is short-lived and in the long run it is rather detrimental to normal functioning - especially in making good decisions.

Brain scans of the participants who pulled all-nighters showed heightened activity in the mesolimbic pathway, a brain circuit driven by dopamine, a neurotransmitter that regulates positive feelings, motivation, sex drive, addiction, cravings, and decision making.

While a short-term boost in dopamine levels may seem advantageous, it can be detrimental if people are making impulsive decisions because they’re feeling overly optimistic, Walker says.

As for a therapy for people who are clinically depressed, sleep deprivation is not a viable solution, according to Walker: “The elastic band of sleep deprivation can only be stretched so far before it breaks,” he says.

Read more at Futurity

5 Ways to Maximize Your Cognitive Potential

According to Kuszewski, your intelligence is trainable - here, the particular intelligence we’re talking about is the fluid intelligence, or your capacity to learn new information, as opposed to crystallized intelligence which is the volumes and chunks of knowledge one accumulates over time.

As people get older, fluid intelligence is often seen to decline. However with their accumulated experience and knowledge, crystallized intelligence is often observed to be higher in older people than the younger ones.

Kuszewski’s post is exciting as she talks about how, with given enough trainings and stimulations, fluid intelligence can be improved, no matter where your starting point is - i.e. no matter how old you are. 

These are 5 primary principles that will help you improve your fluid intelligence:

1. Seek Novelty  
2. Challenge Yourself  
3. Think Creatively  
4. Do Things The Hard Way  
5. Network

In summary, the point to note is that whatever keeps your brain stimulated and work hard is beneficial for your brain. This in effect, improves your fluid memory.

Read more about the post at Scientific American