Design For Amplifying Human Potential

Time is what we want most, but what we use worst. --William Penn

Is Technology Amplifying Human Potential, or Amusing Ourselves to Death?

--by Tristan Harris, syndicated from tristanharris.com, Jun 17, 2015

When I was about five years old, my mom gave me a Macintosh LC II and I was hooked– not to Facebook or the Internet, they didn’t exist yet, but to what it enabled a five year old kid to do that I could never do before.

Like the brilliant technical visionaries of the 70’s and 80’s at Xerox PARC like Doug Engelbart, Ted Nelson, Alan Kay at Xerox PARC or Steve Jobs, I optimistically believed computers could be “bicycles for our minds” and amplify human potential.

And they did empower us.

But today, in the year 2015, “empowerment” rarely feels like my day to day experience with technology. Instead I feel constantly lured into distractions. I get sucked endlessly into email, distracting websites. I get bulldozed by interruptive text messages, back and forth scheduling, or find myself scrolling a website in a trance at 1am.

I feel like I’m caught in a whirlpool of “Amusing Ourselves to Death,” as Neil Postman predicted 30 years ago, where he contrasts George Orwell’s vision for the future (Big Brother) with Aldous Huxley’s vision in Brave New World in which people “come to adore the technologies that would undo their capacities to think.”

In Postman’s own words:

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books.
What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.

Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information.
Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism.

Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us.
Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance.

Orwell feared we would become a captive culture.
Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture ….

As Huxley remarked … [they] “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.”

– Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death (1982)

Scary how true it feels today, right?

What Huxley is really concerned about, are the things that overwhelmingly seduce our psychological instincts. Not that we should vilify them, but that we should notice how powerful they are and how they might get abused.

Just like we have built-in gustatory instincts for salt, sugar and fat that are actually incredibly useful biases to have, but get abused by our modern food environment, Huxley knew we have built-in psychological instincts for paying attention to our social acceptance & rejection, reciprocity, fear of missing something important, or our extraordinary addiction to looking at cute kittens. These psychological instincts are really useful to have, but our media environment adversarially exploits these instincts.

How did it get this way?

It’s because we live in an attention economy.

An attention economy means that no matter what you aim to make (an app or a website), you win by getting people to spend time. So what starts as an honest competition to make useful things that peoplespend their time on, must devolve into a ruthless competition to seduce our deepest instincts to get more of people’s time – a race to the bottom of the brain stem.

The problem is, to fix it, you can’t ask anyone who’s in that competition NOT to maximize the time their users spend. Because someone else (another app, or another website) will swoop in and siphon that time away to them instead.

In fact, let’s say there’s some users who regret a portion of the time they spend on a certain website and would love to have that website on their team to help them spend less time on it. Could that website help?

No. It’s that website’s job to keep their users playing and clicking, lest their competitor come in to take that attention elsewhere.

So we’re not going to get out of this situation, or convince those apps or websites to do something else until we create a new kind of competition – until there’s a newthing apps and websites can compete for.

And what if we could make that? What if instead of competing to get us to spend time, apps and websites were competing to help us spend our time well? What if they competed to create net positive contributions to people’s lives?

I don’t want to be distracted anymore. I want a world that helps me spend my time well.

And that’s the conversation I want to start with the “Design for Time Well Spent” movement (http://timewellspent.io/) I’ve spent the last several years thinking about Design Ethics, and the moral responsibility of designers to be careful about the billions of minutes and hours of other people’s lives they affect.

But we’ve got to get real about how “responsible” designers can really be, when that comes into conflict with the competition they’re forced to play in.

We need something like an Organic label, to certify new products as being of a different kind, and to reward those designers for being on people’s team to help them spend their time well.

This is a long road, but we can do it. We’ll need a new marketplace, with premium shelf space in App Stores, browsers and news feeds that make a distinction between the things that are all about helping people spend time well vs. the ones that don’t, and we’ll need to make it easier to route people to those choices.

Let’s start that conversation now. Because I want a world where technology IS about amplifying human potential again, and where I can trust-fall into the whirlpool of technology and know that it IS on my team to help me spend my time, and my life, well.

---

This article originally appeared in tristanharris.com and is republished with permission. Tristan is a design thinker, philosopher and entrepreneur. He is currently a product philosopher at Google studying Design Ethics: how the design of technology influences users’ behavior, attention and well-being. He is working on an independent design movement for Time Well Spent, akin to the Organic movement for farming, to shift from an economy that’s a race to the bottom for seducing people’s attention, to an economy competing to create net positive contributions to people’s lives.

Be The Change: Practice being mindful of how you spend time on your computer and smart phone -- are your devices empowering or controlling you?

 

Sourced From www.dailygood.org

Presence: The Quality Of Consciously Being Here

Presence: The Quality Of Consciously Being Here - Kabir Helminski

A common theme runs through all the great spiritual traditions. It goes by many names – awakening, recollection, mindfulness, dhyana, remembrance, zhikr, presence – and by no name at all. This state of consciousness adds further dimensions to being in this world. Beyond the narrow band of awareness that has come to be accepted as the conventional state of consciousness is a faculty that is the master key to unlocking our latent human potential.

In certain teachings, such as Buddhism, the practice of mindful presence is the central fact. In Islam remembrance is the qualifier of all activity. In Christianity we must look to the experience of its great mystics and to prayer of the heart. But in all authentic spiritual psychologies this state of consciousness is a fundamental experience and requirement. For the purposes of our reflection I shall call it presence.

Presence signifies the quality of consciously being here. It is the activation of a higher level of awareness that allows all our other human functions – such as thought, feeling, and action – to be known, developed, and harmonized. Presence is the way in which we occupy space, as well as how we flow and move. Presence shapes our self-image and emotional tone. Presence determines the degree of our alertness, openness, and warmth. Presence decides whether we leak and scatter our energy or embody and direct it.

Presence is the human self-awareness that is the end result of the evolution of life on this planet. Human presence is not merely quantitatively different from other forms of life; humanity represents a new form of life, of concentrated spiritual energy sufficient to produce will. With will, the power of conscious choice, human beings can formulate intentions, transcend their instincts and desires, educate themselves, and steward the natural world. Unfortunately, humans can also use this power to exploit nature and tyrannize other human beings. This potency of will, which on the one hand can connect us to conscious harmony, can also lead us in the direction of separation from that same harmony.

I have been speaking of presence as a human attribute, with the understanding that it is the presence of Absolute Being reflected through the human being.[...]. Because we find it extending beyond the boundaries of what we thought was ourselves, we are freed from separation, from duality. We can then speak of being in this presence.

About the Author: Excerpted from Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness and the Essential Self, pp.viii-ix, by Kabir Helminski.

Pencil Story

Once upon a time...

A boy was watching his grandmother write a letter.

As one point, he asked, “Are you writing a story about what we’ve done? Is it a story about me??”

His grandmother stopped writing her letter and said to her grandson, “I am writing about you...actually,

But more important than the words is the pencil I’m using.

I hope you will be like this pencil when you grow up.”

Intrigued, the boy looked at the pencil. It didn’t seem very special.

“But it’s just like any other pencil I’ve ever seen!”, he said.

“That depends on how you look at things”, the grandmother replied.

 

“This pencil has five qualities which, if you manage to hang on them, will make you a person who is always at peace with the world.

 

First quality: You are capable of great things, but you must never forget that there is a hand guiding your steps.
We call that hand..God, and He always guides us according to His will.

 

Second quality: Now and then, I have to stop writing and use a sharpener. That makes the pencil suffer a little, but afterwards, he’s much sharper.
So you, too, must learn to bear certain pains and sorrows, because they will make you a better person.

 

Third quality: The pencil always allows us to use an eraser to rub out any mistakes.
This means that correcting something we did is not necessarily a bad thing; it helps to keep us on the road to justice.

 

Fourth quality: What really matters in a pencil is not its wooden exterior, but the graphite inside.
So always pay attention to what is happening inside you.

 

Finally, the pencil’s fifth quality: It always leaves a mark. In just the same way, you should know that everything you do in life will leave a mark, so try to be conscious of that in your every action."

Vulnerability Is The Path

Vulnerability is the Path - Brene Brown

 

Vulnerability isn't good or bad: it's not what we call a dark emotion, nor is it always a light, positive experience. Vulnerability is the core of all emotions and feelings. To feel is to be vulnerable. To believe vulnerability is weakness is to believe that feeling is weakness. To foreclose on our emotional life out of a fear that the costs will be too high is to walk away from the very thing that gives purpose and meaning to living.

 

Our rejection of vulnerability often stems from our associating it with dark emotions like fear, shame, grief, sadness, and disappointment—emotions that we don't want to discuss, even when they profoundly affect the way we live, love, work, and even lead. What most of us fail to understand and what took me a decade of research to learn is that vulnerability is also the cradle of the emotions and experiences that we crave. We want deeper and more meaningful spiritual lives. Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, and creativity. It is the source of hope, empathy, accountability and authenticity. If we want greater clarity in our purpose or deeper or more meaningful spiritual lives, vulnerability is the path.

 

I know this is hard to believe, especially when we've spent our lives thinking that vulnerability and weakness are synonymous, but it's true. I define vulnerability as uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure. With that definition in mind, let's think about love. [...] Love is uncertain. It's incredibly risky. And loving someone leaves us emotionally exposed. Yes, it's scary, and yes, we're open to being hurt, but can you imagine your life without loving or being loved.

 

To put our art, our writing, our photography, our ideas out into the world with no assurance of acceptance or appreciation—that's also vulnerability. To let ourselves sink into the joyful moments of our lives even though we know that they are fleeting, even though the world tells us not to be too happy lest we invite disaster—that's an intense form of vulnerability.

 

The profound danger is that, as noted above, we start to think of feeling as weakness. With the exception of anger (which is a secondary emotion, one that only serves as a socially acceptable mask for many of the more difficult underlying emotions we feel), we're losing our tolerance for emotion and hence for vulnerability.

 

It starts to make sense that we dismiss vulnerability as weakness only when we realize that we've confused feeling with failing and emotions with liabilities. If we want to reclaim the essential emotional part of our lives and reignite our passion and purpose, we have to learn how to own and engage with our vulnerability and how to feel the emotions that come with it. For some of us, it's new learning, and for others it's relearning. Either way, the research taught me that the best place to start is with defining, recognizing, and understanding vulnerability.

About the Author: Excerpted from Brene Brown's book ​Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead. 

How A Password Changed My Life

How A Password Changed My Life... A true story from the Reader’s Digest...

 

I was having a great morning until I sat down in front of my office computer. “your password has expired”, a server message flashed on my screen, with instructions for changing it...

In my company we have to change password monthly..

I was deeply depressed after my recent divorce. Disbelief over what she had done to me was what I thought all day.

I remembered a tip I’d heard from my former boss.

He’d said, “I’m going to use a password that is going to change my life”. I couldn’t focus on getting things done in my current mood.. My password reminded me that I shouldn’t let myself be a victim of my recent breakup and that I was strong enough to do something about it.

 

I made my password – Forgive@her. I had to type this password several times every day, each time my computer would lock. Each time I came back from lunch I wrote forgive her. 

The simple action changed the way I looked at my ex-wife.. That constant reminder of reconciliation led me to accept the way things happened and helped me deal with my depression.. 

By the time the server prompted me to change my password following month, I felt free.

 

The next time I had to change my password I thought about the next thing that I had to get done. My password became Quit@smoking4ever .

It motivated me to follow my goal and I was able to quit smoking.

 

One month later, my password became Save4trip@europe, and in three months I was able to visit Europe.

 

Reminders helped me materialize my goals kept me motivated and excited.

It's sometimes difficult to come up with your next goal, keeping at it brings great results.

 

After a few months my password was lifeis@beautiful !!!

Life is going to change again.

Tools Of Our Tools: The Role Of Technology In Our Lives

A camera is a tool for learning how to see without a camera. --Dorothea Lange

 

Tools of Our Tools & What To Do About It

--by Tom Mahon, syndicated from servicespace.org, Aug 04, 2014

We’ve become the tools of our tools; And the fault – and the solution – lies not in our tools, but in ourselves.

The digital revolution promised so much at the outset: computers would make air travel safer, health care more affordable, and education more widely available.

But for all the evident benefits – and there are many – the tools have taken over the toolmakers.

- Complex algorithms, beyond human understanding, replace even the most high-valued jobs, including the jobs of algorithm writers;

- Yet even as jobs and income disappear, mobile devices bombarded with messages urging endless consumption of finite resources. The resulting frustration is leveraged by powerful media to keep the public in a state of fury and frenzy;

- What jobs do remain demand that we work at superhuman speed to keep up with superfast silicon systems;

- Opaque institutions demand that our lives be absolutely transparent to them, even as hackers can rob us of our very identities;

- Wall Street and Silicon Valley are allied in putting impenetrable walls around ideas (IP) in order to monetize those ideas (IPOs), creating an economy that puts a price on everything, but is unmindful of the value of anything.

When greed, gain and self-aggrandizement are the inputs, then waste, rapacity and rage are the outputs, ravaging the environmental, communal and personal spheres.

And even as we are increasingly drawn into the dark side of the digital ecosystem, it’s increasingly obvious that extrication is increasingly difficult.

So where do we go from here?

First, consider that the purpose of tools is to leverage our limited human abilities in order to accomplish ever-greater results. Archimedes said, “With a lever long enough, and a fulcrum strong enough, I can lift the world.” And he could if he had a place in space on which to rest the fulcrum.

Tools developed in three phases over history. From early on, they leveraged our muscles. With the six simple tools of antiquity - the lever, pulley, screw, wheel, inclined plane, and wedge - our ancestors created civilizations: clearing fields, draining swamps, and building temples and towers for the gods they imagined and the powerful who controlled them.

Then about 400 years ago, our ancestors began to develop tools to extend the senses: first, the telescope and microscope, and later the radio and television, allowing them to see far out, deep down, and long ago.

Beginning in the early 20th Century, we developed tools to extend our brains: computers, the Internet, smart devices, the ‘Cloud.’

But even as our ancestors developed tools over time to leverage their muscles, senses and brains, they also developed tools to leverage their soul, or atman, or psyche, so as to be composed within themselves, and thus try to establish just and civil societies. These spiritual technologies included prayer, meditation, chi gong, yoga, ethical standards, communal worship…

In the past century, revolutions in transportation and communication have enabled the leveraging of spiritual technologies profoundly.

With soul-tools, especially non-violent resistance, Gandhi and his followers brought down the British raj; Dr. King and his followers brought an end to the Jim Crow laws in America; Mandela, de Klerk, et. al. ended apartheid in South Africa; and Lech Walesa, Karol Wojtyła and their supporters brought down the Iron Curtain. And these world-changing events were accomplished with minimal violence.

But Gandhi and others showed it is not enough to bring down wicked regimes. There must be livable alternatives.

Beyond taking a stand against the leveraging of waste and rage, we need to incorporate the two universal pillars of wisdom - composure and compassion - into our use of tools.

How? First, whenever you use a tool – whether a shovel, a pencil, or a supercomputer – do so in a composed frame of mind. That isn’t possible most of the time, especially in work situations, but it is something to be aware of and to strive for.

Then, to the extent possible, consider the outcomes at the other end of the leveraging process. When you apply energy to any tool, the results are usually much greater than the inputs. That is the whole purpose of leverage and of tools. Strive therefore so that the outcomes manifest kindness, or at a minimum cause no pain and do no evil.

When jangledness of mind is present at the inputs, the outcomes will be jangled and hurtful. And people at the receiving end are then likely to express that anger and pain in their own tool use.

And so the cycle of violence propagates and increases with each spin of the wheel. Gandhi and others showed that the pernicious cycle could only be broken when we are composed in our tool use.

So to the extent possible, be mindful of that when you put energy into a tool. And strive for outcomes that manifest kindness and compassion, even if you never see those results.

This model – of composed and mindful inputs leveraged to produce kind and compassionate outcomes – is admittedly not possible for most people much of the time. And by itself it is not a panacea for the all the environmental, communal and personal despoliation resulting from tool use run amok. We have a long, hard slog ahead of us. But every individual effort in that direction, however small, does represent a step in reconnecting technical capability with social and moral responsibility.

There is a second process we can initiate when the rush and disruptions of the digital revolution wear us down. Find others who share your concerns, your situation, your pressures, and then meet and talk with them. Alcoholics Anonymous, among other recovery programs, is good example of how this works: regular meetings with like-minded people provide the chance to speak, with assurance of privacy, about how they are dealing - or not dealing - with stress and pressures in their own lives. Sharing concerns with others similarly afflicted, in a safe place, is a proven first step in dealing with them.

From such meetings at the local level, a new economy of sharing, bartering and promoting the common good may emerge to create meaningful work, and counter the current corrupting global financial system whereby one’s gain comes only at another’s loss.

Individual efforts to be composed when using tools, so as to leverage kindness in the outcomes, can in turn be leveraged by joining with others to share, inspire and protect.

These actions alone do not represent the beginning of the end of the negative consequences of the technology revolution. But they may be the end of the beginning – of the feeling of helplessness and hopelessness brought about by the growing awareness that we are now the tools of our tools.

If we had the ingenuity to invent the devices that increasingly control us, we also have the ingenuity to reclaim our rightful ownership of our tools, so that humane inputs will secure more just, healthy and benevolent outputs.

Pray for peace; work for justice.

Nature is how universe-mind touches our mind.
Tools - technology - are how our mind touches universe-mind.

When these minds are aligned, there is success-in-living.
When they are misaligned, there will be catastrophe.

Mindfulness in our tool-use is essential now,
For our success, our sanity, our survival.   

Be The Change: Whether a phone, computer or pen, approach one tool you use today with the sort of mindfulness Tom Mahon describes.

 

Sourced From www.dailygood.org

The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe to match your nature with Nature. --Joseph Campbell

20 Amazing Pictures from Outer Space

--by James Adams, syndicated from designdazzling.com, Nov 09, 2015

http://www.dailygood.org/story/256/20-amazing-pictures-from-outer-space-james-adams/

Be The Change: Take time to look up at the night sky today.

Sourced From www.dailygood.org

Relationships Make You Conscious, Not Happy

Relationships Make You Conscious, Not Happy - Eckhart Tolle

With the acknowledgement and acceptance of the facts also comes a degree of freedom from them.

For example, when you know there is disharmony and you hold that "knowing," through your knowing a new factor has come in, and the disharmony cannot remain unchanged. When you know you are not at peace, your knowing creates a still space that surrounds your nonpeace in a loving and tender embrace and then transmutes your nonpeace into peace.

As far as inner transformation is concerned, there is nothing you can do about it. You cannot transform yourself, and you certainly cannot transform your partner or anybody else. All you can do is create a space for transformation to happen, for grace and love to enter.

So whenever your relationship is not working, whenever it brings out the "madness" in you and in your partner, be glad. What was unconscious is being brought up to the light. It is an opportunity for salvation.

Every moment, hold the knowing of that moment, particularly of your inner state. If there is anger, know that there is anger. If there is jealousy, defensiveness, the urge to argue, the need to be right, an inner child demanding love and attention, or emotional pain of any kind — whatever it is, know the reality of that moment and hold the knowing.

The relationship then becomes your sadhana, your spiritual practice.

If you observe unconscious behavior in your partner, hold it in the loving embrace of your knowing so that you won't react. Unconsciousness and knowing cannot coexist for long — even if the knowing is only in the other person and not in the one who is acting out the unconsciousness. The energy form that lies behind hostility and attack finds the presence of love absolutely intolerable. If you react at all to your partner's unconsciousness, you become unconscious yourself. But if you then remember to know your reaction, nothing is lost.

Humanity is under great pressure to evolve because it is our only chance of survival as a race. This will affect every aspect of your life and close relationships in particular. Never before have relationships been as problematic and conflict ridden as they are now. As you may have noticed, they are not here to make you happy or fulfilled.

If you continue to pursue the goal of salvation through a relationship, you will be disillusioned again and again. But if you accept that the relationship is here to make you conscious instead of happy, then the relationship will offer you salvation, and you will be aligning yourself with the higher consciousness that wants to be born into this world.

About the Author: Excerpted from The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle.  

When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world. --John Muir

How Nature Can Make You Kinder, Happier and More Creative

--by Jill Suttie, syndicated from Greater Good, Mar 20, 2016

I’ve been an avid hiker my whole life. From the time I first strapped on a backpack and headed into the Sierra Nevada Mountains, I was hooked on the experience, loving the way being in nature cleared my mind and helped me to feel more grounded and peaceful.

But, even though I’ve always believed that hiking in nature had many psychological benefits, I’ve never had much science to back me up…until now, that is. Scientists are beginning to find evidence that being in nature has a profound impact on our brains and our behavior, helping us to reduce anxiety, brooding, and stress, and increase our attention capacity, creativity, and our ability to connect with other people.

“People have been discussing their profound experiences in nature for the last several 100 years—from Thoreau to John Muir to many other writers,” says researcher David Strayer, of the University of Utah. “Now we are seeing changes in the brain and changes in the body that suggest we are physically and mentally more healthy when we are interacting with nature.”

While he and other scientists may believe nature benefits our well-being, we live in a society where people spend more and more time indoors and online—especially children. Findings on how nature improves our brains brings added legitimacy to the call for preserving natural spaces—both urban and wild—and for spending more time in nature in order to lead healthier, happier, and more creative lives.

Here are some of the ways that science is showing how being in nature affects our brains and bodies.

1. Being in nature decreases stress

It’s clear that hiking—and any physical activity—can reduce stress and anxiety. But, there’s something about being in nature that may augment those impacts.

In one recent experiment conducted in Japan, participants were assigned to walk either in a forest or in an urban center (taking walks of equal length and difficulty) while having their heart rate variability, heart rate, and blood pressure measured. The participants also filled out questionnaires about their moods, stress levels, and other psychological measures.

Results showed that those who walked in forests had significantly lower heart rates and higher heart rate variability (indicating more relaxation and less stress), and reported better moods and less anxiety, than those who walked in urban settings. The researchers concluded that there’s something about being in nature that had a beneficial effect on stress reduction, above and beyond what exercise alone might have produced.

In another study, researchers in Finland found that urban dwellers who strolled for as little as 20 minutes through an urban park or woodland reported significantly more stress relief than those who strolled in a city center.

The reasons for this effect are unclear; but scientists believe that we evolved to be more relaxed in natural spaces. In a now-classic laboratory experiment by Roger Ulrich of Texas A&M University and colleagues, participants who first viewed a stress-inducing movie, and were then exposed to color/sound videotapes depicting natural scenes, showed much quicker, more complete recovery from stress than those who’d been exposed to videos of urban settings.

These studies and others provide evidence that being in natural spaces— or even just looking out of a window onto a natural scene—somehow soothes us and relieves stress.

2. Nature makes you happier and less brooding

I’ve always found that hiking in nature makes me feel happier, and of course decreased stress may be a big part of the reason why. But, Gregory Bratman, of Stanford University, has found evidence that nature may impact our mood in other ways, too.

In one 2015 study, he and his colleagues randomly assigned 60 participants to a 50-minute walk in either a natural setting (oak woodlands) or an urban setting (along a four-lane road). Before and after the walk, the participants were assessed on their emotional state and on cognitive measures, such as how well they could perform tasks requiring short-term memory. Results showed that those who walked in nature experienced less anxiety, rumination (focused attention on negative aspects of oneself), and negative affect, as well as more positive emotions, in comparison to the urban walkers. They also improved their performance on the memory tasks.

In another study, he and his colleagues extended these findings by zeroing in on how walking in nature affects rumination—which has been associated with the onset of depression and anxiety—while also using fMRI technology to look at brain activity. Participants who took a 90-minute walk in either a natural setting or an urban setting had their brains scanned before and after their walks and were surveyed on self-reported rumination levels (as well as other psychological markers). The researchers controlled for many potential factors that might influence rumination or brain activity—for example, physical exertion levels as measured by heart rates and pulmonary functions.

Even so, participants who walked in a natural setting versus an urban setting reported decreased rumination after the walk, and they showed increased activity in the subgenual prefrontal cortex, an area of the brain whose deactivation is affiliated with depression and anxiety—a finding that suggests nature may have important impacts on mood.

Bratman believes results like these need to reach city planners and others whose policies impact our natural spaces. “Ecosystem services are being incorporated into decision making at all levels of public policy, land use planning, and urban design, and it’s very important to be sure to incorporate empirical findings from psychology into these decisions,” he says.

3. Nature relieves attention fatigue and increases creativity.

Today, we live with ubiquitous technology designed to constantly pull for our attention. But many scientists believe our brains were not made for this kind of information bombardment, and that it can lead to mental fatigue, overwhelm, and burnout, requiring “attention restoration” to get back to a normal, healthy state.

Strayer is one of those researchers. He believes that being in nature restores depleted attention circuits, which can then help us be more open to creativity and problem-solving.

“When you use your cell phone to talk, text, shoot photos, or whatever else you can do with your cell phone, you’re tapping the prefrontal cortex and causing reductions in cognitive resources,” he says.

In a 2012 study, he and his colleagues showed that hikers on a four-day backpacking trip could solve significantly more puzzles requiring creativity when compared to a control group of people waiting to take the same hike—in fact, 47 percent more. Although other factors may account for his results—for example, the exercise or the camaraderie of being out together—prior studies have suggested that nature itself may play an important role. One in Psychological Science found that the impact of nature on attention restoration is what accounted for improved scores on cognitive tests for the study participants.

This phenomenon may be due to differences in brain activation when viewing natural scenes versus more built-up scenes—even for those who normally live in an urban environment. In a recent study conducted by Peter Aspinall at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, and colleagues, participants who had their brains monitored continuously using mobile electroencephalogram (EEG) while they walked through an urban green space had brain EEG readings indicating lower frustration, engagement, and arousal, and higher meditation levels while in the green area, and higher engagement levels when moving out of the green area. This lower engagement and arousal may be what allows for attention restoration, encouraging a more open, meditative mindset.

It’s this kind of brain activity—sometimes referred to as “the brain default network”—that is tied to creative thinking, says Strayer. He is currently repeating his earlier 2012 study with a new group of hikers and recording their EEG activity and salivary cortisol levels before, during, and after a three-day hike. Early analyses of EEG readings support the theory that hiking in nature seems to rest people’s attention networks and to engage their default networks.

Strayer and colleagues are also specifically looking at the effects of technology by monitoring people’s EEG readings while they walk in an arboretum, either while talking on their cell phone or not. So far, they’ve found that participants with cell phones appear to have EEG readings consistent with attention overload, and can recall only half as many details of the arboretum they just passed through, compared to those who were not on a cell phone.

Though Strayer’s findings are preliminary, they are consistent with other people’s findings on the importance of nature to attention restoration and creativity.

“If you’ve been using your brain to multitask—as most of us do most of the day—and then you set that aside and go on a walk, without all of the gadgets, you’ve let the prefrontal cortex recover,” says Strayer. “And that’s when we see these bursts in creativity, problem-solving, and feelings of well-being.”

4. Nature may help you to be kind and generous

Whenever I go to places like Yosemite or the Big Sur Coast of California, I seem to return to my home life ready to be more kind and generous to those around me—just ask my husband and kids! Now some new studies may shed light on why that is.

In a series of experiments published in 2014, Juyoung Lee, GGSC director Dacher Keltner, and other researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, studied the potential impact of nature on the willingness to be generous, trusting, and helpful toward others, while considering what factors might influence that relationship.

As part of their study, the researchers exposed participants to more or less subjectively beautiful nature scenes (whose beauty levels were rated independently) and then observed how participants behaved playing two economics games—the Dictator Game and the Trust Game—that measure generosity and trust, respectively. After being exposed to the more beautiful nature scenes, participants acted more generously and more trusting in the games than those who saw less beautiful scenes, and the effects appeared to be due to corresponding increases in positive emotion.

In another part of the study, the researchers asked people to fill out a survey about their emotions while sitting at a table where more or less beautiful plants were placed. Afterwards, the participants were told that the experiment was over and they could leave, but that if they wanted to they could volunteer to make paper cranes for a relief effort program in Japan. The number of cranes they made (or didn’t make) was used as a measure of their “prosociality” or willingness to help.

Results showed that the presence of more beautiful plants significantly increased the number of cranes made by participants, and that this increase was, again, mediated by positive emotion elicited by natural beauty. The researchers concluded that experiencing the beauty of nature increases positive emotion—perhaps by inspiring awe, a feeling akin to wonder, with the sense of being part of something bigger than oneself—which then leads to prosocial behaviors.

Support for this theory comes from an experiment conducted by Paul Piff of the University of California, Irvine, and colleagues, in which participants staring up a grove of very tall trees for as little as one minute experienced measurable increases in awe, and demonstrated more helpful behavior and approached moral dilemmas more ethically, than participants who spent the same amount of time looking up at a high building.

5. Nature makes you “feel more alive”

With all of these benefits to being out in nature, it’s probably no surprise that something about nature makes us feel more alive and vital. Being outdoors gives us energy, makes us happier, helps us to relieve the everyday stresses of our overscheduled lives, opens the door to creativity, and helps us to be kind to others.

No one knows if there is an ideal amount of nature exposure, though Strayer says that longtime backpackers suggest a minimum of three days to really unplug from our everyday lives. Nor can anyone say for sure how nature compares to other forms of stress relief or attention restoration, such as sleep or meditation. Both Strayer and Bratman say we need a lot more careful research to tease out these effects before we come to any definitive conclusions.

Still, the research does suggest there’s something about nature that keeps us psychologically healthy, and that’s good to know…especially since nature is a resource that’s free and that many of us can access by just walking outside our door. Results like these should encourage us as a society to consider more carefully how we preserve our wilderness spaces and our urban parks.

And while the research may not be conclusive, Strayer is optimistic that science will eventually catch up to what people like me have intuited all along—that there’s something about nature that renews us, allowing us to feel better, to think better, and to deepen our understanding of ourselves and others.

“You can’t have centuries of people writing about this and not have something going on,” says Strayer. “If you are constantly on a device or in front of a screen, you’re missing out on something that’s pretty spectacular: the real world.”

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This article is printed here with permission. It originally appeared on Greater Good, the online magazine of the Greater Good Science Center (GGSC). Based at UC Berkeley, the GGSC studies the psychology, sociology, and neuroscience of well-being, and teaches skills that foster a thriving, resilient, and compassionate society. Jill Suttie, Psy.D., is Greater Good‘s book review editor and a frequent contributor to the magazine.

Be The Change: Find time today to get out into nature. Soak it in with all your senses.

Sourced From www.dailygood.org

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Need To Be Liberated

The Oppressor and the Oppressed must both be Liberated - Nelson Mandela

 

I always knew that deep down in every human heart, there is mercy and generosity. No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite. Even in the grimmest times in prison, when my comrades and I were pushed to our limits, I would see a glimmer of humanity in one of the guards, perhaps just for a second, but it was enough to reassure me and keep me going. Man's goodness is a flame that can be hidden but never extinguished.

 

It was during those long and lonely years that my hunger for the freedom of my own people became a hunger for the freedom of all people, white and black. I knew as well as I knew anything that the oppressor must be liberated just as surely as the oppressed. A man who takes away another man's freedom is a prisoner of hatred, he is locked behind the bars of prejudice and narrow-mindedness. I am not truly free if I am taking away someone else's freedom, just as surely as I am not free when my freedom is taken from me. The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity.

 

When I walked out of prison, that was my mission, to liberate the oppressed and the oppressor both. Some say that has now been achieved. But I know that that is not the case... We have not taken the final step of our journey, but the first step on a longer and even more difficult road. For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others. The true test of our devotion to freedom is just beginning.

About the Author: From Nelson Mandela's autobiography: Long Walk to Freedom. 

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Reverence Protects Life

Reverence Protects Life - Gary Zukav

 

As you work toward becoming reverent, your tendencies toward harming others and other forms of life diminish. As you acquire a sense of reverence, you develop the capacity to think more deeply about the value of Life before you commit your energy to action. When you are fully reverent, you cannot harm Life, even (if/)though you are unempowered. Without reverence the experience of being unempowered can become a very cruel one because a dis-empowered person is a frightened person, and a frightened person is a person with no sense of reverence, he or she will harm or kill indiscriminately.

 

Reverence is a level of protection and honor about the process of life so while a person is maturing toward the journey and through the journey of authentic empowerment, he or she harms nothing. Because we have no reverence, our journey to empowerment often includes the experience of victimizing life. Therefore, there are victims and victimizers. The process of destroying Life while we are learning about Life that has characterized our evolution would cease, or at least would be very different if we approached Life with a quality of reverence.

 

It is because(/when) we have no sense of reverence, no true belief in the holiness of all of Life, that Life is destroyed and tortured, brutalized, starved, and maimed while we journey from unempowerment to empowerment. If a sense of reverence were brought into the process of evolution, then as each of us, and our species, moves through the cycle of being unempowered to becoming empowered, the many learnings that are contained within that growing process of evolution would not likely produce violence and fear to the extent that it is now experienced.

 

[...]

 

If we perceived Life with Reverence and understood the evolutionary process, we would stand in awe at the experience of the physical Life, and walk Earth in a very deep sense of gratitude.

About the Author: The above is excerpted from "Seat of the Soul." Gary Zukav is a renowned American spiritual teacher and the author of four consecutive New York Times Best Sellers. Gary now works through The Seat of the Soul Institute, which assists people across the world in creating meaning and purpose, creativity and health, joy and love. 

Tappers And Listeners

Tappers and Listeners

In 1990, a psychology student at Stanford University, conducted an interesting experiment.  It was referred to as the "Tappers & Listeners" experiment.  The rest of the world first heard of it when the authors Chip and Dan Heath started talking about in public.

For her PhD dissertation, Elizabeth Newton invited her peers in college to participate in the study.  Each student was assigned one of two roles: 'Tapper' or 'Listener'.  The tappers were given a list of twenty-five popular tunes, such as "Happy Birthday to you" and "Jingle Bells".  They had to tap out the tune with their fingers on a table, and the listeners had to guess the song.  As you might have guessed, this was not an easy task at all.  Of the hundred and twenty times a tune was tapped, the listener could guess the tune correctly only thrice.  That's a success rate of about 2.5%.  

 

But here's the interesting bit.  Before the tappers began to tap the tune, Elizabeth asked them to predict the probability of the listeners being able to guess the song correctly.  The tappers predicted a 50% chance that they would be able to get the listeners to guess the tune correctly.  

 

So while they thought that they would be able to get the listeners to guess correctly one out of two times, the reality was that listeners could guess the tune only once in forty attempts.  How come?

 

Well, here's what was happening.  As the tapper taps the tune, he can hear the song playing in his head  His fingers seem to be tapping the tune in perfect sync with what's playing in his head.  And he just can't understand what the listener is not able to pick up such a simple tune!

 

And what about the listener?  Well, she doesn't have the tune playing in her head, without which, she has no idea what's happening.  She tries as hard as can to make sense of the bizarre Morse-code like tapping that she hears.  Alas, to no avail.  This results in utter frustration.  

 

As leaders, we often fall into the tapper's trap!  We give instructions which seem very clear in our heads but our colleagues may have no idea what we want them to do.  Has it happened to you that you called a young trainee to do some work, and when she got back the next day - having slogged all night to finish the task - you were disappointed?  She hadn't quiet done what you were looking for.  You probably felt a bit frustrated too, that she 'didn't quiet get it.'

 

The next time that happens, do remember that the problem is with the tapper - not the listener.  Because you knew what you wanted to get done, you assumed it was clear to the young trainee too.  That is seldom he case.  

 

The next time you are communicating with a colleague, think about the "Tappers & Listeners" experiment.  And remember, what's obvious to you may not be so to the other person.  When the listener says he doesn't get it, that's not a signal to get irritated.  It's probably telling you to put yourself in the other person's shoes, and try and be more explicit.  Don't assume that knowledge levels are the same.  

One more thing. Tapping harder or Tapping repeatedly won't make it any easier for the Listener!

Lesson From Squeezing Of An Orange

A SURPRISE LESSON FROM SQUEEZING AN ORANGE - As told by the late Dr. Wayne W. Dyer:

 

I was preparing to speak at an I Can Do It conference and I decided to bring an orange on stage with me as a prop for my lecture. I opened a conversation with a bright young fellow of about twelve who was sitting in the front row.

 

“If I were to squeeze this orange as hard as I could, what would come out?” I asked him.

 

He looked at me like I was a little crazy and said, “Juice, of course.”

 

“Do you think apple juice could come out of it?”

 

“No!” he laughed.

 

“What about grapefruit juice?”

 

“No!”

 

“What would come out of it?”

 

“Orange juice, of course.”

 

“Why? Why when you squeeze an orange does orange juice come out?”

 

He may have been getting a little exasperated with me at this point.

 

“Well, it’s an orange and that’s what’s inside.”

 

I nodded. “Let’s assume that this orange isn’t an orange, but it’s you. And someone squeezes you, puts pressure on you, says something you don’t like, offends you. And out of you comes anger, hatred, bitterness, fear. Why? The answer, as our young friend has told us, is because that’s what’s inside.”

 

It’s one of the great lessons of life. What comes out when life squeezes you? When someone hurts or offends you? If anger, pain and fear come out of you, it’s because that’s what’s inside. It doesn’t matter who does the squeezing—your mother, your brother, your children, your boss, the government. If someone says something about you that you don’t like, what comes out of you is what’s inside. And what’s inside is up to you, it’s your choice.

 

When someone puts the pressure on you and out of you comes anything other than love, it’s because that’s what you’ve allowed to be inside. Once you take away all those negative things you don’t want in your life and replace them with love, you’ll find yourself living a highly functioning life.

 

Thanks, my friends, and here’s an orange for you!

🍊