Stephen Guise's Blog, page 31

5 Fascinating Ways Your Brain Bends Reality

Caution: This illusionmight make observers feel sick. The bicycle wheelsappear to rotate counterclockwise, but this is a still image! Your brain doesn’t know any better.Sigh.Imagecredit: Akiyoshi Kitaoka

We think we see reality as it is, butscience has revealedmultiple ways that the humanbrain bends reality(as it relates to our personal experiences).

Most of these reality-bending brain happenings involvethe way we process information. Like the image above shows us, our perception of how things...

Why We Avoid Healthy Living

Growing up, were youbombarded with “eat your vegetables, exercise every day, and drink lots of water” and other such “healthy living” advice?

Did you have to eat your vegetables before you got dessert? Yeah, me too.

It’s goodadvice, but it’s often delivered in a “don’t question this” dogmaticstylewith accompanyingpressure to follow it (and guilt or shame if you don’t do it). We hear it from parents, schools, and even the news. But then, a paradoxical result follows:

webecome deaf to it
we(sub)con...

How To Stop Procrastinating Right Now

After reading this article,you will be like this snow leopard, and procrastination will freak out. (photo byMark Dumont)

In a recent Mini Habits audiobook giveaway (subscribers only), I asked people what they were struggling with. About half of the 160 responsesmentioned some form of overwhelm and procrastination as their primary struggle.

Procrastination—being a decision-making and execution problem—has two stages. The first stageyou can get stuck on is deciding what to do, after which comes t...

If You Want To Succeed, Get Rid Of The Guilt

“Everyone indulges sometimes; don’t be too hard on yourself.”

In a study, anote with this message was given to agroup of dieting women who had just eaten a chocolate doughnut “in the name of science.” Another group of dieting women ate the doughnut, but did not receive this message. Then, each group wasgiven an opportunity to taste testcandy, and were given permission to eat as much as they wanted.

Which group do you think ate lesscandy?

If you said the group that received the note, you are cor...

A Simple, Yet Complete Guide To Organize Your Life

Organization: it’s more important to be decisive than to find the perfect system.

This is what an organized mind feels like.

AreYour Ideas &Decisions Floating?

Organization meanshaving a system to organize your life through, but a backlog canprevent us from having a system, because we’re overwhelmed with what needed to be done yesterday. It really doesn’t take much to overwhelm a person: studies have found our minds can only hold a few things at a time. Given life’s 800 trillion variables, well,...

The Weight Loss Industry’s Biggest Problem

Weight loss industry experts are experts in the wrong field.

I’m not even talking about the scam artists who sell diet pills and the like. I’m talking about the people who genuinely want to help people lose weight.

Thesepeople know the physical mechanisms by which weight loss works, but they tell youto follow animpossible plan to get there.

Most experts essentially adviseyou to annihilate your willpower, burn out, and fail.

How many people try the exercise and diet plan all at once? I’d guess 96%...

Jack LaLanne: “Treat Your Body Like A Slave”

Would you get your dog up in the morning, and give him a cup of coffee, a cigarette, and a doughnut? [interviewer laughs] Why are you laughing? You’d kill the dog! And look at how many Americans got up this morning with a cup of coffee, a cigarette, and a doughnut.”

- Jack LaLanne

Jack Lalanne pulled 70 boats in the water for 1.5 miles in Long Beach, California. Oh, and his hands and feet were tied. And one more thing—he was 70 years old! That’s ridiculous.But when he was a sugarholic teenager,...

Prolonged Sitting Is Lethal: This 10 Second Trick Could Save Your Life

Sitting down all day is lethal. If you sit all day and you know it, don’t gloss over this fact: you are slowly killing yourself!

Studies on prolonged sitting:

A 2014 Study found that prolonged sitting isa major health hazard for older women (93,000 participants)
A 2010 Study found that prolonged sittingincreases mortality rates and decreases life spans across the board(120,000+ participants)

Another study was published in 2012 with 222,497 people answering a questionnaire. It too found that “prol...

I Tried Meditating: It’s Worth It

Cats “meditate” all day long.

For a while, I’ve been hesitant to meditate. Reasons have ranged from “I’m not Buddhist” to “it’s weird.”

But meditation doesn’t have to be religious and I’M weird, so I tried out non-religious meditation.

I sat in my chair, closed my eyes, and without moving or fidgeting, Ifocused my mindon my breathing. Simple. Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale.

In seconds, rogue thoughts dove in to take my mind away from thinking about breathing. I had to keep refocus...

Mini Habits Is Officially An Audiobook!

What happens when you combine one of the highest rated books on the marketplace with the world’s greatest narrator?

The one audiobook to rule them all.

Click. Buy. Listen. Smile. Eat Lunch (optional).

You can now buy the Mini Habits audiobook onAmazonorAudible!

Daniel Penz (narrator) makes Mini Habits even more engaging than usual because he reads it withamazinginflection; he isn’t afraid to “modify” his voice either. Some parts will have you laughing out loud.

Of course, it’s notjustfor fun: Mini...