Category Archives: 2. MIND

The human mind embraces the illusive worlds of thought, intelligence, comprehension, apprehension, intuition, imagination, memory, judgment, reasoning, decision-making, problem-solving, perception, feelings and emotions. The mind is the element of a person that enables self-awareness, attention, concentration, contemplation, meditation and consciousness. It is the mind that defines the character of our experiences, intentions, direction, and purpose in life.

Anxiety: Fear in Search of a Cause

Posted on 08/19/2010 by Brian Alger

Patri­cia Pear­son defines anx­i­ety as fear in search of a cause. Fear is an emo­tional response to a per­ceived threat, which results in feel­ings of appre­hen­sion, dread, ter­ror and panic. As Pear­son indi­cates, the cause of this fear is often … Con­tinue read­ing →

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Body: Brain and Learning — Two Kinds of Signals

Posted on 06/01/2010 by Brian Alger

An inter­est­ing per­spec­tive on learn­ing that brings it closer to capac­i­ties and qual­i­ties asso­ci­ated with impro­vi­sa­tion and brico­lage. Learn­ing requires the sophis­ti­cated abil­ity to con­stantly update expec­ta­tions in order to make accu­rate pre­dic­tions about the chang­ing environment…“The sim­pler model-free learn­ing … Con­tinue read­ing →

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Mental Degradation: Multitasking

Posted on 02/27/2010 by Brian Alger

[Explor­ing Life]The extent to which we fall prey to our own delu­sions can some­times be quite sur­pris­ing. A delu­sion is a false belief that has been accepted as fact, and is quite resis­tant to rea­son or com­mon sense. Mul­ti­task­ing is … Con­tinue read­ing →

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Mental Degradation: Caffeinated or Decaffeinated Learning?

Posted on 02/14/2010 by Brian Alger

Caf­feine is an addic­tive sub­stance that pro­duces stim­u­la­tive effects in the body and mind. Caf­feine simul­ta­ne­ously affects our body and mind and there­fore influ­ences how we think, feel and act. If we devel­oped a diet based on the prin­ci­ple of … Con­tinue read­ing →

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Habit: Involuntary Routines

Posted on 02/05/2010 by Brian Alger

How much of our expe­ri­ence is dri­ven by invol­un­tary ten­den­cies and habits? Under­stand­ing the nature and essence of habit in our lives is an essen­tial task. Habits are both inevitable and unavoid­able. They are a medium of per­cep­tion; a com­plex … Con­tinue read­ing →

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Psychosomatics: The Heart of Anger

Posted on 01/28/2010 by Brian Alger

[Explor­ing Life] Psy­cho­so­matic med­i­cine focuses on dis­eases or phys­i­cal dis­or­ders that may have their ori­gin within our thoughts and emo­tions. An emo­tion that becomes habit­ual will man­i­fest as a phys­i­o­log­i­cal real­ity within the body. Pos­i­tive emo­tions can be defined as … Con­tinue read­ing →

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Food-Behavior: You do what you eat

Posted on 12/31/2009 by Brian Alger

You do what you eat Inter­est­ing arti­cle link­ing qual­ity of food to behav­ioral out­comes (Sept. 2005). Key Ques­tions The ques­tion is: What are the con­se­quences when we increas­ingly shovel junk food into our bod­ies? Is it sim­ply coin­ci­dence that the … Con­tinue read­ing →

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Mental Degradation: Toxic Food Toxic Mind

Posted on 12/28/2009 by Brian Alger

[Explor­ing Life] What we eat has a direct and imme­di­ate affect on how we behave. Though we may prac­tice relax­ation, mind­ful­ness, and med­i­ta­tion in order to fos­ter a sense of equa­nim­ity in our body and mind, we com­pletely under­mine our … Con­tinue read­ing →

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Mental Discipline: Mindful Learning

Posted on 12/27/2009 by Brian Alger

[Explor­ing Life] In Mind­ful Learn­ing, Ellen J. Langer describes mind­ful learn­ing as “the sim­ple act of draw­ing dis­tinc­tions” with spe­cific ref­er­ence to learn­ing. She draws a dis­tinc­tion between mind­ful and mind­less forms of learn­ing. Her work focuses on the inte­gra­tion … Con­tinue read­ing →

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Mental Discipline:: Attention Training

Posted on 12/26/2009 by Brian Alger

[Explor­ing Life]In How To Get Unstuck From (almost) Any­thing, Joseph Cardillo pro­vides six learn­ing strate­gies designed to help us break out of con­fin­ing pat­terns of thought and behav­ior through the art of being new, a phrase that orig­i­nates in core … Con­tinue read­ing →

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