BD91

My question is how much does this app factor in your mood as a function of all the going on's of your life piled on top of the given social interaction? I think it's a really interesting idea, but would like to see it fleshed out a little bit more.

Hey everyone! I just came across a pretty interesting study that compared 8 hours of playing the popular video game Portal 2 to 8 hours of using the popular brain-training software Lumosity. The study, while admittedly brief, showed a statistically significant improvement in the subjects who played 8 hours of Portal 2 in pre/post tests on problem solving, spatial skills, and persistence. Here's a link to the study: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131514001869 Now, I myself do play a few video games and am a HUGE fan of the Portal series; and I remember in college whenever I'd get stuck somewhere along an assignment for to long (typically math) I'd take a break, play Portal for 20 minutes and seemed to always come up with the solution in relatively short time after the break. Obviously that's only an anecdote and doesn't prove anything, but I figured this thread could be an interesting starting off point for a larger discussion about the impact of video games on the human psyche on an individual & societal/cultural level.

I wouldn't take EVERYTHING cited word-for-word, but these two books have a good bit of backed research on why high GI (glycemic index) foods can be so troublesome: http://www.amazon.com/The-UltraMind-Solution-Broken-Healing/dp/0743570480 http://www.amazon.com/Grain-Brain-Surprising-Sugar--Your-Killers/dp/031623480X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1420820091&sr=1-1&keywords=grain+brain

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I am fairly sure that the carbs found in bread & grain products are also fast-release carbhydrates. Slow-release carbohydrates come from things like vegetables, nuts & butters, fresh fruits (though I think most fruits have a bit of fast-release carbs in them as well).

Hey Kevin, thanks for the welcome, the sympathy, and the reply! I agree with the idea that opposing state to me+ is one of openness, self expression, and honesty of both emotionally safe and emotionally "unsafe" thoughts, ideas, and feelings. Your description of swinging like a pendulum between numb and sad makes a lot of sense, and I'd propose the addition of fear of negative consequence (shaming, punishment, social rejection, etc...) would be the gravity that keeps the whole operation in motion. I'll definitely work on my emotional vocabulary, I'm familiar with the basic descriptions (happy, sad, angry); but, I have never really thought of the implications of adding a bit more finesse to the language I use to describe these feelings. I can absolutely relate to longing and disappointment and a sense of hopeless exasperation when I try to communicate feelings and receive support from my family. I am currently looking into therapists in my area as I am well aware that it is an affordable and boundless investment in my self that I could benefit from enormously. Especially coupled with journal entries and meditation, both of which i have began to get into with the New Year so the sake of having a record of my self-knowledge and feelings and the meditation for keeping myself calm and in the moment and not dissociating from reality when negative feelings come up. And yes your post was tremendously helpful and I appreciate the input greatly, thank you!

Hey everybody, I was watching "The Truth about Robin Williams" and the concept of mePLUS that Stef talks about really resonated with me. I wanted to hear anybody's thoughts on that concept, and more to the point, how to overcome it. I guess I hadn't really realized it until watching that presentation, and became more active in my pursuit of self-knowledge in general, but that's something I've dealt with my entire life as far as I can remember. I grew up in a, vaguely, single-parent household. What I mean by that is my parents relationship was screwed before I was even born, my dad had been cheating on my mom for quite a while (still is) but they stayed married "for the sake of the children" (pro-tip: don't do that.). My father is an OB-GYN, so he was usually not home because of a busy call/office schedule and when he was around he was typically too tired for any sort of real interaction with his kids. As far as the interactions I DID have with my parents they were mostly negative and filled with a lot of shaming. I can remember when when my dad was home we were playing baseball in the yard, more specifically he would throw the ball and I'd hit it with the bat (didn't really have enough people around for a full game). One time I really clobbered that thing it went WAAAYYY out into the woods and, at first I was really proud, because you know, that's what the batter is supposed to do; but, my pride quickly diminished when my dad started chastising me along the lines of "GOD DAMN IT, WHY CAN'T YOU TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY! I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS NONSENSE" and then he stormed inside which destroyed any of the good feelings I had and then when I tried to talk to my mom about it she just said "well, you know, people in our family just aren't really athletes" and that was pretty much it. I can't remember any single moment of witnessing genuine expression between my parents, usually I was with one or the other and they would just say nasty things about the other. One time my mother actually hired a private detective to follow my dad around while we were all on a family vacation because she suspected he was cheating on her there as well. Long story short, pretty anytime I did anything my parents would berate or otherwise put me down by either criticizing what I had done, or shaming me by saying what I did was "embarrassing". So, around 8th grade my performance in school really started to decline, I didn't know why and parent-teacher conferences yielded no insight; presumably because I didn't realized how f****ed my family was, and if the teachers noticed they didn't say anything, and obviously my parents weren't going to own up to any of their mistakes. I never had to repeat a grade, but I barely scraped by to graduation. And in college, I started out well but quickly declined into neglecting my classwork for the sake of self-medicating with alcohol and copious amounts of marijuana, and a brief stage of amphetamine abuse. Now I've drifted a bit for the sake of background information so now we'll get back into mePLUS. I was the school band, I played the drums, and I was really really good. Not to brag, but I was far and away the best in percussion section. I had been taking lessons for a while and I enjoyed drumming because I got positive feedback from it. For the first time in my life I had approval, I was accepted, so because of this I just practiced all the time, I didn't really have a lot of friends and I was never bullied severely but I definitely wasn't the favorite of my peer group, and the friends I did have were in the band (wind ensemble, marching band, etc...) so I'd see them during rehearsal which accounted for most of my "social life" if you could really call it that. So, fast forward to now, I'm living at home, my dad's house, which he had built literally less than 100 yards from my moms house, I'm unemployed, I can't form intimate relationships and date women and the friends I have now (few people still in the area I went to high school with) aren't the most intellectually stimulating and I don't know if they're the best people to have around, they're still prone to partying regularly (2+ times a week of heavy alcohol, marijuana, etc...) but I really don't want to become a complete recluse. I always set these schedules of things I want to do, with the assumption that if I just do it, then I'll feel good and have success and everything will work out in the end. But, inevitably I fall off the wagon within a week, then get upset with myself for being lazy and repeat that cycle ad infinitum. Here's the mePLUS, it's like I believe that I can only be loved IF I do certain things first, the concept of unconditional self-love BEFORE even doing anything is just outside of my conception. I want to change that, but I really don't know how. I've been learning to write code and I want to start a business selling software plug-ins that process audio signals (commonly referred to as VST, short for Virtual Studio Technology, or AudioUnit if you're using Mac), but businesses are about people; both the customers and the employees, and if I can't build a decent relationship with myself, how can I build a team of people who can trust me to lead a company? How can I become more social and open and form relationships, both friendly and more intimate? As far as I can tell, if I can't figure out a way to change these deeply rooted underlying mentalities then they're going to take everything that I care about and desire from me, more specifically disallow me from ever having it in the first place. Any advice? I skipped over some of my history (dating experience, more specifics on interactions with my parents, etc..), but I feel I got the main point across. But if anybody has more questions, I'm happy to answer. I'm at my wit's end here and I just don't know what to do.

Hey everybody, Today I started journaling as a means to increase my self-knowledge and awareness. However, I'm not entirely sure how I should go about it. Do I just sort of free-form jazz my way through it and just let the words flow? Or should I focus in on one particular topic and think about my thoughts/feelings towards it and write that down as it comes to me? Thanks in advance for the help! -Brian

Hey everyone! I'm a relatively new fan of Stefan's work, the first I saw of his material was the "Truth About Elliot Rodgers" video. I thought it was really interesting and clicked through to his channel and have been hooked since and more recently made an account here and began listening to the live show and have enjoyed it as well! I came here to engage in philosophical discussions and to help people explore their own self-knowledge while I explore mine. I know I have some issues to work through as a result of emotionally neglectful parents, but I think I'll just make a separate thread to rant my way through. haha! For now, just wanted to say hello and make my prescence known! Loking forward to interacting with all of you here. Cheers, Brian