Loretta Graziano Breuning's Blog, page 17
April 10, 2012
Don’t Reduce Everything to Nature and Nurture
You were not born with a circuit chip in your brain, and you were not programmed by your culture. You built your neural circuits one connection at a time. So before you blame everything on genes and culture, consider these unique individual experiences with depression, psychosis and obesity.
March 24, 2012
Independence v. Belonging: Riding the Seesaw
When you succeed at belonging to a group, you may yearn for independence. But when you make it on your own, you may wonder if you're missing out on social bonds. Why do we focus on what we don't have?
March 15, 2012
Why Love Is a Neurochemical Roller Coaster
Don't blame yourself or your partner if you're not on a happy-chemical high all the time. Happy chemicals evolved to spurt when opportunity knocks, and then sag. How can we manage our mammalian motives?
March 12, 2012
Good Distraction/ Bad Distraction
Your brain has been deciding where to focus your attention since the moment you were born. Most of the time, your attention flows into your usual channels. But you can build new channels whenever you decide to.
February 25, 2012
The Dangers of Self-Identifying as “Too Nice”
Deciding that you're "too nice" is a comfortable way to frame a problem. But it may not get what you want. Being too nice can even reward bad behavior. The mammal brain is always comparing itself to others, but the cortex can be open to new information.
February 1, 2012
Who’s Afraid of Unhappiness?
Cortisol evolved to give you the bad feeling that you will die if you don't "do something, now!" If you do nothing in the face of cortisol, you teach your brain that it will not kill you. Accepting unhappy chemicals starts to free you from any habit you may be using to mask unhappy chemicals. You can build this skill if you can "do nothing."
January 19, 2012
Your Story Is a Survival Saga
Every brain seeks rewards and avoids pain, but no one likes to think of themselves as a reward-seeking, pain-avoiding creep. So we edit our stories, sometimes gutting our true core out of them. Here are some strategies for honoring your primal self.
