lowleveljetstream - Filed under 'Psychology'

I Love Yard Work

In the North East, this was the weekend when all the family got out in to the yard and started preparing for Spring.

Images of picket fences and happy families were everywhere. The excitement of Spring was palpable.

When asking people this morning about their weekend, I heard the familiar excitement of - I did yard work this weekend.

What's interesting to me is how many people in advertising love yard work for the simple fact that it gives them the feeling of accomplishment. You take on a challenge and see the results of doing stuff. "I just love doing stuff" was one person's response to me this morning. I remember a former boss of mine in the UK who used to say, 'I insist on doing the vacuuming in the home because that's the only thing that I can say I achieved each week'.

Our industry is filled with meetings, conference calls, thinking, conversations, pontifications and it seems little to no doing stuff.

Surely we should be finding ways to get that sense of accomplishment found in the garden and bring it in to our daily work.
It seems like our psyche's need it and clients keep demanding it.

Try to head home today with the excitement of having done something - or clean your desk, so at least you feel you've done something.

Filed under // Psychology performance work

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Children of Bigger Gut

This is the second post on the effect of sleep deprivation on children and focuses on obesity.

This is really the story of one scientist who just didn't believe what was apparently gospel about children getting fat because of sedentary behavior - especially related to television viewing.

Dr. Elizabeth Vandewater at the University of Texas at Austin took on the challenge to prove that lack of exercise was not the cause of obesity. First, she found that obese children watch no more television than kids who aren't obese. Then she found that children only watch seven minutes more TV today than they did in the 1970's and while video games and internet surfing take up an additional 30 minutes on average on top of TV viewing, obesity appeared in the 1980's well before video gaming and internet usage occupied children's lives. She concluded that there was another cause.

Her proof of lazy science led to an effort to find the cause and it was Dr. Eve Van Cauter who discovered a 'neuroendocrine cascade,' which links sleep to obesity. "Sleep loss increases the hormone ghrelin, which signals hunger, and decreases its metabolic opposite, leptin, which suppresses appetite. Sleep loss also elevates the stress hormone cortisol. Cortisol is lipogenic, meaning it stimulates your body to make fat. Human growth hormone is also disrupted. Normally secreted as a single big pulse at the beginning of sleep, growth hormone is essential for the breakdown of fat."

In light of this discovery, sleep scientists have performed a number of analyses on large datasets of children. All the studies point in the same direction: on average, children who sleep less are fatter than children who sleep more. This inspired other countries to engage in the debate and studies in Japan (first graders), Canada (Kindergarten boys) and Australia (young boys) have concluded that children who get less than 8 hours sleep have a 300% higher rate of obesity than those who get a full ten hours of sleep. Research in Houston among middle schoolers and high schoolers showed that the odds of obesity went up 80% for each hour of lost sleep.

Van Cauter went on to discover that the stage of 'slow-wave sleep' is especially critical to proper insulin sensitivity and glucose tolerance. I will not go in to more detail on this other than to say that children spend over 40% of their sleep time in the 'slow-wave sleep' state, much more than adults and perhaps this an explanation for why obesity is much stronger in children than in adults.

So ironically what Vandewater and Cauter have discovered is that contrary to what was believed about exercise being a key driver against obesity. In fact children should spend more time doing the most sedentary inactivity possible - sleep.

This proves to me that those who challenge current belief systems are the ones who can change our future. It's disruptive and at times annoying but thank goodness for their challenging nature. Here's to the disbelievers.

Studies sourced: Vandewater, Elizabeth, "Media Use and Children's Health," Paper presented at the Population Association Annual Meeting, NYC.

Van Canter, Eve, Kristen Knutson, Rachel Leproult, and Karine Spiegel, "The Impact of Sleep Deprivation on Hormones and Metabolism," Medscape Neurology & Neurosurgery, Vol. 7

Filed under // Psychology Thought leadership health science

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Children of a Lesser Brain

I've just been reading some interesting studies on sleep deprivation in relation to children and the findings are astounding.

This is one of two posts. The first focuses on the brain and the second, on obesity.

Children - from elementary school through high school - are on average getting 1 hour less sleep today than they did 30 years ago and it's having its toll on their ability to do well in school but also potentially has much to do with the terrible teen syndrome.

Let's start by looking at the effect on children's ability. Dr. Avi Sadeh at Tel Aviv University did a test with 4th graders and 6th graders and found that by depriving the 6th graders of 1 hour's sleep per night for three nights, their performance level descended to a level of a normal 4th grader. In other words, a loss of one hour of sleep is equivalent to the loss of two years of cognitive maturation and development.

With the use of fMRI, Sadeh's findings can be further substantiated. Dr. Matthew Walker at UC Berkeley explains the neurobiological functioning based on sleep deprivation.

"Tired children can't remember what they just learned because neurons lose their plasticity, becoming incapable of forming new synaptic connections necessary to encode a memory." He goes on to explain "During sleep, the brain shifts what it learned that day to more efficient storage regions of the brain. Each stage of sleep plays it own unique role in capturing memories. For example studying a foreign language requires learning vocabulary, auditory memory of new sounds, and motor skills to correctly enunciate the new word. The vocabulary is synthesized by the hippocampus early in the night during 'slow-wave sleep,' a deep slumber without dreams. The motor skills of enunciation are processed during stage 2 non-REM sleep, and the auditory memories are encoded across all stages. Memories that are emotionally laden get processed during REM sleep. The more you learned during the day, the more you need to sleep that night.

"To reconsolidate these memories, certain genes appear to upregulate during sleep - they literally turn on, or get activated. One of these genes is essential for synaptic plasticity, the strengthening of neural connections. The brain does synthesize some memories during the day, but they're enhanced and concretized during the night - new inferences and associations are drawn, leading to insights the next day."

Being loose on the discipline around sleep is like being loose on the discipline around drugs and alcohol. All three are harmful. Not forcing your children to get enough sleep is equivalent to depriving them of learning. This will be a significant hurdle for them in their future growth and opportunities. According to a study from Rhode Island, 94% of high schoolers set their own bedtimes. Maybe this is not such a good idea.

Looking in to brain functioning further reveals another interesting fact. Have you found that when you lack sleep, you start to go in to a more negative space in your head? You start doubting and start getting in to a bad insecure space? OK, this might just be me but at least thanks to Dr. Walker I understand what's happening. Emotional context of a memory affects where it gets processed. Negative stimuli gets processed by the amygdala; positive or neutral memories gets processed by the hippocampus. Sleep deprivation hits the hippocampus harder than the amygdala. The result is that sleep-deprived people fail to recall pleasant memories, yet recall gloomy memories just fine.

In Dr. Walker's tests, he found that sleep deprived kids could remember 81% of the words with a negative connotation, like cancer. But they could remember only 31% of the words with a positive or neutral connotation like 'sunshine' or 'basket'.

What does this all mean? Kids apparently are over extended, which is depriving them of sleep. While they may touch more subjects, play more sports and experiment with more extra-curricula activities, their brains are not computing and therefore their cognitive abilities are not able to keep up. We are producing children of a lesser brain.

Oh and don't forget that second tidbit about negativity. While not proven as yet, there's a strong belief that sleep deprivation is causing children's moodiness, depression, and even binge eating. Forcing them to get more sleep may make for a more pleasant household.

Studies sourced: Avi Sadeh, Reut Gruber, and Amiram Raviv, "The Effects of sleep Restriction and Extension on School-Age Children: What a Difference an Hour Makes" Child Development, Vol. 74.

Walker, Matthew P., and Robert Stickgold, "Sleep-Dependant Learning and Memory Consolidation." Neuron, Vol. 44

Walker, Matthew P., and Robert Stickgold, "Sleep, Memory & Plasticity," Annual Review of Psychology, Vol. 57.

Filed under // Psychology Thought leadership health science

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Unleash the Drive

via vancouver2010.com

The second article in relation to sport is in today's wsj.

It talks about the maverick nature of the US Olympians.

For me there are two interesting aspects to this article. The first is covered in the extract below, which talks to getting out of the way once a purpose has been defined by the athlete. This is completely in line with my post on Motivation 3.0.

"Then comes the hard part, that long slog between gifted youngster and grizzled medal contender. The USOC must recognize that its goal isn't to churn out merely competent athletes by the dozens, but to identify and nurture a few full-blown geniuses. And geniuses often march to the beat of their own drums. Early in his career, for example, Mr. Miller was the first to use shaped skis, while his coaches dismissed them as a gimmick for recreational skiers. And Ms. Vonn, at the urging of her husband, defied conventional wisdom and became the first woman to race—and win—on stiffer, longer men's skis.

"An American version of "Own the Podium" might look like a cross between a school voucher program and venture-capital funding. The USOC and the individual sports federations should offer seed money to the most promising young athletes, and then have the foresight to step back and allow them maximum freedom to think—and train—outside the box. If there's a lesson to be learned from this magical Olympiad, it's that the only thing more important than discovering prodigious talent may be having the good sense to stay out of its way."

The second aspect is about what level of financial support makes sense. How do we understand the delta between financial support that's enough to aid but not too much to get too comfortable and less driven. The article talks about Team Canada's "Own the Podium" program which as of Friday has only delivered them 17 medals. 7 short of their Torino performance. This program has provided $105.6 Million to their Olympic team versus America's $58.2 Million.

The US Olympians have had to be scrappy to get funding. Take the American speedskaters who lost their sponsor to bankruptcy - DSB Bank - and turned to Stephen Colbert to raise $300,000 for the team. Or Shannon Bahrke, bronze-medal mogul skier, who started her own coffee line to support her training.

The truth is no one remembers silver or bronze winners, so gold has to be the goal for all these athletes. Once you have gold, you go into overdrive to become a recognized face to ensure future sponsorship and perhaps an easier journey to the next Olympics.

It's all hard work but based on the comparison with Canada, hard work pays off in more ways than just financing. It creates a drive in all the things you do.

Full article here http://bit.ly/deuUqY

Filed under // Psychology Thought leadership sports

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Touch Improves Performance

Two interesting articles came out this week related to sport.

The first is this one that comes from the NYTimes, which covers all aspects of touch but focuses in this week's news that a couple of researchers at Berkeley were studying basketball teams and concluded that the ones that touched the most were the Boston Celtics and LA Lakers. Two teams at the top of their game right now.

More research needs to take place but you can pretty much guarantee that there's going to be a lot more touching going on in all team sports based on this analysis.

Here's an extract from the NYTimes for those who don't have the time to read the whole article:

"To see whether a rich vocabulary of supportive touch is in fact related to performance, scientists at Berkeley recently analyzed interactions in one of the most physically expressive arenas on earth: professional basketball. Michael W. Kraus led a research team that coded every bump, hug and high five in a single game played by each team in the National Basketball Association early last season.

"In a paper due out this year in the journal Emotion, Mr. Kraus and his co-authors, Cassy Huang and Dr. Keltner, report that with a few exceptions, good teams tended to be touchier than bad ones. The most touch-bonded teams were the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers, currently two of the league’s top teams; at the bottom were the mediocre Sacramento Kings and Charlotte Bobcats.

"The same was true, more or less, for players. The touchiest player was Kevin Garnett, the Celtics’ star big man, followed by star forwards Chris Bosh of the Toronto Raptors and Carlos Boozer of the Utah Jazz. “Within 600 milliseconds of shooting a free throw, Garnett has reached out and touched four guys,” Dr. Keltner said."

Full article can be found here http://nyti.ms/dwPFRi

When I first came to the States, I was shocked at how touch was non-existent in the work place. Political correctness or a cultural aspect of the US has created a non-touch environment in work. This is not the same in other places I've worked like the obvious ones - Spain and France - and the less obvious one I'm sure to many - the UK. Britain was big on touch in the office environment when I left over 10 years ago. I hope it hasn't lost that surprising side of its character. I strongly believe in what the research has shown.

Bottom line is that touch is what we all seek and need unless of course if you are Glenn Gould. There are of course limits but let's experiment this side of the limits rather than at the other extreme.

Filed under // Psychology performance sports

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Loneliness is Contagious

Check out this article in the Economist http://bit.ly/55hPvQ

While there are many studies that show that loneliness is a serious health hazard, this article speaks to a new study on the contagious nature of loneliness.

A study by the University of Chicago showed that those who had immediate contact with lonely people were around 50% more likely than average to feel lonely themselves.

These effects spread as far as three degrees of separation.

Filed under // Psychology

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Mass Mingling

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via trendwatching.com

Trendwatching's 10 Crucial Consumer Trends for 2010 has some great stuff in it. http://bit.ly/60iOYv

What I particularly liked was their 5th trend on Mass Mingling.

I did a pro bono project for the LA Library system a few years ago and did a study on why people go to places like Starbucks to work when they could just work at home. It wasn't like they talked to anybody else while they were there. Luckily I came across Vilayanur S. Ramachandran's study on mirror neurons that showed that at an unconscious level, the brain connects to others. After further study, I found that not only does the brain connect to others at the subconscious level but actually hungers for it.

So what I love about the Mass Mingling trend is a sign that perhaps our mirror neurons are driving conscious behavior or that technology has closed the delta between our unconscious and conscious desires. Either way the future looks bright.

Here's the extract on Mass Mingling from Trendwatching.

MASS MINGLING

More people than ever will be living large parts of their lives online in 2010. Yet, those same people will also mingle, meet up, and congregate more often with other ‘warm bodies’ in the offline world.
In fact, social media and mobile communications are fueling a MASS MINGLING that defies virtually every cliché about diminished human interaction in our ‘online era’.

So, forget (for now) a future in which the majority of consumers lose themselves in virtual worlds. Ironically the same technology that was once seen to be—and condemned for—turning entire generations into homebound gaming zombies and avatars, is now deployed to get people out of their homes.

Basically, the more people can get their hands on the right info, at home and on the go; the more they date and network and twitter and socialize online, the more likely they are to eventually meet up with friends and followers in the real world. Why? Because people actually enjoy interacting with other warm bodies, and will do so forever. A list of MASS MINGLING facts and drivers:

* Social media is all about other people to begin with.
From a recent Pew report: "When we examine people’s full personal network – their strong ties and weak ties – internet use in general and use of social networking services such as Facebook in particular are associated with having a more diverse social network. Again, this flies against the notion that technology pulls people away from social engagement."
* The most popular and/or hyped online services, from Foursquare to Google Latitude to Loopt to FireEagle, are currently all about following, finding, tracking, connecting to, and ultimately (spontaneously) meeting up with interesting people (friends and strangers). For some users of these services, 'life-streaming' is now a reality, especially when combined with their blogs, tweets, and Facebook updates pages.
* Terabytes of online (local) content is about informing and alerting people to make the most of their time with others in the real world.
* Last but not least: The mobile web has bridged the gap between either being offline in the real world, or being online but in one location (mostly living rooms and offices). Thanks to a dozen years of predicting an imminent, mass-breakthrough of mobile internet, no one gets really excited about the prospect of no longer being stuck when online. However, it will dominate 2010, and it will fuel MASS MINGLING like there's no tomorrow, as online will be offline by default, and vice versa.

Next for MASS MINGLING will be even more impromptu, temporary meet-ups of strangers, mobs and crowds with similar interests, hobbies, political preferences, causes and grievances. Many of these (temporary) meet-ups will revolve around generating public attention, or getting something done. And here too, Twitter will lead the way (tweetmobs, anyone?).

The opportunity is obvious: Anyone involved with anything that helps people get and stay in touch, that gets people from A-Z, or that accommodates those people before, during or after meeting-up with others, should not only rejoice in MASS MINGLING, but make it even easier for customers to meet up in any possible way, too.

Now, there are thousands of MASS MINGLING examples as it is, so we'll stick with just one fun one that is still in 'concept':

* UK network Channel 4 announced the ongoing development of a Facebook app for the hit show 'Come Dine With Me'. The app will give fans of the show, in which amateur chefs hold competing dinner parties for one another, the tools to host their own parties with their Facebook friends.

Filed under // Psychology trends

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Silence the Loud One

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via jsbandura.wordpress.com

I just read an article about two psychologists from the University of Amsterdam - Ap Dijksterhuis and Teun Meurs - who have done some great work on the role of consciousness and cognition in relation to creativity.

They want you to imagine going in to a room and asking two guys to come up with ideas for advertising a chocolate bar - one guy is very creative but extremely shy and the other is clever, not as creative but far more domineering.

The output is dominated by the louder guy resulting in the ideas being good but not that innovative.

They then ask you to imagine a second scenario where you go in and brief the same two guys but this time you distract the loud, domineering guy, allowing the quieter, more creative guy to be heard. This time you walk away with more innovative ideas.

This analogy explains how your conscious mind dominates your unconscious mind shutting out your more creative side.

Ap Dijksterhuis and Teun Meurs did a test with students where they split the students in to two groups and asked both groups to come up with new pasta names. To help the groups, the professors provided 5 names all ending in 'i' as is typical in pasta names. One group were given the assignment and then asked to respond within 3 minutes. The second group were also given the assignment but then asked to forget about it and instead play a game of following a dot for 3 minutes. After following the dot for 3 minutes, they were then asked to list names.

The results were really interesting. The first group provided names that were dominated with words ending in the letter 'i' therefore being swayed by the stimulus - the conscious mind, while the second group provided more than twice as many unusual names than the first group.

So next time you are challenged to come up with ideas, write down the challenge, go and play Sodoku and then come back to the challenge.

Filed under // Creativity Psychology

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Chewing Pencil

I just read a study 'Inhibiting and Facilitating Conditions of the Human Smile' by F. Strack that demonstrates the power of forced behavior on feeling.

Their study involved getting people to hold a pencil in their mouth. One group held the pencil between their teeth and the other, held it between their lips.

The two groups were then shown the same stimulus and their emotions were recorded.

The group that held the pencil between their teeth felt happier than those who held it between their lips.

The reason why can be experienced by you right now. If you hold a pencil in your teeth, you will feel your face being forced in to a smile and it is this fact that triggers a more cheerful response. Holding a pencil on your lips, forces a frown.

Now here's the amazing part as quoted from the study "...this increase in happiness does not drain away the moment you cease smiling. It lingers on, affecting many aspects of your behavior, including interacting with others in a more positive way, and being more likely to remember happy life events."

Give it a try.

Filed under // Psychology

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I Love Yard Work

Children of Bigger Gut

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Unleash the Drive

Touch Improves Performance

Loneliness is Contagious

Mass Mingling

Silence the Loud One

Chewing Pencil