October 2010 Archives

This was suggested by Jack.

 

We've talked about meditation to some extent during class, but did you know how much it can help you as college students?  Meditation can do this through several ways.  Brain development, increasing creativity, relaxing everything from its muscles to blood vessels (reducing stress), decreasing depression, and increasing IQ / classroom performance are just a few examples.

 

There are several free, online resources that will guide you through the process.  Notably, http://www.tm.org/ is a great source.  It explains exactly what TM is, its benefits, and a course description.  Even if you don't choose to pay for their services, you can use this as a guide when looking for a free alternative.

Another resource could be http://www.how-to-meditate.org/.  This site explains why you should learn to meditate, various forms of meditation, and even explains the link between Buddhism and mediation and their process for meditation.  In addition, it lists books that can be used for further learning.

 

If you would like to comment on this blog, please take the time to go through this process at least once and blog about your experience.  What did you think about it?  Was it your first time meditating?  Did you feel better, tired, different, etc. afterwards?

 

-Nile

I know, "the supreme court is boring" "I'm a college student, I don't need to care about government until I'm old!"  I used to say these things, too.  If you're in fact thinking, "Damn, this is cool" then you're already more mature than I was at your age . . . two-ish years ago.  Enough sounding like I'm old.

Alright, so this might not be the most interesting application of the material to you, but it's fascinating!  We all know that the supreme court is incredibly important to the US judicial system.  The supreme court has a lot of major changes facing them.  Gay marriage, legalization of marijuana in California (the right for a state law to trump federal law), and many other permanent changes to this country will be influenced by their decision.

 

Now, the assignment: find any resource you want and comment about the post.  If you bought a psychology book, this might be a good time to reference it.  If you need a book, I have to intro books and a social book that I can lend you.  Just let me know.

 

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/time-out/201010/will-be-the-most-intelligent-supreme-court-ever

Insomnia for college student is normal.  We're usually so hopped up on caffeine throughout the day that there's no way we can sleep until 2 AM.  However, there are those of us who swear that caffeine has no effect on them.

This article looks into six common reasons why we can't sleep at night.  Again, I chose this article because I thought you could apply it to your life to make it easier.  If you would like, research on this information and post on it, OR try some of these things for yourselves and post about the results.

If you choose the second option, you might want to post on another topic this week, apply this article's tips to yourself then post about it next week.

-Nile

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-power-rest/201009/why-cant-i-sleep-six-common-reasons-you-can-fix-0

I chose this article because it pertains to a lot of what we're talking about: the influence of drugs upon the body, dreaming, and sleep.  The three subjects are interwoven through the article, and it's interesting to see the direct connections they have upon one another.

The article actually goes into more detail about certain aspects of the subjects that we haven't covered yet, and I found it to be a pretty fun read.

Feel free to look into detail about any of this information.  Sleep cycles, circadian rhythms, the University of Chicago (huge Psychology school) and their sleep research, etc.

 

Try to make the posts expand on the given information, so someone else might be able to comment about your comment, also.

Finally, have fun.  This is a topic that affects us all.  Whether you only need 5-6 hours of sleep each night or if you would prefer to have about 9 like Kim said, sleep is VITAL to your well being.

That reminds me, you can look into the negative results of not getting enough sleep over a long period of time.

PS - You should probably try to relate this to reducing stress.  I'm trying to make these topics related to each other, so they're all more memorable.  =D

 

-Nile

 

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-teenage-mind/200906/marijuana-sleep-and-dreams

Just reading about it is making me yawn!

Take some time to look into yawning.  Find other resources that support / refute Dr. Breus' points of view.

 

Find video clips or articles - any resource is fine.

 

PS - You can think about it from a social point of view.  Think about how if your neighbor yawns, you usually do, too . . . and then they yawn again, etc.  This is something we talked about in my social psychology class, and I thought it was pretty interesting. 

 

-Nile 

 

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sleep-newzzz/201009/what-s-in-yawn

I thought this would be appropriate since we just passed midterms and everyone might still be a little on edge.

 This article is all about how our inner voices play a key role in maintaining low stress levels. 

 

I would like you to look into alternative options of how to reduce stress.  Either research it or post what has worked for you and THEN find evidence of why it actually works.  You may also post about how stress is detremental to one's health

 

HINT HINT - if you look into Kim's activity on meditation then you can use a lot of the same information in this post.

 

-Nile

 

 

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/compassion-matters/201010/silence-the-inner-voice-thats-stressing-you-out

http://www.howlifeworks.com/health_beauty/brain_training/?cid=7077aa

 

Hi all,

Call me silly, but I'm a big fan of self-improvement.  Thus this article seemed wroth while to me.

I've actually already been to the site that they refer to - Lumosity, and I bought the iPod Touch app for it.

For this activity, either find more research to support or refute the idea that regular brain training can increase intelligence OR play around on lumosity.com and write about your experience with it.  (It's absolutely free for new members.)

Whether you liked it or not, feel free to post about it.

An alternative would be to download the free iPhone app and try some of their games that way, too.

Enjoy,

-Nile

Listen to the episode http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/360/switched-at-birth (click on play episode).

What does this story say about the nature vs nurture debate? What other issues related to psychology does it raise? What do you think about this story?

Listen to this episode about sleep. http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/361/fear-of-sleep (click on play episode). One of the acts (2) is about bed bugs, but the others are about various sleep disturbances.

Discuss what you learned.

First, learn a thing or two about meditation (how to do it; the health benefits, etc), and then try it, every day for 1 week. What did you learn? What was it like? What benefits or problems did you experience?

just a few links to get you started

http://www.mugjoint.com/ayurveda/veda_papers/transmed.htm

http://archive.tm.org/book/chap_1.html

http://www.howtodothings.com/video/learning-to-meditate

Smile, smile, smile :)

For one day, make an effort to look people in the eye as you pass them and smile. Make a mental note of who this feels more comfortable to do with/for and who it doesn't. Regardless, still do it! What happens? What was your overall experience? How did it make you feel? What does this activity tell you about the social function of emotions?

For this activity, you can choose to manipulate your sleep in some way and report on it. You could choose to get up earlier than you normally do for a few days, go to bed later, etc. Describe the change you implemented and the effects you experienced. Relate your experience to what you have learned about sleep from your various resources (textbooks, internet).

Book Report

You are required to write a book report for this course. The book report is worth 100 points.  The report should be 2000 words long, typed, and in APA style (1 inch margins, double spaced, citations where appropriate, cover page, reference page).  You will be submitting your book report to www.turnitin.com where I will verify that your work has not been plagiarized. You will also turn in an identical hard copy to me on the day that it is due.

Here are some guidelines for your book report.

Buy your book early. Don't wait to find out that it will take 10 days to get to you through the mail.

Read your book.

Your next step will be to organize what you are going to say about it in your report. Writing the basic elements down in an outline format (or mindmap!) can help you to organize your thoughts. Your report should focus on psychological factors that are evident in your book. Don't just try to write this off the top of your head, but rather, from your focused effort in applying the principles of psychology (found in your myth book, or your resource textbook) to the book you read. You should only very briefly summarize your book (e.g., less than one page). The remainder of your paper should be focused on the relevant psychological factors inherent in the story or content of your chosen book. Questions? See me.

The Final Paper

1. Spell check your paper.

2. Have a friend read and review your paper.

3. Read your paper out loud.

4. Make any changes that your friend and you have pointed out.

5. Spell check again.

Grading:

10pts for APA style cover page

10pts for APA style reference page

10pts for APA style throughout the paper

10pts for appropriate length of paper

25pts for accurate and effective presentation of psychological principles/concepts

25pts for writing style

10pts for spelling/grammar

For several nights in a row, keep a note pad by your bed. As soon as you wake up, jot down anything you remember from your night's sleep (whether you got up, tossing and turning, etc) and, anything you remember from any dreams.

Prior to going to sleep at night tell yourself "I'm going to remember my dreams tonight."

As you start remembering your dreams (or if you already do), prior to going to sleep at night tell yourself "While I'm dreaming, I'm going to realize I'm dreaming."

If in a dream you start to get a sense you may be dreaming try to gain control of the dream. You can do this by simple stopping the activity of the dream...just stand there and look around. If you enter a full cognizant lucid dreaming state, do something very different, like jump off a building, or fly, or change the entire location of your dream.

The goal of this activity is to become more aware of your sleep and dream habits. As a comment to this post talk about your experience and what you learned about your sleep and dreaming habits.

In response to several people asking about this during one of your assignments, I decided to make a post about this.

Hi all,