A recent survey of 1500 people by a Sheffield Mental Health team shows that Christmas comes second in the list of things people worry about (the first is money).

Christmas stressors include but are not at all limited to:

• Spending too much money
• Shopping
• Wayward children
• Long distance travel
• Family arguments
• Eating and drinking too much

Stress is what happens to you when your Body has had enough. The symptoms of stress - headaches, sleep problems, tension, panic, irritability, and the rest are switched on when you stop listening your body. Because you are over-involved. Or maybe because you have a banana about making sure other people get the perfect Xmas.

Short of telling everyone that you have decided to forget all about Christmas now that Santa has been sectioned with manic-depression what can you do?

The first thing to do is to change your attitude to it:

• Don't expect too much
• Balance what you do for others with what you do for yourself
• Do at least one thing over Xmas which is spiritually or emotionally uplifting for you.

Meanwhile here are some Christmas stress-busters that work fast:

1. Get out of your head using breath meditation.
2. Go for a walk, run or cycle. Research shows that hard exercise reduces anxiety
3. Dance to uplifting music (ditto)
4. Self-massage the triangle of skin between your thumb and forefinger with your other thumb and index finger 5 times
5. Watch something that makes you laugh
6. Go the The Gaiam Room, click on the meditation room of your choice, and chill out
7. Take an extended bath or a shower
8. Burn some incense (Sandalwood and Lavender are good)
9. Listen to a Binaural Beat (you can order one from the column on the right of this blog)
10. Spend some quiet time with someone who is fond of you.

Wishing you a peaceful, happy and serene Christmas.

This continues the series on drug addictions and how to eliminate  them by working through the Addictions grid shown at the bottom of this article.

You can read the second article in the series here.

You can read the first article in the series here.

This week we are going to focus on the Hypnotic Addictive Inner Voice. This is the bullying voice in Conscious Mind which keeps going on and on about the need to have a drink/fix/smoke/pill, etc.

Often the tone to the voice, is seductive: pleasant, low, smooth and insistent. Some people describe the voice instead as loud, urgent and forceful. A smaller minority tell me they can't hear a voice as such. Instead they feel the craving getting stronger and stronger as if there were a 'beast' on the loose inside their heads. When working with this type of client I typically ask them to 'translate' what 'the beast' is telling them into words and get them to work with it that way.

Why is the addictive voice so hypnotic? 

Because it works in exactly the same way as a hypnotist. It's aim is to put you in a trance state in which every one of your choices is blotted out, leaving you with only one way to go. As in all good hypnotic suggestions the voice uses repetition, monotony and persistence - confident that, eventually, you will give in just as you have given in many times before. As the trance state builds you will be drawn in to recalling the 'pleasure' to be had from indulging;  more specifically the dopamine release which could follow on from drinking alcohol, using cocaine, or gambling on the roulette wheels. Conjuring up a state of carefree abandon in which you are relaxed, happy and comfortable in your skin. Or  as the stimulated, excited, outgoing, chatty joker in the party. Or having the  the ecstasy of winning thousands of dollars. 

Typical 'suggestions' include:

• 'You've had a tough day. You need to unwind/relax....'
• 'You deserve this...'
• 'It's been six months since you last had a drink. You've proved your point now...'
• 'Just the one...'
• 'No one will ever know...' (or) 'Everyone else will be drinking...'
• 'You know you really want one...'
• 'You don't wanna believe everything John Eaton tells you...'
• 'The jackpot on that machine is full now...."
• The alternative is so boring...'
• 'You know you are going to give in eventually so stop hanging around...'

The main reason why the Hypnotic Addictive Inner Voice can seem so overwhelming is because, without your realising it, it feeds on your own power. You give it power every time you 'relapse' so that it comes back stronger at you next time. You give it power when you fantasise about how good things will feel after you give in. You give it power by taking it seriously instead of treating it as a delusion. In fact you give it power just by listening to it. Each time you listen you are providing it with the oxygen of attention. Without that oxygen the voice will wither away and die. 

So the simplest and most effective way to defeat the Addictive Voice is just ignore it. Note: I said this is the 'simplest' and 'most effective' way; I didn't say it was the easiest. Most of my clients find it takes repeated practice before they learn how to switch off, accompanied by a lot of work on the 'Fulfilment' quadrant (see grid below). Giving up drink, or drugs, or gambling means breaking a well-established habit. That's easiest to do when you have some better habits to replace it with.

In a large number of cases there is no need to do any work on the Internal voice simply because it's power has been eclipsed by tragedy:

• You are told you have a life-threatening illness
• You kill or seriously injure someone else
• Your partner/friends/parents/children abandon you
• You are arrested by the police
• You are found guilty and sentenced to community service or imprisonment
• You lose your job or your reputation
• You are declared bankrupt
• You lose your home
• You lose your driving licence
• You get beaten up, robbed or raped while under the influence

As the person goes into shock the Addictive voice is now seen for what it is: delusional, destructive and degrading.  When the state of shock is combined with emotions like disgust and remorse, the power of the voice is broken at least temporarily and sometimes forever.  To be replaced by a different voice. One that disempowers the old voice; encourages you along the road to abstinence; reminds you about your need to work with emotions like disgust, sadness, boredom and remorse; focuses you on making amends with your family, friends and other people you may have harmed.

If further work on wiping out the Addictive Voice is required then my client and I will use one or more of the many techniques for overcoming negative Headmind states which I have described elsewhere on this blog.

Switching off the chatterbox

Do you control your mind or does it control you?

How to make that breakthrough

A thing to bear in mind when reading this is that my approach has nothing to do with Alcoholics Anonymous or it's spin-off Narcotics Anonymous. I will write more about this on another occasion but bear in mind, for now, that I don't believe the AA approach actually works for many people.

Unlike AA I don't recognise the tem 'alcoholism' and nor do I believe that misuse of alcohol or drugs represents a disease. What I mean by an 'addiction' is out-of-control drug or alcohol use which has effects on your personal life you would rather not have. For example: legal prosecution, relationship breakdown, job loss, financial problems, personal degradation, etc.   

I will be writing more about how to solve each of these five issues in future articles.

I received a couple of enquiries from readers wishing to know where and how they can take the Effective Thinking Skills test.

You can take that test on this link here.

While interpretations of the test scores are on the three article links below.

Effective Thinking Skills Test Results 1

Effective Thinking Skills Test Results 2

Effective Thinking Skills Test Results 3

For those new to this blog the test is designed not to check whether your intellectual skills are all in place. That is assumed. What the test ascertains is whether you have emotional intelligence and the kind of practical thinking that develops life-skills.

As I wrote in a previous article mirror neuron research is now showing us how the brain 'reads' other people. For example, it is now becoming clear that when we watch other peoples' facial expressions those areas of the brain which are populated with mirror neurons show greater activity. Suggesting that we are scanning those facial expressions in order to match the relevant emotions implied by the expressions with our own. Similar findings apply to hand gestures and lip movements, which correlate to other types of non-verbal communication.

Meanwhile, other research (most carried out on monkeys but sometimes on humans) shows that mirror neurons also light up when we are trying to work out the intention behind a behaviour. For example, when a wired-up subject is shown a film of someone picking up a cup from a table the mirror neurons light up, presumably because the individual is trying to work out whether the intention is to drink from the cup or just clear the table.

What is still more interesting is that monkeys (and people) who excel at interpreting facial expressions, emotions, attitudes and intentions have highly-active mirror-neuron systems. Simply because the more you practice the bigger the growth in the mirror-neuron system.

The bottom-line is that most of us are born with a built-in capacity for empathy right from birth. It is not something we learn (although practice improves ability). And this skill underpins many other things that make us uniquely human: social interaction, interpreting spoken communication, compassion, altruism and ethical behaviour. In short, everything we now call emotional intelligence.

Still another example of just how powerful Bodymind is. It is not the intellect - what I call Headmind - which determines what other people are thinking and feeling, or whether we should go in and help them, but the brain. As I have written before, free will has very little to with it.

This is the start of a new series on addictions.

Addictions to alcohol, to heroin, to cocaine, to mephedrone, cannabis, ketamine and pain-killers. There are also addictions to (inappropriate) sex, gambling and to junk food. I have worked with all of these over the years and, initially, found them tough to work with. But I have found an approach that is successful, which I will share with my readers in a later article.

But firstly it is important to understand how addictions get established. In the brain.

Three key points to bear in mind before you read on are that addictions are created by a) changes in dopamine levels, b) obsessions created in Headmind in the pre-frontal lobes and c) a loss of emotional connection through Bodymind.

From one point of view - the Bodymind view - the brain is a superbly engineered chemical factory. Chemicals for growth, chemicals for energy creation, chemicals for digestion and metabolism, chemicals for defence against infection, chemicals for tissue repair, chemicals that activate the muscles, and chemicals for emotions, mood, sensation and so on.

Some of these chemicals are simple protein chains called peptides, which act as messengers to other areas in the body such as the immune system, while others are more complex, such as the hormones that lock to particular glands further down from the brain (adrenalin, for example) and the neuro-transmitters (such as dopamine) that work on the central nervous system within the brain itself.

Hold fast to the fact that all chemicals are 'drugs', just as all drugs are chemicals. Meaning, that they influence brain function. In that sense even oxygen is a drug.

Dopamine is an interesting drug because Bodymind uses it to tell you whether or not one course of action will be more satisfying than the alternative. For example, if you are faced with a choice between doing the garden now and watching tv your body might use dopamine to tell you to do the garden now if you have a passion for it or it might tell you to watch tv if one of your favourite films is on. In this connection it is important to bear in mind that dopamine mimics your passion. If your long-term desire is to write good blog articles then you are more likely to write one instead of going to the pub. The important point here is that a dopamine rush will support you when you decide to go for goals that are important to you rather than short-term distractions (but see below for some information on how this can go wrong as addictions develop).

The fact is that some Headmind-based obssessions (or 'cravings' if you will) - particularly those for alcohol, cocaine and heroin - disrupt Bodymind's finely-tuned reward system. 

Using hard drugs like alcohol triggers an explosion in Dopamine levels and when Bodymind notices this it damps down the production of Dopamine in order to restore balance. As Dopamine levels drop below the norm (typically the day after drug abuse) the person experiences tedium, apathy, lethargy and numbness. This, in turn, is interpreted by Headmind as a need to take more of the drug. Which leads to an escalating cycle of abuse-depletion-cravings-increased abuse and increased cravings. In time, this leads to a state in which the individual obtains no relief whatever from the original drug and goes on to try other drug combinations. Which is why many addicts are frequently addicted to two or more drugs at the same time. 

The Brain scans reproduced here illustrate the difference in Dopamine depletion between four groups of addicts and normal controls. The reddish-yellow scans on the left are normal, while the weaker, greenish scans on the right are abnormal, showing up that Dopamine receptor activity is much reduced. In sex and gambling addictions the same phenomenon will appear on a slightly weaker scale.

Although these addictions have a catastrophic effect on the central nervous system they are reversible. Dopamine levels can be restored over a few weeks with abstinence. But to achieve that changes in thinking are required and a re-connection to Bodymind. And I will write about those when I describe the cure.

Following up on my last post on How the brain mirrors other people, here is an excellent TED talk from V.S. Ramachandran on mirror neurons and what they have revealed, so far, about how human beings actually work.

This looks like turning into a mini-series on mirror neurons on this blog. Next up, I will be writing about mirror neurons and empathy and, after that, there will be a further article about psychopaths.

Thanks to Debbie Hearn for feeding me with the idea for this series.

The discovery of mirror neurons in the brain 15 or so years ago has transformed our understanding of how children learn and how adults 'read' other people.

Mirror neurons are groups of nerve cells in the brain that fire if either the person sees someone else doing something and if that person does the same thing. For example, if you observe someone else smile then the mirror neurons will signal; if you smile yourself then those same neurons will also fire. Which implies that your brain is set up to 'mirror' other peoples' behavour so that you can adopt it, understand it, or implement it yourself.

Which tells us a number of other interesting things:

• Firstly, the brain is set up so that it can temporarily adopt the point of view of another person and extract information about what that person is trying and to do and why they are doing it.
• Secondly we now know more about how humans learn. As everybody knows very young children learn by imitation. What we now know is that when children copy adult behaviour their brains automatically encode that behaviour so that they can mimic it within seconds. One reason why children learn so fast. And, also, why new cultural fads - slang, dress styles and gestures like the 'high five' - spread so rapidly amongst adults. 
• Thirdly, it has now become a lot easier to understand how most human beings can read other people so fast. If the brain contains neurons that simulate other peoples' activities: their facial expressions, speech, gestures, movements and emotions then it will only take a split second for the brain to 'read' someone, even when you don't know, consciously, that you are doing it. For example, your Headmind might, superficially, assume that someone you meet for the first time is nice, charming and interested in your welfare. Meanwhile Bodymind, using it's mirror neurons, is taking a deeper assessment. It might notice, for example, that the eyes flicker elsewhere while you are talking, take in that slightly dismissive wave of the hand, that his smile fades away a split-second too short. Within moments your body is coming up with uncomfortable feelings while the conscious mind is carrying on with the conversation in the belief that all is well. 

One weakness of traditional psychology is that it tries to explain how people learnt about other peoples' intentions in terms of logic. Meaning that if the people you meet obeyed social conventions in terms of saying the right things, smiling in the right places, putting their arm around your shoulders, etc, then they might be ok. But Bodymind may know different. Which leads to a conflict between your 'feel' about other people compared  to what you think you may know about them. But because Bodymind uses intuitions rather than words to communicate to you those insights may be over-ridden by Headmind as 'illogical'. To your lasting cost.

This is the first in a short series about mirror neurons. Next up I will be writing about what mirror neurons have to tell us about empathy and love. And, after that, why the inability to access mirror neuron information generates psychopaths.

Image by  SashaW 

Alain de Botton argues, on the BBC website, that pessimism can be good for you.

Now, as it happens, I enjoy reading pessimistic writers like Schopenhauer, upon whom I have written before. But it is simply not true to say that being a pessimist is good for you. Although I like de Botton as a writer and enjoyed his Consolations of Philosophy, I think he is a little misguided here.

Realism is good for you - not pessimism. And what (good) pessimistic writers like Schopenhauer, Chamfort, Nietzsche, La Rochefoucauld and Jonathan Swift do is to knock off our rose-coloured spectacles. Reminding us that life can be terrible, fortune a joke, and other people often untrustworthy. Good pessimistic writers (especially if they happen to be funny) toughen us up. A good example is Kurt Vonnegut, upon whom I have also written before. Another is Gulliver's Travels.

But taking a bleak view of life is simply self-defeating and, in fact, it is yet one more defect of Headmind. Headmind isn't clever when it leaves out the humour and focuses on failure and unhappiness; it is downright dumb. And that attitude leads also to self-pity and the victim position. Unrelenting pessimism leads straight to depression.

It is a strange facet of Headmind that it tends to swing between exaggerated pessimism and exagerrated optimism. On the one side Victor Meldrew and on the other Pollyana. Realism lies somewhere in the middle. And reading pessimistic writers with a sense of humour helps us stay there. As does listening to great comedians like Billy Connolly.

I will write a little more about cultivating realism in my next post.