30. October 2008 by John Schinnerer.

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Dr. Schinnerer is proud to announce he is opening a private practice to coach men in the latest ways to manage their anger, fear and sadness. The practice opens November 15th, 2008 at the Danville-San Ramon Medical Center on 913 San Ramon Valley Blvd., Suite 280, in Danville CA 94526. For appointments, please call (925) 575-0258.

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30. October 2008 by John Schinnerer.

Eight of Ten Americans Stressed About Money, Economy

By John Schinnerer, Ph.D.

Which comes first – fear or economic chaos? Companies as varied as Yahoo, American Express, and Time Inc. are laying off employees. Corporate profits are dropping. The stock market is in a chaotic panic. Housing prices have plunged. Consumer debt is on the rise. The U.S. economy is in a full blown recession, and possibly, a depression.  

Money and the economy are at the top of a long list of stressors for Americans as reported in a recent study by Harris Interactive and the American Psychological Association (October, 2008). Eighty percent (80%) of Americans are stressed about the state of the economy. So how do you manage the unyielding stress that comes with difficult economic times?  

Identify Fear, Anxiety and Stress

The first step to overcoming stress is to correctly identify it. When you are afraid, your blood gathers in the large muscle groups such as those in your legs, preparing your body to flee. Your body freezes for a moment to gauge your possible reactions such what is the quickest escape route. The brain sounds the alarm to put your body on alert, making it edgy and ready for action. Accompanying this is an overwhelming flood of anxious, fearful thoughts which seem to be uncontrollable. This intense cycle of fear and worry can paralyze you. It also paralyzes the rational mind, making it difficult to think clearly. Fear and stress are closely linked. When fear is sparked, the emotional brain begins its dance of anxiety, forcing the brain to focus on the perceived threat. The fearful mind spins in an endless loop of negative thoughts.

Fear lies at the heart of all stress. Stress is fear stretched out over time. It is the general alarm reaction sounded by the nervous system when you perceive that a demand is being made on you that you cannot handle. Once the alarm has focused your attention, the negative thought spirals, the racing heart, and the muscle tension are of no further assistance to you. On the contrary, long-term stress causes damage to your body on a number of levels – difficulty thinking clearly, damage to arteries, killing brain cells, and limiting the number of options open to you. On the bright side, stress and fear can be managed depending on how you approach them. Nothing is more important right now than learning to manage your stress – the fate of the entire world may depend on a critical mass of people staying calm and overcoming stress.

Turn Off the Alarm

Once the stress is identified, the second step is to turn the alarm off. This is done through exercise, deep breathing, meditation, prayer or other means to clear your mind of negative thoughts. If you have not yet learned to clear your mind, a good place to start is Guide To Self: The Beginner’s Guide to Managing Emotion and Thought.

Courage, Bravery and Heroism

The third step is the realization that courage is the antidote to fear. Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is overcoming fear. This step involves taking concrete actions to keep moving forward in a constructive direction. By reframing the question as, “What am I willing to try?” you can make change exciting, rather than paralyzing. Courage is not the absence of fear but the exorcising of it. Feel the fear and push through it anyway. It is the conquering of the fear that makes one courageous. One cannot be brave without fear. Think of courage as a virtue to be exercised daily rather than imagining it as expressed only in acts of heroism.  You are courageous…every day.  

Focus on Gratitude

Another way to bounce back from stressful times is to direct your thoughts daily to those things for which you are grateful. This simple act connects you with your higher, more centered self. To do so, think about the following:You are alive.You are loved by others.You can see, hear and breathe on your own.You can read and comprehend these words.You can vote in a country with freedom of speech and of religion.All of these are basics which are often taken for granted. Make your own daily list of things for which you are grateful. By cultivating gratitude, you consciously move your thoughts away from the thousands of voices adding to the environment of fear and begin to stem the tide of stress.

Look for the Positive Meaning Amidst the Rubble

Finally, look deep into your current situation and seek any and all positive meanings that may be pulled from it. Every situation exists to teach you something. Your best strategy is to uncover those life-altering lessons in difficult times and use them to motivate you towards positive, constructive action. An example of a life lesson in this situation is the realization that you are resilient, you will survive. And with that knowledge comes power (“If I can survive this, I can survive anything.”). With complete awareness, allow yourself to calmly and rationally consider what options are available to you to create your best possible future.

Remember that our country has survived such economic hardships in the past and we will survive this one. Americans are highly resilient. We will bounce back from this difficulty with more energy, greater innovation, and more wisdom than we had prior to it. That is what we do, for we are Americans. We don’t just roll. We bounce.

About the Author John Schinnerer, Ph.D.

Dr. John Schinnerer graduated summa cum laude from U.C. Berkeley with a Ph.D. in psychology. Dr. Schinnerer has been an executive coach and psychologist for over 10 years. Dr. John Schinnerer is President and Founder of Guide To Self, a company that focuses on coaching individuals and groups to their potential using the latest in positive psychology. Most recently, Dr. John Schinnerer hosted over 200 episodes of Guide To Self Radio, a prime time radio show, in the San Francisco Bay Area.Dr. Schinnerer is also President of Infinet Assessment, a psychological testing company to help firms select the best applicants. Infinet was founded in 1997 and has worked with companies such as UPS, CSE Insurance Group, McQuay International and Schreiber Foods.Dr. John Schinnerer previously served as Chief Communication Officer of Emotion Mining Company, which measured emotions for branding, marketing and organizational change.
Dr. Schinnerer’s areas of expertise range from positive psychology, to emotional awareness, to moral development to sports psychology. He is a noted speaker and author on topics such as emotional intelligence, happiness in the workplace and executive leadership. Dr. Schinnerer wrote, “Guide To Self: The Beginner’s Guide To Managing Emotion and Thought,” which was awarded the “Best Self-Help Book of 2007” by East Bay Express. He has written articles on corporate ethics and EQ in the workplace for Workspan magazine, HR.com, and Business Ethics. He has given numerous presentations, radio shows and seminars to tens of thousands of people for organizations such as SHRM, NCHRA, KNEW and KDIA.

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16. October 2008 by John Schinnerer.

Another intriguing study. This one found that altruistic behavior may be considered sexually attractive by both sexes in potential mates…

Being Altruistic May Make You Attractive

Oct. 15, 2008

Displays of altruism or selflessness towards others can be sexually attractive in a mate. This is one of the findings of a study carried out by biologists and a psychologist at The University of Nottingham. 

In three studies of more than 1,000 people, Dr Tim Phillips and his fellow researchers discovered that women place significantly greater importance on altruistic traits than anything else. Their findings have been published in the British Journal of Psychology. 

Dr Phillips said:  “Evolutionary theory predicts competition between individuals and yet we see many examples in nature of individuals disadvantaging themselves to help others. In humans, particularly, we see individuals prepared to put themselves at considerable risk to help individuals they do not know for no obvious reward.” 

Participants in the studies were questioned about a range of qualities they look for in a mate, including examples of altruistic behaviour such as ‘donates blood regularly’ and ‘volunteered to help out in a local hospital’. Women placed significantly greater importance on altruistic traits in all three studies.

 Yet both sexes may consider altruistic traits when choosing a partner. One hundred and seventy couples were asked to rate how much they preferred altruistic traits in a mate and report their own level of altruistic behaviour. The strength of preference in one partner was found to correlate with the extent of altruistic behaviour typically displayed in the other, suggesting that altruistic traits may well be a factor both men and women take into account when choosing a partner. 

Dr Phillips said: “For many years the standard explanation for altruistic behaviour towards non-relatives has been based on reciprocity and reputation — a version of ‘you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours’. I believe we need to look elsewhere to understand the roots of human altruism. The expansion of the human brain would have greatly increased the cost of raising children so it would have been important for our ancestors to choose mates both willing and able to be good, long-term parents. Displays of altruism could well have provided accurate clues to this and genes linked to altruism would have been favoured as a result.” 

Dr Phillips concluded: “Sexual selection could well come to be seen as exerting a major influence on what made humans human.” 

Dr Tom Reader in the School of Biology said: “Sexual preferences have enormous potential to shape the evolution of animal behaviour. Humans are clearly not an exception: sex may have a crucial role in explaining what are our most biologically interesting and unusual habits.” 

From Science Daily. University of Nottingham (2008, October 15). Being Altruistic May Make You Attractive. ScienceDaily. Retrieved October 16, 2008, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2008/10/081014134027.htm

 Cheers,

Dr. John Schinnerer

Guide To Self, Inc.

Posted in Subconscious mind, Emotional management, Men's emotions, The human brain, Altruism, Emotional mind, Guide To Self Beginners Guide To Managing Emotion, Life coach, Dr. John Schinnerer, Guide to Self, Emotional IQ, Happiness, Positive Psychology | Print | No Comments »

16. October 2008 by John Schinnerer.

Here is a recent study (as reported by Science Daily) on the positive effect that emotion can have on negotiating …

Deal Or No Deal? The Role Of Emotions In Negotiating Offers

ScienceDaily (Oct. 16, 2008)

We all negotiate compromises every day, but it often seems that certain people always get their way. Do these skilled negotiators simply go with their gut instinct every time or are they just extremely calculating, figuring out all possible outcomes before settling on the best option?  

Behavioral studies have shown that emotions play an important role in decision making. However, it was not known to what extent our negotiating skills depend on our emotions.  Columbia University scientists Andrew Stephen and Michel Tuan Pham decided to explore the interplay of emotion and reason in everyday deal-making. They designed a series of laboratory experiments to see if people who trust their feelings (and those who do not) handle themselves differently in the art of negotiation.  In this study, they used a classic negotiation game called the “ultimatum game.”

In the ultimatum game, one person (the “proposer”) has a given amount of cash, which he is told to divide with a second person any way he likes. The catch is that the second person must either accept the offer or reject it entirely, no negotiation allowed. If he rejects it, both players walk away with nothing. To test how emotions influence deal-making (or in some cases, deal-breaking!), the researchers manipulated how much participants trusted their feelings before they played a series of ultimatum games for real money. They asked some of the participants to think of two occasions in their past when trusting their feelings to make decisions resulted in good outcomes.

People generally find it easy to think of two such occasions, giving participants greater confidence in trusting their own emotions while making decisions. Other participants were told to think of 10 occasions when trusting their feelings to make decisions resulted in poor outcomes—this made participants wary of trusting their feelings. Then all the participants played a computerized version of the ultimatum game, in the role of “proposer.” The results, as reported in the October issue of the journal Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, were intriguing. The participants who were more confident in following their emotions offered somewhat less money than the others. This is because they were more focused on the “gist” of the offer itself (and what felt good), rather than on estimating the other player’s possible reaction and calculating the probabilities of payoff. In short, the immediacy of the offer trumped the more complicated calculation.  When the researchers tried two other variations of the ultimatum game (one with more room for negotiation and one with less), they found similar results. When the participants were primed to trust their emotions, they saw the transaction as simpler and cleaner — rather than complex, abstract and cognitively demanding. The researchers believe that emotional negotiators actually have an easier time visualizing the offer itself: They picture themselves offering someone $20 from their $50 pot and it feels “okay.”  “We believe that when proposers rely on their feelings, the relative power implied by the rules of the game is central to their gist representation of the negotiation, and this representation shapes whether offers ‘feel right’ to them,” the authors stated. Interestingly, the negotiators who were guided by their emotions did not fare worse than the others financially. Indeed, they ended up with at least as much, and often more, than their more calculating counterparts, suggesting that emotional decision making may not only be simpler, but may also be more lucrative.

Association for Psychological Science (2008, October 16). Deal Or No Deal? The Role Of Emotions In Negotiating Offers. ScienceDaily. Retrieved October 16, 2008, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2008/10/081015100049.htm

I hope you are thriving today!

All the best,

Posted in Emotional management, Subconscious mind, Men's emotions, Negotiation and emotion, Emotional mind, Rational mind, Guide to Self, Emotional IQ, Guide To Self Beginners Guide To Managing Emotion, Dr. John Schinnerer | Print | No Comments »

16. October 2008 by John Schinnerer.

The best emotional responses allow you to quickly achieve your goal, while causing no harm to others who may be involved. It’s not easy. If it were, everyone would have it. It begins with increasing your awareness … mindfulness…and practice.

Emotions are best understood as action scripts. Human bodies and brains have been developing these action scripts over millions and millions of years, far longer than our rational minds have been around. The limbic system, where much of emotional processing takes place, has been around for 3 - 10 million years, the cortex, where much of our rational thinking takes place, has been only been around for 40,000 to 2 million years.

Emotional management …is the skill of turning down the

  1.) Intensity

  2.) Duration and

  3.) Frequency of your negative, destructive emotions.

Emotional management allows you to have more of a conscious choice in which emotions you feel, when you feel them and to what degree. It is about inserting a third of a second between the time you experience the emotion in the moment and the behavior which follows.

For instance, anger is an action script to remove obstacles which are preventing us from reaching our goals. It has been honed over millions of years to prepare us to attack or confront. This is highly useful when we are out hunting or being hunted (such as our prehistoric ancestors were). Yet, it is not overly helpful when we are flying to anger due to traffic, standing in line or the misbehavior of a child.

Research has shown that the anger cycle can be interrupted within the first .33 seconds.

You become aware of the anger signs within your body (e.g., blood rushing to hands and feet to prepare for attack, heart rate increases, brow furrows, overfocusing on situation that incited anger, shallow breathing).

You label the anger (the simple act of properly labeling negative emotions has been shown to reduce their intensity).

Honor it (”Hey, I’m feeling angry here. Let’s take a time out and come back later”).

Breathe deeply and turn your thoughts towards something pleasant (a distraction).

This reduces the intensity of the anger and allows you to insert some conscious thought between the feeling of anger and the way in which you behave as a result of the anger.

Emotional management is one of the most important skills you can learn in this lifetime. Check it out. You’ll be happy you did!

John Schinnerer, Ph.D.

Guide To Self, Inc.

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