My Favorite Mental Fitness Exercises

As the year draws to a close, I thought Mental Fitness would be a good topic.
Many people lost their mental capabilities as they aged. This is however is not inevitable, it is simply as people say, "use it or lose it".
As in the case of muscle atrophy, loss of brain capacity is often caused by disuse.
Recent medical research indicates that people with inactive minds are more prone to contracting devastating brain diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

The other reason for bringing up this topic, is because it is one of the hacks to be included in the list for LifeHack 2.0, see Life Hack 2.0 How-to's

There are many ways for mental exercise, books, articles, seminars, and training centers abound.

These exercises range from cross word puzzles, Sudoku, memorizing phone numbers to visualization, meditation, and Yoga.

Here are some of my favorite mental exercises:

• I have never learned music, but I find memorizing and playing melodies on keyboard very useful. It combines tactile and brain memories, and can at the same time express feelings.

• Recently I received a DVD gift, titled "Wu Dang Qi Gong" and I started to learn and practice the graceful movements. Of course I am not suggesting that Qi Gong is only for mental exercises, but it has a very beneficial side effect. Memorizing movements and bodily coordination, together with posture, balancing and peace of mind is priceless.

• I tried some Origami when I was a kid, now looking at some of the Origami sites on the net, I am surprised to see so many beautiful things one can create from paper. Learning to fold is a rewarding practice involving spatial memory.
  

• Another of my favorite memorizing exercises is to recite poems or suttas for Buddhist. One popular such is the Karaniya Metta Sutta, or The Hymn of Universal Love. You can memorize in English or Pali. It is not too short and not too long (see Karaniya Metta Sutta The Buddha's Words on Loving-kindness )
  

• Meditation has a special place for keeping the brain sharp. Apart from concentration, it helps us to be mindful, and to be alert and relaxed at the same time.

Other exercises may include Writing/blogging, Chess and other games, Sharing good stories, jokes, Discussions, Listening to lectures and podcasts, Reading books, Teaching, and Learning new things.

Finally, although not a mental exercise, physical exercise, good nutrition, and good sleep have effects on the mental faculty.

Happy New Year 2008!

Life Hack 2.0 How-to's

Reading my last post, LifeHack, GTD, ZTD and Friends, I see that the examples I gave for LifeHack 2.0 are very rudimentary and confusing. The following is a revision of the list.

Not only should LifeHacks be action-oriented, but they must describe how-to do something.
They should not be domain specific, such as “how to attract women” or “how to treat pimples".
They should not be a moral/ethical statement or principle.

LifeHack 2.0 Examples:

• Slowing down, take time to smell the flowers, relax

How to slow down: simply stop rushing from place to place, from activity to activity. Stop and observe. Greet and talk to strangers, watch the clouds in the blue sky, watch children and animals play, smell the flowers. Learn and practice relaxation techniques.

• To see the extra-ordinary in ordinary things

How to: Look at familiar things, but spend a little more time to observe. For example, you walk through the door every day, but never notice the door knob, the wood texture

• Do simple ordinary things such as dish washing, sweeping the floor, gardening

How to: Just do it. Every day chores. It is not a waste of time. Don’t do it while thinking of something else. Become immersed in your activity

• Less Multi-tasking, more focus on here and now

How to: Stop trying to do too many things at one time. Combine this with sub-tasking, one bite at a time below

• Bare Attention Suspend judgment once in a while

How to: Attention without labeling everything as good, bad, tall, short, fat, thin, ugly, beautiful etc

• Clear Comprehension of Purpose

How to: Reflect your goals, and what you want to achieve. Reconsider and change if necessary.

• Mindfulness, using every day events for reminders to be mindful

How to: Thich Nhat Hanh suggested every time when a phone rings, to compose ourselves, before picking up the phone. You can use other events, for example every time you pass through a door, when you breath, etc. Compose and smile.

• Mindfulness of bad habits to break them

How to: Train yourself in Mindfulness, know your attachments and detachments. Decouple automatically triggered actions and thoughts from the stimuli. For instance, you get upset when another driver cuts your path. Become aware of the stimuli, become aware that you are getting upset (“I feel angry”). The very act of saying “I feel angry” or “I am getting irritated” silently often stops you from actually getting angry.

• Refactoring and re-purposing, get the task completed first and improve by refactoring (as in extreme programming). Re-use by re-purposing

How to: First make it work, then improve it gradually. Perfectionism often prevents us from starting anything at all. Something you have done in the past for a certain purpose can often be re-factored for a different purpose. E.g. your blog article can be used for a presentation

• Sub tasking, take one bite at a time

How to: Divide the tasks, so that it can be completed within a short time. Doing a task needs concentration, but we can’t concentrate on one subject for a long time. Completing a subtask becomes a psychological closure point to motivate us further

• Use a GTD system, manual, electronic or their combination

GTD organizes, provides reminders, and frees the brain from having to remember too many things.

• Continuous Learning

How to: Browse the internet, attend seminars, talk to people. Once in a while, try a new activity. Pretend you have forgotten everything, and start over again. Teaching subjects you have long forgotten is a good example. Adopt a beginner’s mind.

• Systems thinking :things are interconnected. Thich Nhat Hanh's InterBeing

How to: Broaden the subject, consider various items you have not considered. Analyze the balancing and reinforcing loops of causes and effects. For example, include environmental factors in business decisions.

• Nice guys finish first it is always good to be good

How to: Not anybody can be rich or become a genius, but everybody can to be a good person. Start with politeness and friendliness. Ties with the next hack

• Helping others to help ourselves

How to: Do whatever you can to help others. There is always something we can contribute.

• Don't use violence

How to: Violence comes after we lose our control. Use Mindfulness to be aware of the stages before we become violent.

There are many such hacks, please contribute your hacks here. One reader has already commented on exercising and healthy eating.

Earlier:

• LifeHack, GTD, ZTD and Friends
• LifeHack2, the new meaning of LifeHack

LifeHack, GTD, ZTD and Friends

What is LifeHack, GTD, ZTD, and LifeHack 2.0?

LifeHack 1.0 is productivity tips to cut through information overload, and generally to get better organized. It was extracted from highly efficient IT people, similar to Steven Covey's "The 7 Habits of Highly Efficient People" for the general case.

For example the book "LifeHacker: 88 Tech Tricks to Turbocharge Your Day"
includes hacks such as emailing your future self (reminders), installing a personal Wiki, avoiding time wasting sites, automate repetitive tasks, control email, keep the Inbox empty, Google searching, firewalls, backups, etc.

GTD (Getting-Things-Done) is a set of tools (manual or electronic) to externalize our to-do lists, so that we need not keep them in our heads, and thus reduce stress. GTD can be seen as a glorified to-do-list, it includes calendars, workflows, 6 levels of focus and planning.

ZTD (Zen-To-Done) is a book by Leo Babauta: "Zen To Done: The Ultimate Simple Productivity System" , which claims to have combined GTD with Stephen Covey 7 Habits. ZTD focuses on developing 10 habits.

LifeHack 2.0 is a term I coined for the extension of LifeHack 1.0 to non IT subjects such as creativity, happiness, procrastination, writing and presentation skills, negotiation, investing, relaxation, mindfulness, exercise, sleep, eating habits, and giving gifts. These are some of topics you can find at LifeHack.org.

I am trying to compile LifeHack 2.0 hacks, some of these have appeared on this blog already. Hacks should be action oriented, and not domain specific. They can be inspired by philosophies and spiritual traditions, but should be acceptable to people from various beliefs.

LifeHack 2.0 Examples:

• Slowing down, take time to smell the flowers, relax
  

• To see the extra-ordinary in ordinary things

• Do simple ordinary things such as dish washing, sweeping the floor, gardening

• Less Multi-tasking, more focus on here and now
  

• Bare Attention Suspend judgment once in a while

• Clear Comprehension of Purpose
  

• Mindfulness, using every day events for reminders to be mindful (Thich Nhat Hanh suggested every time when a phone rings, to compose ourselves, before picking up the phone)

• Mindfulness of bad habits to break them

• Refactoring and re-purposing, get the task completed first and improve by refactoring (as in extreme programming). Re-use by re-purposing
  

• Continuous Learning

• Sub tasking, take one bite at a time

• Systems thinking things are interconnected. Thich Nhat Hanh's InterBeing
  

• Nice guys finish first it is always good to be good
  

• Helping others to help ourselves

• Don't use violence

All of the above hacks still need to be reworked, elaborated, or subdivided into smaller hacks.

I would be grateful for comments and suggestions of such LifeHack 2.0 tips from the readers.

Revised version: Life Hack 2.0 How-to's

How to download and play YouTube videos, Update

Additional and more recent tools on How to download and play YouTube videos:

If you use martijndevisser's flv player, make sure you have the latest version. I have found some videos fail to load under the older version of the software.

To integrate with Firefox, you can use the add-on Download Helper instead of VideoDownloader . Download Helper animates when it sees something that can be downloaded. Its download however, does not work together with download managers, it uses Firefox for the download.

Easy Video Download is another software for video downloading. It has the option to save in AVI or MPEG4 format, besides saving in flash video format.

IBM to count carbon emissions for cash

IBM is probably one of the first of the large IT companies to have a share of the growing carbon business market.
Volume of carbon trading reached 10 billion USD in 2005.
A report by news.com talks about GreenCert, an application software to accurately measure corporate efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

"Many companies are undergoing initiatives to reduce their carbon emissions, as part of corporate social responsibility or environmental programs.

Having a method to measure and certify those reductions is significant because it will allow those companies to sell those carbon offsets, according to IBM. The application is part of IBM's Big Green Innovations initiative to develop clean technologies.

"The whole point of the application's output is to give you a high-quality offset that is transparent and reproducible," said Tim Kounadis, director of worldwide channel marketing for the company."

Dalai Lama on Secular Ethics

In a recent interview "Ocean of wit and wisdoms", the Dalai Lama re-iterated his position about secular ethics, which are human values and positive emotions such as loving kindness and compassion, which "have got nothing to do with religious faith. I usually call these 'secular ethics.' Irrespective of whether you accept religion or not, this is according to our common sense, our common experience, and also scientific findings."

In an earlier interview, he said much the same thing:
"I call these secular ethics, secular beliefs. There’s no relationship with any particular religion. Even without religion, even as nonbelievers, we have the capacity to promote these things.......
No, these are not necessarily Buddhist teachings. These are old teachings based on human values. The way of presentation is different according to each religion."

Secular ethics are universal and independent from religions. They are probably related to the biological and social conditions of humans.

A New York Times article Is ‘Do Unto Others’ Written Into Our Genes?
discusses Jonathan Haidt book “The Happiness Hypothesis,” which is about the evolutionary view of morality.

Similarly, research on game-theoretic emergence of fairness and altruism, see e.g. "Games People Play and How Nice Guys Finish First" seems to support a non-religious foundation of morality.

Finally, research in neuroscience, see e.g. "Mirror Neurons Open New Vistas"
provides a biological basis for compassion and loving kindness through mirror neurons which are sometimes called Dalai Lama neurons.

I don't know if this is why the Dalai Lama is so interested in neuroscience, and in science in general. What is certain is that the scientific evidence of an evolutionary view of morality is growing

Other interesting topics in the interview is his statement, that the Dalai Lama institution need not necessarily be preserved, it could be replaced by a democratic process of election.

At the end, he expressed his views on theistic-religions:
"I'm Buddhist, I'm a Buddhist practitioner. So actually I think that according to nontheistic Buddhist belief, things are due to causes and conditions. No creator. So I have faith in our actions, not prayer. Action is important. Action is karma. Karma means action. That's an ancient Indian thought. In nontheistic religions, including Buddhism, the emphasis is on our actions rather than god or Buddha. So some people say that Buddhism is a kind of atheism. Some scholars say that Buddhism is not a religion — it's a science of the mind."

Most Terrifying Video on Global Warming

This is a video by a high school science teacher from Oregon, Greg Craven, called The Most Terrifying Video You'll Ever See.
The video received immense attention, and spread widely.
In the video, Greg Craven illustrated his argument using a game-theoretic setup. It is a game against nature, and our choice is whether to take precautionary actions against global warming, or do nothing, believing that nothing big will happen.
The conclusion, is that taking action is definitely a better choice.
Greg Craven challenged people to find flaws in his arguments, if any.