Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Friday, June 4, 2010
Daniel Kahneman, Nobel Prize Winner: Happiness Can Be Bought For About $60,000 Per Year (VIDEO)
Money can't buy happiness -- but lack of it can certainly make you progressively miserable, says one Nobel Prize-winning economist.
Daniel Kahneman, one of the founders of the now-popular field of behavior economics, delivered a fascinating TED talk earlier this year entitled "The Riddle of Experience vs. Memory," and got into an interesting discussion with TED host and curator Chris Anderson. (Hat tip to GatesVPblog via My Money Blog.)
Arguing that experience is essentially divided into the "experiencing self" and the "remembering self," Kahnemen suggests that happiness is essentially an act of deftly balancing the two. (They don't always match up, it turns out.) Here's Kahneman:
We know something about what controls satisfaction of the happiness self. We know that money is very important, goals are very important. We know that happiness is mainly being satisfied with people that we like, spending time with people that we like. There are other pleasures, but this is dominant. So if you want to maximize the happiness of the two selves, you are going to end up doing very different things. The bottom line of what I've said here is that we really should not think of happiness as a substitute for well-being. It is a completely different notion.After the speech, Anderson pointed to the result of a 2009 Gallup survey that compared rates of depression to income levels. Here's the exchange:
Chris Anderson: Thank you. I've got a question for you. Thank you so much. Now, when we were on the phone a few weeks ago, you mentioned to me that there was quite an interesting result came out of that Gallup survey. Is that something you can share since you do have a few moments left now?
Daniel Kahneman: Sure. I think the most interesting result that we found in the Gallup survey is a number, which we absolutely did not expect to find. We found that with respect to the happiness of the experiencing self. When we looked at how feelings vary with income. And it turns out that, below an income of 60,000 dollars a year, for Americans, and that's a very large sample of Americans, like 600,000, but it's a large representative sample, below an income of 600,000 dollars a year...
CA: 60,000.
DK: 60,000. (Laughter) 60,000 dollars a year, people are unhappy, and they get progressively unhappier the poorer they get. Above that, we get an absolutely flat line. I mean I've rarely seen lines so flat. Clearly, what is happening is money does not buy you experiential happiness, but lack of money certainly buys you misery, and we can measure that misery very, very clearly. In terms of the other self, the remembering self, you get a different story. The more money you earn the more satisfied you are. That does not hold for emotions...Story continues below
WATCH the full talk (the exchange with Anderson happens around the 18-minute mark):
Happiness is a flat line above 60K a year. Money does buy you out of the misery of poverty, but over 60K a year, how much happiness are you selling away to just have more money but less time with those you love?
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Saturday, May 29, 2010
3 Natural Ways to Stop Worrying - Healthy Living
Getty ImagesBy Sara AltshulI don’t know about you, but I’ve reached my worry threshold. The world around me seems like a giant, roiling mess—what with my plummeting 401(k); my fears that finances will worsen before they improve; and my college loans, credit cards, and mortgages getting harder to come by. And don’t even get me started on the election. Yikes! Please, enough already! (And this is coming from a woman who can beat Pollyanna at optimism with eyes closed and one hand tied behind her back.)
I know that unrelenting stress is unhealthy. Stress hormones that drip continually into your system (instead of just occasionally, when they boost your heart rate and speed your breathing to help you deal with immediate emergencies) can suppress your immune system, disrupt your sleep, and trigger inflammation that plays into chronic diseases such as arthritis, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and gastrointestinal problems such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).
Since I can’t wish away my stress, I’ve decided to deal with it in a positive way. And since I made that decision, I’ve discovered that by simply admitting I’m really worried—and taking positive steps to lessen my fears—I feel better and more in control. Here’s what I’m doing to help reduce the unhealthy effects of the current drama in my life.
Start with a long-term strategy
Rhodiola (Rhodiola rosea) is a Siberian herb that herbalists classify as an “adaptogen,” meaning it helps your body normalize its response to stress. Other herbs that fit into this group include Asian and American ginseng, astragalus, licorice, cordyceps, and reishi, among others.In a new UCLA study, 10 people diagnosed with general anxiety disorder (GAD) took rhodiola for 10 weeks. Five of them experienced at least a 50% reduction in symptoms, which included exaggerated worry and tension, headaches, fatigue, sweating, nausea, and hot flashes. Who knew you could worry yourself into hot flashes?
Alexander Bystritsky, MD, director of the Anxiety Disorder Program at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, cautioned me via email that his study wasn’t conclusive because of its size and because rhodiola’s effects weren’t compared to a placebo. He hopes future studies will confirm his findings.
Next page: For worry relief right now
If you spend to much time worrying, consider creating a spiritual health plan. Your spirituality or connection to Spirit is scientifically proven to help reduce stress and improve your health. If you want to learn about how it works watch the new upcoming documentary Life Force Explained for FREE at http://lifeforceexplained.com. Stay tuned.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Dr. Douglas Fields: Michelangelo's Secret Message in the Sistine Chapel
At the age of 17 he began dissecting corpses from the church graveyard. Between the years 1508 and 1512 he painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. Michelangelo Buonarroti, known by his first name the world over as the singular artistic genius, sculptor, and architect, was also an anatomist, a secret he concealed by destroying almost all of his anatomical sketches and notes.
Now, 500 years after he drew them, his hidden anatomical illustrations have been found -- painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, cleverly concealed from the eyes of Pope Julius II and countless religious worshipers, historians, and art lovers for centuries -- inside the body of God.
This is the conclusion of Ian Suk and Rafael Tamargo, in their paper in the current issue of the scientific journal Neurosurgery. Suk and Tamargo are experts in neuroanatomy at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland.
In 1990, physician Frank Meshberger published a paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association deciphering Michelangelo's imagery with the stunning recognition that the depiction in God Creating Adam in the central panel on the ceiling was a perfect anatomical illustration of the human brain in cross section. Meshberger speculates that Michelangelo surrounded God with a shroud representing the human brain to suggest that God was endowing Adam not only with life, but also with supreme human intelligence.
Now in another panel The Separation of Light from Darkness, Suk and Tamargo have found more. Leading up the center of God's chest and forming his throat, the researchers have found a precise depiction of the human spinal cord and brain stem.
Is the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel a 500 year-old puzzle that is only now beginning to be solved? What was Michelangelo saying by constructing the voice box of God out of the brain stem of man? Is it a sacrilege or homage?
It took Michelangelo four years to complete the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. He proceeded from east to west, starting from the entrance of the Chapel to finish above the altar. The last panel he painted depicts God separating light from darkness. This is where the researchers report that Michelangelo hid the human brain stem, eyes and optic nerve of man inside the figure of God directly above the altar.
Art critics and historians have long puzzled over the odd anatomical irregularities in Michelangelo's depiction of God's neck in this panel, and by the discordant lighting in the region. The figures in the fresco are illuminated diagonally from the lower left, but God's neck, highlighted as if in a spotlight, is illuminated straight-on and slightly from the right. How does one reconcile such clumsiness by the world's master of human anatomy and skilled portrayer of light, with bungling the image of God above the altar?
Suk and Tamargo propose that the hideous goiter-disfigured neck of God is not a mistake, but rather a hidden message. They argue that nowhere else in any of the other figures did Michelangelo foul up his anatomically correct rendering of the human neck. They show that if one superimposes a detail of God's odd lumpy neck in the Separation of Light and Darkness on a photograph of the human brain as seen from below, the lines of God's neck trace precisely the features of the human brain.
There is something else odd about this picture. A roll of fabric extends up the center of God's robe in a peculiar manner. The clothing is bunched up here as is seen nowhere else, and the fold clashes with what would be the natural drape of fabric over God's torso. In fact, they observe, it is the human spinal cord, ascending to the brain stem in God's neck. At God's waist, the robe twists again in a peculiar crumpled manner, revealing the optic nerves from two eyes, precisely as Leonardo Da Vinci had shown them in his illustration of 1487. Da Vinci and Michelangelo were contemporaries and acquainted with each other's work.
The mystery is whether these neuroanatomical features are hidden messages or is the Sistine Chapel a Rorschach test upon which anyone can extract an image that is meaningful to themselves. The authors of the paper are, after all, neuroanatomists. The neuroanatomy they see on the ceiling may be nothing more than the man on the moon.
But Michelangelo also depicted anatomical features elsewhere in the ceiling, according to other scholars; notably the kidney, which was familiar to Michelangelo and was of special interest to him as he suffered from kidney stones.
If the hidden figures are intentional, what do they mean? The authors resist speculation, but a great artist does not merely reproduce an object in a work of art, he or she evokes meaning through symbolism. Is Separation of Light from Darkness an artistic comment on the enduring clash between science and religion? Recall that this was the age when the monk Copernicus was denounced by the Church for theorizing that the earth rotated around the sun. It was a period of struggle between scientific observation and the authority of the Church, and a time of intense conflict between Protestants and Catholics.
It is no secret that Michelangelo's relationship with the Catholic Church became strained. The artist was a simple man, but he grew to detest the opulence and corruption of the Church. In two places in the masterpiece, Michelangelo left self portraits -- both of them depicting himself in torture. He gave his own face to Saint Bartholomew's body martyred by being skinned alive, and to the severed head of Holofernes, who was seduced and beheaded by Judith.
Michelangelo was a devout person, but later in life he developed a belief in Spiritualism, for which he was condemned by Pope Paul IV. The fundamental tenet of Spiritualism is that the path to God can be found not exclusively through the Church, but through direct communication with God. Pope Paul IV interpreted Michelangelo's Last Judgment, painted on the wall of the Sistine Chapel twenty years after completing the ceiling, as defaming the church by suggesting that Jesus and those around him communicated with God directly without need of Church. He suspended Michelangelo's pension and had fig leaves painted over the nudes in the fresco. According to the artist's wishes, Michelangelo's body is not buried on the grounds of the Vatican, but is instead interred in a tomb in Florence.
Perhaps the meaning in the Sistine Chapel is not of God giving intelligence to Adam, but rather that intelligence and observation -- and the bodily organ that makes them possible -- lead, without the necessity of Church, directly to God. The material is rich for speculation and the new findings will doubtlessly spark endless interpretation. We may never know the truth, but in Separation of Light from Darkness, Michelangelo's masterpiece combines the worlds of art, religion, science, and faith in a provocative and awe inspiring work of art, which may also be a mirror.
Photo credit: I Suk and RJ Tamargo, (2010) Concealed neuroanatomy in Michelangelo's Separation of Light From Darkness in the Sistine Chapel, Neurosurgery 66, 851-861.
Sorry ... here is the article from the above picture (Link didn't work) Ooops
Dr. Douglas Fields: Michelangelo's Secret Message in the Sistine Chapel
Michelangelo was drawing the brain on the ceiling of the sistine chapel, at least that's what these scientists think. Give it a read even though I have heard this one before. The brain and spirituality are intertwined. If you want to learn more, watch the new documentary on spirituality and healing coming out later this year, Life Force Explained. Stay tuned.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Rev. James Martin, S.J.: Want to Experience God? You Already Have: Vulnerability
Here's an often misunderstood and misinterpreted statement: Many people feel drawn to God in times of suffering.
During a serious illness, a family crisis, the loss of a job, or the death of a loved one, many people will say that they've turn to God in new ways. Atheists, agnostics, and those with more skeptical minds usually chalk this up to desperation. The person, they say, has nowhere else to turn, and so turns to God. God is seen, in this light, as a crutch for the foolish, a refuge for the superstitious, or a haven for the gullible.
But in general, people do not turn to God in suffering because we suddenly become irrational. Rather, God is able to reach us because our defenses are lowered. The barriers that we erected to keep out God -- whether pride or fear or lack of interest -- are set aside. We are not less rational. We are more open.
When he was in his late 50s, my father lost a good job. After a long while, he found a job, but one that he found unsatisfying. As too many people know today, it is difficult to find work and start a new job later in life, at an age when many people are looking forward to retirement. It was hard for him and for my mother.
His job required an hour-long commute from our home in suburban Philadelphia. One dark night, in the parking lot of his office, far from home, my father had a dizzy spell, lost his balance, and fell. He ended up in the hospital. Tests showed what everyone feared: cancer. Cancer of the lungs had spread to his brain, which had caused the fall. (My father had been a heavy smoker for much of his life.)
During the next nine months, my father's physical condition went steadily downhill, despite chemotherapy. Soon he was bedridden and began to rely on my mother to care for all of his physical needs at home. During the last month of his life, when my mother could no longer help him out of bed, he said, "I think I should go to the hospital." So we moved him to a sub-acute care facility.
But while his physical condition declined, his spiritual condition seemed to improve.
Near the end of his life, my father started to talk more frequently about God. This was something of a surprise. Although he had been raised Catholic and graduated from Catholic grammar schools and high schools, and although he attended Mass during important feast days, he had, at least as long as I had known him, never been overtly religious.
But as he neared death, he asked my Jesuit friends to pray for him, he treasured holy cards that people sent him, he mused about which people he wanted to see in heaven, he asked what I thought God would be like, and he made some suggestions about his funeral Mass. My dad also became more gentle, more forgiving, and more emotional.
I found these changes both consoling and confusing.
One of the last people to visit with him was my friend Janice, a Catholic sister who had been one of my professors during my theology studies. After his death, I remarked that my dad seemed to have become more open to God. In response, Janice said something that I had never heard before, but which I seemed to have already known.
"Yes," she said. "Dying is about becoming more human."
Her insight was true in at least two ways. First, becoming more human for my father meant recognizing his inborn connection to God. All of us are, in the core of our being, connected to God, though we may ignore it, or deny it, or reject it during our lives. But with my father's defenses completely lowered, God was able to meet him in new ways. Whatever barriers that kept God at a distance no longer existed.
This, not desperation, is why there are so many profound spiritual experiences near death. The person is better able to allow God to break through.
But there is a second way that Janice's insight made sense. My father was becoming more "human" because he was becoming more loving. Drawing closer to God transforms us, since the more time we spend with someone we love, the more we become like the object of our love. Paradoxically, the more "human" we become, the more "divine" we become.
This is not to say that God desires for us to suffer. By no means, as St. Paul would say. Rather, when our defenses fall, our ultimate connection is revealed.
The contemporary German theologian Johannes Baptist Metz may have expressed this best in his short book Poverty of Spirit:
If a person ... focuses on his naked poverty, when the masks fall and the core of his being is revealed, it soon becomes obvious that he is religious by nature. In the midst of his existence there unfolds the bond (re-ligio) which ties him to the infinitely transcendent mystery of God, the insatiable interest in the absolute that captivates the person and underlines his poverty.
Thus, vulnerability is another time in which we draw near to God and God is able to draw near to us.The God Who Seeks
This experience, which many of us have had, as well as those that I've been discussing in my posts over the last few weeks -- experiences of incompletion; common longings and connections; uncommon longings; exaltation and clarity, desires to follow and desires for holiness; and now vulnerability -- are all ways of becoming aware of our innate desire for God.
Anyone, at any time, in any of these ways, can become aware of their desire for God. Moreover, finding God and being found by God are really the same, since those expressions of desire have God both as their source and goal.
Thus, the beginning of the path to God is not only trusting that these desires are placed within us by God, but also trusting that God seeks us in the same way we seek God.
That's another wonderful image of God: the Seeker. In the New Testament, Jesus often used this image (Luke 15:3-8). He compared God to the shepherd who loses one sheep out of one hundred, and leaves the other 99 behind to find the one lost. Or the woman who loses a coin and sweeps her entire house in order to find it. This is the seeking God.
But my favorite image is actually from the Islamic tradition, which depicts God as seeking us more than we seek God. It is a hadith qudsi, which Muslim scholars translate as a divine saying revealed by God to the Prophet Muhammad: "And if [my servant] draws nearer to me by a handsbreadth; I draw nearer to him by an armslength; and if he draws nearer to me by an armslength, I draw nearer to him by a fathom; and if he comes to me walking, I come to him running."
God want to be with you. God desires to be with you. What's more, God desires a relationship with you. All you have to do is say yes.
Reflection Questions:
1) Do you desire God's presence in your life? Can you see that desire as coming from God, as a way of drawing you nearer?
2) During tough times, have you ever become aware of a greater desire for God? How did you respond?
3) Johannes Baptist Metz believes that deep within the core of our being we are tied (the meaning of the word "religion") to God. Do you feel "religious by nature"?
4) Does the image of the "God who seeks" make sense to you? Have you ever thought of God seeking you?
James Martin, SJ, is a Catholic priest and culture editor of America. This essay is adapted from his new book, The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything.
Do you have a story about experiencing God? I would love to hear all about it. Please add them in the comments section. If you would like to find out how you can experience God watch the new Free Documentary Life Force Explained coming out at the end of the summer.
Susan Kaiser Greenland: Mindfulness Isn't a Crystal Ball, But Clarity Can Be Magical (VIDEO)
Are you meditating? Do you practice mindfulness? Keep an eye out for the new free documentary Life Force Explained and learn all about it.
