Thanks To Facebook And Twitter And politics, we are having a rash of rash conclusions about what should be going on in the world. Last night I heard on Fox News that oxycontin was responsible for drug deaths and was falsely promoted by the drug company as a safe drug that could be taken for pain in increasing amounts and was responsible for a rash of deaths due to people becoming addicted to the drug implying that nobody should be-be taking the drug even reasonably for moderate pain relief. The speaker was completely sure that nobody should have access to the drug even if they suffered from intolerable pain without it. Needless to say that this speaker was very confident about his conclusions but he had totally left out the other side of the story since it didn’t affect him. Opinion-oriented presentations can lead to one-sided presentations and to making decisions that affect people who are not misusing the drug and who can’t receive massive amounts of drugs under current prescription laws and who wouldn’t ever try to get them from the black market.
I am one of those patients. I have neuropathy due to spinal stenosis and even though I was successfully operated on many years ago to prevent me from becoming a quadriplegic; I still had some neuropathy which initially developed before the surgery which still exists and persists. I am on medication for this but it is limited in what it can do and it has progressed so there are times when the pain is intolerable and the medication for the neuropathy can’t control it. I also take over the counter pain medications with my doctor’s knowledge but there are times when neither medication can control the symptoms and there are times when I feel like I could wind up in the emergency room which is some distance away and an intolerably long ambulance ride because I can’t take the symptoms which involve spasms and burning pain. I receive a limited amount of oxycontin which I cautiously use for this but not every time it happens which can be every day, but I limit it by what I might have to do that day and what I can tolerate.
I fortunately or unfortunately have had oxycontin before after a couple of surgeries and in one case developed intractable constipation and loss of time where I thought a long period of time had passed and it only was a few minutes. I had a pump that time which was supposed to limit how much of the drug I got but it was too much for me and on top of that it seemed to me that nobody was checking on me either.
To me, it seemed that presentation was made by a “smart aleck” that thought he knew what he was talking about, but who had not really covered the subject or investigated what he was told or read somewhere and who could be responsible for a group of people who might not abuse the drug not getting the pain relief that they needed and would cause needless suffering.
It seems to me that people often promote ideas about things that will not have a direct effect on them rather carelessly and often from a dictatorial point of view being that most dictators tell others what to do when they themselves will suffer no direct effects from their own commands.
It makes sense if you see someone coming toward you looking like an impending thunderstorm that you should avoid them if you possibly can, Do you want to get wet especially when they don’t make umbrellas to protect you from this type of storm. Sometimes all you can do is to not agitate them and try to get away as soon as possible.
For example,I had a woman who was checking me out in Wally World and I had many items and I needed a little help; I knew that she didn’t like this and that the skies were getting darker and darker. I also needed someone to help me take my groceries out to the car, but I also knew that I probably shouldn’t ask her right at that time so I didn’t and as I pushed my cart away from the checkout station, I spotted a more likely associate further away from where I had checked out and asked her to help me.
Another problem is letting someone’s facial expression upset you or influence the way you feel. At a play or in a meeting, do you let the way someone looks at the play or in the meeting cause you to change your mind about the play or about what is going on in the meeting? Do you let somebody else’s assessment change how you think about something? Do you get less enjoyment out of the play or do you feel that the meeting is promoting better ideas than you thought it was doing. Are you independent or do you feel less sure of yourself when it comes to the judgment of what is going on around you? Do you unconsciously tune in to what is going on around you and lose your self-confidence about what you are thinking or feeling?
With the right circumstances, the power of brain plasticity can help adult minds grow. Although certain brain functions decay with age, people can tap into plasticity and refresh the brain.
Targeted brain plasticity exercises help to keep our brains fit. Even those suffering from brain damage may be able to retrain their brains for better function. The key is identifying what brain functions to target and how to best exercise them.
Researchers suggest that there are various methods of harnessing brain plasticity:
Intermittent Fasting
The Society for Neuroscience suggests that fasting increases synaptic plasticity, decreases risk of neurodegenerative diseases, promotes neuron growth and improves cognitive function. When you fast, a metabolic shift reduces the body’s leptin levels. Thus, the brain receives a chemical signal for neurons to produce more energy.
Travel
Traveling encourages neurogenesis by exposing your brain to new, fresh, and complex environments. Paul Nussbaum, a neuropsychologist from the University of Pittsburgh explains, “Those new and challenging situations cause the brain to sprout dendrites.” And a week-long tour of another country isn’t necessary to get this benefit; take a weekend road trip to a different city.
Use Mnemonic Devices
Memory training promotes connectivity in your brain’s prefrontal parietal network and can slow memory loss with age. Mnemonic devices combine visualization, imagery, spatial navigation, and rhythm and melody, so they can reach various parts of the brain simultaneously.
Learn an Instrument
Musicians’ brains show sharp connectivity between brain areas. Neuroscientists explain that the multi-sensory experience of playing a musical instrument allows for the association of motor actions with specific sounds, and memorizing visual patterns leads to new neural networks being formed. As you practice a new instrument, the repetition will allow for neuroplasticity to do its work.
Non-Dominant Hand Exercises
Using your non-dominant hand during routine tasks can help form new neural pathways. Doing this strengthens connectivity between your brain cells. Studies also show that non-dominant hand activities improve emotional health and impulse control. Try switching hands during some simple tasks and give your brain a test.
Read Fiction
Studies show increased and ongoing connectivity in the brains of participants after reading a novel. Enhanced brain activity occurred in the brain area that controls physical sensations and movement. Scientists explain that reading a novel can be a physical transportation into the fictional world. Shifting into this mental state is crucial for learning how to have complex social relationships.
Expand your Vocabulary
When you learn new words, the brain’s visual processes, memory processes, and auditory processes activate. The smaller your vocabulary, the more likely you are to have poor cognitive skills.
Sleep
Studies show that sleep “helps learning retention with the growth of dendritic spines, the tiny protrusions that connect brain cells and facilitates the passage of information across synapses.” Getting 7-8 hours of sleep each night will help the brain retain information.
Try at least one of these ways and disprove the old idea that we lose brain function as we age. The last part of this age will be published next week.
I have discovered an energy type system which I have followed for a long time now but I had not really found the type of energy that I personify and did not see how the system could help me understand myself and how I could present myself as an example of a type of beauty that would give me a special glow that would attract compliments and increase my self-esteem. Initially, I picked the wrong type and although I felt some benefits when I accepted my scatter-brained side of myself and realized I was more of an idea type person than a planner; but then my real self came through and I saw that I am more a motivator who likes to see something come through so I can see the finished product. The best example is how and when I pursued a professional degree so others could see how motivated I was and how far I would go in pursuing something.
This started when I finished grade school and decided to take college prep classes and to get the highest grades in high school I could get so I could go to a good college and get a scholarship. I also pursued this goal to prove to my fellow students and teachers and myself that I had what it takes. This continued in college because I wanted to get into a doctoral program to pursue a doctorate in clinical psychology. Those goals I pursued continuously for ten years. I also then completed two years of postdoctoral studies in child clinical psychology and after working for two years in my field, I also completed the studies for and passed my state licensing exam as a psychologist.
My next set of goals was to have at least three children which my husband and I accomplished within four years. This was done by the age of thirty-nine for me and forty for my husband. You can see that I can set goals and reach them. Just recently the number of our grandchildren reached ten another goal.
Writing this blog was a surprise for me later on in life and I also have started to occasionally sing hymns in church acapella. I found that I was also comfortable teaching lecture classes in psychology. This is the way I represent a Type Four, but I still have secondary traces of Type One as I often have too many irons in the fire and I often multitask keeping too many irons in the fire. Today I deviated from working on bills to writing this post. I also want to hang some posters and pictures on my walls especially on the walls in my office which I have as yet to unclutter, but I am working on it.
Stylewise I am edgy and look best in some darker jewellike colors and in dramatic and edgy styles. Hairstyles require some movement and often streaks or patches of color or highlights. Jewelry too needs to be edgy, often angular and somewhat bold. The latest good thing about the whole energy thing is I have started to get some compliments from strangers so far all women.
I have found out that where I have had trouble in the past was where I was trying to go along with some other energy type which didn’t suit me and therefore I had difficulty doing it successfully. I am not a totally well-organized type of person and as I have said before is that I would write the term paper first and then write the outline. Also, the types of clothing worn successfully by other energy types do not suit me and make me look bad. For example, hunting for a suit for job interviews I found very challenging and difficult to do and the suits that I found never really suited me so I was never confident that I looked well and that my outfit was appropriate. This definitely was a “no-no” when it came to how I presented myself for a job interview.
Recently I have started wearing shorts again in place of capris or crop pants and I am feeling more comfortable doing this. I do have to be sure that the shorts are Type Three, a little rough around the edges. They can’t be flared, a little ruffly or a soft faded Type One or Type Two color. I have to also avoid black or whites which are Type Four. I am also considering dresses or skirts again in my type.
Look up Carol Tuttle, Dressing Your Truth, on the internet. She also has some books which will help you. Also, she has written a book about children’s energy types, The Child Whisperer. She has a solid background in counseling which is reassuring. You can get some color and pattern cards which will help you select clothes. When I have a solid before and after pictures I will publish them here. Remember part of finding your helpful energy type is when you find that it works and you can type in successes and failures related to your energy type and then it feels right. This doesn’t always happen immediately but when it does you will know it. For example, I have always liked statement pieces when I go out to buy jewelry and I usually don’t feel dressed until I have a necklace or bracelet on.
Haven’t you heard that before? Is it really the devil or are there self-defeating thought patterns that cause you to make a mistake, a big mistake.
Then when you are fired, have a traffic accident for which you are considered to be a fault, or blow it somehow and lose a relationship, you are initially entirely mystified as to how you could have fallen into that predicament and until the shock wears off, you are thinking, “Hey, what did I get into? How did that happen? Who, me?”
When the initial blankness wears off, next you face the consequences which can be overwhelming. “Me, how did I get pregnant?” “How will it change my life?” “What happened to my car?” “Is anyone hurt besides possibly me? Will I lose my license? How will I ever find another job with this on my record?”
Decisions may also have to be made at the moment which you might or might not regret later. You can possibly become defensive and whatever the consequences of your decisions you can and will defend them. You can then can become “Mr. or Ms. Neverever Wrong” and this too can prevent you from learning from your mistakes.
You may also have to come to some conclusions which you may regret later. Did you intend to do it or did the devil make you do it? You don’t have to be Christian to think this, but it helps. You may say that you won’t have any regrets because whatever happened, it wasn’t your fault and get yourself lost in denial even if it is not what actually is found to have happened. Sometimes reality can become really, really hazy when this happens.
You can see how your self-concept can keep you from seeing or acknowledging your mistakes and how valuable life lessons can be lost this way. Recently I had a conflict with a friend and lost my relationship with her. I didn’t know it at the time that the heat was getting to her worse than I knew and I was more concerned about my own ability to handle it. I learned, as much as I didn’t like it, that I was not acknowledging the signs she was giving me about her own deteriorating physical wellbeing.
I had had a long-ago lesson ( that pertains to the above situation) where an aunt of my husband’s who was helping me get my baby to the doctor in a far away city didn’t really want to do it and I learned that she really wanted me to read her mind when she said, “Yes” and she really meant, “No”. I was hurt when I found out that she felt I had taken advantage of her and was mad about it.
My husband’s aunt got really mad at me like my friend was when she had heat prostration. I learned that I had to read minds and therefore read between the lines when I was in certain situations even when I was not told something. It initially exasperated me, but I eventually got the hint. It was a very expensive lesson when I also learned that my friend and also a close friend of hers were very mad at me and did not want to communicate with me. Again they felt that I had taken advantage of her and was insensitive.
I certainly was part of the problem; but what if I considered that the devil made me do it. I am sure he would be happy creating conflict among people and making them behave less like a Christian. In the Lord’s prayer is the line,”and lead us not into temptation”. We need to keep on our guard as hurt feelings and confusion are a potentially bad mix. It has caused me a lot of grief. Can you conceive of the devil enjoying this?. I can think that is what God meant when he gave Christians this part of the Lord’s Prayer.
For a long time I was very rational about this part of the Lord’s Prayer and I didn’t think I needed pray it because I always knew what I was doing; but then sometime’s I made some dumb mistakes. For example, one was making a left-turn onto a four lane highway holding my fast food that I had just bought in one hand. I totaled my new car and wound up driving a used Cadillac. I always wanted a Cadillac but not that way. Who was at fault? me? God? or the Devil?
Also sometimes I have been very dense and as a result get caught in the same situation over and over. Was it my fault or the devil’s fault? I felt very strongly that I had to solve my own problems and often was confused in certain situations when I did not catch onto to what others’ wanted of me. I knew I was not meeting their standard’s but I did not know why. I was not getting their hints; but it was not malice on my part.
I have a little true story about me that illustrates this that I might have used in some other of my posts. My lady supervisor at a clinic told me that I had an odor problem. This was confusing to me because I was a regular bath taker, used deodorant, frequently changed my clothes, and washed those that needed it or sent them to the cleaners. Needless to say, I immediately either washed all my clothes or had them cleaned; but the odor persisted. It was very embarrassing and the staff felt like that I had some kind of problem that I wouldn’t admit like to being homeless or living in a dive and had no plumbing. Later I figured out that it was a perfume that I was wearing that didn’t mix well with my body chemistry. I stopped wearing it. Problem solved. But that never did connect with what the staff was thinking.
As a Christian, I latter learned to call on God especially for problems that I couldn’t solve and not to entirely depend on myself and view it was some kind of a test that I might fail. I felt that the devil always won in these cases. I had failed some kind of a test. I did in an indirect way (I didn’t ask for help); but I think I either had some kind of lesson to learn or I was inadvertently making the devil happy. Often it is the little things that bring us down. I don’t think the devil likes us to be happy, without serious worries, and confident that we are okay. What do you think?
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Many people have difficulty tolerating ambiguity. This may be just why our nation is so polarized right now between the left and the right, Trump haters and Trump supporters.
Actually, ambiguity is often the state of knowledge. We just can’t get a clear picture of how things are and just when we do, we find out something new. Young twenty-somes often do not feel comfortable with ambiguity and this is the reason why many of them are seduced into cults which claim that they have all the answers like Scientology.
I am satisfied that I don’t know all the answers and that some answers will never be extremely clear although they may become clearer over time. I believe that I don’t know all the answers and that I won’t know all the answers in this lifetime. People who do not believe this way makes me very nervous as I don’t totally agree with everybody and everybody doesn’t agree totally with me.
College was the place where my fellow students were encouraged to disagree and to debate many points of view unlike most of the students of today who are reinforced for accepting the beliefs of certain professors who are deemed politically correct.
Gaining in knowledge should encourage surprises and new
ideas not consistently reinforce all beliefs presented or taught. Science should constantly explore and evaluate conclusions made from current experiments and past knowledge. Many scientists often currently skip the phase where they develop a naturalistic understanding of the area of knowledge that they choose to evaluate. This often involves acquiring personal experience which has been typical of anthropologists in the past who went out to live among a people that they proposed to study. First-hand experience can sometimes be better than book-learning.
How many child psychologists have ever had first-hand experience bringing up children? or have spent time playing with them after they themselves have entered high school or college? Getting down on the floor and participating in a child’s imaginary world is often different from observing and taking measurements from an experimental psychologist’s perspective. I especially like to have the child have me draw a picture of an experience he or she has had. Also, suits and ties and tight skirts and high heels get in the way of making these observations.
I once was a participant in setting up an experiment about snake phobia. I was not
particularly worried as I didn’t think actual snakes would be used even though I was snake phobic and didn’t tell people because they then would surprise me with one of the real snakes used in their experiments. I knew that when I saw someone carrying a shoe box in the rooms where my fellow students had study carrels there usually was a snake in it and I would leave the room without saying anything.
After I was strapped into a recliner with leads for physiological responses in a room with no windows and the only door behind me, and shown slide pictures of snakes, I was told this was when the actual snake would be brought in a glass aquarium from behind me. If this had happened, I (or any real snake phobic) would have gone “ape-shit” and that would have been the end of the experiment and the start of a lawsuit if I and/or they had survived.
No one knows everything and we never will. We just have to live with ambiguity in our lives. Concrete knowledge is desired and claimed by some, but can not usually be true in actual reality.
Another supposedly concrete example of ambiguity is the spectrum of colors. The is no such thing usually as a pure color and the changing fashions in fashion design and interior decorating illustrate this. For example, a color of green that is fashionable in yarn for crocheting and knitting goes out of style and it goes on sale. Someone making items from this yarn for sale at craft fairs might not get many buyers. This color of green no longer is fashionable. Or pick up an old or vintage handmade throw at a flea market and it might not go with the things you currently have where you plan to use it. Did you know that the color green or other primary colors can be ambiguous?
“GOOD” encourages acquiring knowledge about both “GOOD” and “EVIL” and everything in-between (which should mean it encourages debates) and wisdom is frequently the result.
“EVIL” does not encourage acquiring new knowledge that conflicts with any of the “EVIL’s” doctrines. “Evil” usually wants people to wear blinders just like horses used to do.
“GOOD” wants everyone to know all the truth and broadcasts it across the earth for everyone to know.
“EVIL” maintains there is only one truth, it’s truth. They often portray themselves as exclusive societies (Scientology for example?). When their real goal may be to take over the earth and eliminate or subjugate those who don’t believe as they do and/or those they deem as inferior and incapable of absorbing and comprehending their beliefs.
“EVIL” often maintains secrecy and feels that they have something which enables them to have powers others don’t have.
Whose weapon is “doubt” “GOOD” or “EVIL”‘s? When “EVIL” competes with “GOOD” they try to encourage them to become doubters.
“GOOD” wants the “Good News” to be broadcast to everyone and everywhere. “EVIL” often presents itself as an exclusive society.
Now can you tell the difference between “GOOD” and “EVIL”? Or do you want to or do you even care?
Which one, “GOOD” or “EVIL”, does not want you to be able to tell the difference between them and often presents itself in disguise as the opposite one?
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