How to use brain priming to improve your productivity and quality of life

Posted on June 18, 2013 by Cymbria Wood

This simple 3 step formula will allow you to design life strategies based on your own unique neural network of associations and experiences. Brain priming, where “exposure to a stimulus influences a response to a later stimulus”, is essentially the firing of neurons that are linked in your brain. This happens automatically and below the level of conscious thought. For example, student subjects primed with words related to the elderly left the experiment walking slower than the control group.

But we can make brain priming an active, rather than just a passive, process. Self-priming before an activity and extending that stimulus throughout its duration can help us tackle difficult tasks with more energy and improved perspective by taking advantage of the brain’s existing network of linkages. And what task could be more difficult, more intimidating, more soul destroying, more ‘oh-gawd-why-me’ agonizing than… cleaning the house.

Step 1: Identify the activity and hypothesis your initial linkages (concepts, associations, emotions). Try to be as honest and intuitive as you can. You can use the diagram above as a model. It shows a simplified network of what, in reality, is quite a messy bit of between-the-ears business. But I’m a sucker for symmetry, both in my men and in my visual aids.

Step 2: Identify the positive (encouraging links are in blue) and negative (paralyzing links are in red) connections/associations. The positive links are your Gateway Connections.

Step 3: Identify sensory and memory recall experiences that will stimulate these same positive attitude/energy bundles of neurons. Here’s where it gets fun! Get psyched to try a tough new recipe by Youtubing with some Anthony Bourdain… Wear a tie and watch ‘Report on Business’ TV before an economics exam… Give your partner a massage before asking them to do the dishes (maybe I should have tried that one)… Go ahead and get creative! Engage your network strategy and keep those areas lit for as long, and as intensely, as possible. In this example, cute underwear (just don’t ask about the ‘in control’) and Janis Joplin’s rockin’ blues link to my three positives about cleaning. Note: ‘setting the stage’ has an extra semantic bonus with Joplin. Joplin and panties also have their own web of interconnecting linkages (shown in green) to directly counteract the original red negatives, thereby overriding them.

And because any scientific strategy is best served with a completely gratuitous selfie, I offer you hard-core proof that this brain priming formula will make even the most intimidating task suddenly… dare I say… far more enticing.

So hard to pick a toothpaste when all patterns end in sex or death

Posted on June 11, 2013 by Cymbria Wood

We process the world through pattern. Our brains filter the sensory madness of our culture through ever narrowing channels of meaning and importance. But let’s be honest, whatever your program of associations, all patterns end in either sex or death. Sex extends our genetics through time and is the only motivator on par with avoidance of death – the eventual, inevitable endgame to all sequences of decisions.

I’m paralyzed in the toothpaste aisle. I feel my temperature rising, my palms getting sweaty. Why the hell does my amygdala have to get involved! It’s just f*&^king toothpaste! The eternal struggle: buy my ‘usual’ and save myself some cognitive calories, or engage in a complex multi-variable algorithm steeped in conflict between conscious and unconscious influences and motivations. Do I want short term gains like fresh breath and whitening? Both driven by the ever tempting promise of getting laid. Or do I go for long term investment with tartar control, enamel repair, and preventing gingivitis (the villain in so many bacteria-in-the-bloodstream early death horror stories!)? Then there are the ‘do it all have it all’ formulas, the ‘full-time working mothers’ of oral hygiene. But like Sheryl Sandberg, I’m suspicious there’s some unspoken compromise that just might result in a root canal somewhere down the line. I grew up using Colgate… its red is so soothingly familiar… but ProNamel’s packaging looks so reassuringly clinical… and Aquafresh has… Oh for heavens sake!!

Pavlov’s dogs were trained to salivate at the ringing of a bell, but his subjects would often begin to drool far earlier in the experimental sequence: approaching the experimental apparatus, when lab assistants entered the room, etc. Our own programming wakes with us in the morning and maps the day into expectations and associations. Our circuitry can be as rigid as rail lines, and neuroplasticity involves the same taxing bureaucratic nightmare of time, energy, and ego as engineering Calgary’s West LRT line. Change is hell. With sex or death being their axiomed ends, we must confront our patterns at their beginnings, especially ones as powerful as those involving ‘the paradox of choice’.

I should have visualized a game plan and anticipated my distress. It’s too late by the time I’m standing here feeling like an idiot for being so overwhelmed by freakin’ toothpaste! At this point, metacognition is my only hope. I calm my breathing and my head begins to clear. My prefrontal cortex takes charge. “What’s the worst case scenario,” I ask myself. It’s just toothpaste! And four magic words follow the analysis: “I can handle it.” I engage a new pattern and apply the retail version of my good-girl-bad-girl personal philosophy, and come home with two tubes – ProNamel and Aquafresh – and ‘spit’ my time between. What can I say? I’m now a proud personal hygiene polygamist (but hopefully not “till death do us part”)!

Sandwich to Salad Week Day 5: The happy ham and egg weekend brunch anticipation salad

Posted on June 7, 2013 by Cymbria Wood

What is joy? One brief moment of sensory/emotional bliss? Extend the moment retroactively through time with this ‘happy ham and egg salad’. This flavour preview lets you enjoy the raw exquisite anticipation of what lies just out of reach – the weekend. But this salad is more than its emotional garnish. It is no mediation, no compromise. There’s no lettuce filler or mere hint of ham. This is not a Subway sandwich lying to your face with false promise of satisfaction. This is today. This moment is all we have, all we are. Let’s make this lunch as pure an indulgence as we possibly can. As this 5 day meal plan revolution draws to a close, let’s celebrate with a firework explosion of flavour, colour, and texture. Exalt! For you (and your taste buds) have survived another week at work!

The happy ham and egg weekend brunch anticipation salad
2 boiled eggs
50+g sliced ham
1 yellow bell pepper
2 small tomatoes
2 large white mushrooms
1/2 cucumber

Chop all ingredients into bite-sized pieces. Drizzle with your happiest dressing – perhaps some ‘Punny Mustard Vinaigrette’?

This is a Story Thread post – Click to read more…

******************

Day 1: The ham and cheese sandwich salad + Inspiration story
Day 2: The fresh off the ‘cobb’ salad that can’t be ‘beet’ + Punny mustard vinaigrette
Day 3: The ‘too healthy for its own good’ beany bread bonanza salad
Day 4: The solar powered spinach mushroom salad + *BONUS* The ‘everything but the kitchen sink’ salad
Day 5: The happy ham and egg weekend brunch anticipation salad

Sandwich to Salad Week Day 4: The solar powered spinach mushroom salad + BONUS The ‘everything but the kitchen sink’ salad

Posted on June 6, 2013 by Cymbria Wood

There is no universal perfect salad. It’s one of the hard truths of our existence, that perfection is, ultimately, an individual experience. But what human can deny the exaltation felt when the first rays of sun burst through a cloudy sky? The shared emotional warmth of a sudden sunbeam is as universal as we’ll ever get (besides death and sex – but they’re a little harder to work into a salad). Spinach, even when garnished with an asteroid belt of mushrooms can leave even the most dedicated salad explorer pining for Subway – the horror! But add a yellow centre of sunny corn and sunflower seeds and behold… The 5 day sandwich to salad meal plan revolution bursts back to life. Alleluia anyone?

The solar powered spinach mushroom salad
1/2 can corn niblets
2 tbsp sunflower seeds
1 boiled egg
4 large white mushrooms
1/3 cup baby carrots
1 large handful spinach
1 small bunch flat leaf parsley

Chop all (larger) ingredients into bite-sized pieces. Top with corn and sunflower seeds. Drizzle with your favourite dressing or what could be your new fave ‘Punny Mustard Vinaigrette’.

*BONUS* There are moments in life where to push forward, we must throw everything we have into the mix, our skills and talents, our hopes and dreams, our seeds and beans. This salad is one such occasion. As in life, we put it all together and pray it all works out for the best. And when the leap of faith tastes as delicious as this salad, we are reminded, with sweet relief, that our complexities give flavour to our greatest experiences… and our greatest selves.

The ‘everything but the kitchen sink’ salad
1/3 can assorted beans
2 tbsp pumpkin seeds
25g sliced ham
2 large white mushrooms
2 small tomatoes
1 seranno pepper
1 yellow bell pepper
1 small handful spinach
(or lettuce – or heck, both!)
1 small bunch flat leaf parsley

Thinly slice seranno pepper. Chop all (larger) ingredients into bite-sized pieces. Top with beans, seeds, and your favourite dressing.

This is a Story Thread post – Click to read more…

******************

Sandwich to Salad Week Day 3: The ‘too healthy for its own good’ beany bread bonanza salad

Posted on June 5, 2013 by Cymbria Wood

Indulging in this salad demands a certain smug hubris. Ha! You say as you look around at your coworkers with their sad little muffins and phallic shaped plastic bags marking them as slaves to Subway. You, like that perfectly groomed businessman on the elevator, can claim a well deserved self-righteousness, because halfway through this 5 day meal plan revolution you have found the secret, not to wealth, not to power, but to pleasure without consequence (provided your system can digest beans discreetly). For you have crawled out of the sensory deprivation chamber of so many celebrated celebrity diets of grilled chicken and steamed vegetables. You have created for yourself a flavourful multilayered orgasm of textural ecstasies. Yes Yes YES – so green, so nutrient packed, and so damn good.

The ‘too healthy for its own good’ beany bread bonanza salad
1 small whole wheat dinner roll
1/3 can assorted beans
2 tbsp pumpkin seeds
1 serrano pepper
3 large white mushrooms
1 medium tomato
1 handful spinach
1 small bunch flat leaf parsley

Tear roll into croutons. Thinly slice serrano pepper. Chop all other (large) ingredients into bite-size pieces. Top salad with beans, pumpkin seeds, and drizzle with day two’s ‘Punny Mustard Dressing’.

This is a Story Thread post – Click to read more…

******************

Sandwich to Salad Week Day 2: The fresh off the ‘cobb’ salad that can’t be ‘beet’ + Punny mustard vinaigrette

Posted on June 4, 2013 by Cymbria Wood

This cobb salad is so much more than just an awkward literary ‘pun’ch line. “The lowest form of humour” leads to a highly tasty form of a classic recipe. Corn, ham, beets, and eggs are just the ‘beg’ining of a salad that your coworkers will be begging you to share. Click Here to catch up on day one and read the story behind this 5 day meal plan ‘salad’vation from Subway. But be warned! In keeping with our high-brow-lunch-low-brow-humour, your own brows might be raised by some mildly ‘sub’gestive nudity.

The fresh off the ‘cobb’ salad that can’t be ‘beet’
1/3 can cubed beets
1/3 can corn niblets
1/3 cup baby carrots
50g sliced ham
2 boiled eggs
1 yellow bell pepper
1 handful lettuce
2 large white mushrooms
2 tbsp pumpkin seeds

Chop all (larger) ingredients into bite-sized pieces. Top with beets, corn, and pumpkin seeds.

Punny mustard vinaigrette
3 tbsp apple cider vinegar
4 tbsp canola or olive
1 tbsp whole grain mustard
2 tsp tsp yellow mustard
1 tbsp liquid honey
pinch of salt

Combine ingredients and shake, shake, shake!

This is a Story Thread post – Click to read more…

******************

Sandwich to Salad Week Day 1: The ham and cheese sandwich salad + Inspiration story

Posted on June 3, 2013 by Cymbria Wood

Sick of Subway? Stop the hunter/gatherer lunch panic and start eating healthy on your own terms and tastes. This transitional salad will ease you into a 5 day meal plan revolution. All you need to get started is a half-decent knife and a cutting board. And Remember, you can always substitute any ingredient/quantity to maximize you palate’s pleasure…

Ham and cheese sandwich salad:
1 small whole wheat dinner roll
2 slices (unprocessed!) cheddar cheese
50g sliced ham
1/2 avocado
1 red bell pepper
1 serrano pepper
1 handful spinach (or lettuce)
1 small bunch flat leaf parsley

Tear the roll into croutons. Slice the serrano thinly. Chop all other ingredients into bite-sized pieces. Top with your favourite dressing, or hang tight for day two’s ‘Punny Mustard Vinaigrette’. Then read the inspiration story below…

“If I ever have to eat another Subway sandwich I swear I’m going to bite somebody’s ears off!” Shouts the Mike Tyson throwback standing beside his wife in the doorway of my Blank Canvas Living Creative Counselling office. His Ferragamo loafers and her Gucci pumps belie the couple’s apparent regression, not to childhood, but back a good 50 000 years.

“I know Subway can get tedious,” I say, as diplomatically as possible, “and it’s got way more salt than you’d think. And I know every sandwich pretty much smells the same and tastes the same… but you’d have to eat a hell of a lot of ears to keep you full till supper.”

“Humph,” grunts the prehistoric wife. “There just aren’t a lot of other options downtown when you’re trying to eat healthy.”

I invite them to sit down, and leave their weapons by the door. “Ok, so your hunter/gatherer approach means you’re stalking a territory of what.. maybe a 300m radius? You’re letting the environment control your meal planning. Take charge! Go together to a smaller, but far more lucrative hunting ground – The Grocery Store! Once or twice a week, go forage to your hearts’ content. If you like the same sorts of things in bed – you’re married aren’t you! – you must enjoy similar flavours in a salad. And change it around – personalize your combos. Spice things up with some spontaneous veggie variety.”

“But then what?” Asks the Ferragamo-ed pre-neolithic man. “We never have any time in the mornings.”

“Who does? All you need is a fridge and a tap – any office kitchen will do. Buy a half-decent knife and a cheap cutting board, and keep one of the fridge drawers stockpiled with ingredients. Then take those same 10 minutes to chop up your salad. You can put together a different recipe every time, depending on what mood you’re in. I’ll email you a recipe every day this week to get you started. Now gather your furs, pick up your spears, and go back to work!”

This is a Story Thread post – Click to read more…

******************

How to promote your blog using an innovative DIY bookmark flip book

Posted on May 29, 2013 by Cymbria Wood

We all want to drive more traffic to our sites, but we need to get creative when “come read my blog” is the internet equivalent of a stranger in line at Starbucks flipping open his wallet to show you pictures of his cat. This new flip book method is a way to engage people through animation, individual choice, and a take home object with real-world use to anyone who loves the smell and feel of books too much to fully convert to their eReaders.

How to promote your blog with a bookmark flip book:
“Check this out,” you say, leaning close to your target like you’re letting him/her in on a special secret – which of course you are. Holding your stack of bookmarks firmly near the midpoint, use your thumb to quickly flip through your images (each varied slightly), thus creating a lively animation of your blog’s theme. In the sample shown above I’ve used Blank Canvas Living’s mascot: Mitch the insatiable human itch. Lastly, invite your target to choose his/her favorite bookmark to take home.

How to make your own DIY blog bookmark flip book:
Copy/paste your website address and tagline down the left margin of any word processing (or graphics/draw) program, leaving suitable space between. Choose a simple, repeatable image that captures the theme of your blog. Note: the genitalia shown is optional, although I do think it adds a certain je ne sais quoi to any invitation. Copy/paste your graphic down the opposite margin, remembering to vary each one. You can also use repeating sets to save yourself some time/effort. Note: I’ve hand drawn the samples above, because an hour spent drawing a few dozen penises is almost as fun as an hour spent… Print out your bookmarks on card stock and cut/X-acto them apart. Flip!

The Versatile Blogger Award goes Greek when a ‘good-girl-bad-girl’ reveals all!

Posted on May 22, 2013 by Cymbria Wood

Before Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, there were Anaximander’s opposites (hot/cold, good/evil, wet/dry), which where brought into unity by Heraclitus: “The road up and the road down are the same thing.” Being awarded The Versatile Blogger Award (many thanks to ToKillAHammingBird for the nomination!!) requires me to tell you 7 things about myself. But there are so many versions of ‘self’ that 7 things can be strategically used to describe. Who do I want to be to you? But no, that’s too easy. I’ve always been a woman of extremes, no nebulous middle ground, and I’m going to allow you to know me at my most honest – and therefore by my opposites: Good Girl …versus… Bad Girl. The Greeks were fearless of ideas. This freedom has been their greatest gift to history. And when you are fearless in who you are, your own history begins to make a lot more sense.

1) Requisite ‘good girl’ volunteering, plus earned full scholarships and A++ ave in high school & university …versus… Dropped out to play (briefly) in the _ _ _ industry and to work (permanently) as a Thinker/Writer/Designer

2) Won fashion (and industrial) design awards, commissions, and designed and hand-stitched my wedding dress …versus… Last ten years could be defined as a tragic series of ugly hand-me-down pants

3) Have accessorized said pants with running shoes, baseball cap, and ponytail 23/7 …versus… Harley Davidson boots other 1/7, with all manner of debauchery above my thigh-high fishnets

4) Match all my man’s socks as soon as they come out of the drier …versus… Have resorted to buying paper plates and plastic cutlery after ignoring the dishes for weeks (ok… so once it was a whole month)

5) Work diligently 9 to 5 rolling paper (don’t ask) and doing academic research on ‘the evolution of ideas’ …versus… My infamous 3 am ‘field testing’

6) Have a deeply Christian faith (with new philosophical proof that would leave Aquinas shaking in his sandals) …versus… Once wrote an essay on cheese being the highest expression of human spirituality

7) If you break my heart you won’t shake my faith in love …versus… But I will have to kill you.

*********

The Versatile Blogger Award also asks that I nominate 15 other bloggers for the next round:
Shoeism ~ HitchhikingColorado ~ TheMusicType ~ LivingDilbert ~ AFireworkInProgress ~ BlueHouseRecords ~ MagicAndMarvels ~ AdventuresAspirations”Aha”Moments ~ Sewbon ~ TheBlondeAlarmist ~ Bun81Bridge ~ BareKnuckleWriter ~ TheStoryShack ~ BalconyViews ~AdventuresInWiferyAndOther…

‘Shrunken head’ man-rescue breakfast oatmeal

Posted on May 16, 2013 by Cymbria Wood

As a follow-up to the ‘I want sex tonight’ steak sandwich, this testosterone boosting oatmeal breakfast recipe will give you the stamina and extended appetite satisfaction to take on whatever – and whoever! – the day throws your way. Freud’s head shrinking was on point about one thing… it always comes back to sex! (Nutrients that increase testosterone listed in brackets)

2 servings (approx 1 cup) oatmeal (avenacosides, arginine)
1 sliced banana (potassium, B vitamins, bromelain)
1/4 cup pumpkin seeds (leucine, magnesium, omega-6, zinc)
1/4 cup raisins (magnesium, boron)
1/4 dried cranberries
1 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 cups water
milk (vitamin D, calcium)
honey (chrysin)

Prepare oatmeal according to package (stovetop method and large flake oats recommended, but microwave and quick oats are fine). Halfway through cooking time add cinnamon, sliced banana, pumpkin seeds, raisins, and cranberries. Continue cooking until oats are tender and dried fruit ‘shrunken heads’ are plump, juicy, and engorged. Top with honey and milk as desired. Gorge yourself. Then read the inspiration story below…
I lead the waiting oddity of a man down the hall to the office I used with my first Blank Canvas Living creative counselling client, the fire-breathing redhead, but he won’t follow me through its green glass door.

“No offense, Miss,” he says, with a strange mixture of natural shyness and forced (or trained) instant intimacy, “but I’m sick of little rooms and getting my head shrunk. I already start too many mornings with my psychoanalyst. I just want you to give me another recipe like that sandwich. My wife’s been making it for me twice a week for the last month, and I was thinking maybe we could add a Saturday bonus to the repertoire?”

“So you’re married to the redhead, eh?” My memory of her abusive attitude is still painfully fresh. “Happy to hear the sandwich is working.” I wink and invite him to sit with me on the tiled hallway floor. He looks confused, but sits down obligingly with his back to the door. I’m not surprised. He’d have to be used to taking orders by now, especially from women.

“She told me it’s her prescription,” he says, “but to be honest, it’s been so long since she did anything nice for me that she could serve me Kraft Dinner and I’d be just as pumped. I’ve been feeling like shit for so long and all my psychoanalyst ever wants to talk about is how I got messed up as a kid when my father took off. But I gotta tell you, that sandwich makes me feel so much better than all that talking ever does… better about everything.”

Maybe it’s the unreality of the scene, but I can’t resist plunging straight in: “Look, I’m going to go out on a limb here. This isn’t hard science or anything, and this might come off a bit harsh, but we really do tend to marry our parents. I know I did. If your mom was anything like your… um… ‘passionate’ wife, not many men could handle it. And to blame your dad for the fact you’ve gone and got yourself stuck in the exact same situation doesn’t make any sense. Now you’re some raisin headed depressive spending a fortune just to give all your power away to the past. You say you start your mornings getting your head shrunk? I bet you don’t even have breakfast and give yourself half a chance at a decent day.”

He doesn’t say anything. Nothing. The dead air is suffocating. Why the hell did I go on like that?? I hardly have any training and now I’m digging my fingers into some poor guy’s brain like I’m some sort of oracle of marital wisdom!!? All he wanted was a f&**king weekend sex recipe. Shit.

“You know,” he says… finally (I take a deep breath and brace for the worst), “I think you might be right.”

“About the breakfast thing?”

“About everything.”

This is too easy. He’s either faking insight just to humour me, or his malleability is inherent and would make psychoanalysis that much more dangerous to his particular brain.

“Do you have kids with your wife?” I ask. He nods. “Ok, this is what you’re going to do. You’re going to take three weeks off therapy and I’m going to give you a breakfast recipe to maximize your man-strength. And you’re going to spend that therapy time doing high intensity excercise. This is your official prescription. You’ve got to be at your best to take on that woman of yours – in life and in bed! You’re not going to be your dad and cop-out. You’re going to get your testosterone up, your brain healthy, and you’re going to show your family what it means to be a f*&king man!”

He nods. Hope, yes, I can see a glimmer of it deep in the wrinkled sockets of his sunken eyes. And as I watch, his shriveled head begins to swell.

This is a Story Thread post – Click to read more…