Everyone has experienced me, but few people know how to find me.  I cannot co-exist with anxiety, fear, anger… or multi-tasking.  I don’t cost a dime, but if I could be bought, people would pay small fortunes to create me.  I can show up any time, any place, and during any activity.  I am the difference between “good” and “great.”  What am I?

The Answer

I am ‘Flow.’  The state of peak performance.  First proposed by one of the world’s leading researchers in the field of positive psychology, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, ‘flow’ is defined as:

The experience people have when they are completely immersed in an activity for its own sake, stretching body and mind to the limit, in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.

It is the place where your attention, motivation, skill set, and the challenge before you collide.  The result is a joyous, productive harmony, where you are at your best – your most innovative, most productive, and most brilliant.  A ‘flow experience’ is often characterized by words like “rapture,” “timeless,” and “single-pointed-focus.”

Whoa.  Sound like a magic elixir?  Too good to be true?  It is not.  And it is a key differentiator between those who are “good” at what they do, and those who are recognized and celebrated as “great” at what they do.

Components of Flow

According to Csikszentmihalyi, there are three components that are necessary to generate a ‘flow state.’

1. One must be involved in an activity with a clear set of goals. This adds direction and structure to the task.
2. One must have a good balance between the perceived challenges of the task at hand and his or her own perceived skills. One must have confidence that he or she is capable of doing the task at hand.
3. The task at hand must have clear and immediate feedback. This helps the person negotiate any changing demands and allows him or her to adjust his or her performance to maintain the flow state.

As can be seen in this graphic, flow state occurs when you have the courage to embrace a higher than average challenge, while, at the same time, stretching your skills to meet that challenge.

High challenge, but it requires low skill?
Flow is blocked and the experience instead is one of anxiety or worry.

High skill, but not a challenge?
Flow is blocked and instead the experience is one of boredom.

The Four Elements to Creating Flow

While a flow state can never be forced (how about that for an oxymoron?), you can intentionally set yourself up to create a state of flow by incorporating four key elements:

1. Intrinsic Motivation. Take on a goal or challenge that you are intrinsically-motivated to achieve.  This is different than a goal that motivates you because of an external reward (like money) or recognition (like an award).
2. Uni-task. Choose to create a single-pointed focus during the times you are working on that goal or challenge (no email, no phone, no multi-tasking).
3. Stretch. Select a goal or challenge that makes you stretch.  You know what that is – it’s the thing that keeps knocking on the back of your mind and it has the power to both excite and scare you at the same time.
4. Build skills. Is there is a system you need to implement, a mind-set you need to adjust, or a skill you need to build?  Do it.  Then get to work.

Where are you experiencing flow in your life?  What’s keeping you from having more flow experiences?  Is it time to change something up?

Share your comments and ideas at Creating Flow

Sit back and imagine that sitting before you is a big juicy burger topped with melted cheese and nestled in a delightfully soft bun.  Is your mouth watering?

Now imagine that the burger is synthetic.  The cheese is imitation.  And the bun is pulverized cardboard.

Is your mouth a little confused?

If research on artificial sweeteners is any indicator, not only is your mouth confused, but your brain and your body are too.

Fat Rats

Researchers out of Purdue University’s Ingestive Behavior Research Center are reporting that “rats given yogurt sweetened with zero-calorie saccharin consumed more calories, gained more weight, put on more body fat, and didn’t make up for it by cutting back later” than rats that were fed their calories in the form of sugar.

While the hypothesized correlation between increasing obesity and the increasing use of artificial sweeteners isn’t new, past research has explored the possibility that the cause might be psychological.  Remember the “Snackwells Effect” of the 1990s when we over-indulged in low-fat treats just to have our expanding waistlines remind us that “low-fat” doesn’t mean “low-calorie”?

But, as this newer research has shown, the cause may not be all in our heads.

Calorie Confusion

According to Purdue researchers Susan Swithers, PhD, and Terry Davidson, PhD, sugar substitutes backfire because the body’s natural link and response between sweetness and calories is broken causing two significant effects:

1. Trouble Regulating Calorie Intake–The brain gets confused by the false sweetness and sends hormonal messages that increase appetite.
2. Lower Metabolism—As the body becomes trained to expect false sugar, it doesn’t “gear up” as effectively making it harder to burn off other calories.

Take home message?
When the link between sweetness and calories is severed,
we eat more and we store more.

Yeah, But I’m No Rat

True, at this point the statistically significant study has only been performed on rats, but the data does match emerging evidence that people who drink more diet drinks are at higher risk for obesity and metabolic syndrome.

It’s a good thing those smarty researchers are out gathering more definitive data for us.  In the meantime, do you really want to be ingesting anything we refer to as “artificial”?

Satisfy your watering mouth with something your brain and body will know how to handle.  When in doubt… eat real food.

Share your comments and ideas at Artificial Sweetener = Real Fat

If so, you’re not alone. I’m often asked by new clients what is the number one thing they can do to increase their performance and support their overall health. Most people expect I’m going to respond with some equation of diet and exercise (which, of course, are foundational to high performance), but my response?

“How much are you sleeping?”

Sleep Quiz

And the woods are lovely, dark and deep
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

(Excerpted from Robert Frost’s
“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”)

Do you:

• Fall asleep the moment your head hits the pillow?
• Need an alarm clock to wake in the morning?
• Often feel drowsy while driving?
• Feel slow or frustrated when faced with critical thinking, problem solving, and creative tasks?

If so, you’re most likely not getting enough sleep. While your afternoon sluggishness may seem like a minor inconvenience-an honorable testament to the incredible drive you possess-it is likely that your willpower is undermining your potential. According to Dr. James Maas, author of Power Sleep:

“Often we are totally unaware of our own reduced capabilities because we become habituated to low levels of alertness. Many of us have been sleep deprived for such a long time that we don’t know what it’s like to feel wide awake.”

If a bit of sleep deprivation seems like par for the course to you (heck, it’s reported that at least 50% of Americans are chronically sleep deprived, right?), consider that even just a slight sleep deficit has been proven to result in decreased cognitive functioning (including processing time, ability to perform complex tasks, creativity and memory), weight gain, loss of coping skills, increased anxiety, and decreased immunity.

Finding Your Sleep Quotient

So, what are your nightly sleep needs? Maas recommends the following experiment:

1. Select a bedtime when you will be able to fall asleep easily. Try to make this bedtime at least 8 hours before you need to wake up. Maintain that bedtime for a week and note the time you wake up. If after a week you need an alarm clock to rise or if you find yourself at all tired during the day, you haven’t slept enough.
2. If you’re not sleeping enough, keep your waking time constant and go to bed 15 to 30 minutes earlier for a week. Repeat an even earlier bedtime if, after a week, you’re still showing signs of sleep deprivation.
3. Once you’ve established a correct bedtime, try cutting back by 15 minutes and track whether that produces feelings of daytime drowsiness.

Once you are able to wake without an alarm and no longer experience the daytime drowsiness that most of us assume to be natural, you have found your individual sleep requirement.

Beware: You may well find a whole new level of “you” that you didn’t know you had.

Share your comments and ideas at Miles To Go Before I Sleep

When did our ability to fracture our attention across time and space become such a badge of honor? A perceived trait of the successful?  Is multitasking really such a beneficial skill to cultivate?

The Value of a Fast and Nimble Thinker

There’s no doubt that the best and brightest are able to handle multiple inputs, shift gears quickly when necessary, and be nimble enough to jump into whatever task or problem is in need of attention.  There is also no doubt that this constant “channel changing” mode of operation takes its toll—physically, emotionally and mentally.

What genius is lurking in the depths beneath your darting thoughts and chronic distractibility?

Tapping Your Genius

In the book The Attention Revolution—Unlocking the Power of the Focused Mind, author B. Alan Wallace explores the potential of a mind practiced in sustained focus.  He writes,

“… geniuses of all kinds excel in their capacity for sustained voluntary attention.  Just think of the greatest musicians, mathematicians, scientists, and philosophers throughout history–all of them, it seems, have had an extraordinary capacity to focus their attention with a high degree of clarity for long periods of time.  A mind settled in such a state of alert equipoise is a fertile ground for the emergence of all kinds of original associations and insights.  Might “genius” be a potential we all share–each of us with our own unique capacity for creativity, requiring only the power of sustained attention to unlock it? A focused mind can help bring the creative spark to the surface of consciousness.  The mind constantly caught up in one distraction after another, on the other hand, may be forever removed from its creative potential.”

Makes you think twice about answering emails on your Blackberry during your next project brainstorming meeting, doesn’t it?

Cultivating the Focused Mind

Chronic mental stimulation (agitation?) is such a common and expected mode of operating that, for many, it can be uncomfortable to even experiment with “uni-tasking.”

Interested in exploring what genius of yours may be skirting the edge of your distracted mind?  In the next two days, challenge yourself by selecting a project that is begging for your attention.  Shut your office door.  Turn your email off.  Let your phone go to voicemail.  Now, commit to yourself that you will focus solely on that project for 1 hour.  Notice what happens in that hour—is your heart rate lower?  Do you work more rapidly?  More creatively?   With more satisfaction?

Hmmmm… maybe it’s worth creating more uni-tasking time in your day.

Share your comments and ideas at Multitasking Yourself to Mediocrity?

There’s a big lie you’re telling yourself.  Not to worry, you’re not alone.  Many of us are telling ourselves the same lie.  The lie is that you want to be successful.

But the vast majority of us don’t want to be successful.  Not really.  What we do want is to be fulfilled.  We want to be flooded with joy in our work and our play, challenged to our limits, living in great abundance, and knowing that we had the courage to create it.

Success vs. Fulfillment

Success and fulfillment aren’t mutually exclusive.  And, in fact, they may well look the same from the outside.  But they come from very different places.

The path of success is extrinsically motivated (doing because you think you should), while the path of fulfillment is intrinsically motivated (doing because, when you listen carefully, your heart tells you that you must).

The missing ingredient for most people who are successful, but not fulfilled?  They have an idea — uniquely theirs — lurking in the depths of their soul that they have never brought to light, and on which they have never taken action.

3 Steps to Move from Success to Fulfillment

A vast majority of Big Ideas die with their creators because the path of success somehow feels safer than the path of fulfillment.  But, the best kept secret?

Once you make an unequivocal decision to honor within yourself the choices that fulfill you, the life force that is tapped swamps the draw of perceived safety that mere success dangles in front of us.

Is it time to move from success to fulfillment and bring your Big Idea into the light?

Step 1: Ask the Big Question.

Be willing to ask yourself, “Is this it?  Am I doing what I’m here to do?” and then challenge yourself to sit still long enough to listen for the response.  There is a still, quiet voice in each of us that knows the answer.  The more respect you give it, the louder it will speak.

Step 2: Have the Courage to Act.

Being willing to release who you are in order to stretch into who you are becoming takes a lion’s courage.  There’s part in each of us that will valiantly protect the status quo – “C’mon… why rock the boat?  This isn’t all that bad is it?  I mean I [pick one: get paid well, have the right house, drive the right car], right?  Can the grass really be any greener elsewhere?”  But the status quo impacts your spirit the way a room without oxygen impacts your body.  It’s only going to stay alive so long before there’s nothing left to breathe.

Step 3: Embrace the Hard Stuff.

“Hard stuff” is the stuff shines a spotlight on the areas of yourself that are begging to be ‘scrubbed up’ so that you can evolve as an advisor, an entrepreneur, and a person.  It is the gremlin of scarcity that coaches you not to do it.  It is the voice of the reptilian brain that beckons you to stay small.  It is the insecurity that drives you to say ‘yes’ to any opportunity, instead of having the courage to say ‘no’ unless it is the right opportunity.

The ‘hard stuff’ is just a collection of opportunities disguised as challenges.  Instead of avoiding them, embrace them and….well, let the games begin.

It’s as easy as that…. 1…. 2…. 3…..

Share your comments and ideas at You Don’t Want to Be Successful

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• 5 Ways to Kill a Big Idea

I have a Big Idea on my mind (more on that later).  I have been noodling on it for months.  Sometimes it even keeps me awake at night as I envision every detail from how I will build the experience, to who will excitedly take advantage of the opportunity and how the experience will impact the lives and businesses of those who do.

I’m so excited about it, and so convinced of its viability and potential impact, I am confounded that I haven’t taken any action on it… yet.

Thankfully, I work with amazing clients and colleagues and I realize I’m not alone.  As someone who will excitedly roll up her sleeves every day to support big thinkers to gain clarity and move into action, I’ve been curiously observing where inertia comes from when we have an idea that is so alive it seems like it should have a momentum all its own.

5 Ways to Kill a Big Idea

1. Resist Failure and Floundering. Ewww.  Even just the words can make a brave stomach turn.  We tend to veer far away from both… and who wouldn’t?  They’re messy.  They shatter our closely-guarded image that we are perfect and infallible.  They swing the door open wide for every gremlin of a thought and demolisher of self-confidence to march right in.  And, yet… what if big failure equated to even bigger success?
2. Forget Yourself. You are the engine of innovation in your business, so if you want to ensure that your engine sputters and gags, don’t make time for the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual practices that support a high-level of sustainable performance.
3. Stay Busy. Busy-ness keeps us feeling important and valuable (“Look!  Someone or something needs me!”).  It also keeps us from having the space to ponder the big questions that emerge in the pause between actions.  Eliminating busy-ness — setting boundaries on email, saying “no” to an opportunity so you can say “yes” to the right opportunity, crafting your ideal schedule and sticking to it — takes courage.  It is a lot easier to be too busy to make space and get focused on what is deeply meaningful to you.
4. Keep Deep Clutter. In her post on Deep Clutter, blogger Mary Jaksch hits the nail on the head – there’s a lot of talk about “shallow clutter.”  Shallow clutter comes from having too much stuff and a lack of systems and priorities.  Clearing shallow clutter only increases productivity and focus if you’re willing to clear the “deep clutter.” Some elements of deep clutter are “shoulds,” “have-tos,” old habits, and people-pleasing actions.
5. Tolerate It. Tolerate what?  Whatever is keeping you small.  An old business model, avoiding a difficult conversation, or believing it can’t be done because you don’t see it being done (embrace you’re “inner-innovator”!  Doing what hasn’t been done is what innovators do!).

The Challenge

I’m willing to bet that you have a Big Idea you’ve been thinking about.

• A new business model to support your evolving life?
• The intellectual capital you’re ready to turn into recurring revenue?
• The book you want to get on paper?

I’m throwing down the gauntlet.  I’m going to tell you about my Big Idea, and I want to hear about yours.  With deadlines.  No squirming out.

Here’s mine….

In August 2010, I will be launching a new one-on-one engagement option for clients ready to stop tolerating “small” and start taking action on the Big Idea they are ready to bring to life….

One Big Idea (or the desire to uncover one).
Two brains.
From Vision to Tangible Plan in 48 hours.
Turn down the noise.  Turn up the innovation.
Move into action.

This Private Client Retreat Launch Pad will consist of:

• One month of one-to-one “clarity coaching” to prepare you to get the most from the retreat.
• Two days face-to-face coaching, co-creative discovery, and joint action-planning  at a luxurious mountain resort.
• Six follow-up accountability coaching sessions to keep the momentum from the retreat alive and move past the to-be-expected blocks.
• The support and guidance to clean the mental clutter, get clarity on your vision, and overcome any resistance to action.

There it is.  My current Big Idea and a due date to boot.  Stay tuned for more to come.

What’s your idea and when is your deadline?  I want to hear about it…

Share your comments and ideas at 5 Ways to Kill a Big Idea

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• You Don’t Want to Be Successful
• The Freedom To Be Foolish

: an intricate problem; especially: a problem insoluble in its own terms.

How often have you felt that trying to make lasting change in your life is like trying to untie a Gordian knot?

The voice in your head admonishes, “You’ve tried to [pick one: focus on high pay-off actions, lose weight, implement a Big Idea, drink less, sleep more] a dozen times before and it never sticks.  It’s a waste of time to try again.” But the tenacious High Performance Warrior in you refuses to give up… good for you!

“I am going to do it this time,” you tell yourself, “I just need information and a plan.  How many minutes a day of exercise?  What’s the seventh habit of the highly successful? How many hours of sleep?  Give me the detailed plan!” you beckon. “On Monday I’ll start The Plan and this time it’ll stick.”

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

-Albert Einstein

What if the missing piece to untying the knot is not so tactical?  What if it’s not in gathering more information and creating the perfect plan around which you’ll morph your schedule, habits, and life?  Has that worked in the past??

When changes lack staying-power it’s not because we’re “weak” or uninformed, but because we lack clarity as to why we really want the change.

Without having determined what really inspires us to embrace new habits, once the excitement of having The Plan That Will Certainly Change My Life wears off, the motivation to follow The Plan does too.

“The process of getting there is the quality of being there.”

Choose one change you want to make right now to support your highest level of performance. What is the quality that making that change will give you?

• Will losing weight make you more comfortable in your own skin and give you more confidence in client meetings?
• Will having the discipline to turn your email off allow you to tap your “inner innovator,” thus exploring the new thinking that differentiates your services in the market?
• Will exercising regularly give you the stamina to produce more at work and have energy to be with your family?

The first step to making transformational changes with staying-power is to dig a little deeper and understand the why.  Once you’re clear on why you want to change and what meaning that change has for you, the what and the how are not only easy to embrace, but the process of embracing them becomes a joyful celebration of the synergy between goals and values… and that’s the kind of change that has staying-power.

Share your comments and ideas at Find Your ‘Why’ Not Your ‘Willpower’

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• Warriors of Change

It’s 3:00 in the afternoon and you’ve been buried in a project since 1:30.  You’re riding a wave of productivity and all your cylinders are firing–you feel energized and engaged, you’re thinking clearly, new ideas are flowing!

“It’s possible,” you tell yourself in a moment of reflective wonderment at all you’ve accomplished, “that I am indeed a genius!”

And then, it starts to happen—watt by watt, your brilliance starts to dim. The ideas that were flowing so freely before seem to be stuck in a holding pattern in your brain; you start to yawn and stare out the window; you check your email (maybe something interesting or important came in while you were wrapped up in your project?); and you find yourself wondering if anything new—and essential for you to know right now–has been posted on ESPN.com.

What happened to your wave of productivity?  Your energy?  Your pure genius?

Heeding the Call of Nature

Don’t worry, you’re still a genius!  You merely forgot to heed the call of nature (a-hum… not that call.  Read on…).

Just like nature is governed by cycles, so is the human body.  Most people are generally aware of the 24-hour cycles of sleeping and waking that are the major components of our circadian rhythm (“circa dies” means “around a day”).  Less commonly known, however, are the ultradian rhythms (“ultra dies” means “many times a day”) that occur in cycles throughout each day.  There are many ultradian rhythms (eye blinks, heart rate, hormone regulation, thermal regulation, etc.), some of which help to account for the energy cycles we feel throughout the day.

According to energy management gurus Tony Schwartz and Jim Loehr in their book,  The Power of Full Engagement,

“Physiological measures such as heart rate, hormonal levels, muscle tension and brain-wave activity all increase during the first part of the [ultradian] cycle—and so does alertness.  After an hour or so, these measures start to decline.  Somewhere between 90 and 120 minutes into the cycle the body starts to crave a period of rest and recovery. Signals include a desire to yawn and stretch, hunger pangs, increased tension, difficulty concentrating, an inclination to procrastinate or fantasize and higher incidence of mistakes.”

Sound familiar?

Reclaiming Your Brilliance

It is possible to override this natural cycle with caffeine, sugar-leaden foods, or pure mental grit, but as it turns out, this is only a briefly and marginally effective solution.  Each time you ignore your natural cycles for engagement and recovery, your body summons its “fight or flight” stress response, digging deeper into your energy reservoir.  The resulting cascade of cell-damaging hormones has both short-term effects (racing heart rate, perspiration, fractured focus) and long-term effects (insomnia, gastrointestinal distress, heart disease, etc.).  It’s better to save that reaction for true emergencies.

Why not listen to your wise ol’ body and…

Heed the call of nature!

Try taking intermittent breaks every 90 – 120 minutes throughout your day.  The key is not how long a break you take, but that you truly change your focus.  Disengage from your task or project–get up from your desk and stretch, get a drink of water, take a walk around the block, or visit with a colleague (caution: in an effort to keep good working relations, before interrupting your co-workers, you may want to first make sure you have coinciding ultradian slumps).

Now that’s the call of nature I’m talking about.

Share your comments and ideas at 3PM Brilliance Slump

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• Miracle-Gro For Your Brain

Surrendering to Your Fool

Masters of all disciplines willingly embrace what George Leonard describes in his book Mastery as, the spirit of the fool. As a professional serving advisor, you are willingly celebrating this spirit each time you:

• Courageously deviate from the established agenda in order to explore what is most alive for your client(s) in the moment.
• Willingly challenge and re-tool your own business model and systems in order to build a practice that supports your evolving life.
• Allow a client meeting to be a real-life laboratory for doing the client’s deep work, rather than a chance to demonstrate your expertise.

(Noteworthy point:  This is different than the spirit of being foolish. Showing up uninformed, unprepared, or providing advice in disciplines outside your purview are several foolish behaviors of the professional advisor).

The spirit of the fool is the willingness to be clumsy and awkward as you relinquish a hard-won competence in favor of a higher skill.  It is the willingness to tread into unknown waters to courageously implement innovative ideas.

The Four Steps to Finding Your Fool

We resist embracing the spirit of the fool because it’s uncomfortable – it makes us feel silly and vulnerable as we flounder between competencies.  Yet, just as building the strength of a muscle takes time, tenacity and practice, so does becoming comfortable in this liminal – and essential – space.

Here are four steps to finding and celebrating your inner fool:

Step 1: Come from Curiosity

The journey of the master is never complete nor should it ever be stagnant.   Curiosity is the hallmark of one’s joyful desire to be a continual learner, always questioning if there is a better, more precise, more refined or more profound way.

Step 2: Create Emptiness

Like a full vessel with no room for more water, a full mind has no room for new ideas.  Creating emptiness is an essential practice on the path of mastery.  Implement a regular practice during which you to turn down the noise, clear the debris, and find the calm, fertile, still-point within yourself from which all creativity and innovation spring.

Step 3: Cultivate the Beginner’s Mind

The ‘beginner’s mind’ frees you from expecting an outcome based on what you have experienced in the past, and allows you to continually see possibilities in the current circumstances.  It allows you to be innovative and dynamic in support of your clients, instead of studied and rote.

Step 4: Take Courageous Action

It is one thing to think about being bold, innovative, and reaching for the next level of skill on your path to mastery.  It is another to bare your vulnerable and inspired self to your colleagues and clients through action.  THIS is where the spirit of the fool is most alive.

In an old parable, you have a cup in your hand and a quart on the table.  In order to grab the quart, you must be willing to let go of the cup.

Are you willing to let go of the cup?

Share your comments and ideas at The Freedom To Be Foolish

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• You Don’t Want to Be Successful
• What Clients Expect from Advisors… Is it Important?

The human body is designed for action: hinging and rotating joints that support movement in every direction; strong, elastic ligaments and tendons that encourage play while keeping bones and muscles in their proper place; skeletal muscles that facilitate every movement from explosive jumping to flowing Tai Chi; cardiac muscle that tirelessly pumps nourishment to every cell in the body.

The human body thrives with regular cycles of activity and recovery. Active bodies are at lower risk for heart disease, obesity, various cancers, diabetes, and hypertension; and active people generally have more stamina, lower resting heart rates, more muscle tone and less body fat.

It doesn’t take a smarty to figure out that exercise is good for your body, but if it did, it turns out that exercise would be your brain’s ticket to that “smarty-dom.”

Miracle-Gro for Your Brain

For years scientists suspected that exercise and brain functioning were connected, but until recently, the only link researchers could assert with certainty was that aerobic activity increases the level of well-oxygenated blood pumping to body and brain, which leads to nourished body and brain cells. Makes sense… and it’s true. But, as new discoveries in the field of neuroscience are illustrating , the impact of exercise on the brain is far more complex—and more powerful—than just oxygenating brain cells.

According to recent research in the field of neuroscience, here’s a breakdown of what happens when you head out for that lunchtime run:

Muscles contract —>

Release of chemicals, including a protein called “IGF-1″ —>

IGF-1 travels to the brain and stimulates the release of several chemicals, including “BDNF”* —>

Regular exercise increases levels of BDNF —>

BDNF stimulates neurons (brain cells) to branch and connect in new ways —>

New junctions between neurons is the basis of learning

(*BDNF = “brain derived neurotropic factor”)

Take home message?

Bodies that exercise regularly stimulate brains to have higher levels of BDNF; brains with higher levels of BDNF have greater capacity for knowledge.

So, in the words of John Ratey, Harvard psychiatrist and author of Spark: The Revolutionary Science of Exercise and the Brain, BDNF is like “Miracle-Gro for your brain.”

Smarts Tomorrow, Focus Today

Not sure you have the patience to wait for all those new neural-connections to validate your efforts to become a “regular exerciser”? Good news! Studies have shown higher circulating levels of thought-facilitating and mood-stabilizing neurotransmitters (namely, dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine) within an hour of a bout of exercise.

Feeling antsy? Frustrated? Having trouble concentrating? Get up from your desk and get moving! It’ll help you focus today, and, string enough days of activity together and before you know it, you’ll be in BDNF-city.

Mensa application anyone?

Share your comments and ideas at Miracle-Gro For Your Brain

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• 3PM Brilliance Slump