Mind Gym (40 page)

Chapter 14: Take the Drama Out of Relationships

1
. Eric Berne,
Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships
(London: Quality Book Club, 1966).

2
. Stephen B. Karpman, “Fairy Tales and Script Drama Analysis,”
Transactional Analysis Bulletin
7, no. 26 (1968): 39–43.

Chapter 15: Overcome Creative Blocks

1
. “Inventor of the Week: The Slinky,” Lemelson-MIT Program, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Retrieved May 2, 2014 from http://web.mit.edu/invent/iow/slinky.html.

2
. Eugene Sadler-Smith,
The Intuitive Mind
(West Sussex, UK: Wiley and Sons, 2010);Michael A. West,
Developing Creativity in Organisations
(Leicester: British Psychological Society, 1997); and Howard Gardner,
Creating Minds
(New York: Basic Books, 1993).

Chapter 16: Master the Tools of Creativity

1
. Mark A. Runco, ed.,
Divergent Thinking and Creative Potential
(New York: Hampton Press, 2012).

2
. Fritz Zwicky,
Discovery, Invention, Research—Through the Morphological Approach
(Toronto: The Macmillan Company, 1969).

3
. James C. Kaufman and Robert J. Sternberg, eds.,
The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010).

Chapter 17: Tap Your Unconscious Mind

1
. Guy Claxton,
Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind
(London: Fourth Estate, 1998). The idea of separate mental systems is known as the “dual processor theory,” first put forth by the father of American psychology, William James, and then coined by Jonathan Evans. For more on this theory of mind, see Jonathan St. B. T. Evans, “Heuristic and Analytic Processes in Reasoning,”
British Journal of Psychology
75, no. 4 (1984): 451–68; Keith E. Stanovich and Richard F. West, “Individual Differences in Reasoning: Implications for the Rationality Debate?”
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
23, no. 5 (2000): 645–726; and Daniel Kahneman,
Thinking Fast and Slow
(New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2011).

2
. In this empirical study, participants were asked to generate a list of place names starting with the letter A. There were three groups of participants: (1) those who generated the names right away, (2) those who were given a few minutes to prepare, and (3) those who were distracted with something else. It was the latter—the group distracted for a few minutes—who came up with the best ideas (as decided by someone who was blind to what group they were in). The theory is that the distracted group is the only group that had time for their unconscious to mull over the task. Ap Dijksterhuis and Teun Meurs, “Where Creativity Resides: The Generative Power of Unconscious Thought,”
Consciousness and Cognition
15, no. 1 (2006): 135–46.

Part Seven: Minimize Stress, Maximize Bliss

1
. Sharon Jayson, “Americans Are Stressed, but We’re Getting Used to It,”
USA Today
, January 11, 2012, http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/health/medical/health/medical/mentalhealth/story/2012–01–11/Americans-are-stressed-but-were-getting-used-to-it/52485486/1.

Chapter 18: Make Stress Work for You

1.
Robert M. Yerkes and John D. Dodson, “The Relation of Strength of Stimulus to Rapidity of Habit Formation,”
Journal of Comparative Neurology and Psychology
18, no. 5 (1908): 459–82.

2
. Hans Selye,
The Stress of Life
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1978).

3
. Mark Le Fevre, Jonathan Matheny, and Gregory S. Kolt, “Eustress, Distress, and Interpretation in Occupational Stress,”
Journal of Managerial Psychology
18, no. 7 (2003): 726–44.

4
. The
Frontiers in Psychology
research study is just one of many studies that show stress can improve performance. For example, in the study cited in this note, participants were subjected to physical stress (inserting their dominant hand into ice water for sixty seconds) before being asked to complete a difficult virtual maze. The stressed group—compared to the control group, who did not undergo the freezing hand part—performed significantly better and faster on the maze. Some argue this is due to evolution and the adaptive advantage quick learning under stress could confer. Roman Duncko, Brian Cornwell, Lihong Cui, Kathleen R. Merikangas, and Christian Grillon, “Acute Exposure to Stress Improves Performance in Trace Eyeblink Conditioning and Spatial Learning Tasks in Healthy Men,”
Learning and Memory
14, no. 5 (2007): 329–35.

5
. Brad McKay, Rebecca Lewthwaite, and Gabriele Wulf, “Enhanced Expectancies Improve Performance Under Pressure,”
Frontiers in Psychology
3, no. 8 (2012), doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00008.

6
. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi,
Flow: The Classic Work on How to Achieve Happiness
(London: Rider, 2002).

Chapter 19: Combat Stress

1
. Richard Lazarus and Susan Folkman,
Stress, Appraisal, and Coping
(New York: Springer Publishing, 1984).

2
. This study showed that the difference between distress and eustress is in the appraisal as well as the coping strategies invoked. When an event was perceived as distressing, the person saw it as a threat and used emotion-focused coping strategies to handle the distress. On the other hand, when an event was perceived as eustress, the person saw it as a challenge and invoked task-focused coping strategies (e.g.,
I’ll practice more in this area
). Jennifer McGowan, Dianne Gardner, and Richard Fletcher, “Positive and Negative Affective Outcomes of Occupational Stress,”
New Zealand Journal of Psychology
35, no. 2 (2006): 92–98.

3
. Gallup research from 2010 to 2012 in the United States found that having a best friend at work leads to higher engagement, and higher engagement can help people cope with high stress levels. “State of the American Workplace: Employee Engagement Insights for U.S. Business Leaders,” www.gallup.com/strategicconsulting/163007/state-american-workplace.aspx. Retrieved: May 2, 2014.

4
. Friends aren’t just good for lowering your stress level; they might even prolong your life. In a study of patients with coronary artery disease, social isolation resulted in a higher mortality rate. Even when experimentally controlling for things like smoking, poverty, obesity, etc., patients with a social circle of three or fewer people were at an elevated risk. Beverly H. Brummett et al., “Characteristics of Socially Isolated Patients with Coronary Artery Disease Who Are at Elevated Risk for Mortality,”
Psychosomatic Medicine
63, no. 2 (2001): 267–72.

5
. In this study, participants had to complete a public speaking task, before which the experimental group interacted with a friend and the control group interacted with a stranger. Results showed that those who had interacted with a friend reported feeling less stress and fear of their upcoming speech compared to those who interacted with a stranger. Barbara A. Winstead, Valerian J. Derlega, Robin J. Lewis, Janis Sanchez-Hucles, and Eva Clarke, “Friendship, Social Interaction, and Coping with Stress,”
Communication Research
19, no. 2 (1992): 193–211.

Chapter 20: Switch Your Mind Off

1
. L. Bernardi, G. Spadacini, J. Bellwon, R. Hajric, H. Roskamm, and A. Frey, “Effect of Breathing Rate on Oxygen Saturation and Exercise Performance in Chronic Heart Failure,”
The Lancet
351 (1998): 1308–11.

2
. João Luís Alves Apóstolo and Katharine Kolcaba, “The Effects of Guided Imagery on Comfort, Depression, Anxiety, and Stress of Psychiatric Inpatients with Depressive Disorders,”
Archives of Psychiatric Nursing
23, no. 6 (2009): 403–11.

3
. Emile Coué,
Self-Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion
(Stilwell, Kansas: Digireads, 2006; New York: Malkan Publishing, 1922).

The pagination of this electronic edition does not match the edition from which it was created. To locate a specific passage, please use your e-book reader’s search tools.

Page numbers in
italics
refer to illustrations.

absolutes, 19–20

accountability, witnessing, 83

action illusion, 79–80

   dealing with, 79–80

adapters, 121–24, 126–27

   spotting, 126–27

adversity, overcoming, 6

advertising, 142

against bids, 105, 106, 109–11

   belligerent, 109

   character attack, 110

   contemptuous, 109

   contradictory, 110

   defensive, 110

   domineering, 110

alarm calls, 279, 280, 281

Allen, Woody, 100

alternative explanations, 41–42, 45, 98

alternative medicine, 2

ambiguity, 225

answers, 218, 219, 226

   creativity and, 218–19

   generosity with, 155–56

   half, 225

arguing with yourself, 39–47

   exercises, 46–47

   six steps of, 40–44

   summary of disputation process, 43–44

argument poisons, 181–94

   assuming, 182–84

   attacking, 187–89

   defending, 191–92

   generalizing, 184–87

   interrupting, 192–93

   rejecting, 189–91

Armstrong, Louis, 152

arousal, and stress, 255–60,
256–60

asking questions, 138–39, 146, 147, 276–77, 279

assuming, 182–84, 226

astrology, 73

attacking, 187–89

attention, 10–12, 99, 103–15, 205

   bids for, 103–15

attentive optimism, 27–47

authority, invoking, 143–44, 147

automatic thinking, 9–25

autopilot state of mind, 12, 13,
13
, 14–15, 19, 20, 23

awareness, 24–25

Bacon, Kevin, 236

Batson, Daniel, 14

Beatles, 151

belief, 40, 44

Berne, Eric,
Games People Play!
, 205

bids for attention, 103–15

   against, 105, 106, 109–11

   changing patterns, 113

   exercises, 114–15

   focus, 114–15

   sweating the small stuff, 105–7

   toward, 105, 106, 107–9

   turning-away, 105, 106, 111–13

black and white, seeing things in, 185

bliss, 5, 253–97

blocks and releases, 149

body language, 159, 174

boredom, 41, 120

Bowlby, John, 89, 90

breathing, 248, 283–87, 290, 296

   basics, 284

   chest, 284, 285

   diaphragmatic, 284, 285, 286

   learning how, 284–85

   suggestive, 285–86

   ten-second cycle, 286–87

Burch, Tory, 3

Caesar, Julius, 66

call to action, 43, 45

“can’t,” as a four-letter word, 60–61, 69

career.
See
work

carers, 119–20, 122–24, 125

   spotting, 125

carpe diem, 70

catastrophic fantasies, 66,
66
, 67–68, 70

celebrating the positive, 273–74, 278

challenge and skill, balance between, 22

change, 59–71

   when people don’t want you to, 99

changing lanes, 112

charisma, 134, 151–62

   congruence and, 153–54

   connection and, 153

   elicitation questions and, 156–57

   exercises, 161–62

   generosity with answers and, 155–56

   graduating charm school, 160

   hope and, 151–52

   impact words, 154–55

   passion and, 152

   putting others at center of story, 159–60

   storytelling and, 157–58, 159–60, 161–62

   surprise and, 158–59

childhood, 89–90, 175, 224

   favoritism in, 17

   relationships and, 89–90

Chill Zone, 260–61, 266

choice, 7–8

Claxton, Guy,
Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind
, 243–44

college, 60

communication:

   charismatic, 151–62

   feedback, 163–78

   nonverbal, 174

   praise, 164–69, 173–78

complacency, 74–75

   dealing with, 75

computers, 7

confidence, 74–75, 167, 174

   lack of, 94

conflict, 4, 179–213

   argument poisons, 181–94

   detoxification, 181–94

   exercises, 193–94

   game playing and, 205–12

   navigating difficult conversations, 195–202

   recurrent, 204–5

   resolving, 179–213

   taking drama out of relationships, 203–13

confronting the situation, 277

congruence, 153–54

connection, 153

consequences, 42, 45

contemplating, 61, 62,
62
, 63–67,
64–66

control, 49–85

   exercises, 57–58

   locus of, 54–58

   procrastination, 73–85

   reactive vs. proactive mind-set, 52–58

   start a new chapter, 59–71

conversations, 2

   argument poisons, 181–94

   avoiding retreats and attacks, 199–200

   dreamers are losers, 63–64,
64

   exercises, 202

   focus and, 196–97

   frame of mind and, 197–98

   navigating difficult, 195–202

   plan of action and, 200–201

   principles of dialogue, 196–201

   sharing stories, 198

Coué, Emile, 288

counsel, 169–78

   avoiding insincerity, 172

   context, 171

   five-star, 170–72

   identity reinforcement, 172

   impact and significance, 171

   praise and, 174

   predictable, 176

   right frame of mind and, 170

   seeking solutions, 172

   specific and objective, 171

   subtle, 173–74

cozying up, 139–40, 145, 147

creativity, 2, 5, 215–52

   daydreaming, 246–49

   exercises, 227–28, 241–42, 251–52

   filters, 218–29

   free association, 236–40, 241–42