Can a stroll help ease depression? That question preoccupied Dr. Madhukar H. Trivedi, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, after several of his patients, all suffering from serious depression, mentioned that they felt happier if they went for a walk. The patients in question were taking the widely prescribed antidepressants known as S.S.R.I.’s, for selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, but not responding fully. They remained, by clinical standards, depressed. Dr. Trivedi and his colleagues began to wonder if adding a formal “dose” of exercise would increase their chances of getting better.

Certainly the possibility was worth investigating. Clinical depression, as anyone who has experienced or watched a loved one struggle with the condition knows, can be stubbornly intractable. Even if patients have been taking an antidepressant for months, recovery rates tend to hover below 50 percent.

In order to increase the odds of improvement, doctors frequently add a second treatment — often another drug, like lithium or an antipsychotic — to the S.S.R.I. regimen at some point, Dr. Trivedi said. Most patients ultimately require at least two concurrent treatments to achieve remission of their depression, he said. Studies have shown that these secondary drug treatments help an additional 20 to 30 percent of depressed patients to improve, but the medications can be expensive and have unpleasant side effects.

Which prompted Dr. Trivedi to look to exercise. His investigation joins a growing movement among some physiologists and doctors to consider and study exercise as a formal medicine, with patients given a prescription and their progress monitored, as it would be if they were prescribed a pill.

- read the full article at New York Times

People who overtax their self-control may find they have less in reserve for later, suggests an intriguing new study that may have implications for people trying to lose weight or make other behavioral changes.

But lack of sleep does not appear to affect self-control, say the researchers, whose study of 58 subjects is in the March issue of the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science.

The subjects — half had stayed awake for 24 hours and half were well-rested — were shown scenes involving vomit and excrement from two movies, Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life (1983) and Trainspotting (1996).

Some were allowed to express reactions; others were told to show no emotion. Later, they played an aggressive game in which they won or lost by chance. Winners were allowed to blast their opponent with a loud noise.

Those who had suppressed their emotions blasted their opponent at a noise level about 33% higher than those who were allowed to show emotion, regardless of how much sleep they’d had, researchers found.

Results suggest that “people have a diminishable supply of energy that the body and mind use to engage in self-control,” says study author Kathleen Vohs, a consumer psychology professor at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management. “When people use this energy toward achieving one goal, they have less of it available to use toward achieving other goals.”

That can help predict when people are likely to fail at their diets, spend too much money or misbehave with family or in relationships, Vohs says.

Results suggest loss of self-control resources isn’t the same as being tired, she says. “The ability to engage in self-control is determined by prior use of self-control, not by how much sleep one had the night before.”

The study was part of ongoing research on sleep deprivation at the University of Texas-Austin.

Findings don’t suggest busy people will lash out for no reason: “Aggressive behavior involves some action by someone else that causes you to want to retaliate,” says researcher Art Markman, a psychology professor at the University of Texas.

Roy Baumeister, director of social psychology at Florida State University, has done extensive research on self-control. “Most people chronically don’t get enough sleep, so it’s reassuring to suggest from this one finding that it does not have any effect on self-control of aggression,” he says.

But Baumeister says the test used may not account for other factors besides self-control that could contribute to aggression, such as personality or the competitiveness of the task itself.

Sian Beilock, a psychology professor at the University of Chicago, says it’s interesting that “being taxed in terms of doing one task can have these spillover effects on another.” People may think they can compartmentalize the different tasks they do during the day, but it turns out they are all connected, she says.

The study, paid for in part by the U.S. Army, could have important implications for the military as well. Though a lab is nothing like a war zone, “it does give preliminary reason for hope that just because a soldier has been forced to stay up for 24-36 hours, it doesn’t mean they will react aggressively because they were sleep-deprived,” Markman says.

For the rest of us, Vohs recommends being more mindful of priorities:

“When you want to engage in good self-control, the best thing that you can do for yourself is set up your day so you exert your self-control resources toward that specific task you want to succeed at.”

- article courtesy of USA Today

Neuro-Associative Conditioning or NAC is a science developed by Anthony Robbins, author of “Unlimited Power”, “Awaken the Giant Within” and the “Personal Power” tape series, from the foundations of Neuro-Linguistic Programming or NLP which was developed by Richard Bandler and Dr. John Grinder in their effort to model communication strategies of effective therapists.

This system was based upon Korzybski’s work of general semantics stating that a person’s experience is not reality but a representation of it (“The map is not the territory”).

NLP is also based upon the primary psychology and language strategies utilized by Dr. Milton Erickson to shift the internal representations and therefore, the experience and the behaviors of patients.

The science of Neuro-Associative Conditioning is a system that describes the process of change in human beings and is based upon the premise that there are two determining reasons for human behavior: 1) the need to avoid pain and/or 2) the desire to gain pleasure.

In order for the brain to efficiently evaluate how to rapidly accomplish these two tasks, you must create neuro-associations (associations within the nervous system) that are used to instantly determine the meaning (pain/pleasure) of situations, people, things, sounds, emotions, etc. These neuro-associations are the directing force of all human behavior.

How the Brain Works

All therapies can and do work but not all the time or with all patients. NAC addresses the question: What is it that all therapies have in common when they are successful in creating change for people? With NAC and its Six Master Steps for creating change and the Five Areas of Intervention, a therapist can rapidly create change in any human being so that a person’s neuro-associations consistently lead to pleasure and consistently avoid pain.

NAC is also a science of success conditioning, so that a person can be conditioned to feel and behave in ways that support their goals, create success and lead them away from behaviors that create limitations or pain. A human being’s destiny is based upon the neuro-associations of pain and pleasure that are linked in the nervous system to certain situations, people, ideas, emotions or contexts. By changing these neuro-associations, we change the way people evaluate, the way they feel and, therefore, the way people behave.

NAC is especially helpful for the athlete to become consistent in their mental game, as well as improving their actual physical ability to perform at their peak. Managing ones emotions in competitive sports can determine the success or failure of performance.

As martial artist Bruce Lee once put it ” Emotions are your enemy. When you get into emotion you lose your mind” When you lose your mind you lose your focus, when you lose your focus you lose you ability to perform at your peak. NAC teaches the athlete to mentally condition themselves so that they can manage their emotions to maintain focus and concentration to enter and stay in the zone.

NAC techniques include: guided imagery; trance induction; personal values and rules realignment; eliciting and changing submodalities to change internal negative neuro-associations; phobia cures with double disassociative technique; transformational vocabulary; visual, auditory and kinesthetic, anchoring; and pattern interrupts.

NAC is a powerful therapy. Here are just a few that can be overcome with NAC:

• phobias & fears
• addictions (drug, alcohol, food…)
• emotional trauma
• bad habits
• weight loss
• depression
• procrastination
• self sabotaging behaviors
• performance slumps
• learning disabilities

There are unlimited benefits to Neuro-Associative Conditioning.

THE N.A.C. 6 STEPS OF CHANGE:

1) Know What You Want.

2) Know What is Preventing You From Getting What You Want.

3) Interrupt that Pattern or Break the Old Behavior, Remove the Obstacles.

4) Choose and Install the New Behavior or Pattern You Want.

5) Condition Yourself for the New Behavior or Pattern.

6) Do an Ecology Test for the New Behavior to See If You Have Successfully Installed and
Conditioned It To Be Your New Automatic Response.

For three decades Tony Robbins the world authority on leadership psychology has passionately pursued answers to the question of why people do what they do and what holds them back from living life on their own terms. What he has discovered in working directly with more than three million people from 80 countries is that each of us holds the power to change anything in a moment – and experience more joy and fulfillment in our lives! – just by changing the way we think! Anthony Robbins: The Edge is a powerful program that will provide you with strategies not merely for improving specific areas that you want to focus on but for revolutionizing the way you live your life.

Running time: 190 mins

Format: DVD MOVIE

Genre: INSTRUCTIONAL/SELF HELP

Transform you life in 7 days with Tony Robbins.