Procrastination
00:35 Jul 24 2014
Times Read: 585
For the full article go to http://psychology.about.com/od/the-psychology-of/a/psychology-of-procrastination.htm
...Unfortunately, this procrastination can have a serious impact on a number of life areas, including a person's mental health. In a 2007 study, researchers found that at the beginning of the semester, students who were procrastinators reported less illness and lower stress levels than non-procrastinators. This changed dramatically by the end of the term, when procrastinators reported higher levels of stress and illness.
Not only can procrastination have a negative impact on your health; it can also harm your social relationships. By putting things off, you are placing a burden on the people around you. If you habitually turn in projects late or dawdle until the last minute, the people who depend on you such as your friends, family, co-workers, and fellow students can become resentful.
In addition to the reasons why we procrastinate, we often come up with a number of excuses or rationalizations to justify our behavior. According to Tuckman, Abry, and Smith, there are 15 key reasons why people procrastinate:
1 - Not knowing what needs to be done
2 - Not knowing how to do something
3 - Not wanting to do something
4 - Not caring if it gets done or not
5 - Not caring when something gets done
6 - Not feeling in the mood to do it
7 - Being in the habit of waiting until the last minute
8 - Believing that you work better under pressure
9 - Thinking that you can finish it at the last minute
10 - Lacking the initiative to get started
11 - Forgetting
12 - Blaming sickness or poor health
13 - Waiting for the right moment
14 - Needing time to think about the task
15 - Delaying one task in favor of working on another
...
Falling prey to these cognitive distortions is easy, but fortunately there are a number of different things you can do to fight procrastination and start getting things done on time. Continue reading to learn more about some of the things that you can do to overcome procrastination.
Try these cites for helpful tips to overcome procrastination.
http://psychology.about.com/od/psychologystudytips/tp/tips-for-overcoming-procrastination.htm
http://homeworktips.about.com/od/timemanagement/tp/Time-Management-Tools.htm
Something interesting about temper tantrums....
02:53 Jul 22 2014
Times Read: 594
I am only posting a portion of an article I found....the whole article can be found at
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/you-illuminated/201212/are-temper-tantrums-fightflight-response
When our lives are in danger, we have a built in response to mobilize our defense. The fight/flight response would naturally kick in if, on a hike in the mountains, you stumble upon a bear. The bear is processed in the brain as a potential threat to your survival, so within seconds your brain releases norepinephrine (also called noradrenaline), and within minutes a surge of cortisol will circulate through your body. These chemicals rapidly mobilize your body for energy utilization. You will release sugar into the blood stream for energy, your pupils will dilate to take in more information and your muscles will be ready to contract rapidly.
Temper tantrums are a version of the same response. Conflicts, such as a battle over whether to buy a bag of skittles at the store, may not be life-threatening, but they are fights nonetheless. A tantrum also speeds the heart rate and is accompanied by bursts of norepinephrine and cortisol. As evident by how long an adamant child can carry on, energy must be mobilized so the child can make sure its demands are heard, often by everyone in the store.
Life is full of stress, including not getting our way, and this is how young children deal with it. In my opinion, learning better ways to cope with stress is one of the most important skills a child learns. The pursed-lip breathing/soothing thought training is certainly a way to deal with stress.
The critical element of the technique, I think, is that it disrupts the thought process. Stress is a feedback loop. Anxious thoughts lead to sweaty palms, and the awareness of sweaty palms reminds you how anxious you are, which makes your palms sweat (this idea is similar to the classic James-Lange theory of emotion). To stop the cycle, you must either stop your palms from sweating or curb your anxious thoughts. For someone experiencing shortness of breath, pursed-lip breathing and thinking happy thoughts interrupts the cycle in both places, the mind and body.
One of the mysteries of this process—one that we are beginning to uncover—is how the brain processes this bodily awareness and how that affects our behavior. A critical structure seems to be the insula. This prune shaped region buried an inch beneath the outer surface of the brain is activated as we become aware of our bodies. When consciously thinking of your heartbeat, for example, the insula is hard at work.
One of the tasks our lab uses is designed to tweak the insula. While lying in a MRI scanner, we give participants a nose plug and place a mouthpiece on them so that we can restrict their breathing using a resistor. They are still able to take in oxygen, but it requires much more effort. As breathing, an act that usually takes place beneath conscious awareness, becomes restricted, it comes front and center in your attention. At the same time, insula activation increases, presumably encoding enhanced awareness of your body's condition.
The interesting part is that not everyone becomes equally aware of their body, even when their breathing is restricted. Highly trained endurance athletes, for example, have greater insula activation during breathing restriction than typical people do. This heightened awareness may indicate that their insula helps them anticipate their body's needs and respond to them. That way, during a grueling 10 hour bike ride, they can anticipate pain and deal with it before it cripples them, allowing them to make it to the finish line.
To tie this back to temper tantrums, toddlers' insular cortices may indicate what their bodies need. However, their insula may not have developed enough to anticipate discomfort and deal with it calmly. When they want a toy, they feel that they need it. They lack the insight to distinguish between needs and wants. I have not seen developmental studies showing how insula activity matures over time, but one hypothesis about how temper tantrums relate to the brain and the fight/flight response is that their insula becomes more attuned to their body's condition as they grow older, allowing them to better respond to their body's needs.....
I found this article very interesting. Even adults can have temper tantrums. So for those who may exhibit such behaviors, try this breathing technique - pursed lip breathing, that slows air intake. At the same time, try to visualize positive memories. The article states that the combination of pursed-lip breathing and soothing thoughts quickly helped patients to slow their breathing, calm down and turn off the stress response.
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