Athletic Coaches With Greater Emotional IQ Create Better Athletes/Performance

1. July 2009 by John Schinnerer.

Coaches who lack the ability to monitor their own feelings during practice and competition will negatively impact the performance of their athletes. On the other hand, coaches who have the ability to manage their emotions well during competition and practice create environments where their athletes can safely learn and hone abilities, thus reaching athletic potential and becoming more psychologically resilient and realistically optimistic. 

John Schinnerer Ph.D.

Guide To Self, Inc. 

From the abstract from International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology…

Thelwell, R., Lane, A. M., Weston, N.J.V., & Greenlees, I.A. (2008). Examining relationships between emotional intelligence and coaching efficacy. International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology 6, 224-235.

The study examined the relationship between EI, as measured using the EI Scale (Schutte et al, 1998) and coaching efficacy, as measured using the Coaching Efficacy Scale, among 99 athletic coaches. Results revealed significant relationships between the two sets of variables. More specifically, results showed that motivation efficacy (e.g., maintain confidence) was significantly associated with the regulation of emotions and social skills, whereas character-building efficacy (e.g., promote good sportsmanship) was associated with optimism. Teaching technique efficacy (e.g., demonstrate the skills of your sport) was significantly associated with appraisal of own emotions.

The results indicate that should coaches be unable to appraise their own emotions and regulate them accordingly, then their ability to affect the learning and performance of their athletes will be severely hindered. As such, it may be that coaches who lacks awareness of their own emotions are subsequently unable to regulate them accordingly for the situation and ultimately their performers’ well-being. This is clearly in line with some of the reports from the business environment (e.g., George, 2000) where leaders lacking in EI had significantly reduced leadership effectiveness. Alternatively, coaches who can appraise their own emotions will arguably possess greater sensitivity to when their emotions need to be regulated in accord with the situation, thus enabling them to fulfill their coaching role (Gould et al., 2002). Again, this mirrors research outside of sport where leaders with high EI deal with potentially difficult situations more effectively (Jordan et al., 2002).

 

Posted in emotional mind, psychology of soccer, emotional management, anger management, Awareness, Resiliency, emotional intelligence, guide to self, Swim coaches, Sports Psychology, abusive coaches, positive psychology, life coach, dr. john schinnerer, Mean coaches | Print | No Comments »

Myths of Perfect Parenting

1. July 2009 by John Schinnerer.

A great article on the Myths of Perfect Parenting at Psych Central.

 Feel free to take a look!
John Schinnerer, Ph.D.

Posted in parenting | Print | No Comments »

How Do Song Lyrics Affect Your Brain? Lyrics Prime The Brain for Good and Bad

29. June 2009 by John Schinnerer.

Dr. John Schinnerer

Guide To Self, Inc.

June 30, 2009

As I write this article, I am listening to the new Black Eyed Peas song, ‘I Gotta Feeling’, which begins with the lyrics,

‘I gotta feeling that tonight’s gonna be a good night,

tonight’s gonna be a good night,

tonight’s gonna be a good, good night.’

 

 The song makes me feel optimistic, energizes me, and gives me hope. This begs the question, how do music lyrics prime the mind to receive and interpret information?

 

Hundreds of studies have shown that words powerfully influence thinking, behavior, and mood, and much of it occurs without conscious awareness. Favorite songs are listened to over and over hundreds or thousands of times so it makes good sense to speculate that music lyrics may have a profound impact on the listener’s perception of the world, other people, and which emotions are experienced as well as the frequency of those emotions.

 

In psychology, researchers are beginning to grasp the significance of the workings of the mind beyond the conscious experience. Conscious awareness is merely the jumping off point when exploring the mind. There is now considerable agreement among neuroscientists that most cognitive processing takes place outside of conscious awareness. Roughly 90-95% of mental activity occurs outside conscious awareness. Much of this ‘back office’ activity is automatic and emotional. Much of this activity is taking place just below the level of our awareness.

Despite the lack of awareness, subconscious activity has a tremendous impact on how the world is perceived through the senses, day-to-day behaviors, emotions felt and satisfaction with life. For example, numerous studies have been done on the phenomenon known as priming. Priming is when a person is exposed to certain stimulus, such as words, lyrics, or surroundings, and their subconscious mind is activated. Once activated, the person tends to act in ways that are consistent with the stimulus without awareness of why they are behaving in that manner.  Priming has been shown to influence behavior in dramatic ways. Let me explain these types of studies by way of example. Imagine you volunteered for the following experiment:

You are given four jumbled sentences by a researcher who tells you to come get her when you’ve finished unscrambling them (so that the sentences are meaningful).  There is one extra word in each sentence does not need to be used.  For instance, you may be presented with something such as …‘her  interrupt   bother  usually  they’ As the subject, you would translate this mess into something meaningful such as… ‘They usually interrupt her’ or ‘They usually bother her.’ A few minutes later, you finish the task of unscrambling the four sentences and walk down the hallway to find the researcher. You find her but she’s in the midst of a conversation with a stranger and isn’t paying any attention to you. What do you do?

For those people who unscrambled sentences which contained one word per sentence having to do with rude behavior, such as ‘rash,’ ‘aggressive,’ ‘bother,’ and ‘intrude,’ you are far more likely to interrupt the researcher within 2 minutes and say, ‘Hey, I’m done. What’s next?’ On the other hand, if you unscrambled sentences in which the one rude word was swapped with a polite word such as ‘respect,’ ‘nice,’ or ‘courteous,’ the odds are that you will sit there passively for up to 10 minutes until the researcher finishes her conversation.  And you will have no idea what influenced you to be so docile. These experiments have been replicated over and over.

One experiment had a group of people simply read a list of words where some of the words had to do with stereotypes of elderly people, such as ‘retirement,’ ‘Florida,’ and ‘bald.’  Sure enough, participants who were ‘primed’ with elderly-related words instantly began acting consistent with the elderly stereotype. They walked more slowly down the hallway, they walked with their shoulders slightly more hunched over, and their short-term memory became worse than the control group.  Merely reading the list with words related to old age led to forgetfulness and other behavioral changes.

The frightening thing about these experiments is that the group given the words related to elderly stereotypes could not remember any words about the elderly in the original list of words. So they were influenced by the words and then forgot all about what it was that influenced them. All of this groundwork brings me to the latest research, which came out June 25, 2009, demonstrating that song lyrics prime behavior as well. When asked to fill in the missing song lyrics for different songs, participants’ behaviors and attitudes changed in startling ways.

 

Donald Saucier at Kansas State University found that when people filled in the lyrics for patriotic songs, such as ‘The Star-Spangled Banner,’ they became more close-minded, prejudiced and less empathetic. They did not put themselves in the shoes of another person to view the world through different eyes.

 

What’s more, when folks filled in lyrics to songs such as ‘The Itsy Bitsy Spider’, they became more pro-social, reporting more accepting attitudes towards other people and more empathy. The hypothesis is that this is due to the strong association most people have with such childhood songs to happiness or contentment in their own childhood.

 

In conclusion, musical lyrics have an impact on attitudes towards others, emotions felt and how frequently they are experienced, and how the world is perceived. Given the research, it makes sense to closely look at the lyrics of the songs you listen to frequently. They may be impacting you more than you ever realized.  To this end, I have created a list of over 600 songs which support and augment pro-social behaviors based on the latest findings of positive psychology. If you’d like a complimentary copy, pick it up at  http://tinyurl.com/n2dtsn.

About the Author

Dr. John Schinnerer

Dr. John Schinnerer is in private practice helping clients learn anger management, stress management, the latest ways to deal with destructive negative emotions and ways to cultivate positive emotions such as love, curiosity and contentment. His practice is located in the Danville-San Ramon Medical Center at 913 San Ramon Valley Blvd., #280, Danville, California 94526. He graduated summa cum laude from U.C. Berkeley with a Ph.D. in psychology. Dr. Schinnerer has been an executive and psychologist for over 12 years. Dr. John Schinnerer is President and Founder of Guide To Self, a company that coaches clients to achieve optimal human functioning using the latest in positive psychology, mindfulness and attentional control. Dr. John Schinnerer hosted over 200 episodes of Guide To Self Radio, a prime time radio show, in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Dr. John Schinnerer sits on the Advisory Board of Positive Music Imperative as well as consults with Resonance Technologies around the latest ways to measure and quantify human emotions for commercial application. Dr. Schinnerer is President of Infinet Assessment, a psychological testing company to help firms select the best applicants. Dr. Schinnerer’s areas of expertise range from positive psychology, to emotional awareness, to moral development, to sports psychology. Dr. Schinnerer wrote the award-winning, “Guide To Self: The Beginner’s Guide To Managing Emotion and Thought,” which is available at Amazon.com, BarnesAndNoble.com and AuthorHouse.com.  

Posted in hope, Resiliency, Awareness, Music psychology, curiosity, The human brain, subconscious mind, dr. john schinnerer, guide to self, happiness, positive mood music, positive psychology | Print | No Comments »

Golf Clubs Change How You Perceive Your Physical Body, New Possibilities Emerge for Amputees

27. June 2009 by John Schinnerer.

Next time you pick up your golf club your brain may do more than look for a long fairway.

Recent studies suggest that the brain views tools as extensions of the body.

The simple act of holding a mechanical tool, such as a golf club, “temporarily modifies the cerebral representation of a subject’s arm,” said Lucilla Cardinali, lead author of the study.

Essentially, individuals think their arm is temporarly longer. The cognitive schema for ‘body’ momentarily adapts and grows in size. And all of this takes place without your conscious awareness.

For more, check out the story on Yahoo…

http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20090626/hl_hsn/grabatoolandchangeyourbrain

John Schinnerer

Posted in The human brain, mindfulness, subconscious mind, emotional mind, guide to self, dr. john schinnerer | Print | 1 Comment »

Need Something Done? Don’t Speak To My Left Ear. Right Ear Better Suited For Requests

24. June 2009 by John Schinnerer.

ScienceDaily (June 23, 2009) — We humans prefer to be addressed in our right ear and are more likely to perform a task when we receive the request in our right ear rather than our left. In a series of three studies, looking at ear preference in communication between humans, Dr. Luca Tommasi and Daniele Marzoli from the University “Gabriele d’Annunzio” in Chieti, Italy, show that a natural side bias, depending on hemispheric asymmetry in the brain, manifests itself in everyday human behavior.

Full story at http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090623090705.htm

I didn’t hear this one coming. But when I reflect upon my own experience, I do prefer people speaking to my right ear. And I thought it was just me!

Fight the fear! 

Don’t give up!

Have a thriving, smiling day!

You are worth every breath you take (and that’s saying something!).

John Schinnerer, Ph.D.

Posted in emotional mind, consciousness, The human brain, rational mind, emotional intelligence, life coach, guide to self, dr. john schinnerer | Print | No Comments »

Can’t Wait to See ‘The Science of Music’ w/Daniel Levitin & Bobby McFerrin 6/24/09 9 pm PBS

23. June 2009 by John Schinnerer.

“The Music Instinct: Science & Song.” Show time is 9 PM on June 24th.

From PBS…

While listening to music, neuroscientist Daniel Levitin, asks the questions “where do goose bumps come from?” and “what’s going on in my brain that allows the goosebumps to happen?” Levitin leads a group of researchers as they investigate music’s fundamental physical structure; its biological, emotional and psychological impact; its brain altering and healing powers and its role in human evolution. The Music Instinct: Science and Song, a fascinating two-hour documentary on the science of music, premieres Wednesday, June 24, 2009 at 9 p.m. (ET) on PBS (check local listings).

The Music Instinct: Science and Song is a production of THIRTEEN in association with WNET.ORG – one of America’s most prolific and respected public media providers.

Researchers and scientists from a variety of fields are using groundbreaking techniques that reveal startling new connections between music and the human mind, the body and the universe. Together with an array of musicians from rock and rap to jazz and classical, they are putting music under the microscope.

“The brain is teaching us about music and music is teaching us about the brain,” says Levitin.” Music allows us to understand better how the brain organizes information in the world. There are a lot of different factors that go into our emotional appreciation of music [like] the memories we have of a particular song that we heard at a particular time in our lives.”

Internationally renowned performers Bobby McFerrin and cellist Yo-Yo Ma describe the way musical intervals are used or combined to create melody and harmony. McFerrin, together with the “World Singers,” sing a cappella to demonstrate that basic elements of music; pitch, tempo, rhythm and melody create specific reactions in our brains. Yo-Yo Ma plays two notes and then five more notes and then plays different combinations that demonstrate the way musical intervals are combined to create a melody or harmony.

More info below at PBS

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/musicinstinct/about/

Posted in emotional management, Music psychology, positive mood music, happiness, dr. john schinnerer, creativity, positive psychology | Print | No Comments »

‘Life Force’ (Extroverted Personality) Linked To Body’s Ability To Withstand Stress

22. June 2009 by John Schinnerer.

ScienceDaily (June 18, 2009) — Our ability to withstand stress-related, inflammatory diseases may be associated, not just with our race and sex, but with our personality as well, according to a study published in the July issue of the journal Brain, Behavior and Immunity. Especially in aging women, low levels of the personality trait extraversion may signal that blood levels of a key inflammatory molecule have crossed over a threshold linked to a doubling of risk of death within five years.

Full article here  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090617123700.htm

Have a fantastic day!

John Schinnerer, Ph.D.

Posted in Relationships, Managing Anxiety, emotional management, Resiliency, mindfulness, gratitude, hope, assertiveness, emotional mind, depression, anxiety, emotional intelligence, managing stress, staying calm, social anxiety disorder, happiness, Tips to help anxiety, social phobia, realistic optimism | Print | No Comments »

Articles from 2009 Mind & Life Research Institute - The Self & Human Flourishing

16. June 2009 by John Schinnerer.

Download the articles from the 2009 Mind & Life Research Institute here

Click here to read some fantastic articles from this year’s Mind & Life Research Institute faculty. The event was held this month.

From the brochure [pdf]:

The purpose of the Mind and Life Summer Research Institute is to advance collaborative research among behavioral and clinical scientists, neuroscientists, and biomedical researchers based on a process of inquiry, dialogue and collaboration with Buddhist contemplative practitioners and scholars and those in other contemplative traditions. The long-term objective is to advance the training of a new generation of behavioral scientists, cognitive/affective neuroscientists, clinical researchers, and contemplative scholar/practitioners interested in exploring the potential influences of meditation and other contemplative practices on mind, behavior, brain function, and health. This includes examining the potential role of contemplative methods for characterizing human experience and consciousness from a neuroscience and clinical intervention perspective.

The 2009 Mind and Life Summer Research Institute (MLSRI) will be devoted to the theme of the self, its development in sociocultural and contemplative contexts, and its implications for human flourishing and social transformation. MLSRI 09 will bring together contemplatives and academic scholars from the social, developmental, and clinical sciences, the neurosciences, contemplative studies, and philosophy to dialogue about a variety of topics pertaining to the self. These topics will include conceptualizations of self and identity in various traditions; the development of self in normative and contemplative contexts; the neurobiology of the self , its development, and associated plasticity; the processes of self-identification and their effects on life outcomes such as health, education, well-being and social relations; the phenomenology of the “embodied sense” of identity, ownership and agency in experience, and the relation of these first-person perspectives to the brain and body across development; the concept of “self-regulation” and its relation to issues of mental causation, free-will, and a variety of life outcomes; the role of self processes in psychological illness; and finally, self versus no-self views on the fundamental nature of the mind and consciousness.

Posted in Managing Anxiety, Managing Sadness, The human brain, emotional management, emotional mind, managing stress, guide to self, emotional intelligence, positive psychology | Print | No Comments »

Famous People Who Failed - Failure is Only an Opportunity to Learn

16. June 2009 by John Schinnerer.

Here is an excerpt from a commencement address I’ll be delivering tomorrow evening…

You are some of the most courageous individuals I know. For courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is overcoming fear. Without fear, there is no courage. You face your fears daily which makes you brave. It makes you courageous.

You are also among the most resilient people whom I know. And for that you have my respect and my admiration. Resiliency is the ability to bounce back from challenging, difficult situations. You guys are among the… bounciest… people I know. Many of you have had multiple chances of giving up, of throwing in the towel, and you refused.

Being able to bounce, being able to persevere, despite negative events is not due to luck. It’s due to resiliency.  

Resilience means you effectively cope despite inevitable loss, hardship, or adversity. Resilience has been compared to flexibility in metals. For example, cast iron is hard, brittle, and breaks easily, that is it is not resilient, whereas wrought iron is soft and bends without breaking - it is resilient.

In most cases, successful people have overcome many more difficulties than those who are less successful. While everyone encounters failure and trouble, it is what you do AFTER failure that is critical. Highly successful individuals have tenacity, a stick-to-it-iveness. They view failure as a learning experience. They don’t give up. They don’t throw in the towel. They try again.

From Barack Obama to the president of FedEx to Denzel Washington, successful individual fail repeatedly but they learn from their experiences and they keep going. They keep on walking in the direction of their values and their dreams.

Video of top ’failures’ - famous folks who bounced back to succeed.

Keep on walkin’,

Dr. John Schinnerer

Positive Psychology Coach

Guide To Self, Inc.

Posted in Managing Anxiety, emotional management, Resiliency, hope, Overcoming failure, emotional mind, Guide To Self Beginners Guide To Managing Emotion, life coach, dr. john schinnerer, guide to self, emotional intelligence, happiness, positive psychology | Print | No Comments »

Boys at greater risk than girls in U.S. for lower literacy, lower grades, school dropout, suicide, premature death, injuries, arrests & more.

11. June 2009 by John Schinnerer.

    

Boys more at risk than girls in US for lower literacy, lower grades, school dropout, suicide, premature death, injuries, arrests & more. Research article here  http://bit.ly/vRSLv

Serious issues for boys are largely being ignored & neglected. Much of research and funding directed towards girls likely as a result of the feminist movement. This is neither bad nor good in and of itself, more like a pendulum swing.  

In my opinion, it’s time for the pendulum to swing back towards focusing on assisting young boys and men (but not to the exclusion of assisting girls and women). A middle ground always works well for me.

Much of the intense physically aggressive behavior in boys and men seem to be connected to the ‘warrior gene’ MAOA. Recent study just connected the expression of MAOA to greater gang involvement and higher likelihood of use of violence and weapons. Research study here http://bit.ly/13UHMU

 Keeping it real,

Dr. John Schinnerer

Posted in parenting, anger management, Men's emotions, The human brain, nature vs. nurture, Guide To Self Beginners Guide To Managing Emotion, dr. john schinnerer, emotional intelligence, school psychology, school age bullies, Bullies | Print | No Comments »

Updated Positive Psychology Music List - Now Over 600+ Songs by Dr. John Schinnerer

9. June 2009 by John Schinnerer.

Positive Psychology Music Mix - List of Over 600 Songs to Increase Happiness, Contentment and Joy

I just updated my Positive Psychology song list (now over 600 songs!). The list has been flying around the internet (my thanks to those who’ve seen fit to pass it along). 

 I’ve been working on adding to and updating the list. It’s now 11 pages of songs from which you can pick and choose to add to your own station or library or playlist.

The new link is http://www.guidetoself.com/articles/Positive_Psychology_Happiness_song_compilation_June-09.pdf .

While music influences each of us differently, the list is a great start for building your own customized playlist to boost your mood.

Hope you enjoy!

Dr. John Schinnerer

Guide To Self, Inc.

www.GuideToSelf.com

Positive Psychology Coaching and Speaking

Posted in Managing Sadness, Managing Anxiety, emotional management, Resiliency, hope, love, curiosity, Music psychology, emotional mind, Guide To Self Beginners Guide To Managing Emotion, creativity, dr. john schinnerer, managing stress, life coach, guide to self, positive mood music, happiness, emotional intelligence, positive psychology | Print | No Comments »

How to Raise Happy Kids in Hard Times - Presentation 7/15/09 Dr. John Schinnerer in Alameda

5. June 2009 by John Schinnerer.

July 15, 6:30 to 8 p.m. “How to Raise Happy Kids in Hard Times”: Dr. John Schinnerer, psychologist, lecturer, radio personality and author of Guide to Self: The Beginners’ Guide to Managing Emotion and Thought, will present the second event in the Summer Speaker Series presented by the Alameda Civic Light Opera at Alameda Library. Free to the public. Community Meeting Room A, Main Branch of the Alameda Free Library, 1500 Oak St.

Posted in emotional management, Resiliency, hope, parenting, Guide To Self Beginners Guide To Managing Emotion, realistic optimism, dr. john schinnerer, happiness, positive psychology | Print | No Comments »

A software program to create music to fit users emotions - Inmamusys

2. June 2009 by John Schinnerer.

 Just when I thought I’d seen it all, the researchers at University of Granada come up with a program to create music that “responds to” the feelings of listeners. I’m not quite clear how this is done, but I am certainly intrigued to find out more.

 http://www.physorg.com/news163076031.html

Using artificial intelligence, the program apparently allows users to create their own music even in the absence of any musical training or knowledge. Stay tuned!

Miguel Delgado; Waldo Fajardo; Miguel Molina-Solana. “Inmamusys: Intelligent multiagent music system”. Expert Systems with Applications. 36, 4574-4580, 2009.

Posted in emotional mind, emotional management, Music psychology, positive mood music, happiness, dr. john schinnerer, customer engagement, positive psychology | Print | No Comments »

Think grateful thoughts during athletics to prevent yips (i.e. tiny muscle contractions due to stress)

27. May 2009 by John Schinnerer.

Gratitude produces calm energy (Robert Emmons).

Strategy: Think grateful thoughts during athletics to prevent yips (tiny muscle contractions due to stress)

Dr. John Schinnerer

Posted in Tips to help anxiety, psychology of soccer, gratitude, staying calm, emotional intelligence, Swim coaches, positive psychology, dr. john schinnerer, Sports Psychology | Print | No Comments »

Controlling Home Electronics With Your Thoughts Now a Budding Reality

27. May 2009 by John Schinnerer.

Virtual Smart Home Controlled By Your Thoughts

ScienceDaily (May 26, 2009) — Light switches, TV remote controls and even house keys could become a thing of the past thanks to brain-computer interface (BCI) technology being developed in Europe that lets users perform everyday tasks with thoughts alone.

---

The technology, which was demonstrated at CeBIT in Hannover in March, provides an innovative way of controlling the interconnected electronic devices that will populate the smart homes of the future, granting increased autonomy to people with physical disabilities as well as pleasing TV channel-surfing couch potatoes.

“The BCI lets people turn on lights, change channels on the TV or open doors just by thinking about it,” explains Christoph Guger, the CEO of Austrian medical engineering company g.tec that developed the application…

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090511091733.htm

Posted in The human brain, business | Print | No Comments »

ADHD Children Need to Move More When Using Higher Order Thinking Skills says UCF study

27. May 2009 by John Schinnerer.

ADHD Children Need to Fidget More When Using Higher Order Thinking Skills says UCF study http://tinyurl.com/ppqkqa

Posted in ADHD, parenting, school psychology | Print | No Comments »

Was St. Francis of Assisi the first positive psychologist?

18. May 2009 by John Schinnerer.

Positive psychology has been defined in a number of ways, as the science of happiness, the empirical pursuit of subjective well-being, ways to reliably increase life satisfaction, and so on.

I recently came across a quote from St. Francis of Assisi that was written hundreds of years ago yet contains many tenets which I would include in any discussion of positive psychology. Here it is…

“Lord, make me a channel of Thy peace,

That where there is hatred I may bring love;

That where there is wron I may bring the spirit of forgiveness;

That where there is discord I may bring truth;

That where there is doubt I may bring faith;

That where there is despair I may bring hope;

And where there are shadows I bring Thy light;

That where there is  sadness I may bring joy;

Lord grant that I may seek rather to comfort than be comforted,

To understand than be understood,

To love than be loved;

For it is by giving that one receives,

Is it by self-forgetting that one finds,

It is by forgiving that one is forgiven,

It is by dying that one awakens to eternal life.”

So here we have a number of topics that might fall under the heading of positive psychology:

Peace (Character Strengths and Virtues)

Love  (Barbara Fredrickson - UNC Chapel Hill; also love is most highly associated with life satisfaction and happiness per Chris Peterson)

Forgiveness (Fred Luskin - Stanford)

Truth (character strengths and values a la Chris Peterson & Nansook Park)

Faith (spirituality seems to be a central component of a meaningful live &  a key part of resiliency - Dennis Charney)

Hope  (another positive trait which is associated 2nd most highly with life satisfaction and happiness; research in progress by Rick Snyder at KU)

Joy (self-explanatory)

Altruism (studies have shown that helping others is one of the best ways to increase happiness)

Curiosity (openness to new ideas, cognitive flexibility, approaching novel situations; Todd Kashdan)

Nonattachment to self (Buddhist concept, yet nonattachment is fundamental to contentment, relaxation and high performance)

This seemingly simple prayer by  St. Francis predates positive psychology by hundreds of years. Fortunately, we are now finding empirical evidence to back it up.

Have a wonderful week!

All the best,
John Schinnerer, Ph.D.

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/johnschin

Posted in altruism, Resiliency, The human brain, Men's emotions, mindfulness, assertiveness, love, curiosity, gratitude, hope, emotional management, emotional mind, life coach, creativity, dr. john schinnerer, forgiveness, emotional intelligence, staying calm, Guide To Self Beginners Guide To Managing Emotion, morals and values, happiness, positive psychology | Print | No Comments »

For a Little Intellectual Humor - Try Tim Lee

8. May 2009 by John Schinnerer.

And for a quick laugh, check out Tim Lee who turned his back on his Ph.D. to try his hand at humor and ended up using both.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXFi7AdhhGk

Enjoy the laughter,

Dr. John Schinnerer

Positive psychologist

Danville CA 94526

Posted in Managing Sadness, psychology humor, Managing Anxiety, happiness, dr. john schinnerer, guide to self, positive psychology | Print | No Comments »

A Little Video to Inspire Awe - One of the Positive Emotions

8. May 2009 by John Schinnerer.

I watched this video today and was rewarded with a feeling of awe watching Peter Donnelly create transient art  in the sand with a simple stick and a rake (and a not-so-simple gift of vision). Wait until you see the finished products - they’re amazing. And they only have a life span of a few hours as the tide comes in to reclaim the beach. Awe-some!

 http://www.karmatube.org/videos.php?id=1499

Reward yourself. Take a look. Savor the experience.

Dr. John Schinnerer

Positive psychologist

Posted in emotional mind, Men's emotions, happiness, life coach, dr. john schinnerer, positive psychology | Print | No Comments »

Replacing Stress with Resiliency or How To Bounce Through Life

22. April 2009 by John Schinnerer.

Dr. John Schinnerer is giving a 45 minute free presentation this Thursday (April 23rd, 2009) at 6:30 pm at The Specfic Chiropractic Center in Dublin CA. The topic is ‘Replacing Stress with Resiliency or How To Bounce Through Life’.  The material is aimed at stress management to help during these turbulent times.

Find out how you can best manage your stress, use stress to your advantage, the 10 critical elements of resiliency and how to cultivate more positive emotions in your life.

Discover new scientifically proven methods of mindfulness, attentional control and the top ways to beat stress.

Please call (925) 560-0700 to RSVP.

The Specific Chiropractic Center is located at 7950 Dublin Blvd. Suite 103B, Dublin CA 94568.

Thanks for your time. Hope to see you there!

Posted in emotional management, happiness, Men's emotions, Resiliency, mindfulness, staying calm, anxiety, realistic optimism, managing stress, dr. john schinnerer, guide to self, positive psychology | Print | No Comments »