25. September 2009 by John Schinnerer.

How engaged are you in each moment of your life?

The video below provides a tremendous reminder that life is a series of brief moments strung together. As we become more mindful and nonjudgmental, each moment becomes a treasure unto itself. The less we judge moments as good OR bad, the more likely we are to be able to appreciate them for what they are - life.

What’s more, one of the three paths to happiness is to string together series of moments infused with positive emotion (e.g., awe, surprise, curiosity, love, contentment, relaxation, pride, delight, joy, excitement).

Directed by William Hoffman (www.anyoneeverything.com)

Have a fantastic, mindful weekend!

John Schinnerer, Ph.D.

Guide To Self, Inc.

Positive Psychology Coach

Posted in Emotion & productivity, Employee engagement, Mindfulness, Consciousness, Dr. John Schinnerer, Happiness, Positive Psychology | Print | No Comments »

25. September 2009 by John Schinnerer.

Dr. John Schinnerer

Guide To Self, Inc.

www.GuideToSelf.com

Are business people purely logical? Do employees go through their work day devoid of emotion? Does the stock market rise and fall according to rational principles?

The answer to all these questions is ‘No,’ however many people like to go through their days as if they were true.

Last month, I spoke at a corporate leadership summit. Afterwards, I was selling copies of my book when two businessmen in suits came up. Both men thumbed through a copy of Guide To Self: The Beginner’s Guide To Emotion and Thought. One man purchased a copy and said ‘This looks fantastic.’ The other man teased him saying ‘Oh yes, emotions, you need that kind of help.’ And the derogatory tone of voice in which it was said caused me to think about emotions and how they relate to business. Being ‘emotional’ in a corporate setting is akin to being insane, neither of which is helpful in climbing the corporate ladder.

At the same time, I’ve had numerous discussions with companies looking to market goods or services aimed at improving emotional connections between businesses, customers and employees. This gets at the heart of employee and customer engagement. Engagement is an emotional construct. Nearly every definition of engagement has at its core an emotional component such as enthusiasm, commitment, or trust.

What Is Engagement?

The Corporate Board defines employee engagement as ‘a heightened emotional connection that an employee feels for his or her organization, and that influences him or her to exert greater discretionary effort to his or her work.’ Curt Coffman and Gabriel Gonzalez-Molina, co-authors of Follow This Path, lay out twelve parts to employee engagement. Of these twelve, seven are emotionally-based:

1.      high energy and enthusiasm

2.      an emotional commitment to what the employee does

3.      create positive things to act on (based on constructive emotions)

4.      broaden what he or she does and builds on it (the key theory in positive psychology is broaden-and-build by Barbara Fredrickson)

5.      has a commitment to the company and people that work there (commitment is based largely on an emotional connection)

6.      intentionally builds supportive relationships (positive emotions are the ‘glue’ which hold relationships together)

7.      naturally innovates and works toward efficiency (innovation is more likely to occur when in a positive emotional state)

Most individuals in the corporate world like to maintain the illusion that they are 100% calm, rational and in control. They make the mistake of thinking they are the ‘thinker,’ the part of the mind that is rational, controlled and conscious. In fact, a mere 10% of the human mind is rational. The other 90% of the mind is emotional, unconscious and automatic.  

How Can Engagement Be Measured?

What’s more, recent studies show that there is a way to measure whether or not an individual is flourishing and performing to the best of his or her ability. The cutoff point is a 3:1 ratio of positive emotions to negative emotions. For high-performing executive teams, the cutoff point is 5:1 where there are five times as many positive, supportive comments and open-ended questions as negative comments and ‘I’ statements where people defend their own positions. One way to measure engagement is to look at the ratio of positive to negative emotions that the firm elicits in employees. The higher the ratio of positive to negative emotions, the more engaged the employee.

Zappos – Exponential Employee Engagement

Increasingly, high-performing companies are demonstrating an understanding of the power of positive, constructive emotions to engage both customers and employees mindfully and profitably.  This is most easily seen in those firms that create a competitive advantage via corporate culture, such as Zappos.com, an online retail company which was recently purchased by Amazon for approximately $900 million.

Zappos has shown an uncanny ability to tap into the mind and hearts of its employees using some unusual and counterintuitive practices. One of Zappo’s corporate values is ‘create fun and a little weirdness.’ This allows employees autonomy and freedom to think for themselves and express themselves, both of which endear the firm to the employees. Zappos offers newly hired employees $2,000 to walk away from the job, ensuring that those who refuse the offer to stay are more committed and engaged. Trust is placed in employees at all levels of the corporate hierarchy. This allows phone reps to connect and engage with customers however they deem necessary. This leads to increased customer and employee engagement as both parties tend to enjoy their interactions far more than the typical script-based call center reps and their victims/customers. The favorite book of CEO Tony Hsieh is The Happiness Hypothesis by Jon Haidt, a pillar of positive psychology. Hsieh intentionally cultivates happiness in the workforce as a business goal in and of itself. Courses in positive psychology and happiness are offered to employees in addition to the myriad of business courses.  As a result, the culture increases employee well-being, engagement and eventually, productivity and profitability. A positive, upward spiral results from a culture that has mindfully developed based on values such as open-mindedness, happiness, confidence and humility.

The importance of emotions in culture cannot be overstated. Emotions provide the glue that binds relationships together.  In order to build a high-performing culture, one must be aware of the emotional landscape of employees, regardless of whether they want to cop to being emotional or not.

About the author:

John Schinnerer, Ph.D.

Dr. John Schinnerer is President and Founder of Guide To Self, a company that focuses on coaching individuals and groups to optimal human functioning using positive psychology. Dr. Schinnerer consults with Resonance Technologies, a firm with a patented methodology to quantify emotional responses to workplace issues. Dr. Schinnerer hosted Guide To Self Radio, a daily 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. Dr. Schinnerer has worked with companies such as UPS, Sutter Health, Erie Insurance Group and Schreiber Foods. He graduated summa cum laude from U.C. Berkeley with a Ph.D. in psychology. His areas of expertise range from positive psychology, to emotional awareness, to moral development to employee selection. Dr. Schinnerer is the award-winning author of “Guide To Self: The Beginner’s Guide To Managing Emotion and Thought.” 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.

Posted in National speakers, Organizational psychology, The human brain, Danville CA, Emotion & productivity, Employee engagement, Corporate Culture, Morals and values, Happiness, Dr. John Schinnerer, Measuring emotions, Business & psych, Creativity, Guide to Self, Customer Engagement, Emotional IQ, Positive Psychology | Print | No Comments »

24. September 2009 by John Schinnerer.

A reader turned me onto a blog by J. Henrique Alves in Perth. I found some fantastic writings on Henrique’s experiences with music sparking a connection with his autistic son. It is as I’ve said in the past, there is something quite powerful inherent in music. The perfect note, the right tune, the proper tempo have a way of connecting people in a deep and meaningful way, even those of us who typically are unable to connect.

Here is an excerpt:

‘In the last few years, I’ve discovered still another magical side of music, through the relationship with my 8-year old autistic son. While practicing the bass, I could notice how his attention would shift from whatever he would be doing, drawn by my plucking of the strings, and the simultaneous sound this would produce through the speakers of my little practice amplifier. I’d then lay the bass on the bed, so that he could explore the sounds, plucking gently the strings, showing some surprise with the connection between his touching the strings, and a matching sound being produced. Throughout the years, he has consistently shown a higher level of interest in our musical exploration sessions than he would typically demonstrate in other activities.

[snip]

Based on our experience, it was not surprising to find out that results published this year from a recent study conducted by Dr. Ami Klin, of the Yale Child Study Center, have confirmed that the synchronous nature of sound and movement captures consistently the attention of autistic children, more than any other form of interaction with objects or people (such as eye contact, touch, or movement and sounds in isolation). In a recent interview, Klin said:

“I and colleagues looked at a way […] 2-year-olds with autism would look at adult care givers, […] and those children spend less time looking at people’s eyes and more time looking at people’s mouth […] And that was puzzling because the eyes are really the window for the soul, they are the way that we experience people, their emotions and their intentions. And so we are puzzled by the fact that they showed increased attention to the mouth. With […] the new insights, we raised the hypothesis that the reason why they were looking at mouth is because the mouth is the part of the face that contains the greatest audio-visual synchrony, lip movements and speech sounds co-occurring.”

Our experience with music, which is a generalization of this synchronicity between movement and sound, provides, in our minds, a further confirmation of the results published by Dr. Ami Klin and his colleagues at Yale. His new insights provide further, scientific proof, to why music therapy programs, such as the few we have contacted here in Australia to strengthen the basis of our daily interactions with our son, are so successful, providing not eyes, but music as a window to the souls of autistic children. ‘

The full post is here…

http://beachesfromafar.blogspot.com/2009/05/music-is-magic-for-autistic-children.html

Henrique has other tremendous posts as well about music, autism, science and more. Thanks for sharing, Henrique!

All the best,

John Schinnerer, Ph.D.

Guide To Self, Inc.

Positive Psychology Coach

Posted in Awareness, Hope, Music psychology, Curiosity, Emotion & learning, Science of love, Relationships, The human brain, Positive mood music, Creativity, Parenting, Emotional mind, Consciousness, Emotional management, Dr. John Schinnerer | Print | No Comments »

24. September 2009 by John Schinnerer.

Apparently humans have some free will after all.

From New Scientist…

Champions of free will, take heart. A landmark 1980s experiment that purported to show free will doesn’t exist is being challenged.

In 1983, neuroscientist Benjamin Libet asked volunteers wearing scalp electrodes to flex a finger or wrist. When they did, the movements were preceded by a dip in the signals being recorded, called the “readiness potential”. Libet interpreted this RP as the brain preparing for movement

For full article, click here.

John Schinnerer, Ph.D.

Positive Psychology Coach

913 San Ramon Valley Blvd. #280

Danville, CA 94526

Posted in Curiosity, Danville CA, The human brain, Consciousness, Guide To Self Beginners Guide To Managing Emotion, Rational mind, Dr. John Schinnerer | Print | No Comments »

23. September 2009 by John Schinnerer.

ScienceDaily (Sep. 23, 2009) — Training in mindfulness meditation and communication can alleviate the psychological distress and burnout experienced by many physicians and can improve their well-being, University of Rochester Medical Center researchers report.

The training also can expand a physician’s capacity to relate to patients and enhance patient-centered care, according to the researchers, who were led by Michael S. Krasner, M.D., associate professor of Clinical Medicine.

“From the patient’s perspective, we hear all too often of dissatisfaction in the quality of presence from their physician. From the practitioner’s perspective, the opportunity for deeper connection is all too often missed in the stressful, complex, and chaotic reality of medical practice,” Krasner said. “Enhancing the already inherent capacity of the physician to experience fully the clinical encounter—not only its pleasant but also its most unpleasant aspects—without judgment but with a sense of curiosity and adventure seems to have had a profound effect on the experience of stress and burnout. It also seems to enhance the physician’s ability to connect with the patient as a unique human being and to center care around that uniqueness.

For full article, click here

From PhysOrg.com…

“Cultivating these qualities of mindful communication with colleagues, anectodotally, had an unexpected benefit of combating the practitioners’ sense of isolation and brought forth the very experiences that are such a rich source of meaning in the life of the clinician,” he said.

Edward A. Stehlik, M.D., governor of the Upstate New York branch of the American College of Physicians and an internist who practices near Buffalo, said the training was “the most useful thing I’ve done since my medical training to help me in my practice of medicine.”

“If you asked my patients, I think they would say I listen more carefully since the training and that they feel they can explain things to me more forthrightly and more easily,” Stehlik said. “Even the brief moments with patients are more productive. Are there doctors who desperately need this training? Yes, absolutely.”

Have a day filled with contentment!

John Schinnerer, Ph.D.

Guide To Self, Inc.

Posted in Physician burnout, Physicians health, Mindfulness, National speakers, Emotion & learning, Men's emotions, Anger Management, Guide to Self, Customer Engagement, Depression, Emotional management, Dr. John Schinnerer | Print | No Comments »

8. September 2009 by John Schinnerer.

Something to think about…

Posted in Emotion and technology, Dr. John Schinnerer | Print | No Comments »

4. September 2009 by John Schinnerer.

Here is a heart-warming piece written by Saskia Davis:

SYMPTOMS OF INNER PEACE

A tendency to think and act spontaneously rather than on fears based on past experiences

An unmistakable ability to enjoy each moment

A loss of interest in judging other people

A loss of interest in judging self

A loss of interest in interpreting the actions of others

A loss of interest in conflict

A loss of ability to worry

Frequent, overwhelming episodes of appreciation

Contented feelings of connectedness with others and nature

Frequent attacks of smiling

An increasing tendency to let things happen rather than to make them happen.

An increased susceptibility to love extended by others as well as the uncontrollable urge to extend it

WARNING: Be on the lookout for symptoms of inner peace. The hearts of a great many already have been exposed; and it is possible that people, everywhere, could come down with it in epidemic proportions.

This could pose a serious threat to what has, up to now, been a fairly stable condition of conflict in the world.

If you have some or all of the above symptoms, please be advised that your condition of inner peace may be too far advanced to be curable. If you are exposed to anyone exhibiting any of these symptoms, remain exposed only at your own risk.

Source: http://symptomsofinnerpeace.net/Authors_Website/Wall_Poster.html

Be sure to find your own  inner peace!

Blessings,

John Schinnerer, Ph.D.

Guide To Self, Inc.

P.S. If you are over 16, be sure to take 25-30 minutes to take the survey at www.wellbeingstudy.com to help us with the first International Wellbeing Study! You might win $100 gift certificate and help humanity at the same time! Please use the code ‘JSWEB’ so I can track respondents. Thank you!

Posted in Gratitude, Awareness, Hope, Mindfulness, Curiosity, Science of love, Positive expectations, Danville CA, Emotion & learning, Altruism, Resiliency, Creativity, Dr. John Schinnerer, Realistic optimism, Forgiveness, Emotional IQ, Staying calm, Consciousness, Emotional mind, Happiness, Positive Psychology | Print | No Comments »

3. September 2009 by John Schinnerer.

3. September 2009 by John Schinnerer.

Researchers have devoted decades to understanding what leads some people to be healthier than others. However, most people have only studied disease and disorder and failed to also address strengths and wellbeing. In this study, we want to look at what is going wrong and what is going right in different people from around the world. We want to capture the entire picture of what it means to be healthy and most importantly, track people to understand how they change over time.

This is the first study of its kind to look in depth at people’s wellbeing from around the world. If you choose to participate, you’ll be helping us to answer some of the most tantalising questions that our society faces today!

• To participate, you will need to be 16 years of age or older and fill out this same survey in every third month for a year: Five times in total.

IMPORTANT: PLEASE USE THE CODE ‘JSWEB’ WHEN YOU SIGN UP SO DR. JOHN SCHINNERER CAN TRACK RESPONDENTS.

• The survey takes around 25 to 30 minutes to complete (making your total commitment about 2 hours or so over the year), and is only open to those who commit to undertake all five identical surveys.

• After you have completed the five assessments, you will receive an e-mail summary report of your scores. This report will further explain the questions we asked, provide more detail about the study, and also show you how your answers compare to those of others who answered the survey.

• All survey respondents who complete the five assessments will go into the draw to win one of ten US$100 amazon.com vouchers at the end of the study! There will also be a draw for one US$100 amazon.com voucher at each assessment point. The draws will be made under supervision of a constable from Wellington central police station, New Zealand, and posted on the www.wellbeingstudy.com website.

• All survey respondents will be offered an option to opt-in to one of three different free internet based wellbeing orientated courses after they have completed the first three assessments.

• The study is voluntary, and you are free to withdraw at any stage. The results of this research will be published - but only in a form that ensures you cannot be identified, assuring strict confidentiality (you do not need to provide your name). This study has been approved by the TOPNZ Human Research Ethics Committee, and by hitting the ‘next’ button below, you consent to participate.

This research project is lead by Aaron Jarden, who is a lecturer in psychology and president of the New Zealand Association of Positive Psychology. For further information, you can contact Aaron or one of the other main researchers:

Aaron Jarden - aaron.jarden@openpolytechnic.ac.nz
Dr. Alexander MacKenzie - alexander.mackenzie@canterbury.ac.nz
Dr. Todd Kashdan - tkashdan@gmu.edu
Associate Professor Paul Jose - paul.jose@vuw.ac.nz
Professor Ormond Simpson – o.p.simpson@open.ac.uk
Dr. Kennedy Mclachlan - kennedy.mclachlan@openpolytechnic.ac.nz
Dr. John Schinnerer - john@guidetoself.com

(Note: These contacts are provided again at the end of the study questions, and also on the wellbeingstudy.com website)

Thank you in advance for your help with this very important research.

Dr. John Schinnerer

John Schinnerer, Ph.D., provides his clients with scientifically supported coaching and organizational consulting to make the most of your individual and corporate potential. A U.C. Berkeley-trained coach with a Ph.D. in psychology, John Schinnerer, has distilled the very best of research-based tools and methods to help clients overcome depression, anxiety, and anger issues and move towards a thriving, meaningful life. He is the award-winning author of ‘Guide To Self: The Beginner’s Guide to Managing Emotion and Thought.’

Posted in National speakers, Emotion & productivity, International Wellbeing Study, Happiness, Emotional IQ, Dr. John Schinnerer, Guide to Self, Positive Psychology | Print | No Comments »

3. September 2009 by John Schinnerer.

From ScienceDaily (Sep. 2, 2009) 

High-school put-downs are such a staple of teen culture that many educators don’t take them seriously. However, a University of Illinois study suggests that classroom disruptions and psychologically hostile school environments can contribute to a climate in which good students have difficulty learning and students who are behind have trouble catching up.

“We need to get away from the idea that bullying is always physical. Bullying can also include verbal harassment, which can be just as damaging and detrimental to student learning,” said Christy Lleras, a U of I assistant professor of human and community development.

The study used data from the National Educational Longitudinal Study and included 10,060 African American, Latino, and white tenth graders in 659 U.S. high schools. It is one of the first to look at the national incidence of verbal harassment in public and private high schools, she said.

“In looking at whether students felt safe at school, students’ fear for their physical safety was actually pretty low. But 70 percent of the students said they were bothered by disruptions in their classroom, and one in five students said that they were often put down by their peers in school,” she said.

Lleras came to three interesting conclusions as she reviewed the data.

1. One was that smaller, private, and more affluent schools do very little to protect students from verbal abuse.

“I assumed that the sorts of school environments that protect students from physical harm would also protect students from emotional harm, and that was not the case. These ’safe’ schools are not significantly reducing the likelihood that students will experience harassment by their peers,” she said.

2. This was especially true for adolescent boys. The results showed that boys experience verbal harassment from peers more often than girls, particularly if they are in private schools, Lleras said.

3. Lleras also found that African American high-school students who thought of themselves as very good students were more likely to experience verbal put-downs from their peers, but only when they were in high-minority schools.

Why would high-achieving African-American students in high-minority schools face more verbal harassment? Lleras doesn’t believe it can be entirely attributed to the oppositional culture hypothesis—namely, that high-achieving minority students are more likely to be negatively sanctioned by their peers for their efforts than white students.

She speculates that verbal put-downs in these schools may be a coping strategy that students use when they don’t have the skills to do the work and have little hope of acquiring them in their academic environment.

“When high-achieving minority kids are put down by their peers, it can contribute to a climate in which lower-achieving kids fall farther and farther behind and must struggle to catch up. This hostile school climate isn’t a cause of the racial achievement gap–we see evidence of the achievement gap well before middle school–but it contributes to it,” she said.

“Sadly, verbal harassment is just one more thing these students have to deal with, and as long as we accept it because it’s not physical bullying, we’re doing a grave disservice to the kids who need non-disruptive and focused learning environments the most,” she said.

The study was published in the Journal of School Violence.

Posted in Emotional management, Depression, Managing Anxiety, Resiliency, Emotion & learning, Raising optimistic children, Victims of bullying, School age bullies, Dr. John Schinnerer, Managing stress, Guide to Self, Anxiety, School psychology, Bullies | Print | No Comments »

3. September 2009 by John Schinnerer.

ScienceDaily (Sep. 3, 2009) — Folk wisdom usually has it that “seeing is believing,” but new research suggests that “believing is seeing,” too – at least when it comes to perceiving other people’s emotions.

An international team of psychologists from the United States, New Zealand and France has found that the way we initially think about the emotions of others biases our subsequent perception (and memory) of their facial expressions. So once we interpret an ambiguous or neutral look as angry or happy, we later remember and actually see it as such.

The study, published in the September issue of the journal Psychological Science, ‘addresses the age-old question: ‘Do we see reality as it is, or is what we see influenced by our preconceptions?” said coauthor Piotr Winkielman, professor of psychology at the University of California, San Diego. ‘Our findings indicate that what we think has a noticeable effect on our perceptions.’

‘We imagine our emotional expressions as unambiguous ways of communicating how we’re feeling,’ said coauthor Jamin Halberstadt, of the University of Otago in New Zealand, ‘but in real social interactions, facial expressions are blends of multiple emotions – they are open to interpretation. This means that two people can have different recollections about the same emotional episode, yet both be correct about what they ’saw.’ So when my wife remembers my smirk as cynicism, she is right: her explanation of the expression at the time biased her perception of it. But it is also true that, had she explained my expression as empathy, I wouldn’t be sleeping on the couch.’

‘It’s a paradox,’ Halberstadt added. ‘The more we seek meaning in other emotions, the less accurate we are in remembering them.’

The researchers point out that implications of the results go beyond everyday interpersonal misunderstandings – especially for those who have persistent or dysfunctional ways of understanding emotions, such as socially anxious or traumatized individuals. For example, the socially anxious have negative interpretations of others’ reactions that may permanently color their perceptions of feelings and intentions, perpetuating their erroneous beliefs even in the face of evidence to the contrary. Other applications of the findings include eyewitness memory: A witness to a violent crime, for example, may attribute malice to a perpetrator – an impression which, according to the researchers, will influence memory for the perpetrator’s face and emotional expression.

The researchers showed experimental participants still photographs of faces computer-morphed to express ambiguous emotion and instructed them to think of these faces as either angry or happy. Participants then watched movies of the faces slowly changing expression, from angry to happy, and were asked to find the photograph they had originally seen. People’s initial interpretations influenced their memories: Faces initially interpreted as angry were remembered as expressing more anger than faces initially interpreted as happy.

Even more interesting, the ambiguous faces were also perceived and reacted to differently. By measuring subtle electrical signals coming from the muscles that control facial expressions, the researchers discovered that the participants imitated – on their own faces – the previously interpreted emotion when viewing the ambiguous faces again. In other words, when viewing a facial expression they had once thought about as angry, people expressed more anger themselves than did people viewing the same face if they had initially interpreted it as happy.

Because it is largely automatic, the researchers write, such facial mimicry reflects how the ambiguous face is perceived, revealing that participants were literally seeing different expressions.

‘The novel finding here,’ said Winkielman, of UC San Diego, ‘is that our body is the interface: The place where thoughts and perceptions meet. It supports a growing area of research on ‘embodied cognition’ and ‘embodied emotion.’ Our corporeal self is intimately intertwined with how – and what – we think and feel.’

The full article can be read at http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090902161116.htm

Heading further down the rabbit hole,

John Schinnerer, Ph.D.

Guide To Self

Positive Psychology Coach

Posted in National speakers, Curiosity, Awareness, Emotion & learning, Danville CA, Emotion & productivity, Positive expectations, Mindfulness, Consciousness, Guide to Self, Life coach, Emotional IQ, Staying calm, Emotional management, Emotional mind, Dr. John Schinnerer | Print | No Comments »

3. September 2009 by John Schinnerer.

BBC News released an article: “Depression looms as global crisis.”

Here are some excerpts:

The World Health Organization (WHO) predicts that within 20 years more people will be affected by depression than any other health problem.

According to the WHO, depression will be the biggest health burden on society both economically and sociologically. Yet, it says most developing countries spend less than 2% of their national budgets on mental healthcare.

The warning comes as the first Global Mental Health Summit starts in Athens, Greece.

WHO figures reveal that currently, over 450 million people are directly affected by mental disorders or disabilities, most of whom live in developing countries.

The five-day summit in Athens will provide the opportunity to address what the organizers are calling a crisis in global mental healthcare.

The scientific concept of “burden” is the measure of years lost of life, due to early death or severe disability brought on by a certain illness, in this case depression.

Dr Saxena says depression is much more common than some other diseases that are more widely feared such as HIV-Aids or cancer.

“One could call it a silent epidemic because depression is more often being recognized, but it has been there throughout and is likely to increase in terms of proportion when other diseases are actually going down.”

THE SILENT EPIDEMIC

About half of mental disorders begin before the age of 14.

Around 20% of the world’s children and adolescents are estimated to have mental disorders or problems.

Most low- and middle-income countries have only one child psychiatrist for every 1 to 4 million people.

About 800,000 people commit suicide every year, 86% of them in low- and middle-income countries.

More than half of the people who kill themselves are aged between 15 and 44.

The article can be found online at:

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8230549.stm> 

Hang in there!

John Schinnerer, Ph.D.

Guide To Self, Inc.

Danville, CA

Shrunken Mind w/Dr. John Schinnerer - Using Positive Psychology to Master Life

Posted in Alexithymia, Managing Sadness, Men's emotions, National speakers, Emotion & productivity, Danville CA, Anger Management, Emotional management, Guide to Self, Dr. John Schinnerer, Emotional IQ, Anxiety, Emotional mind, Depression, Managing stress | Print | No Comments »

2. September 2009 by John Schinnerer.

‘(PhysOrg.com) — Music is one of the surest ways to influence human emotions; most people unconsciously recognize and respond to music that is happy, sad, fearful or mellow. But psychologists who have tried to trace the evolutionary roots of these responses usually hit a dead end. Nonhuman primates scarcely respond to human music, and instead prefer silence.

A new report by Charles Snowdon, a professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and musician David Teie of the University of Maryland shows that a monkey called the cotton-top tamarin indeed responds to music. The catch? These South American monkeys are essentially immune to human music, but they respond appropriately to “monkey music,” 30-second clips composed by Teie on the basis of actual monkey calls.

The music was inspired by sounds the tamarins make to convey two opposite emotions: threats and/or fear, and affiliation, a friendly, safe and happy condition.’

For full article and a short clip of what the ‘monkey music’ sounds like, click link below

http://www.physorg.com/news171052183.html

Keep smiling!

John Schinnerer, Ph.D.

Guide To Self, Inc.

Posted in Music psychology, Danville CA, Managing Sadness, Managing Anxiety, Dr. John Schinnerer, Positive mood music, Managing stress | Print | No Comments »