Tuesday, September 29, 2015

How to deal with loneliness: People who are lonely have brains that are wired differently, but four steps could help them overcome it

How to deal with loneliness: People who are lonely have brains that are wired differently, but four steps could help them overcome it 

  • Lonely people shun interaction because they are more vigilant to threats
  • This is according to two separate studies this year by Chicago University
  • Scientist has come up with the 'Ease method' to help deal with loneliness
  • Steps include accepting social invitations, creating a social calender, meeting people with the same interests and expecting the best
By Ellie Zolfagharifard For Dailymail.com

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Many people who are lonely end up in a negative spiral of behaviour.
Despite feeling alone, they shun social interaction because they dread rejection from friends and strangers.
Now a husband-and-wife team at Chicago University has revealed this pattern is the result of different wiring in the brains of people who feel lonely.
And they say there are four steps, known as the 'Ease method', that can help people overcome chronic loneliness.
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Many people who are lonely end up in what negative spiral of behaviour.  Despite feeling alone, they shun social interaction because they dread rejection from friends and strangers. Now a husband-and-wife team in Chicago has revealed this pattern is the result of different wiring in the brains of people who feel lonely
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Many people who are lonely end up in what negative spiral of behaviour.  Despite feeling alone, they shun social interaction because they dread rejection from friends and strangers. Now a husband-and-wife team in Chicago has revealed this pattern is the result of different wiring in the brains of people who feel lonely
These include accepting social invitations, creating a social calender, meeting people with the same interests and expecting the best from each interaction.
Stephanie and John Cacioppo recently conducted two studies which has shed light on how 'lonely minds' are hyper-alert to social threats.
The researchers found that, when shown negative social cues, the electrical activity in the brains of lonely people was faster and more pronounced.
According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, this means that lonely people are constantly guarding against social rejection.
The first study, published in July in the journal Cortex, involved 38 people who were very lonely and 32 who weren't lonely.
Researchers measured the electrical activity in their brain as the volunteers were given something known as a Stroop test.

SCIENTIST PROVIDES FOUR STEPS FOR GETTING OUT OF LONELINESS 

Dr Cacioppo has provided four steps for getting out of loneliness, which he dubs the EASE method
Dr Cacioppo has provided four steps for getting out of loneliness, which he dubs the EASE method
In an article in Psychology Today, Dr Cacioppo provided four steps for getting out of loneliness. He named it the EASE method.
1 - Extend yourself
This means accepting social invitations even if you don't feel like it. 'You cannot connect if you isolate yourself - or if you only connect online where many people present a non-authentic self,' Dr Cacioppo says.
2 - Get an action plan  
'The simple realisations that we are not passive victims, that we do have some control, and that we can change our situation by changing our thoughts, expectations, and behaviors toward others can have a surprisingly empowering effect,' said Dr Cacioppo.
He recommends mapping your social life out on your calendar, and creating events so that others can join you. 
3 - Selection
The solution to loneliness is not quantity but quality of relationships,' says the psychologist. That means spending time with people who have things in common with you, in order to develop meaningful connections. 
4 - Expect the best 
Warmth and goodwill on one person's part is more likely to elicit warmth and goodwill from other people. Expecting this best in any situation can help achieve this, bring you out of loneliness.
This involved being shown words written in different colours and asked to name the colour but not the meaning of the word.
The test was designed to find out how participants' brains worked when it came to automatic and subconscious influences.
A quarter of the words were social and positive, like 'party,' while a quarter were social and negative, like 'alone'.
Other words were emotionally positive but non-social, such as 'joy,' and others were non-social and negative, such as 'sad'.
After a word was shown on the screen, lonely people's brains went into a series of three different microstates.
Microstates are periods of relative stability when different parts of the brain are activited in a consistent pattern. Change of a microstate indicates new pattern of thought.
The researchers found that, when shown negative social cues, the electrical activity in the brains of lonely people was faster and more pronounced
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The researchers found that, when shown negative social cues, the electrical activity in the brains of lonely people was faster and more pronounced
In the study, the brains of lonely entered a microstate that specifically responded to socially negative words, causing them to become extremely alert.
Lonely people were also able to pick up on the differences between socially threatening and negative non-social words.
This suggests lonely people were looking out for negativity.
A second study by the same researchers, published online in August in Cognitive Neuroscience, involved 19 people, 10 of whom were lonely.
There were shown 28 pictures; seven that were social and positive; seven that were social and negative; seven were non-social and positive and seven were non-social and negative.
Their brains were scanned for electrical activity and, like the first study, the researchers found lonely people respond to social threats more quickly than non-social ones.
Dr Cacioppo argues that it’s important for people who feel lonely to be aware that their brains are making them more alert to threats, and take control of their behaviour.
He has created the 'Ease method' which involves accepting social invitations and getting an action plan for socialising with more people.
He also recommends make friends with the same interests while changing your attitude to expect the best from each interaction.
 
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Monday, September 29, 2014

Osho on relationships





Relationship is a structure, and love is unstructured. So love relates, certainly, but never becomes a relationship. Love is a moment-to-moment process. Remember it. Love is a state of your being, not a relationship. There are loving people and there are unloving people. Unloving people pretend to be loving through the relationship. Loving people need not have any relationship – love is enough.

Be a loving person rather than in a love relationship – because relationships happen one day and disappear another day. They are flowers; in the morning they bloom, by the evening they are gone.

You be a loving person, Mantra.

But people find it very difficult to be a loving person, so they create a relationship – and befool that way that “Now I am a loving person because I am in a relationship.” And the relationship may be just one of monopoly, possessiveness, exclusiveness.

Relationship may be just out of fear, may not have anything to do with love. Relationship may be just a kind of security – financial or something else. The relationship is needed only because love is not there. Relationship is a substitute.

Become alert! Relationship destroys love, destroys the very possibility of its birth.

Osho, Walk Without Feet, Fly Without Wings and Think Without Mind, Talk# 8




If you can love without jealousy, if you can love without attachment, if you can love a person so much that his happiness is your happiness…. Even if he is with some other woman and he is happy, it makes you happy because you love him so much: his happiness is your happiness. You will be happy because he is happy, and you will be grateful to the woman who made the person you love, happy – you will not be jealous. Then love has come to a purity.

This love cannot create any bondage. And this love is simply the opening of the heart to all the winds, to the whole sky. It looks a little strange; but we have been taught continually that love is a relationship, so we have become accustomed to the idea that love is a relationship. But that is not true. That is the lowest kind – very polluted.

Osho, Light on the Path, Talk #25




Freedom is the ultimate desire of man. Man comes to flowering only in freedom. Meditation will bring freedom.

And I am not against love; it is just one step lower than freedom, and it is beautiful to have love as a fragrance around you. Let freedom be your center and love be your circumference. Let love be the circumference and freedom the center, and you will have a total being, a whole being.

But relationship never works. You are asking me: “How can two people be committed to each other?” They cannot be. Commitment is toward existence, not toward each other. Commitment can only be toward the whole, not to each other.

“How does a relationship work?” you ask. It does not work – and you can see it everywhere. It only pretends to. People go on saying that everything is okay, everything is good. What is the point of showing one’s misery? What is the point of showing one’s wounds? One goes on hiding them. It is humiliating to show one’s wounds, so people pretend that everything is going well. They go on smiling, they go on repressing their tears.

Friedrich Nietzsche is reported to have said, “I go on smiling and laughing for the simple reason that if I don’t smile I may start crying.” Smiling is a way to cover up tears: you shift your energy from the tears to the smile so that you can forget your tears. But everybody is full of tears.

I have looked into thousands of people’s lives, their relationships. It is all misery, but they are covering it up, pretending everything is going okay. A relationship does not work, cannot work.

And you say: “I am afraid of commitment, so I avoid relationships.” You are perfectly right in being afraid of commitment and you are perfectly right in avoiding relationships, but don’t avoid relatedness. Don’t make any exclusive relationship, be friendly. Let love rise to the level of friendliness, let it be just your quality. Be loving. Don’t make it a relationship, just be loving.

These are the three stages. Relationship is the lowest, it is animal. Love as a quality of your being. Just as you breathe, let love be, that is human. And love at its ultimate expression is not even a quality, you become love itself. Then it is not even like breathing, it is your very being; then it is spiritual. But the third possibility can happen only through meditation. That refinement is possible only if your energies go through the whole alchemy of meditativeness.
Osho, Zen: Zest Zip Zap and Zing, Talk #5




Unless you are enlightened, extra-marital relationships are good. So please have as many as you can have before you become enlightened, because once you are enlightened I cannot help! Then you are finished.

Once in a while just a little taste of a new woman, a new man revives your interest in the old woman and the old man. You start thinking, “After all, she is not so bad.” A little change is always good.

I am not against extra-marital relationships. The people who are against them are really teaching you possessiveness in an indirect way. When I say I am not against extra-marital relationships I am teaching you non-possessiveness. Just see the point: if I talk about non-possessiveness people think, “That’s spiritual, that’s religious – that’s great!” But if I talk about extramarital relationships, the spiritual and the religious are immediately offended.

But I am saying the same thing. Talking about non-possessiveness is abstract, talking about extra-marital relationship is concrete. And you cannot live with abstractions, you have to live with concrete life. And what wrong can it do? If a man is tired of the same woman – the same contours, the same geography, the same topography – once in a while a little bit different geography, a little bit different landscape…and he comes home again interested in exploring the old map. It gives a break – a coffee break. And after each coffee break you can again get involved in the same work, the same files, and you open them and you start working…. The coffee break helps you.

I don’t want people to be interested in impossible ideals. I am not an idealist at all. I am down-to-earth, a pragmatist, a realist.

If people want to live together in a deep intimacy, they should not be possessive. They should allow freedom. And that’s what extra-marital relationship is – freedom.
Osho, Philosophia Ultima, Talk #3





Relationship is beautiful because it is a mirror. But there are stupid people – they see their face in the mirror and they see it is ugly so they destroy the mirror. The logic is apparent: this mirror is making them ugly, so destroy the mirror and then they are beautiful.

Relationship is a mirror. Wherever you are related with a person – a wife, a husband, a friend, a lover, an enemy – a mirror is there. The wife mirrors the husband. You can see yourself there. And if you see an ugly husband, don’t try to leave your wife – the ugliness is in you. Drop that ugliness. The mirror is beautiful; be thankful to this mirror.

But stupid and cowardly people always escape and renounce; brave and wise people always live in relationship and use it as a mirror. Living with someone is a constant mirroring around you. Every moment the other reveals you, exposes you. The closer the relationship, the clearer is the mirror; the more distant the relationship, the less clear is the mirror.

Osho, My Way: The Way of the White Clouds, Talk #11





Live, and live so totally that you come in contact with yourself. And there is no other way to come in contact with yourself. The deeper you live, the deeper you know yourself, in relationship, in aloneness. The deeper you move in relationship, in love, the deeper you know. Love becomes a mirror. And one who has never loved cannot be alone, he can at the most be lonely.

One who has loved and known a relationship can be alone. Now his aloneness has a totally different quality to it, it is not loneliness. He has lived in a relationship, fulfilled his love, known the other, and known himself through the other. Now he can know himself directly, now the mirror is not needed. Just think of someone who has never come across a mirror. Can he close his eyes and see his face? Impossible. He cannot even imagine his face, he cannot meditate on it. But a man who has come to a mirror, looked into it, known his face through it, can close his eyes and see the face inside. That’s what happens in relationship. When a person moves into a relationship, the relationship mirrors, reflects him, and he comes to know many things in himself that he never knew existed.

Through the other he comes to know his anger, his greed, his jealousy, his possessiveness, his compassion, his love, and thousands of moods of his being. Many climates he encounters through the other. By and by a moment comes when he can now be alone; he can close his eyes and know his own consciousness directly. That’s why I say that for people who have never loved meditation is very, very difficult.

Those who have loved deeply can become deep meditators; those who have loved in a relationship are now in a position to be by themselves. Now they have become mature, now the other is not needed. If the other is there they can share, but the need has disappeared; now there is no dependence.




http://www.osho.com/read/osho/osho-on-topics/relationship

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Tuesday, June 10, 2014

30 Things To Start Doing For Yourself

30 Things To Start Doing For Yourself.

Marc and Angel are the authors of 1000 Little Things Happy Successful People Do Differently. Here’s their amazing list of 30 things to start doing for yourself. If you enjoy this, be sure to visit their website for more inspirational advice and tips for life.
#1. Start spending time with the right people. – These are the people you enjoy, who love and appreciate you, and who encourage you to improve in healthy and exciting ways. They are the ones who make you feel more alive, and not only embrace who you are now, but also embrace and embody who you want to be, unconditionally.
#2. Start facing your problems head on. – It isn’t your problems that define you, but how you react to them and recover from them. Problems will not disappear unless you take action. Do what you can, when you can, and acknowledge what you’ve done. It’s all about taking baby steps in the right direction, inch by inch. These inches count, they add up to yards and miles in the long run.
#3. Start being honest with yourself about everything. – Be honest about what’s right, as well as what needs to be changed. Be honest about what you want to achieve and who you want to become. Be honest with every aspect of your life, always. Because you are the one person you can forever count on. Search your soul, for the truth, so that you truly know who you are. Once you do, you’ll have a better understanding of where you are now and how you got here, and you’ll be better equipped to identify where you want to go and how to get there. Read The Road Less Traveled.
#4. Start making your own happiness a priority. – Your needs matter. If you don’t value yourself, look out for yourself, and stick up for yourself, you’re sabotaging yourself. Remember, it IS possible to take care of your own needs while simultaneously caring for those around you. And once your needs are met, you will likely be far more capable of helping those who need you most.
#5. Start being yourself, genuinely and proudly. – Trying to be anyone else is a waste of the person you are. Be yourself. Embrace that individual inside you that has ideas, strengths and beauty like no one else. Be the person you know yourself to be – the best version of you – on your terms. Above all, be true to YOU, and if you cannot put your heart in it, take yourself out of it.
#6. Start noticing and living in the present. – Right now is a miracle. Right now is the only moment guaranteed to you. Right now is life. So stop thinking about how great things will be in the future. Stop dwelling on what did or didn’t happen in the past. Learn to be in the ‘here and now’ and experience life as it’s happening. Appreciate the world for the beauty that it holds, right now.
#7. Start valuing the lessons your mistakes teach you. – Mistakes are okay; they’re the stepping stones of progress. If you’re not failing from time to time, you’re not trying hard enough and you’re not learning. Take risks, stumble, fall, and then get up and try again. Appreciate that you are pushing yourself, learning, growing and improving. Significant achievements are almost invariably realized at the end of a long road of failures. One of the ‘mistakes’ you fear might just be the link to your greatest achievement yet.
#8. Start being more polite to yourself. – If you had a friend who spoke to you in the same way that you sometimes speak to yourself, how long would you allow that person to be your friend? The way you treat yourself sets the standard for others. You must love who you are or no one else will.
#9. Start enjoying the things you already have. – The problem with many of us is that we think we’ll be happy when we reach a certain level in life – a level we see others operating at – your boss with her corner office, that friend of a friend who owns a mansion on the beach, etc. Unfortunately, it takes awhile before you get there, and when you get there you’ll likely have a new destination in mind. You’ll end up spending your whole life working toward something new without ever stopping to enjoy the things you have now. So take a quiet moment every morning when you first awake to appreciate where you are and what you already have.
#10. Start creating your own happiness. – If you are waiting for someone else to make you happy, you’re missing out. Smile because you can. Choose happiness. Be the change you want to see in the world. Be happy with who you are now, and let your positivity inspire your journey into tomorrow. Happiness is often found when and where you decide to seek it. If you look for happiness within the opportunities you have, you will eventually find it. But if you constantly look for something else, unfortunately, you’ll find that too. Read Stumbling on Happiness.
#11. Start giving your ideas and dreams a chance. – In life, it’s rarely about getting a chance; it’s about taking a chance. You’ll never be 100% sure it will work, but you can always be 100% sure doing nothing won’t work. Most of the time you just have to go for it! And no matter how it turns out, it always ends up just the way it should be. Either you succeed or you learn something. Win-Win.
#12. Start believing that you’re ready for the next step. – You are ready! Think about it. You have everything you need right now to take the next small, realistic step forward. So embrace the opportunities that come your way, and accept the challenges – they’re gifts that will help you to grow.
#13. Start entering new relationships for the right reasons. – Enter new relationships with dependable, honest people who reflect the person you are and the person you want to be. Choose friends you are proud to know, people you admire, who show you love and respect – people who reciprocate your kindness and commitment. And pay attention to what people do, because a person’s actions are much more important than their words or how others represent them.
#14. Start giving new people you meet a chance. – It sounds harsh, but you cannot keep every friend you’ve ever made. People and priorities change. As some relationships fade others will grow. Appreciate the possibility of new relationships as you naturally let go of old ones that no longer work. Trust your judgment. Embrace new relationships, knowing that you are entering into unfamiliar territory. Be ready to learn, be ready for a challenge, and be ready to meet someone that might just change your life forever.
#15. Start competing against an earlier version of yourself. – Be inspired by others, appreciate others, learn from others, but know that competing against them is a waste of time. You are in competition with one person and one person only – yourself. You are competing to be the best you can be. Aim to break your own personal records.
#16. Start cheering for other people’s victories. – Start noticing what you like about others and tell them. Having an appreciation for how amazing the people around you are leads to good places – productive, fulfilling, peaceful places. So be happy for those who are making progress. Cheer for their victories. Be thankful for their blessings, openly. What goes around comes around, and sooner or later the people you’re cheering for will start cheering for you.
#17. Start looking for the silver lining in tough situations. – When things are hard, and you feel down, take a few deep breaths and look for the silver lining – the small glimmers of hope. Remind yourself that you can and will grow stronger from these hard times. And remain conscious of your blessings and victories – all the things in your life that are right. Focus on what you have, not on what you haven’t.
#18. Start forgiving yourself and others. – We’ve all been hurt by our own decisions and by others. And while the pain of these experiences is normal, sometimes it lingers for too long. We relive the pain over and over and have a hard time letting go. Forgiveness is the remedy. It doesn’t mean you’re erasing the past, or forgetting what happened. It means you’re letting go of the resentment and pain, and instead choosing to learn from the incident and move on with your life.
#19. Start helping those around you. – Care about people. Guide them if you know a better way. The more you help others, the more they will want to help you. Love and kindness begets love and kindness. And so on and so forth.
#20. Start listening to your own inner voice. – If it helps, discuss your ideas with those closest to you, but give yourself enough room to follow your own intuition. Be true to yourself. Say what you need to say. Do what you know in your heart is right.
#21. Start being attentive to your stress level and take short breaks. – Slow down. Breathe. Give yourself permission to pause, regroup and move forward with clarity and purpose. When you’re at your busiest, a brief recess can rejuvenate your mind and increase your productivity. These short breaks will help you regain your sanity and reflect on your recent actions so you can be sure they’re in line with your goals.
#22. Start noticing the beauty of small moments. – Instead of waiting for the big things to happen – marriage, kids, big promotion, winning the lottery – find happiness in the small things that happen every day. Little things like having a quiet cup of coffee in the early morning, or the delicious taste and smell of a homemade meal, or the pleasure of sharing something you enjoy with someone else, or holding hands with your partner. Noticing these small pleasures on a daily basis makes a big difference in the quality of your life.
#23. Start accepting things when they are less than perfect. – Remember, ‘perfect’ is the enemy of ‘good.’ One of the biggest challenges for people who want to improve themselves and improve the world is learning to accept things as they are. Sometimes it’s better to accept and appreciate the world as it is, and people as they are, rather than to trying to make everything and everyone conform to an impossible ideal. No, you shouldn’t accept a life of mediocrity, but learn to love and value things when they are less than perfect.
#24. Start working toward your goals every single day. – Remember, the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. Whatever it is you dream about, start taking small, logical steps every day to make it happen. Get out there and DO something! The harder you work the luckier you will become. While many of us decide at some point during the course of our lives that we want to answer our calling, only an astute few of us actually work on it. By ‘working on it,’ I mean consistently devoting oneself to the end result. Read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
#25. Start being more open about how you feel. – If you’re hurting, give yourself the necessary space and time to hurt, but be open about it. Talk to those closest to you. Tell them the truth about how you feel. Let them listen. The simple act of getting things off your chest and into the open is your first step toward feeling good again.
#26. Start taking full accountability for your own life. – Own your choices and mistakes, and be willing to take the necessary steps to improve upon them. Either you take accountability for your life or someone else will. And when they do, you’ll become a slave to their ideas and dreams instead of a pioneer of your own. You are the only one who can directly control the outcome of your life. And no, it won’t always be easy. Every person has a stack of obstacles in front of them. But you must take accountability for your situation and overcome these obstacles. Choosing not to is choosing a lifetime of mere existence.
#27. Start actively nurturing your most important relationships. – Bring real, honest joy into your life and the lives of those you love by simply telling them how much they mean to you on a regular basis. You can’t be everything to everyone, but you can be everything to a few people. Decide who these people are in your life and treat them like royalty. Remember, you don’t need a certain number of friends, just a number of friends you can be certain of.
#28. Start concentrating on the things you can control. – You can’t change everything, but you can always change something. Wasting your time, talent and emotional energy on things that are beyond your control is a recipe for frustration, misery and stagnation. Invest your energy in the things you can control, and act on them now.
#29. Start focusing on the possibility of positive outcomes. – The mind must believe it CAN do something before it is capable of actually doing it. The way to overcome negative thoughts and destructive emotions is to develop opposing, positive emotions that are stronger and more powerful. Listen to your self-talk and replace negative thoughts with positive ones. Regardless of how a situation seems, focus on what you DO WANT to happen, and then take the next positive step forward. No, you can’t control everything that happens to you, but you can control how you react to things. Everyone’s life has positive and negative aspects – whether or not you’re happy and successful in the long run depends greatly on which aspects you focus on. Read The How of Happiness.
#30. Start noticing how wealthy you are right now. – Henry David Thoreau once said, “Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.” Even when times are tough, it’s always important to keep things in perspective. You didn’t go to sleep hungry last night. You didn’t go to sleep outside. You had a choice of what clothes to wear this morning. You hardly broke a sweat today. You didn’t spend a minute in fear. You have access to clean drinking water. You have access to medical care. You have access to the Internet. You can read. Some might say you are incredibly wealthy, so remember to be grateful for all the things you do have.
Credit: marcandangel.com
This is such a wonderful list. If we take little steps every day and practice these things, we can make great improvements in our lives. Share this post with your friends and loved ones.
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