Barking up the Right Tree

By Crabby McSlacker

 

So as I mentioned, my knee is kinda fucked up lately and I've been doing less of the huffy-puffy type exercising than usual until I can see the doctor.   This means lots more walking, and, unfortunately for you guys, more meditation-like activities and more thinking about all this psychological stuff and how it affects us.

Lately the blog has even sort of unofficially instituted a new feature I could call "Mindfuck Mondays!" But then if  did that, my own contrariness would pretty much guarantee that by next monday I'd want to blog about hemp milk or bog snorkeling or something totally different.  So, fear not, there's no new official monday thing.

But meanwhile, somehow this post seems to be about brains and bark.

Time Travel For Fun and Profit

Sorry, this is not about "time travel" in the technologically sexy sense, telling you how to dial up a year and be physically transported there right this minute.

Nah, this is the more boring kind: psychological time travel.  This just allows you to use your imagination to communicate with your future self, potentially allowing you to optimize, or at least not totally screw up, your coming years.

However, there are, even now, some virtual "time machines" out there that actually facilitate this process, if you care to go all Marty McFly and try to tinker with the fourth dimension.

Wait, this movie came out nearly 30 years ago?
Clearly someone must have messed with the space/time continuum. 

Pork Butts and Wise Brains: Healthy Eating on the Road!

Blog regulars (hi, all 3 of you!) are aware that I am just now getting back from a house swap adventure in Toronto. And I've been threatening to do a post this week with a Healthy Eating on the Road theme, featuring a bunch of murky camera-phone pictures from our trip.

Gosh, can you contain your excitement? But then, just when I was hunkering down to slop together a bunch of trip pictures and contemplate the horror that is my email inbox, suddenly a new twist!

(Gratuitous Toronto museum photo.)

Yep, Rick Hanson's Wise Brain Bulletin just came out yesterday!

This is always cause for celebration, because it's a great read, and it's free, and if you haven't done so already you should definitely follow the link and sign up. But it just happens that this WBB is special... because it starts off with an ebook excerpt written by a foul-mouthed Wellness Coach and Health Blogger we happen to know.

So, I'd like to say a special hello to any Wise Brains who recklessly clicked on a link and found themselves at the weirdness that is Cranky Fitness! Where exclamation points are apparently on sale or something!

(And hey, speaking of Rick Hanson and wise things generally: Rick's new book, Hardwiring Happiness, is coming out soon and it looks like it's going to be great.  Plus he's got another free online interview series with even more experts talking about this stuff. More on that below).

Anyway, on realizing there could be a curious new visitor or two to the blog, my first instinct was to scuttle the lazy vacation post and put up something clever and practical and scholarly instead.

But then it occurred to me I'd have to write something clever and practical and scholarly.

Whoops.

So, welcome, wise-brained people, to the Healthy Eating Post-Toronto Cameraphone Photo Dump!

Train Your Brain, Cranky Style: Monthly Goal Support Post

Yep it's time to check in and see what everyone's been up to, as well as to find out who won the Airbac Backpack and the Extreme Makeover DVD's.

I also have a few thoughts on strengthening the most important body part you own to ensure maximum healthiness and happiness: your brain.

But this being Cranky Fitness, you can be sure my training suggestions are not going to include the typical crossword puzzles,  foreign language lessons, socializing when you'd rather stay home and sulk, or focusing on your freakin' breath for endless, endless, endless, endless, endless, endless minutes until your ass goes numb and you want to shoot yourself. (Um... speaking of which, anyone wanna know how that whole mediation thing is going? Drop down in the comments).

There are tons of ordinary practical lists on brain strengthening out there already.  This is more a Cranky Fitness style list that is so "meta" as to be virtually useless.

Sound like fun?

Safe and Sound

How much attention do you pay to safety while exercising?

Mostly I am a super-cautious neurotic freak.  I have an exaggerated and narcissistic sense of personal risk based on the idea that "if bad things can happen to anyone, why wouldn't they happen to ME?" I avoid doing things many people find fun because I fear the worst.

Though of course at times I can also be a total dumb-ass and do unsafe things. I have been known to speed around blind corners on the bike trail or skip putting sunscreen on my arms and legs, courting skin cancer just because I think sunscreen sucks.

Over the years I've have written about many scary hazards, such lightning strikes, bike safety, or avoiding brain-eating amoebas.  (And they ain't bad posts, actually, if you want some tips on how not to get killed this summer.)

And for even more safety information, Happiness Savored Hot has a great post on water safety and she worked many years as a lifeguard and knows her stuff.  (From what I gathered, the safest plan is:  don't allow your kids anywhere near bodies of water, ever. Because they will drown if they even smell a pool or an ocean. Don't even have kids, that's the best plan. And if you're a grown-up, be careful too, especially if you are young, male, stupid, and drunk off your ass. But, um, her post is a lot more pragmatic and helpful).

But today we have a more specific safety tip... as well as a heads-up about a free lecture series that looks very cool that I wanted to alert you to. Which has nothing to do with safety, but whatever.

Resolution Reflections: Can You Believe It?

So as we wrap up the January Resolution Support Group and Giveaway, you may be wondering:

Believe what?  Believe in the invincibility of San Francisco Bay Area sports teams?

Nah, the photo above was just a handy image to use--although as a Bay Area native, I've gotta say: Go 'Niners!

What I actually mean by "it" is:

Believe in Your Own Incredible Ability to Change Your Life for the Better.

And yeah, so why is a self-confessed cranky foul-mouthed skeptic getting all trite and sappy and urging you to believe in yourself?

I know, it's kinda creepy. And possibly annoying.  (On the other hand, readers of Cranky Fitness are renowned for their patience and ability to withstand even the most annoying of blog posts.)

But as I am slowly but surely rewiring my ornery pessimistic brain circuits, I'm discovering that perky hopeful neural connections seem to work a hell of a lot better than grumpy ones when it comes to getting shit done.  And I'm really appreciating the amazing impact that positive expectations can have. Or, if not always positive, at least open-minded and curious.  (Despite much progress, I still have a crapload of work yet to do myself).

One thing I have no doubt about?  The whole "things will suck and there's nothing I can do about it" mindset is Not Helpful At All. 

Do you sometimes have trouble really believing deep down that things will go well for you?  How do you rewire a skeptical brain to be more positive and hopeful?

Why Turning 50 Need not Suck at All

Fear not, young people, this is not a post about chin hair removal techniques nor hormonal replacement strategies. There is helpful and hopeful stuff in here for you too!

In fact, I almost titled this post  “Hot Cougar Secrets for Any Age!”

Mrs Robinson was a Cougar before it was even trendy.

Brains and Marshmallows

So I was over at Dr. J's place recently and discovered there was an update to the famous marshamllow study.

Remember that? Researchers put young children in a room with a marshmallow and told them if they could wait 15 or 20 minutes and not eat it, they could have 2 marshmallows instead of just one. They timed how long kids could hold out--generally about 6 minutes, but some gobbled it up quickly and others held out much longer, up until the entire time length.

Follow-up studies as the kids got older showed that the ability to wait longer was correlated with greater self-confidence and interpersonal skills, higher SAT scores, less likelihood of substance abuse, and the ability to go to Costco on a Saturday and not eat 35,000 calories worth of free samples.

OK, I can't quite find a source for that last one. I may be remembering that wrong.

Anyway, the implications are that self-control is a fairly stable aspect of personality over the course of life, and that it leads to success on a variety of fronts. 

I always loved reading about the marshmallow study, because I was the kind of kid who would have sat there patiently with that single marshmallow until I was in a nursing home about to expire of old age.  Seriously, if that's what it would have taken to (a) get more sugar, and (b) demonstrate to the adults in the room what a very very good little girl I was? I would have kicked marshmallow ass.

Well, if you haven't seen it already over at Dr. J's, there was a twist to the latest update that sparked a major epiphany for me. That's right, a mental shift of the sort that leads to insipid journal entries and tedious blog posts.   Lucky readers!

But what about the "brains" part of the post?  Well, I love to talk about brains, and not just because of my propensity to work in totally gratuitous brain-eating references in otherwise zombie-deficient blog posts.

Sorry, there are no zombie studies reported here.

But I'm guessing they wouldn't hold out for a second brain.

So what is the study twist, and the major f--cking epiphany it led to, and what does this all have to do with brains?

I Used to Weigh Five Hundred Pounds

Photo: bear.org

Well ok, I never literally topped the scale at 500 pounds.  In fact I'm one of those boring fitness bloggers who completely lacks a triumphant story of dramatic weight loss. At most I was maybe 20 pounds heavier than I am now, so I'm talking metaphorical obesity.

But it occurred to me the other day as I flailing around on the elliptical, grinning like a deranged person from the endorphin rush, that I've actually been losing a lot of emotional "weight" over the last few months.  Is it possible for a lifelong pessimistic worrywart to transform herself into a happy, hopeful, live-in-the-moment, greet-each-day-with-gratitude sort of optimist?

Well, I ain't completely there yet, but I've been on a crash "happiness" regime, and it's really working!  I'd say on the emotional obesity scale, I've already shed well over half my excess worry and negativity.  And I'm totally psyched to keep working hard on all this sappy self-improvement crap until I'm so blissed out that I'm completely insufferable to be around!

So what combination of lifestyle changes and self-help initiatives has created this bizarre change in my outlook and mood?

Well, there are lots of components, some of which have to do with awesome life and career changes.  Life Coaching and bicoastal living really agree with me. And on the self-help front, it's been a lot of different things, which of course means there will be a ton of blog posts about it all coming up. (Lucky readers!)

But I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Rick Hanson from the get-go, since he was the inspiration for this whole Rewiring Crabby's brain project. His book Buddha's Brain led to my doing the Enlightened Brain review, and his wise advice is a big part of my new and possibly irritating positive outlook. So blame him if one day you come here and the blog has been rechristened Perky Fitness. Oh, and FYI, he's just starting a new telecourse on "Taking In the Good" in mid-March which I suspect will be quite worthwhile.

But anyway, whatever the reason for this sudden self-improvement orgy, it strikes me how similar my Personal Development journey is to the stories I hear on so many great weight loss blogs.  So many of you have been down that road and reached your "happy ever after" goals, so I figure there are some lessons I can learn in my quest to make life one big freakin' all-you-can-eat cupcake buffet.

Note: your version of paradise may include slightly fewer carbs.

Photo: rosebengal

 

Overcoming Denial About Health Consequences

I was born a worrywart, and I suspect even in my crib I was anxiously conjuring up possible worst case scenarios.  (Is that spoonful of baby food infested with worms and spiders? What if the vacuum cleaner escapes from the closet and sucks me up?  Will the cat chew my leg off while I'm asleep?)

Eeeeeeek!
Photo swiped from learnvest

Over the years I've tried lots of stuff: deep breathing, progressive relaxation, meditation, self-hypnosis, positive self-talk, yada yada yada.  But after a while I'd usually give up again and I'd spend all my energy focused on the healthy eating and exercise part, which came naturally, and ignored the psychological stuff, which felt way harder to deal with. (And yes, I am a licensed psychotherapist, and yes, this does serve to further reinforce the notion that therapists can be every bit as f-cked up as the clients they treat. Sorry, non-neurotic therapists of the world).

So many folks who have struggled with weight issues finally get serious when they allow themselves to face the health risks, and it was the same for me: I think my first post-menopausal physical was a bit of a wake-up call.  Numbers were not what I was hoping, despite eating boatloads of veggies and working out religiously.  (And my crappy family medical history doesn't help either--my father and maternal grandparents all died in their early 50's, and at least two of these early departures probably could have been prevented with lifestyle changes). It's not exactly a big secret that stress is bad for your health.

Though now that I'm sufficiently motivated, I'm forgetting all about medical threats and concentrating more on all the positive benefits I'm seeing. Somehow worrying about what will happen if I start worrying again strikes me as a bit counterproductive.


Not Giving Up When Results Aren't Instant

Some tricks I've tried have helped me quickly and dramatically; others takes weeks and weeks to have any impact.  Still others that research says will be helpful eventually now just seem like hopeless tedious time-sucks. I still can't meditate to save my life, unless I do the easier guided kind that is isn't really building up my brain's ability to focus the same way as the hard kind.  Whatever.  This time I'm going to experiment with lots of different kinds of meditation, and try to do something every day, and keep at it even when I continue to suck.  I notice that almost all tales of successful weight loss seem to involve fits and starts and slippage and stuckness, so why should I be any different?

But Getting Excited About Incremental Progress

Another trick I'm stealing from weight loss champions is to borrow some of the energy and excitement these folks bring with them all the way through the journey.  They don't wait until some final ultimate "goal" weight is reached to celebrate success; success happens every time a thought or behavior is different and a tentative new habit gets carved deeper into the brain.  I've been taking the time to notice the many ways I'm thinking and behaving differently than I used to, and examples are everywhere! I can't help noticing that I'm happier than I've ever been in my life.

Ditching Perfectionism

I know that the struggle to be perfect is the Worst Weight Loss Mistake one can make. So I'm hoping to take some inspiration from all of you who've mastered the art of staying positive and not giving yourselves a hard time whenever you screw up.


Finding Your Own Path

Holy crap, the need to customize your approach to what works for YOU and not someone else is absolutely crucial to either losing weight or finding bliss.  The same way that "primal" or "vegan" diets don't suit everyone, approaches to finding happiness are not one size fits all.
In fact, most psychological self-help literature is wildly enthusiastic in tone, dismissive of potential obstacles, and tends to promise amazing changes with ease if you only follow a few simple steps. Self-help literature is basically designed for sunny suggestible optimists who don't need self help!   If you are a skeptical cranky pessimist like me, you need to tailor an approach that is research-based, realistic, and sensible in tone and content.

Again, more detail later, but I've been finally finding the "right" kind of self help resources, and learning how to sift out the helpful nuggets from books and CD's that might otherwise make me feel barfy. 

Becoming a Proselytizing Pain in the Ass

Yes, this is the unfortunate side effect of experiencing powerful personal change.  Like the formerly obese person who is now fit and trim and goes around lecturing helpless bystanders about the wonders of kale and egg-whites and interval training, it's hard not to find myself preaching the happiness gospel.  I have to resist the temptation to run around sharing "helpful" insights with people who really don't give a crap. However, I believe that's why they invented blogging--to keep those of us prone to climbing up on soap boxes far away from the general public!

Anyway, does anyone else work on psychological self-improvement?  Got any other lessons from the weight loss or fitness arena that may help me on quest for perpetual bliss?

The Enlightened Brain Review

So why would Cranky Fitness readers want to check out a review of an online course I took this summer called The Enlightened Brain?

Well, because the course was pretty cool!  And perhaps there are a few other tightly-wired, over-reactive types like me out there who could use some research-based tricks (or a whole spiritual path, depending on your proclivities) to tone down the psychological alarm bells and enjoy more tranquility and happiness.

But you don't have to have to be a natural-born stress-bucket to take an interest. Folks who want to know more about the neuroscience of positive and negative emotions, and perhaps even re-wire their brain so as to serve up more of the former and less of the latter, might want to check this thing out.

(Plus, I was in a weird mood and threw in gratuitous pictures of a controversial pop-culture diva--so you can always just weigh in on whether you think she's a genius or find her appalling).

Why I Signed Up for The Enlightened Brain.

Of course y'all don't care, but when has that stopped me from explaining something before? Feel free to skip on down.

If you've always been a bit on the anxious, pessimistic side, it's easy to just throw up your hands and say "Well Baby, I Was Born This Way." (And I'm sure you appreciate now having Lady Gaga lodged inside your head. Oh, and sorry... sometimes she likes to settle in).

Love ya, Lady Gaga!
But wanna stop singing that song now? It's been 27 hours.

Yet despite Lady Gaga's reassurance that I don't have to feel badly about my inborn neurotic  tendencies, one thing being a psychotherapist teaches you is that you can change your thoughts, and consequently your emotional reactions to things.  And, though this isn't saying much, I'm definitely more mellow now than I used to be! But I'm still too prone to stressing over minor upsets, and wanted a motivational kick in the pants to try the whole meditation thing again for the thousandth time.

So since I'd previously read Rick Hanson's book, Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom, and was impressed, I thought I'd see if I could beg my way in to his online course and review it.  And thanks to the generosity of the author and Sounds True, the company that hosts it, I got to take it for free.  Hooray! I finished the course a couple weeks back and would have reviewed it sooner, were I not too busy futzing around on the web and plotting how to eat more  kettlecorn without gaining weight doing scholarly research and helping people in need.

What's The Enlightened Brain About and How Did it Work?

To swipe copy from the website (lazy, who me?) the course description is: "Meditation Meets Neuroscience—Practical Tools to Reshape Your Brain for Awakening."

It's technically an "interactive" online course, though it's mostly pre-recorded video and audio presentations by Rick Hanson. Some of these were in a lecture format, and others were guided meditations. There were two live sessions in which Rick took questions, but these were questions submitted earlier offline. While it didn't exactly feel like Rick and I were hanging out drinking beer herb tea and chatting together, he did answer the question I submitted carefully, thoroughly, and quite helpfully. There was a forum thing available too if you wanted to connect with other folks taking the course.

The course lasted six weeks, with numerous short audios and videos for each week. It was self-paced and flexible, so if you got "behind," there was no pressure. And once you sign up you can review it all over again if you, like me, are forgetful. The material stays available for download for a few months after the course is over, and if you get off your butt and download the sessions, you can hang onto them.

The six sessions were:

1. Self-Directed Neuroplasticity
2. Taking in the Good
3. The Neuroscience of Mindfulness
4. Concentrating the Mind
5. Equanimity
6. Beyond the Self

What Was Great About The Enlightened Brain

1. Rick Hanson! I found him to be completely charming. He's warm, funny, and, well, pretty adorable. He's geeky enough (compliment) to be precise and clear, and he doesn't shy away from long words or complicated concepts. However, he always takes a step back after presenting difficult material to rephrase it in language anyone could understand, and he gives concrete examples.

He shares his own struggles, and doesn't try to lecture from a guru/expert perspective, even if it's abundantly clear from listening to him that he knows his stuff. And sure, he's just a video playing on your screen (or an audio track), but he manages to project so much empathy and kindness, it's hard not to feel like he's actually in the room with you. (Oh, and, because he's so enlightened and has worked so hard to transcend "self" and all that, I don't have to worry about him getting a big head should he read this!).

2. The Format While the course was more expensive than a hardbound book, it was immensely helpful to have a structure and a human face to the experience. A self help book is all too easy to put down... while a series of very short lessons and practices paced over a number of weeks is a lot more engaging and motivating. There was homework too, if you wanted to do it. (And if you're in a helping profession and need continuing education hours, they can hook you up for an extra $36. I intend to go back and do that myself, as this is WAY superior to so much of the usual CE schlock available, and less expensive than most too.)

3. The Content Did you know that changing the way you think and focus your attention can actually change the way your brain is structured? Not just conceptually, but physically! You can carve new neuronal paths, secrete different chemicals, expand "good" regions of the brain and chill out "bad" ones. (Is it pretty darn clear I'm not a neuroscientist?) Basically, you can upgrade your hard drive to one that runs quieter and smoother, has more memory, functions better, and is less prone to crashing. Rick patiently explains how it all works, and gives lots of practical tips and techniques to get you started.

There are lots of different suggestions for finding tranquility and happiness in everyday moments--I find myself using several of these routinely now, and they really do work!

Just a Few Minor Quibbles

We can't leave the "Cranky" out of "Cranky Fitness" entirely, can we? That just wouldn't be right.

1. Technical Issues: There were a few minor glitches... during some of the video sessions, Rick would refer to charts that weren't there; the first live session wouldn't stream properly and kept hanging up; and one of the meditation practices was missing for quite a long time. (Ironically, as I recall it was on the subject of "letting go," and I kept obsessing about its absence, and I emailed support, and then grew unduly irritated when I didn't hear back... Of course I should have just let it go. But I couldn't because I didn't know how yet!)

2. The Buddhist Emphasis: In all fairness, there's a lot of scientific validation for many Buddhist meditation practices and the beneficial effects they can have on your brain. And the course does say "Enlightened" right in the title, not "Optimized" or "Enhanced" or "Super-charged" or something. So I kinda knew what I was getting into. But there are other kinds of meditation, and other psychological techniques out there, that could be useful in reshaping the brain too. These aren't really included much.

Personally, I suck at struggle with most forms of meditation. (And yeah, a major problem is I don't stick with it long enough to get more comfortable. Rick doesn't promise that it will be effortless, he's very upfront that you may need a bit of self-discipline). But slacker or not, I still would have appreciated a few more alternative approaches for brain re-sculpting and focusing my attention. Not that the course doesn't have tips on sustaining focus, it does! (And also includes a fascinating discussion about how dopamine levels affect attention). But there is heavy reliance on breathing as a focus in most of the practices, which never seems to work for me. The course was SO convincing about the benefits of building a practice of mediation/focused attention (and other Virtuous Mental Habits as well) that I feel very motivated to find something that helps hold my attention better than my damn breath.

3. More! More! This is actually more of a compliment than a quibble, but I loved the videos, and would have liked to have seen a few more of them for the lecture parts of the course. (For the meditation practices, where you're often closing your eyes anyway, audio is fine). Oh hell, as long as I'm getting all demanding and unrealistic, how about a few different backgrounds, more visual aids, hmm, perhaps some costumes, wigs and back-up dancers? Hey, I think I know someone who could help!

Anyone have any luck with meditation or other methods for finding happiness and tranquility that don't involve large slabs of chocolate cake? Or heck, got any opinions about Lady Gaga?