Generally Thinking

Category: Performance Psychology

  • What to do with your Strengths

    Short Version

    1) Find ways to use strengths more in your life
    2) Look for supplementary knowledge on using these strengths in the domains you have chosen
    3) Practice the activities that use the strengths and/or get training in them

    Long Version

    lego strong man hammer

    Alright.  So you understand that a strength is a part of your brain that’s more efficient than other parts, like broadband is to dial-up.  And you agree with me that life is easier when you stick to your strengths.  Potentially, you can do anything you set your mind to, but it’s going to be a better experience if you set your mind to something that employs your strengths.  Also, you’ve figured out what your strengths are through either self-reflection or questionnaires.

    Now what?

    The next step is to blend your strengths into your life, and get over the obstacles that come up as you do so.  As I imply above, I’m assuming you’re sold on the idea of doing this; if not, re-read the links above to review the benefits, do some further reading through the books I mention or on the web, and ponder the issue further.  If you’re still not convinced, then move along: there’s nothing more to see here.

    If you’re still with me, let’s start with…

    Strengths and Career

    You probably spend between 30 and 50 hours per week working.  Most visitors to Generally Thinking are from the UK and US, so you’re probably near the top end of that scale too; congratulations if you’re not.  In any case, career seems like a good place to start.

    You’ve got two possibilities:

    1) Rearrange your present work so that it involves your strengths
    2) Switch to work that does involve your strengths

    Which of these you do, is up to you.  I suppose it depends on how much you like what you’re doing now balanced against how much you want to fit your strengths into your career.  If your current career doesn’t appear to make use of your identified strengths, don’t immediately conclude you’re miscast, because using option 1 you might later find yourself a good fit.

    Rearrange

    Here you have to discover what strengths you are currently using, then see if you can add the other ones into your role.  Your position might employ one or two of your strengths really well, then it’s a matter of finding ways to add the others in.  If you can’t find ways to add any of your strengths in, you’re currently going against the grain.  You should consider what’s keeping you doing this, and consider Option 2.  If your current role is temporary or a stepping-stone job, you’ll still enjoy it more if you can rearrange the way you do it around your strengths.

    “You might have to get a bit creative, to blend your strengths into your career.”

    The various books on strengths offer basic examples on how to rearrange, such as a cashier with the strength of social intelligence, who started engaging customers more in conversation at the checkout.  If I described how to use every strength in every possible role, I’d be about 80 when I finished this article, so you’ll have to get a bit creative.  But since Gallup discovered that successful people find ways to do this, it’s potentially worth the effort.

    The other day I was reading interviews with two rock-band front-men, Rivers Cuomo of Weezer, and Tim Wheeler of Ash.  Here’s an example of two people in the same role, unconsciously fitting their strengths into it.  Rivers is shy, introspective, and did an English Literature course at Harvard.  He’d probably show up strengths like intellection, analyse or learner.  Tim seems more charismatic and confident, he parties a lot and might have the strengths of Woo and Positivity.  Both are the primary songwriters for their respective bands, so their biggest strength will surely be Arranger, or the VIA strength Creativity.

    But they seem to lever their other apparent strengths into the mix too: Rivers analysed songs by the Beatles, Nirvana and other bands, and created a file called “The Encyclopaedia of Pop”.  He then extrapolated a songwriting framework from this analysis, which he uses to write his songs.  Tim writes upbeat and positive songs, drawing inspiration from things like sunshine and having a good time.  Both of them are very successful, with multiple platinum selling albums.

    Switch

    Option 2 is easier from the point of view of fitting your strengths in, but harder in that you’re making a big change, which most people don’t find easy.  If it’s time to make a change, then looking at your strengths, it should be fairly easy to draft up ideas for roles which involve them.

    “Switching careers makes it easier to use your strengths, but most people don’t find change easy.”

    For example, looking at my own readout in the last article, my strengths were based around learning, curiosity, critical thinking, and forward thinking.  So I’m suited perhaps for something like research, where all of these come into play, and also something like writing or blogging, so I can make extra pocket money by writing about what I learn, and of course learn more about it in the process.  Hmm, what a coincidence, this happens to be the direction I’m heading in.  Don’t say I don’t practice what I preach!

    What strengths can’t tell you is the field you could go into – Gallup’s research did not indicate a relationship between fields and strengths.  For example, you could play the role ‘journalist’ in any number of fields: science, politics, celebrity gossip, and so on.  Strengths offer guidance on the role – not the field.

    Managing Expectations

    Remember, your aim is to look for ways to make more use of your natural and spontaneous ways of responding to the world.  You’re not searching for something that you’re already a master at!   Excellence will come later.  Faster, but still later.

    This is an important point to remember, which Marcus Buckingham makes clear in Now, Discover Your Strengths.  What if you arrange your whole life around your strengths, and then still don’t find the good life?   You’ve already given it your best shot, and with your strengths, no less!  Buckingham says “When the cause of failure seems to have nothing to do with who we really are, we can accept it.”  I’ve already drilled into you that your strengths are an enduring part of you, so what kind of torment would partner this kind of failure?  Buckingham suggests the fear of this could put you off trying.

    “It seems more sensible to deal with a wounded ego than to not bother trying anything.”

    If you never give it your best shot, you’ve always got an excuse, haven’t you?  Like the would-be suitor in a nightclub who acts like a little strange when talking to the attractive girl; a little bit too cocky, a little bit exaggerated.  If the girl turns him down, it’s not him she’s rejecting, it’s the act.  His ego and pride are protected, safe and sound.  But of course what he gains in ego-protection he loses in effectiveness.

    I think the parallels here are similar.  To me, it seems more sensible to find ways of dealing with a wounded ego than to not bother at all.  There’s all kinds of ways out there that offer to do that; meditation, cognitive behavioural therapy, progressive exposure, and so on.

    To bring up a final question for this section: is feeling a certain way really a good reason not to do something?  I had this idea when thinking about Steve Olson’s article on procrastination.  I’m not talking about safety and survival instincts; if you feel a dark alley is unsafe, that definitely is a good reason not to walk down it.  I mean more benign decisions.  There’s a lot going on in this culture – more people around than our brains are really designed to cope with, then there’s media, bills, careers; a whole cacophony of expectations placed on us.  How would you know whether a certain feeling you have should be trusted, like you would with the dark alley, or when it comes from something that you’ve arbitrarily integrated from the outside, with no particular relevance to you personally?  I don’t know the answer to this, so please let me know if you do.

    Add skills and knowledge

    Using the strengths more in your life is a road to happiness, more engagement, and all sorts of other benefits.  It’s also a road to greater performance – a better chance of reaching excellence in your chosen field.  But as we’ve just seen, you still need to hone your strengths further, by deliberately practising them, and also by adding in skills and knowledge.

    “To get ‘consistent, near-perfect performance’, you need skills and knowledge, as well as talent.”

    The reason for this is summed up in Gallup’s definition of a strength – to achieve “consistent, near perfect performance”.  In fact, Gallup define a strength as a strength only after the skills and knowledge have been appropriated.  They call them ‘talents’ prior to this; I’ve just used the term strength for convenience, and to compare models.  To get this level of performance, you may need to focus your efforts on one or more strengths, like the rockstars I mentioned above, who apparently focus on creativity, and use the other strengths to support this effort.  This was an easy choice for me too, as three of my top five strengths are mental/reflective, so it was obvious that this is the place to focus.

    The skills and knowledge you pick up will be experiential as well as deliberately researched or taught.  Some things you simply can’t get except through hands on practice, other things you can get from a book or trainer.  Our rockstars above may have had knowledge training in the form of music theory, skills training through tuition and practising scales, but their unique style of guitar playing and song-writing, that can only come through hands on practice – allowing their brains and nervous systems to end up with pathways and connections, causing them to respond to a guitar and to music the way they do.  There’s really no way of getting around this.

    This just about wraps up this series on strengths, barring a couple of loose-ends to tie up (managing weaknesses, for one).  Thanks for reading, hope it’s been useful!

    Recommended Reading:


    [Lego Strength image by Coldpants]

  • Leadership strengths

    Strengths-based approaches to work and life are popular these days; particularly in how personal strengths can improve leadership, as better leaders mean better experiences for employees, more productivity, and more money (or other bottom line).  But a key question is, do leadership strengths exist?  Are there strengths that all leaders share?  If so, what are they?  And if not, how can the current perspectives on strengths create better leaders?

    What makes a good leader?

    “Good Leader” seems to be a fluid concept, depending very much on the context.  Strengths-based approaches to leadership argue that good leadership isn’t a matter of having a specific set of “leadership strengths,” but rather, it’s a matter of leveraging the strengths a leader already has in a way that gets the job done.  This isn’t to say that certain skills and abilities aren’t required by most, if not all leaders; it’s just that there isn’t one particular ‘mould’ that a person has to fit into to be a leader – they come in all shapes and sizes.

    There are two major models of strengths – StrengthsFinder and Values in Action. If you’re a follower of the ‘strengths movement’, you’ll be familiar with at least one, if not both of these; if not, you can find a comparison here: Values in Action Vs StrengthsFinder.

    The StrengthsFinder Perspective

    Gallup’s work on leadership strengths is found in the book Strengths-Based Leadership.  They conducted thousands of interviews to create the Strengths Finder model, and they didn’t find any one strength that all leaders shared.  But, they did find that the most effective leaders invested in their own strengths – and the strengths of their team.

    Why aren’t certain strengths more common among good leaders?  It could be because of leadership styles.  Research identified four common styles: executing, influencing, relationship building, and strategic thinking.  The 34 Gallup strengths are linked up to these categories, and the style of leadership you’re likely to use is related to which of these categories your personal strengths are in.  This is why good leadership is more a matter of using your own strengths, as opposed to fitting the mould of a mentor, or stereotype.

    But this line isn’t so concretely drawn, as they found a few more interesting things:

    • Followers look for trust, compassion, stability and hope from a leader
    • Leaders understand their followers’ needs
    • Leaders create teams based on people who have strengths that compliment their own, as I briefly mentioned in strengths and weaknesses.

    So while no particular StrengthFinder strength is necessary, leaders do need to know their own strengths and weaknesses well enough to form a team around them, and they also need the necessary perceptiveness to understand their team members’ needs.

    The Values in Action Perspective

    The VIA model views the ability to lead as a strength in itself.  They measure leadership one-dimensionally, rather than scoring you on different theoretical aspects of leadership.  And it’s done through self-report, so your leadership strength is reflected by your answers to questions about how often you lead, your opinion of yourself as a leader, and your opinion of your friends’ opinions of yourself as a leader, and so on.

    This is a bit open to error, just as all self-report measurements are, but based on the Gallup findings it might be the most accurate way to do it.  I only found one study looking at the VIA strengths of leaders, which compared CEOs with their employees.  You can get a pdf from the University of Zurich’s website.  The results are below, hopefully they won’t mind me copying this graph here:

    As you can see, there’s very little difference between the strengths of CEOs and employees, which the Gallup research would predict.  There were a few differences though – CEOs were higher in ‘open-mindedness’, ‘bravery’, and ‘leadership’, but lower in ‘kindness’ and ‘appreciation of beauty and excellence’.

    (You may notice other differences on the graph, but these weren’t ‘statistically significant’, which is jargon basically meaning the scores are too close together to know if the slight difference was a fluke finding or not).

    Although these differences seem to go against the StrengthsFinder results, they don’t really.  As I know Gallup reached their conclusions through interviews, so it would have been qualitative research and open-ended questions.  So they wouldn’t be able to pick up subtle differences like the VIA questionnaire would.  Also, this study only looked at one type of leader – CEOs, a very distinctive type, which might attract people with a particular leadership style.

    With the graph showing such similarities between CEOs and employees, the general idea that there’s no specific leadership strengths holds up here too – at least based on this one study, and exluding ‘leadership’ itself obviously.

    So what makes a good leader, from a strengths perspective?

    • You don’t need any leadership strengths per se, but you need to know and invest in the strengths you do have (which you might do through self-reflection or questionnaires).
    • You must know your weaknesses, and shape your team to compliment them.
    • Finally, be perceptive enough to understand the needs of your team.  Individual needs, you’ll have to work out yourself, but generally speaking people tend to look to leaders for trust, compassion, stability and hope.

    Although this field is quite well researched, it’s not without critics.  So if you’re interested, you should look into the field further and see if you think it’s worth trying out.  The book Strengths-Based Leadership would be a good place to start, and there are also some good blogs that deal with strengths and leadership, like Clifton Strengths Blogger, and The Practice of Leadership.

    Recommended Reading:

     

  • Some Thoughts And Questions On Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow

    ‘Flow’, or the ‘flow state’, refers to what you might know as being ‘in the zone’. It is that state where you are wrapped up in the activity that you are doing, so much so that you are ‘one’ with it (in the sense of being fully engaged that is; not a strange zen thing).

    The main researcher of flow is the delightfully unpronounceable Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Chick-sent-me-high). Generally it is associated with more intrinsic motication for the activity in question, and although you lose sense of yourself and time while you are in flow, you are said to return with a stronger sense of self afterwards.

    Conceptualisation of Flow

    Flow is certainly a broad concept that can be applied in a number of fields, from education to sport. It has also been studied in a number of different countries, mainly the US and Italy, but also in Japan (Sato, 1984). This suggests that although the context of flow might differ from place to place, the experience may be universal, or at least ubiquitous.

    These cross-cultural studies are important because flow was defined initially through interview with people. So these people are giving their subjective interpretation of the state and not necessarily an accurate description of the objective state of flow (if there is one). For instance, my description of flow is limited by my vocabulary. So to really say that the state is universal, more studies of non-English speaking countries could be conducted, each with their own cultural nuances and language, not to mention non-rich countries.

    However, another perhaps more important step is to measure the physiological and neurological correlates of flow. Although I could not find a direct study of this, I would propose that the flow state may be characterised by activation in the dopamine system, in the ventral tegmental area of the brain. Such brain activity is thought to be important in attention, particularly with ‘important’ stimuli (Donahoe and Palmer, 1993), and there is some evidence that this activity is involved in tasks that you might expect to produce flow (eg, video games; Koepp, 1998). But, I could not find one that measured flow at the same time.

    This idea makes some theoretical sense also, as dopamine serves to label stimuli as appetitive, and is associated with pleasurable feelings. This might support the suggestion that flow is a state of ‘ecstasy’ that we like to return to – but would beg the question of whether the dopamine release is ‘tagged’ to the state, the activity, or both.

    Theoretical issues of flow

    Flow is theoretically the result of a certain balance between challenge and skill (or resources), and the theory is presented as a general model that covers all behaviours. But does a high level of challenge and skill always result in flow? Also, are there any differences in the level of skill required for flow to occur, or is it always context-specific?

    For instance, the flow model began life by stating that one simply had to match skill with challenge – even if they are low.

    Later, this section of the model was labelled ‘apathy’, due to inconsistent results.

    Additionally, some studies have failed to find a difference between the flow state and the boredom/relaxation state in terms of the constituent factors that make up flow (eg concentration and intrinsic motivation; Ellis et al, 1994). Perhaps these inconsistencies were due to individual differences rather than a fault in the model. Or perhaps the flow state only results from certain types of activity.

    Measuring Flow

    ESM is usually used to measure flow. “Experience Sampling Method” is where participants in studies get a pager, which beeps through the day, usually at somewhat random intervals, and they answer question then and there on what they are doing, how they feel etc. The ESM method is quite an innovative way of measuring flow, but it relies on self-report, and therefore an individual’s interpretation of their state, rather than an objective measurement of that state itself. The data from ESM are assumed to be valid, from what I could tell. To further validate measurements of flow, self-report measurements could be correlated with neurological measurements taken while a person is performing an activity which is reported to generate flow.

    I’m don’t think studies have already been done though. Or at least, I couldn’t find any if there are – please leave a comment below if you know of any!

    References:

    Donahoe, J.W. and D. C. Palmer (1993). Learning and Complex Behavior, Allyn and Bacon.

    Ellis, G. D., Voelkl, J. E.,&Morris, C. (1994). Measurements and analysis issues with explanation of variance in daily experience using the Flow model. Journal of Leisure Research, 26, 337–356.

    Koepp, M. J. (1998) Evidence for striatal dopamine release during a video game, Nature, 393, 266-268

    Sato, I. (1984). Bosozoku no Esunographi [An ethnography of motorcycle gangs]. Tokyo: Keiso Shobo. (I admit I have not actually read this!)

  • Four ways to boost your creativity when writing

    Whether you’re writing a novel, a blog, or an essay, the biggest problem has to be writer’s block. It’s so annoying when you’ve actually gotten past the initial procrastination hurdle (not an easy task in itself), you’re sat at your desk and you WANT to write – but it’s just not coming out. Or, what is coming out isn’t to your liking.

    Trust me, I know how that feels; I started this blog post in 2005.

    Here are a few tips you can try to give your creativity a little boost.

    1) Get the right emotions for the job

    3342877736_374c327e7a_m
    Photo credit: Joe Shlabotnik

    Our emotions serve evolutionarily adapted purposes. We have different emotions because they each solve different evolutionary problems. Anger helps to stop people transgressing against us, love helps us keep a mate, fear keeps us out of danger, and so on. Because they are specialised, emotions have different effects on our perceptual system, and the ways we think. ‘Negative’ emotions tend to narrow our though-action repertoire, while ‘positive’ emotions tend to broaden them (Fredrickson, 2001 – PDF).

    In other words, when you’re in a lower mood, you’re more likely to look at the little details, when your mood is high, you’re see the bigger picture and be more creative.

    So whenever you’re brainstorming or coming up with new ideas, boost your mood with something uplifting, heart warming, or side-splitting.

    Whenever you’re editing or proof-reading, put some downbeat music on, and get to work.

    (We might also suppose that continuing a long argument with your spouse is a bad idea – you’re both focusing too much on the things that put you into that negative state. Sleep on it and discuss in the morning.)

    2) Take breaks

    Whenever you’re doing work that requires focused, mental effort, you’re draining your mental willpower reserves. Once these are depleted, performance suffers and you suddenly can’t be bothered to work. Take regular breaks and do something that requires no effort to attend to – spending time in nature has proven to be a useful exercise to this end (See the extensive work of the Kaplans). Also, make sure you don’t go hungry while working – the fuel that willpower runs on is glucose (Gailliot and Baumeister, 2007) – empty stomach equals poorer mental performance.

    3) Use novelty to your advantage

    Short answer: If you want a novel idea, expose your brain to novelty.

    Long answer: The area of the brain associated with novelty is thought to be the substantia nigra/ventral tegmental area (SN/VTA). The VTA is part of the dopamine system, in other words, the reward system. When we perceive novelty, our brain signals us to explore, because it is always looking for rewards. The brain likes novelty.

    What’s more, these brain areas are connected to the hippocampus, which is involved in learning. You can see where I’m going with this; enhanced learning might occur in the context of novelty. On top of that, a novel environment exposes you to a different set of priming, which themselves trigger different areas in your brain.

    There’s the science, here’s the simple advice – go somewhere new to write. Try a park, a library, a coffee shop you’ve never been to. Try a car park, a zoo, a big wheel, try wearing different clothes, talking to different people. Use novelty to your advantage and see if your brain doesn’t come up with some new ideas.

    4) Try the SCAMPER method

    Luciano Passuello of LiteMind discusses the SCAMPER method of creative problem solving. This is going to be more effective when you have a specific writing problem you are ‘stuck’ on. It is essentially a list of questions which help you to look at the problem from 7 different angles, each represented by the SCAMPER acronym. Not all of these angles will be appropriate to your specific writing problem, but I’ve found it really useful at various times. I’m interested to hear how you get on with this method, so let me know if you use it – leave a comment with your experiences!

    Get to it

    I’m certain that by using one or more or these techniques (all four if necessary) you’ll be able to make at least SOME headway on your writing. Let me know how you get on!

  • The incredible reason why you should be exercising regularly

    I think everyone is sold on the idea that exercise is good for the body, assuming no contraindications. Everyone who can, should do it – it makes you physically healthier, stronger, etc.

    Fewer people are aware of it’s effect on mood though, which I have discussed before. Physical exercise makes you happier, and more likely to overcome stressful setbacks that you encounter through your life. I believe it was Tal Ben-Shahar who said “Not exercising is like taking depressants.”

    Fewer people still are aware of another benefit to exercise. It’s even good for the brain. Is there nothing it can’t do?

    Take dementia for instance. Laurin et al (2001) looked at a huge sample of randomly selected Canadian men and women. 6,434 of these were ‘cognitively normal’ at baseline; that is, no dementia. Five years later, 4,615 people completed a follow up test which asked them about their exercise habits, as well as other tests, such as for cognitive impairment.

    High levels of activity were associated with reduced risks of cognitive impairment, dementia (of any type), and Alzheimer disease. The odds of someone having Alzheimer’s in the group who exercise were half as low as those who did no exercise at all!

    So it seems that regular physical activity might be a preventative factor in age related cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s. This is pretty big.

    But the benefits of exercise do not seem to stop at prevention – they may actually have an augmenting effect on cognitive function in healthy adults; and the evidence for this is getting stronger.

    Take Winters et al (2007) for instance. They took a group of people, got them to run around a bit, and then tested their learning performance, both immediately afterwards and long term. They found that vocabulary learning was 20% faster after intense exercise, as well as increases in a protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factor, or BDNF, and sustained BDNF was linked to greater learning success. BDNF is sort of the holy grail of cognitive enhancement, helping to support the survival of existing neurons as well encourage the growth of new neurons and synapses. This protein may explain both the preventative and enhancement effects of exercise on cognitive function.

    So when you’re wondering whether to get off your ass and get to the gym today, keep this in mind – you’re not only keeping your body healthy, you’re improving your mental function and preventing cognitive decline.

    This might also play a role in the timing of your exercise sessions. Try working out immediately prior to any time you need to learn. It should improve your performance.

  • Can we develop psychological resilience through physical activity?

    Psychological ‘resilience’ refers to the differences between people in how they respond to and cope with difficult or stressful experiences. People who are highly resilient would be less affected, recover more quickly, and/or might actually find such events to be growth experiences. For people low in resilience, the opposite would be true.

    Now here’s something to think about: many popular books and articles have mentioned the increases in mental disorder such as stress and depression over the last century, at least in the modern world. And if you think about it, there does seem to be a trend in which, as time has gone by, we’ve increased our use of technology to the effect that we physically move around much less.

    Could it be that there is a causal relationship here, that our lack of movement has reduced our psychological resilience to stress? And by becoming more active, could we increase our resilience?

    Stress

    In a sense, everything that we do involves stress. Even just reading this sentence is placing a particular demand on your brain, so what is important here is how we respond a particular stressor. Stress is also important for growth – our bodies are adaptive and generally respond to stress by becoming more able to deal with it; provided that stress is not too high. For example, doing bicep curls with 100kg would probably be too much stress and lead to injury, but 10kg might be enough stress to increase strength.

    So you could argue that placing the body under moderate amounts of stress could, over time, lead to lowered stress responses to future events, but the important point is whether resilience to the stress of exercise carries over to stress caused by other events (eg, in the workplace, traffic jams, etc).

    Exercise

    resilience_and_exercise
    Two great ways to get some exercise: Walk the invisible dog, and handshake the invisible man. (Credit: mikebaird)

    In one study, researchers put one group of participants on a 10-week walking and jogging program, and left another to continue their normal sedentary lifestyle. At the end of the program, the exercise group scored lower on state and trait anxiety, as well as less tension and fatigue. These factors could contribute to lowered stress responses to future events, however this was not tested directly, and additionally only 16 participants per group took part, and you’d typically want a minimum of 30, preferably more, to get a solid finding. (1)

    In another study, the effects of aerobic, weight, and no training on responses to a fiendishly stressful situation were compared. Participants had to answer mental arithmetic puzzles, which flashed up on a screen too fast to complete, while listening to distracting conversations involving numbers.

    Those who had undergone the aerobic training had reduced heart-rate and systolic blood-pressure responses relative to the control group (the weight training group only had improvements in systolic blood-pressure). So it seems apparent that exercise builds physical and psychological resilience to other events. (2)

    Mechanisms

    The mechanism of this effect is not yet fully understood, but Spalding et al (2) suggest it may by primarily due to improvements in general cardiac performance – the cardiovascular system becomes more efficient and doesn’t need to do as much work to mobilise resources in reaction to a stressor. In this way, exercise effectively raises the body’s natural ‘trigger point’ for the stress response.

    Additionally, exercise triggers the release of atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP), which has a direct effect on the body’s stress response by reducing the activation of the HPA axis. This is a route through which exercise can reduce immediate levels of stress, but there may be longer-term effects too; exercise may benefit chronic levels of stress by relaxing the resting tension level of the muscles, which can reduce chronic stress by breaking the stress-feedback loop (3).

    The body was ‘designed’ with the presumption that it would experience a certain amount of movement, and when this movement doesn’t take place, the body doesn’t perform up to spec. This is one example of many where we see that as humans are taken further from their ‘natural environment’, so to speak, various problems start to arise.

    Recommended Reading:

    References:

    (1) Blumenthal, J.A., Williams., R.S., Needels, T.L., & Wallace, A.G. (1982). Psychological changes accompany aerobic exercise in healthy middle-aged adults. Psychosomatic Medicine, 44(6), 529-536.

    (2) Spalding, T.W., Lyon, L.A., Steel, D.H., & Hatfield, B.D. (2004). Aerobic exercise training and cardiovascular reactivity to psychological stress in sedentary young normotensive men and women. Psychophysiology, 41, 552-562.

    (3) Ratey, J., & Hagerman, E. (2008). Spark. London: Quercus.

  • Between work and leisure – Escaping The Grey Zone

    A friend sent me an interesting text message the other day. He asked: “What’s your biggest time-waster?” I replied with only three mysterious words: “The Grey Zone”. In case you’re wondering, he said his biggest time-waster is figuring out what my cryptic texts mean.

    What is The Grey Zone?

    The Grey Zone is limbo. You’re somewhere in between relaxing fully, and actually being productive. You are sat in your work place, sort of doing little jobs that aren’t really important in between checking emails, Facebook, Twitter, or whatever. Or you’re watching a TV program but you bring a book to read as you watch it. This is The Grey Zone. You’re not making efficient or useful progress, and you’re not switching off completely and getting the benefits of leisure time either. After a while in the grey zone, you will feel guilty for not getting anything done but also tired as you have not been fully relaxing.

    It’s very easy to fall into the grey zone with tasks that have no clearly defined start and finish points. Studying is one big example, so is working on a blog or website. Yes, you know when your exam or essay deadline is, but you don’t have a schedule to do x at y time on z day. Without a start and finish point, it’s easy to spend hours or even days in the grey zone. You’ll eventually feel too overloaded with work to justify taking any time off (at least not without feeling guilty), so you feel compelled to sit at your desk “working”, but at the same time you don’t have the motivation to tackle any mentally demanding tasks. So you settle on some task that is necessary, and is helpful in some small degree, but isn’t what you would choose to do if your motivation was higher.

    The problem with the grey zone is that it’s easy to rationalise that you have spent this time working. You probably believe quite strongly that the more time you put into a task, the more you get done: the ‘results by volume’ approach. If I’ve spent 6 hours ‘working’, I must have done lots of work. The flaw in the logic is that not every hour’s work is made equal. Here’s an illustration, using an arbitrary points system. Say an hour of focused work is 10 points of productivity, an hour in the grey zone is 3 points of productivity, and an hour of leisure is 0 points of productivity.

    4 hours productive work = 40 points
    2 hours leisure time = 0 points
    TOTAL = 40 points

    2 hours productive work = 20 points
    4 hours in the grey zone = 12 points
    TOTAL = 32 points

    So more gets done in the first example. But there’s another factor to take into consideration. Even though 4 hours in the grey zone is less productive, it’s still pretty tiring. Without the extra time to relax, you might not be fully rested for tomorrow. Here’s what might happen the next day:

    4 hours productive work = 40 points
    2 hours leisure time = 0 points
    TOTAL = 40 points

    2 hours productive work = 18 points
    4 hours in the grey zone = 10 points
    TOTAL = 28 points

    Of course these figures don’t prove anything; I’m just using them to illustrate my points, which are:

    • The grey zone is easy to fall into without clear start and end points to your work periods (and knowing specifically what to do within these ‘time boxes’)
    • Overall productivity is lower in the grey zone
    • The grey zone drains your motivation to tackle work with focus

    Escaping The Grey Zone

    It’s easy to get into and hard to get out of – unless you know how.

    1) Fixed Scheduling

    This is an idea popularised by Cal Newport. The principle is simple – you set a fixed schedule to study, and once that time is up, you stop working and start your leisure time, however you might choose to spend it. This is a bit scary at first, you might think you need the time too much, but give this a try for a few weeks. You’ll find that you get as much or more done, for two main reasons. Firstly, you’re forced to be more productive in the time that you have, so your overall efficiency will improve. Secondly, you’ll be better rested the next day, and won’t feel the need to float around in the grey zone. But you must stop when your schedule tells you to! Then go relax and recharge for the next day. If you ignore your schedule, you’ll just keep your old pattern; and if your time runs out before you get the work you wanted done, it will remind you that you’ll need to be more focused the next day.

    2) Time Boxing

    I came across this one through Steve Pavlina, many moons ago. Within your fixed schedule, set specific blocks of time out to work on specific tasks. Buy a cheap academic diary for this purpose. For example, say you have a lecture between 2 and 5. Your schedule for that day might be to work in the library from 10-1.45, then go to your class until 5. Your time boxes might be a two hour session between 10-12, and another from 12-1.45. Time boxing is very useful when you can’t break a task down further and it’s now just a matter of putting the time into getting it done. You know you only have to do a certain amount of work, so you don’t feel overwhelmed.

    3) Planning

    Some people prefer to ‘go with the flow’ in terms of when and what they study, but I’m willing to bet that most people couldn’t do better on the fly than they could with a schedule. Therefore, you need to adopt some kind of system. It doesn’t have to be elaborate, but you should know exactly what you need to do when you sit down to work. This doesn’t mean “Work on essay.” ‘Work on essay’ is not something to do, it’s a very vague notion. Instead, something like “Download Diener (1995), read and take notes.” Don’t put “Revise for working memory exam,” put “Draw mind maps based on notes on working memory.” It’s best to be as specific as you can so you don’t waste time in the grey zone deciding what to do. Although I accept there are times you cannot be any more specific than “Write essay” – sometimes it’s just time to start writing.

    Remember the key points. The results by volume approach to study makes intuitive sense but it’s not entirely accurate. The quality of the time you put in is also important, and if you’re spending a long time putting minimal effort in, it will produce worse results and more stress than if you spend shorter periods putting lots of effort in. It will be difficult at first – focused studying is a tiring thing to do. After a couple of hours you’ll get hungry as your brain eats up glucose to fuel your efforts. But it is something you get better at over time.

  • 3 Keys to fantastic memory

    Fantastic memory. I really need this. I’m quite fond of such classic moments as walking into a room without any idea what I’m doing there, forgetting peoples’ names only seconds after I meet them, and once, completely forgetting how old I was (a liberating, if mildly frustrating experience).

    Maybe I need the help of one of the big names in the study of expertise, Dr K. Anders Ericsson. He’s done work on what separates good performers from master performers in a number of different fields, and he consistently found that the main factor in expertise is practice. When he turned his attention to the study of people with a fantastic memory abilities, he reports that not only is practice necessary, it is also sufficient.


    60s pinup memory
    “You’re so forgetful darling! That’s the third time you’ve covered me with suntan lotion!”(credit)

    He goes on to cover what he believes are the three essential requirements for fantastic memory:

    1) Meaningful Encoding

    We looked into what encoding is here. To encode something meaningfully means relating it to existing knowledge – making connections between material.

    2) Retrieval Structure

    Along with the information being stored, cues should be memorised too. This allows for much greater ease of recall later on – the more ‘paths’ to the memory, the more ways it can be accessed and the recalled. This is the principle behind the link system and the peg system of memory.

    3) Speed-up

    This is where practice comes in. People with fantastic memory have extensively practised encoding and recalling information – in a way, this trains the processes involved, so that they function more quickly over time. Eventually, as with many learned skills, the process becomes automatic. For example, if you’ve ever learned to drive, you’ll remember that at first you have to put your full attention on the job; but later, you could switch off while driving and think about whatever comes to mind. According to Ericsson, it’s the same thing with memory.


    fantastic memory

    Bill forgets to pick up his phone once again.

    I find Ericsson’s work quite encouraging. It’s kind of nice to know that given huge amounts of dedicated practice, natural talent doesn’t seem to play much of a role in performance. But does this mean we can do “Anything we set our minds to?” Or should we “Stick to our strengths?” The answer to that is here, and it’s probably not what you’re thinking.

    Either way though, I have to wonder just how much practice it will take for me to stop walking into rooms without knowing why I’m there…

    References:

    Ericsson, K.A. (1988). Analysis of memory performance in terms of memory skill. In R.J. Sternberg (Ed.), Advances in the psychology of human intelligence, Vol 4. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc.

    Ericsson, K.A. & Kintsch, W. (1995). Long-term working memory. Psychological Review, 102, 211-245

  • Absolute beginner’s guide to having a lucid dream

    A lucid dream is quite a different experience to a normal one. In a normal dream, the experience is like a film. You’re just watching what goes on, albeit from a first-person perspective, and you cannot control anything despite an illusory sense of agency.

    In a lucid dream, you wake up during the film. You are as conscious as you are right now, reading this. You are able to make choices, move around, and in most cases, you are able to dictate what happens in your dream environment (it is a product of your own mind, after all).

    This means you can do whatever you want in your dreams, have whatever dream you want to have. What is more, a lucid dream seems far more real than a normal one. Everything is lifelike and vivid, almost to the level you experience in real life, and sometimes more.

    This article is a brief overview of the techniques I use to trigger a lucid dream. Using these, especially the ‘sledgehammer method’ you should be able to have a lucid dream quickly, within the first week probably. I found these techniques from a combination of a lot of time spent searching the internet, and using Stephen LaBerge’s book ‘Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming‘.

    1) Write your dreams down

    journal_bed
    (Bekah Stargazing)

    Throughout all the sources I have found, this is the only universal tip. You keep a pad of paper – or preferably a journal you use solely for this purpose, and a pen by your bed. Every time you wake up, jot down the details of the last dream you had. There two main reasons for this. The first, is that this helps you to remember the dreams you have. You might have 3-4 dreams per night, but it’s likely you remember only one, at the most. By keeping track, you train yourself to remember dreams, which is very useful – there’s no point in having a lucid dream if you don’t remember it in the morning. Secondly, you can look over your diary of dreams, you can begin to notice things that repeatedly occur, maybe a particular location, event, person, character, object, scenario: whatever. You should then make a note of these recurring themes, known as ‘dreamsigns’ (more on this later).

    2) Reality Checks

    The primary way to become lucid during a dream is to consciously realise that you are dreaming. Your dreams are very often a reflection of your waking life, so you can use this to your advantage by performing ‘reality checks’, around 10-15 times per day. There are certain things that can and cannot occur during a dream, and by making a serious and deliberate check of these things regularly throughout the day, you will eventually find yourself making the same checks in a dream.

    The difference is, when you are dreaming you will necessarily fail the tests, therefore realise you are dreaming, and become lucid. Here are the tests you should do:

    a) Ask yourself “Am I awake, or am I dreaming right now?”.

    It is important to take this test seriously, and assume that you are actually dreaming and attempt to disprove that ‘fact’. Because, as LeBerge notes in Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming, if you simply take it as an obvious fact that you are awake, you will simply replicate this assumption in your dreams. Be aware of your situation and perceptions. Have a look around for anything dream-like.

    b) Check some writing

    jumbled_writing
    (D Sharon Pruitt)

    Find some text. Look at it, look away, then look back. Do it again. If the text changes, you are dreaming. If it stays the same, you are awake. I had this happen in one of the dreams in which I became lucid. I was reading a magazine, then decided to do a reality check. I looked away, looked back, and repeated this. To my surprise, the text kept changing. I realised I was in a dream, and became lucid. As I did, the whole experience became more vivid and lifelike. Fascinated, I looked again at the magazine (which I could now feel in my hand, and see the separate pages of, just as if it were real) several times. The text changed into a different jumbly mess of letters each time.

    c) See if you can fly or float

    Obviously, you can’t do this in real life. So if you can fly, float, or hover, you must clearly be in a dream. Try to do these during your reality check; try to will yourself to hover, or jump in the air and see if it takes a strangely long time before you land. If it does, you’re dreaming.

    d) Check your memory

    Memory doesn’t work all that well in dreams. Think back over what you’ve done over the last hour and beyond. Can you think of any details? If the details are hazy, you are dreaming.

    When should you do your reality checks? Do them at regular points throughout the day, so that it becomes routine to do so. Do a decent amount each day – 10-15 should do it, and preferably try each of the above methods on each check. Try using set times, when waking, when brushing teeth, when on the bus/in the car to work/school, when eating lunch, etc etc.

    As well as your chosen set times, perform a reality check every time you come across a dreamsign in real life. For example, I often find myself dreaming that I’m in a kitchen or a bathroom. Invariably, they are incredibly strange versions of such rooms, but I just accept them as normal. By doing a reality check every time I’m in a kitchen while awake, I find myself doing so in dreams too.

    You can also visualise yourself seeing dreamsigns, and then doing a reality check that you fail, leading to a lucid dream. This will be useful if you have a dreamsign that you are unlikely to encounter in real life, such as an old friend you don’t see anymore, or something more abstract.

    3) Fall asleep hoping

    As you lie in bed, think about lucid dreams, and repeat your intention to have a lucid dream mentally. If your mind wanders to something else, bring it back to the affirmation that you intend to notice you are dreaming and become lucid tonight. This might help you fall asleep faster too, because your mind isn’t wandering.

    4) Sledgehammer Technique

    sledgehammer
    (Matti Mattila)

    There is definitely a technical name for this, but I can’t remember it and I like this better! This is the single most effective way to have a lucid dream. Unfortunately, it is the most intrusive to your schedule.

    First, a few facts:

    • When we sleep, our brain cycles through different patterns or ‘stages’ of activity.
    • We dream in the ‘REM’ stage of sleep.
    • As the night goes on, periods of REM sleep get longer and longer.
    • If we are cut off from getting REM sleep, we tend to enter it immediately when we do eventually sleep.

    We can take advantage of these facts. First set an alarm for 5-6 hours into our sleep period. Then, we get up, and out of bed. This is hard to do.

    While you are awake, drill the idea of lucid dreams into your head. Have a few websites bookmarked to read during this time (such as this one), print out a few articles to read, and if you have a book on lucid dreaming, read that.

    Stay up for an hour or two doing this, just reading and thinking about lucid dreams. Do a load of reality checks, especially the visualisation ones described earlier. This really is the sledgehammer approach; overload yourself with thoughts, intentions, and information about lucid dreaming – prime yourself. Then go back to bed, and apply technique 3, above.

    If you do this, you are very, very likely to have a lucid dream. I had one on my second night trying this. Of course, this is most effective when combined with all the above techniques, so the more dreams you have logged and the more dreamsigns and reality checks you have done in the past, the more likely it is to work. But it is highly effective as a stand-alone technique.

    Another tip, is to decide what you want to do during a lucid dream, so that you don’t waste time deciding. Apparently, lucid dreams occur at a normal rate of time, so time is of the essence.

    Hope these tips are useful, if you don’t get quick results please persevere, because I promise that lucid dreams exist and can be learned, I’ve done it myself so I would know! At the same time, this is a skill just like any other, and it may be some weeks or even months before you start having lucid dreams on a consistent basis. Make sure you don’t skip the step of writing your dreams down. Good luck!

    Recommended Reading:

  • Rewards and Motivation

    You’ve probably heard the advice “When you’re doing well, give yourself a reward!” – it finds its way into just about every self-help book you’ve ever picked up.  But are there any times where this is bad advice?  Why, yes there are – when your motivation for a task is intrinsic.

    I have explained what intrinsic motivation is and how to get it in “What’s your motivation?”, but briefly, extrinsic motivation is where you perform some task to achieve some benefit at the end of it, and intrinsic motivation is where the reward is the activity itself, rather than from any benefits that may come as a result of it.  For example, if you play football for the fun of it you’re intrinsically motivated, but if you playing football to lose some weight you’re extrinsically motivated.  And there are shades of grey between the two.

    If you’re intrinsically motivated to do a task, you’re in a good place.  Say you love writing.  You’re more likely to sit down and do it, because you enjoy it for it’s own sake, and you’ll probably be better at it as a result. 

    But if you start receiving money for writing, something strange happens.  

    “Intrinsic motivation is hindered by tangible rewards.”

    A part of you thinks “I’m doing this for the money”.   Intrinsic motivation comes when our needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness are met; anything that provides for these needs will tend to increase intrinsic motivation, anything that undermines them will decrease intrinsic motivation.  Receiving money for writing is an external control – it will undermine autonomy to some extent, because you are not doing the task purely for the enjoyment of it.  

    Intrinsic motivation goes hand-in-hand with enjoyment of the activity, performance, vitality, and self-esteem.  If you’re intrinsic motivation takes a hit, these things potentially could too.

    Maybe this is why a band’s second album usually isn’t as good as their first?

    Effective Rewards

    So is there a way to receive a reward without it being seen as controlling?  Yes, by making it unexpected.  Unexpected rewards have no bearing on intrinsic motivation.  Obviously, if you’re using rewards on yourself, you can’t very well  give yourself a surprise reward.  Even if you set up a clock with a randomised timer, you’re still expecting it to go off at some point.  

    But if you’re a manager, going up to someone at a random time and saying “Bob, you’ve done well this month.  We’re giving you an extra $300!” will not undermine intrinsic motivation, whereas saying “Bob, do well this month and you’ll get an extra $300!” will.

    Important note: Remember, this only applies to intrinsic motivation – those times when a task is already interesting.  If you look at the previous article on this subject, you’ll see that in the diagram (scroll down a bit), there are a few types of extrinsic motivation.  If the motivation for an activity is currently extrinsic, it’s OK to use rewards.  

    For example, if you really don’t want to go to the gym but know that you must, then it’s OK to get a movie as reward for completing your workout.  Or if you’re an employer and there’s a repetitive or more dreaded part of the job, rewards will increase your employees motivation to do it.

    Positive Feedback

    The above only applies to tangible rewards.  Money, gifts, cookies; whatever.  If the reward is verbal, different rules apply – positive feedback will actually enhance intrinsic motivation.  This seems to be, in part, because a verbal reward tends to be unexpected.  It’s not like your boss ever says “Bob, do a good job this month and I’ll give you some positive feedback!”

    “Verbal rewards can enhance intrinsic motivation – if they’re seen as informational“

    There are several studies that confirm this.  They look at times when the participants are told to expect an evaluation of their performance on a task.  An anticipated evaluation that includes positive feedback does seem to undermine intrinsic motivation.

    But the primary reason that positive feedback is effective is that it provides a feeling of competence to the recipient, one of the three requirements of intrinsic motivation mentioned above.

    Because of this, if positive feedback is given in an authoritative and controlling way, it too will undermine intrinsic motivation.  So verbal rewards need to be informative, not controlling, and preferably not given solely in expected appraisals.

    Again, this is more difficult to apply to self-administered rewards.

    Careers

    One interesting question raised by this research, is what would happen if you take something you love, and try to make a career out of it?  While previously, you only played the violin or wrote poetry for pleasure and relaxation, now part  of your motivation is to make money, pay the bills, achieve recognition in your field, and so on.

    The data suggests that your intrinsic motivation would be undermined by this, to some extent.  

    But as mentioned above, intrinsic motivation comes from three sources – autonomy, competence, and relatedness.  Entering a career as a violinist might open you to relationships with other like-minded individuals, which could compensate for the extrinsic rewards.

    You could always consciously make effort to increase autonomy, competence and relatedness.  More on that in this article.

    Children

    When it comes to children, just throw the whole rule book out of the window.  With a predictable awkwardness so typical of their kind, children respond differently to rewards than adults do.  

    Firstly, in terms of tangible rewards, children are more detrimentally affected.  So tangible rewards must be used carefully with kids, so as not to negatively affect their intrinsic motivation.

    Secondly, verbal rewards appear to have no effect on intrinsic motivation in children.  See.  I knew they didn’t listen!

    Whatever you do, don’t take the above two paragraphs as advice.  I’m just putting this information in the article in case any parents reading this were planning to use their child as a guinea pig – things work differently for kids, so don’t bother trying!  

    Now, I’m not saying you shouldn’t turn the apple of your eye into a psychology experiment, for the good of science; only that you should seek the advice of a professional or find a proper source of information first!

    Abstinence

    Just a final note based on my experiences with quitting smoking and other things.  If you need motivation to abstain from a particular thing, many sources recommend rewarding yourself with that thing.

    Example – you’re trying to quit junk food, so if you’ve managed to refrain from eating burgers all week, the advice goes, go ahead and chomp down on the weekend, to get the craving out of your system.

    Mileage may vary, but I would advice you NOT to reward yourself with the thing you’re abstaining from!   I think it’s a rationalisation, an excuse to hop off the wagon.  For me personally, it also seems to increase cravings, not reduce them.  There might be some neurological explanation for this; I know there is for smoking, but it might be the case when quitting other things too.

    So if you’re quitting junk food, reward yourself with a night at the theatre, a new hair cut, an item of clothing etc – not a cheeseburger.

    Recommended Reading:


    References:

    Deci, E., Koestner, R. & Ryan, R.M. (1999). A Meta-Analytic Review of Experiments Examining the Effects of Extrinsic Rewards on Intrinsic Motivation. Psychological Bulletin. 125:6, 627-668