We believe that we should work to be happy, but could that be backwards? In this fast-moving and entertaining talk from psychologist Shawn Achor (a national treasure) he argues that happiness inspires productivity and creativity.

Watch this all the way through (10 min?) and dare NOT to start your own 21-day journal, etc. Seriously, post your thoughts below and share this with your friends… for the love of happiness.

If you’re reading this on 2/3/12, please rate it here or click on the ‘See Today’s Site’ graphic on the right.

Mike

SEO Basics and Cool Websites at Cool Site of the Day

SEO Basics and Cool Websites at Cool Site of the Day

There is nothing cool about not reading and adopting everything discussed in this excellent article from The Salt (via NPR).

Share this anyone you know who is into good health and eating right. They will never forget it. Hit the Facebook/Share button below.

Mike

On a smaller plate, this meal would look larger — and feel more filling.

Michael McCloskey/iStockphoto.com

Think you know how to avoid overeating? Think again.

Research suggests that choices, like how much to eat during a meal, are often made subconsciously. Trouble is, our brains are hard-wired to mislead us in lots of little ways, which can have a big impact on our diets.

Take the Delboeuf effect, an optical illusion first documented in 1865. It starts with two dots of equal size. But surround one dot with a large circle and the other dot with a small one, and suddenly the second dot looks bigger.

The Delboeuf illusion makes one dot appear larger than the other. But they’re the same size. Your brain is misled by comparing the dots to the surrounding circles.

Every time you fill your plate, the Delboeuf illusion affects how much food you take, and how much food you think you’ve taken, Koert Van Ittersum, professor of marketing at Georgia Tech, tells The Salt.

He and Brian Wansink, director of the Food and Brand Lab at Cornell, performed a series of experiments to measure the effect of the Delboeuf illusion on serving behavior and perceptions of serving size. Their work recently appeared online in the Journal of Consumer Research.

For one experiment, participants were asked to re-create a “target” serving of soup in bowls of various sizes. In another, they had to compare pre-filled bowls to the target serving. Researchers also measured serving behavior in the real-world atmosphere of a buffet line.

As predicted by the illusion, people underserved and overestimated on small dishes, while the reverse was true for large dishes. People using the smallest dishes undershot the target serving by as much as 12 percent. But people using the largest dishes took up to 13 percent more food than they intended.

“We are oftentimes our own worst enemy. And that’s not because we want to overeat,” Van Ittersum says. The illusion is embedded so deeply in our brains, he says, it is nearly impossible to overcome. Even telling test subjects about it ahead of time, as they did in another phase of the research, didn’t eliminate the bias.

The Delboeuf illusion is just one of many subconscious biases influencing our food choices. We may not be able to prevent these kinds of effects, but with a little planning, we could turn them to our advantage. The Salt scoured the literature and came up with these suggestions for eating just enough.

Buy smaller dishes. The average size of an American dinner plate has increased almost 23 percent since 1900, according to Wansink and Van Ittersum. They’ve shown that people using smaller dishes overestimate the size of their servings, even as they serve themselves less food. Contrasting colors between the food and dish, and between the dish and table, enhance the effect.

At Massachusetts General Hospital’s cafeteria, moving water and diet beverages to eye level (above the dotted line) increased sales.

Buy taller glasses.

Another optical trick, the T-illusion, which you can try for yourself, affects the serving size of liquids. We tend to overestimate vertical lengths, compared with horizontal lengths. In a previous experiment, Wansink and Van Ittersum asked people to pour equal amounts into a short, wide glass and a tall, skinny one. They found that even professional bartenders poured too much into the short, wide glass — but thought the underfilled tall glass held more.

Brian Wansink demonstrates an optical illusion that even fools bartenders. How much should he pour to match the amount in the taller glass?

Jason Koski/University Photography/Cornell University

Put healthy food at eye level in your kitchen. In 2010, the cafeteria at Massachusetts General Hospital adopted a green-yellow-red labeling system to indicate how healthy each food was. A few months later, they rearranged the shelves to place healthier items at eye level. Both changes increased purchases of healthy food.

“We were trying to make the default or the easy choice the one that was healthier,” says hospital researcher Anne Thorndike, who led the reorganization.

Color-coding might be overkill at home, but you can rearrange your fridge and cabinets to make healthy foods more visible and accessible, and keep unhealthy foods out of sight.

Avoid food porn. It should be a no-brainer that looking at images of delicious food will make you hungry, but science has finally proved it. Researchers in Germany found that looking at pictures of food increases levels of the hormone ghrelin, which makes us feel hungrier and eat more.

Use food coloring. Color affects taste, as our sister blog Shots reported last year. We expect red things to be sweet, like ripe fruit. Cut a few calories by replacing some of the sugar in your recipes with red dye, a food psychologist recommends.

Eat with men. In October, The Salt reported that college students of both genders ate fewer calories in the presence of men than with women. Researchers speculate that social gender norms are to blame: Women may try to eat daintily around men, while men may feel less inclined to show off by pigging out if no women are around.

Adopt a mindful eating routine. OK, so this one isn’t subconscious. But several experts reminded The Salt that subliminal tricks only go so far. So slow down and pay attention to your food — and your appetite — as an additional defense against overeating.

 

SEO Basics and Cool Websites at Cool Site of the Day

HOLY CRAP! Some sites and services and so perfectly in tune I could just lick them. Trello caught my eye because of their website design (GORGEOUS and SO CLEAN). Plus, their intro video is beyond perfect as a product demo. Watch and learn.

Copy everything these guys are doing because they’ve got it all DOWN. Anyway, the funny thing is I didn’t even know what Trello was (project management/collaboration tool) but since I watched the video and saw how fantastic their product is, I signed up! (BTW, this is NOT a paid submission to Cool Site of the Day).

PLEASE RATE THIS SITE: If you’re seeing this on January 28, click the ‘See Today’s Site‘  link to view the site and give it a rating from 1-10.

Mike

SEO Basics and Cool Websites at Cool Site of the Day

Thanks to VeryShortList.com for turning me onto this gem…

“Le Blues de Memphis” is a VERY cool 11-minute video tour of two iconic music studios. Made for French television about forty years ago, it starts off at a Brook Benton session in Muscle Shoals, Alabama (hmmmmm, I’m thinking Skynard), and then (after a stop at Elvis Presley’s Graceland) takes us behind the scenes at Stax Records where Booker T. and the MGs are recording “Time Is Tight” with saxophone-playing Isaac Hayes directing the studio’s horn section. Awesome stuff for all music lovers.

PLEASE RATE THIS SITE: If you’re seeing this on January 27, click the ‘See Today’s Site‘  link to view the site and give it a rating from 1-10.

Mike

SEO Basics and Cool Websites at Cool Site of the Day

Talk about a ‘feel good’ story. The Acumen Fund is on a mission to create a world beyond poverty by investing in social enterprises, emerging leaders, and breakthrough ideas.

They envision a day when every human being will have access to the critical goods and services they need–including affordable health, water, housing, energy, agricultural inputs and services. This is where dignity starts – not just for the poor but for everyone on earth.

PLEASE RATE THIS SITE: If you’re seeing this on January 25, click the ‘See Today’s Site‘  link to view the site and give it a rating from 1-10.

Mike

SEO Basics and Cool Websites at Cool Site of the Day

This stunning time-lapse video puts you in the passenger seat of one man’s year-long adventure across 17 countries. You’ll see 6,237 pictures spliced together to create several gorgeous, fast-paced montages.

San Francisco-based Kien Lam quit his job, started in London and then spent 343 days traversing the globe and snapping photos along the way.

As told to Mashable, “To capture the spirit of the trip, I took time-lapse photographs at practically every city I traveled to…each two-second scene is comprised of about 40 to 60 photographs.” Lam rode in 19 planes, 58 buses and 18 boats during his trip.

PLEASE RATE THIS VIDEO: If you’re seeing this on January 23, click the ‘See Today’s Site‘  link to view the site and give it a rating from 1-10.

Mike

SEO Basics and Cool Websites at Cool Site of the Day

PLEASE RATE THIS SITE: If you’re seeing this on January 20, click the ‘See Today’s Site‘  link and give it a rating from 1-10.

Mike

SEO Basics and Cool Websites at Cool Site of the Day

Storify helps its users tell stories by curating social media.
They were a finalist at TechCrunch Disrupt in September 2010, and won the Startup Accelerator at South by Southwest in 2011.

PLEASE RATE THIS SITE: If you’re seeing this on January 19, click the ‘See Today’s Site‘  link to view the site and give it a rating from 1-10.

Mike

SEO Basics and Cool Websites at Cool Site of the Day

KIDPRENEURS outlines some basic tools and strategies kids can use to gain some valuable experience in starting, managing and growing a successful business venture. A perfect complement to KidMoguls

PLEASE RATE THIS SITE: If you’re seeing this on January 18, click the ‘See Today’s Site‘  link and give it a rating from 1-10.

Mike

SEO Basics and Cool Websites at Cool Site of the Day