Podcasts about psns

In the face of stress and anxiety, it is imperative to understand the “fight or flight” versus “rest and digest” sides of the nervous system for optimal health. Our nervous system has two modes of operation, namely, the sympathetic nervous system (SNS), also known as the “fight or flight” mechanism, and the parasympathetic nervous system (PSNS), also referred to as the “rest and digest.” These modes play opposite roles depending on the state we are in. The sympathetic nervous system (SNS) The sympathetic nervous system is responsible for voluntary functions, such as controlling the heart rate, digestion, urination, blood pressure, and sweating. It is part of the autonomic nervous system. The SNS is the “fight or flight” mechanism that helps vertebrates to respond to stressful or dangerous situations. What is the Purpose of SNS? When facing danger or a stressful situation, SNS is activated to ensure control over the “fight or flight" response. This mode is responsible for the following body changes when facing danger or stress. Enlargement of the pupils to enhance vision by allowing more light into the eyes. Increasing the heart rate to ensure adequate oxygen supply to other body parts. Relaxation of the airway muscles in the lungs for optimal oxygen delivery. Reducing the pace of digestion to concentrate the digestive tract's energy on other body parts. Activating the liver energy reserves for quick energy supply. These changes help in circumstances where fast action or thought is required. The SNS helps in improving eyesight, strength, endurance, and reflexes. The system communicates through neurotransmitters such as epinephrine, norepinephrine, and acetylcholine. The Parasympathetic Nervous System The PSNS, or the “rest and digest”, helps relax the body after danger or a stressful situation. It is part of the autonomic nervous system responsible for controlling relaxation. PSNS regulates functions such as metabolism, resting heart rate, and breathing rate. The Role of PSNS in Response to Stress During relaxation, the PSNS is responsible for the following body changes. Constricting pupils to limit the amount of entering the eyes, enhance close-up vision, and trigger tear production. Triggering saliva and mucus production to aid breathing and digestion when the body is in rest mode. Reducing the workload for the lungs by constricting airway muscles during rest. Reducing heart rate. Enhancing digestion rate, diverting energy from other body parts to the digestive tract, and commanding the pancreas to increase the production and supply of insulin. Relaxing relevant muscles to facilitate waste removal. Controlling sexual functions and arousal feelings. The "Fight or Flight" Versus the "Rest and Digest" Side of the Nervous System The contrasts between these two sides of the nervous system include the following. While the SNN, or the “fight or flight” mode, increases alertness, the PSNS, or the “relax and digest" mechanism, relaxes the body. The PSNS regulates the body's activities when calm and feeling safe, while the SNS triggers the body to react when its calmness or safety is threatened. The SNS contains signals that enhance alertness while the PSNS signals return the body to its standard activity level. The SNS acts first to fight or flee, while the PSNS comes later to help the body cool down, relax, rest, and digest. The two modes of the autonomic nervous system play opposite but complementary roles to maintain body balance. You may consult Dr. Jason Jones at our Chiropractic office at Elizabeth city, NC to learn more on the battle between the "fight or flight" and the "rest and digest" side of the nervous system.  

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Monitoring devices I have loved, published by Elizabeth on December 31, 2022 on LessWrong. Every once in a while a measurement device improves my life a lot at little cost. This post is an attempt to share those data points and gather more, so we can all get a bunch of free gains. The typical shape of problems solved by measurement devices is as follows: there's something I know might be an issue, but working on it feels very unrewarding. It's a combination of the costs of the issue being poorly quantified, not knowing how much any particular solution would help, and the solution requiring scarce resources like executive function. Measurement devices can help with any of these. Note: I've provided links to the devices I use on the theory that something is better than nothing. I haven't necessarily tested competitors and there may be better options out there. Amazon links are affiliate, the others are not. Devices that have helped me in particular Air quality monitor. I live in California, which has wildfires. Back in 2020 these were especially bad. I closed my windows and wasn't willing to buy more air filters, so I didn't see the point in getting a monitor. At a friend's urging I got one anyway. Turns out my indoor air quality was such that I was willing to buy more filters after all, but also closing the windows didn't help that much. Once I had the new filters I could open my windows enough to let the CO2 dissipate, a huge quality of life improvement. Once I had the monitor it paid off in other ways. I'd always been vaguely aware stovetop cooking and anything in a spray can were bad for air quality, but I lacked the bandwidth to change my behavior. Once these actions reliably triggered little red lights on the monitor I started turning on the stove vent more, and wearing a mask to use cleaning products. Eventually this formed a habit such that I sometimes remember to do those things even without the air monitor's prompting. As a bonus, the in-house monitor saved me from having to check air quality on PurpleAir every day, and meant I caught the odd bad day in the off-season. (This does depend on the monitor being accurate and having the right thresholds for greed/yellow/red. I chose this one mostly for its feature set, but PM2.5 cut-offs do seem right ). Heart rate variability monitor: Heart rate variability, the delta in the space between your average heartbeat duration, is a pretty good and extremely responsive measure of stress (up to a point higher is better because it indicates more PSNS activity). Via the Lief I learned that nothing I do matters for HRV except breathing, and was able to focus my stress reduction efforts on that, and this indeed left me feeling less stressed than before. Unfortunately, Lief is subscription only, and an expensive one at that. I only wanted to monitor my heart rate variability occasionally, so it wasn't worth the cost. When this next reaches the top of my list, I will look for a chest band I can own in exchange for money. Watchband and ring fitness trackers will sometimes claim to report HRV, but they're not very good. Measuring HRV requires very precise measurements, and the signal of the heartbeat gets fuzzier the further you are from the heart. When I look next I'll be looking for something favored by HIIT nerdjocks, because HIIT also requires very sensitive measurements. O2 Saturation Monitor. This has saved me 2 or 3 trips to urgent care, when my breathing felt constrained but my oxygen levels were fine. I imagine it would be even more useful if it got me into the ER when I didn't know I needed it. More marginal tests Nutrition testing. Everyone is very happy to tell you your nutrition is bad and this will kill you. It's hard to know what matters most to you, or whether your solutions are working. After my medical miracle, ...

Link to original articleWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Monitoring devices I have loved, published by Elizabeth on December 31, 2022 on LessWrong. Every once in a while a measurement device improves my life a lot at little cost. This post is an attempt to share those data points and gather more, so we can all get a bunch of free gains. The typical shape of problems solved by measurement devices is as follows: there's something I know might be an issue, but working on it feels very unrewarding. It's a combination of the costs of the issue being poorly quantified, not knowing how much any particular solution would help, and the solution requiring scarce resources like executive function. Measurement devices can help with any of these. Note: I've provided links to the devices I use on the theory that something is better than nothing. I haven't necessarily tested competitors and there may be better options out there. Amazon links are affiliate, the others are not. Devices that have helped me in particular Air quality monitor. I live in California, which has wildfires. Back in 2020 these were especially bad. I closed my windows and wasn't willing to buy more air filters, so I didn't see the point in getting a monitor. At a friend's urging I got one anyway. Turns out my indoor air quality was such that I was willing to buy more filters after all, but also closing the windows didn't help that much. Once I had the new filters I could open my windows enough to let the CO2 dissipate, a huge quality of life improvement. Once I had the monitor it paid off in other ways. I'd always been vaguely aware stovetop cooking and anything in a spray can were bad for air quality, but I lacked the bandwidth to change my behavior. Once these actions reliably triggered little red lights on the monitor I started turning on the stove vent more, and wearing a mask to use cleaning products. Eventually this formed a habit such that I sometimes remember to do those things even without the air monitor's prompting. As a bonus, the in-house monitor saved me from having to check air quality on PurpleAir every day, and meant I caught the odd bad day in the off-season. (This does depend on the monitor being accurate and having the right thresholds for greed/yellow/red. I chose this one mostly for its feature set, but PM2.5 cut-offs do seem right ). Heart rate variability monitor: Heart rate variability, the delta in the space between your average heartbeat duration, is a pretty good and extremely responsive measure of stress (up to a point higher is better because it indicates more PSNS activity). Via the Lief I learned that nothing I do matters for HRV except breathing, and was able to focus my stress reduction efforts on that, and this indeed left me feeling less stressed than before. Unfortunately, Lief is subscription only, and an expensive one at that. I only wanted to monitor my heart rate variability occasionally, so it wasn't worth the cost. When this next reaches the top of my list, I will look for a chest band I can own in exchange for money. Watchband and ring fitness trackers will sometimes claim to report HRV, but they're not very good. Measuring HRV requires very precise measurements, and the signal of the heartbeat gets fuzzier the further you are from the heart. When I look next I'll be looking for something favored by HIIT nerdjocks, because HIIT also requires very sensitive measurements. O2 Saturation Monitor. This has saved me 2 or 3 trips to urgent care, when my breathing felt constrained but my oxygen levels were fine. I imagine it would be even more useful if it got me into the ER when I didn't know I needed it. More marginal tests Nutrition testing. Everyone is very happy to tell you your nutrition is bad and this will kill you. It's hard to know what matters most to you, or whether your solutions are working. After my medical miracle, ...

Dr. Jessica Drummond is the CEO and founder of The Integrative Women's Health Institute and has over two decades of experience working with people who battle pelvic pain and women's health concerns. She is passionate about empowering and caring for those struggling, while educating other clinicians on how to use conservative and integrative tools to do the same. In this conversation we focus on endometriosis, when it develops, the common signs and symptoms, and what the current treatment is for the condition.  Dr. Drummond discusses the stress and barriers this condition can have on peoples' lives and how her approach to healing is centered around acknowledging and supporting that. To learn more about her practice visit https://integrativewomenshealthinstitute.com/ (Home - Integrative Women's Health Institute (integrativewomenshealthinstitute.com)) or watch her videos on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCy2gj7eCaCktiS9nBW3Q0Ug (Jessica Drummond - YouTube) Follow her on Facebook  https://www.facebook.com/IntegrativePelvicHealth/ ((13) Integrative Women's Health Institute | Facebook)  And on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/integrativewomenshealth/ (IWHI (@integrativewomenshealth) • Instagram photos and videos)  Head over tohttps://rebelhealthtribe.com/kit ( https://rebelhealthtribe.com/kit) to get a free download of our loaded quick start guide to help you along your healing journey.  If you like us, subscribe, review, and share us with your friends, and come join ourhttps://www.facebook.com/groups/831283146908660 ( Rebel Health Tribe group on Facebook.)

When you know the meaning of the word autonomic, the role of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) becomes clearer. Autonomic denotes involuntary or subconscious activity. In physiology, it refers to the many bodily functions that are subconsciously controlled, such as breathing, digestion, and—most relevant to our discussion here—heartbeats. The ANS is the neural network that controls these subconscious functions. For variable control, there are two opposing divisions of the ANS: The sympathetic nervous system (SNS) controls many functions under times of acute stress. Its effects are generally described as a “fight-or-flight” response because it's sympathetic to our plight. The parasympathetic nervous system (PSNS) controls many of these same functions when the SNS is not activated. It produces the default setting so to speak. It is often described as a “rest-and-digest” response. Anatomically speaking, the SNS and PSNS have separate divisions; the SNS is derived from the thoracolumbar division while the PSNS is derived from the craniosacral division. After listening to this Audio Brick, you should be able to: Define the autonomic nervous system (ANS). Identify which ANS component is dominant at rest and during exercise. Describe cardiac innervation. Describe the mechanisms by which the ANS alters ion conductance and subsequently the action potentials to ultimately modulate heart rate and contractility. Describe vascular innervation. Describe how the ANS regulates blood volume. You can also check out the original brick from our Cardiology collection, which is available for free. Learn more about Rx Bricks by signing up for a free USMLE-Rx account: www.usmle-rx.com You will get 5 days of full access to our Rx360+ program, including nearly 800 Rx Bricks.  After the 5-day period, you will still be able to access over 150 free bricks, including the entire collections for General Microbiology and Cellular and Molecular Biology. *** If you enjoyed this episode, we'd love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts.  It helps with our visibility, and the more med students (or future med students) listen to the podcast, the more we can provide to the future physicians of the world. Follow USMLE-Rx at: Facebook: www.facebook.com/usmlerx Blog: www.firstaidteam.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/firstaidteam Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/firstaidteam/ YouTube: www.youtube.com/USMLERX Learn how you can access over 150 of our bricks for FREE: https://usmlerx.wpengine.com/free-bricks/ from our Musculoskeletal, Skin, and Connective Tissue collection, which is available for free. Learn more about Rx Bricks by signing up for a free USMLE-Rx account: www.usmle-rx.com You will get 5 days of full access to our Rx360+ program, including nearly 800 Rx Bricks.  After the 5-day period, you will still be able to access over 150 free bricks, including the entire collections for General Microbiology and Cellular and Molecular Biology.

Play audio-only episode | Play video episode Click above to play either the audio-only episode or video episode in a new window. The world of project management is undergoing a fundamental change -- a collaborative revolution: Projects that would have been done internally in the past are more and more given to external contractors, who in turn may use subcontractors and sub-subcontractors, building complex project supply networks (PSNs).

Our guest tonight is Naveed Mohebi (youtube.com/c/NaveedMohebbi) who joins us to talk about leaked images of LEGO Luigi, the Lord of the Rings MMO getting cancelled, the developers of Celeste teasing their next game, and Sony reversing course on the PS3 & Vita PSNs! All this and more in tonight's episode! --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/gvg/support

Today James, Jeff and Jeremy talk about how terrible Hulk Hogan is, A new Willy Wonka movie in the works, PSNs top downloads of 2020, Super Nintendo World opening delayed again, and much much more!   If you like this content please consider donating to our Patreon to get access to preambles, show notes and more!Patreon.com/LevelUnlockedPodcastFollow us on all the socials!Facebook.com/LevelUnlockedPodcastInstagram.com/LevelUnlockedPodcastTwitter @LvlUnlockedPodIf you like comics and want them on your wall make sure to check out Comically Framed!https://www.etsy.com/shop/comicallyframedGive James a follow!Youtube.com/JimmyNoodlesGamingtwitch.tv/JimmyNoodlesGGtwitter: @JimmyNoodlesGGGive Jeff a Follow!Facbook.com/teamsplashscreenTwitch.tv/splashscreengamingYoutube.com/splashscreengamingtwitter: @splashscreengGive Mark a follow!Twitter @mark_exeTwitch.tv/markdude701youtube.com/markdude701Give Jeremy a follow!Twitter @capngeech15twitch.tv/capngeech15

La actriz mexicana Anna Sobero, visitó a Erwin Pérez en el programa "Personajes" para conversar sobre el complicado mundo de los artistas. "Personajes" se transmite todos los miércoles a las 7:30 PM por VDM Radio en vdmradio.com desde tu PC o descargando nuestra app en tu tienda de aplicaciones conveniente.

El mexicano Miguel Garrocho, visitó a Erwin Pérez en el podcast "Personajes" para conversar sobre los causantes de reflexiones. Esas personalidades que te cambian la vida con la palabra. "Personajes" se transmite todos los Miércoles a las 7:30 PM (Hora Miami) por VDM Radio por vdmradio.com o descargando nuestra app en tu tienda de aplicaciones conveniente.

Episode 34 France Upsets team USA Team USA struggles Frank Ntilikina French national coming out party Spain wins FIBA World Cup Kevin Durant’s Wall Street Journal Article Being the goat isn’t something that moves him Have we spoiled the current game by having these kind of debates Is Derrick Rose a Hall of Famer Joe Johnson signs 1 year deal with Detroit Pistons. Do we think the big 3 could be a Segway into the nba after ISO Joe’s big summer NBA 2K20 discussion - likes and dislikes from the game. Let’s talk about our builds Issue a challenge to our listeners in pro am park all star team up play now Encourage them to leave PSNs on podcast page. Kawhi Leonard sister charged with Murder Mike Scott Vs eagles fans, gets in fight for wearing redskins jersey Nike names new building after Lebron James Lebron Taco Tuesday trademark denied by US Patent office Michael Jordan donates 1M to hurricane Dorian Relief in the Bahamas. Lisa Leslie first female to get statue outside of staples Fake NBA Championship rings found in LAX customs bust!

We all want an inspirational leader. Someone to look up to, to give us hope and direction. A leader who engages us as individuals and treats us well, but most of all makes us want to be better. But what if that leader is you? And today you're feeling a bit blah. Everything's sort of "meh" and you'd like to just hang in there for the time being and let Future Self take responsibility for that. We all go through phases in life when our mood is uplifting, positive, dynamic and we feel like we could conquer the world. And then there's that "meh" moment, when everything is a little bland, and what would be really really nice is if someone else would just take charge and be the one to inspire and engage and buck us up. To choose to switch your drive and motivation on so that you can inspire others, we're going to delve into the neuroscience of how your brain works, learn what drives you (and everybody else) and then we're going to take charge of the chemistry cocktail bar inside your brain. The Neuroscience of your Get Up and Go (aka your MOJO) Your brain is not your best friend when it comes to feeling positive, enthusiastic and inspired. In fact, neuroscientific evidence shows that our brains are hard-wired to make us feel mentally crappy most of the time. Let me geek out with some acronyms for a moment - it's interesting stuff. Briefly, your brain is survival focussed and it is controlled by the Sympathetic Nervous System (the SNS) and the Hypothalmic-Pituitary-Adrenal Axis (HPPA). Both the SNS and HPAA are reactive systems. That is, they register any (and every) possible threat and fire you up chemically to respond. This is fantastically useful in keeping you safe but it has the rather unpleasant side effect of making you feel anxious, stressed, disappointed and generally low spirited. Today's living environment for most of us, especially in urban areas means that both your SNS and HPAA are fired up much of the time in response to the daily challenges you face on your daily commute, in noisy, crowded offices, surrounded by beeping devices and with a boss imposing impossible deadlines... Modern life is taking a large toll on your peace of mind. Yet, you have another system available to you called the ParaSympathetic Nervous System (PSNS). And when your PSNS takes charge you feel great: calm, relaxed, chill, tranquil, clear-headed, and well, happy. Yes, the name of the Sympathetic Nervous System is a little misleading in our modern understanding of the word "sympathetic", but it is the system that makes you feel stressed or basically, crappy. OK, so a quick summary, your brain automagically, or rather, unconsciously, reacts to environmental stimuli through your Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) and/or your Hypothalmic-Pituitary-Adrenal Axis (HPAA) to prepare you to deal with any threats. Once the threat passes, or you choose to consciously engage it, your ParaSympathetic System (PSNS) switches on to calm you down and get back to other important stuff like digesting your food, maintaining homeostasis, slowing your heart rate and so on. Just make a note that you can choose to consciously trigger the PSNS. I'll be back to this at the end. Before that though, let's study what actually drives you. i.e. what gets you getting up and going? We all have four basic human needs that are at the heart of practical neuroscience. Of course, your brain is an incredibly complex organ and variations of human behaviour are an endless ocean of subtle differences. But we can identify four neuro-scientifically founded basic needs of human beings and how these influence our motivational behaviours and how we interact with the world around us. As human beings, we have developed to use the environment to its best and allow for reproduction and the furtherment of our species - our survival and growth. Our physiological needs that drive our physical survival: hunger, thirst and sleep, are well understood. Here, we focus on our psychological needs for our mental well-being and health: Self-esteem, Orientaiton and Control, Attachment and Pleasure Maximisation. Your four drivers are: The need for Self-esteem, its protection and development. The need for orientation and control The need for attachment, and The need to maximise pleasure and avoidance of pain. Each of these stimulates different neuronal circuits and will activate different regions in the brain. Let me briefly share a little more about each of these needs and then we'll examine how we can consciously and deliberately affect them and hence, our FEELING of drive, inspiration and engagement. You can easily remember this using the SOAP acronym. Self-esteem Every healthy individual is constantly seeking to increase and protect their self-worth. Self-esteem is a specific human need and only possible through having the ability to reflect and be able to perceive this and bring it to conscious attention. Our interactions with others enable us to form this self-image that is influenced by a complex network of interactions with others in the environment and their reactions and observations of us. We therefore develop a perception of our self-worth and a need to be valued and for value. (Cast, A.D., & Burke, P. (2002) A theory of self-esteem. Social Forces, 80(3), 1041-1068.) When a friend ignores you (and you notice this), for example, it is likely that you will question your own value to them and hence the value you bring to the relationship. When your boss tells you that you did a great job on that project, your self-worth increases and your value on that relationship increases. As Dale Carnegie put it many years ago in the classic "How to Win Friends and Influence People", everyone wants to feel important. That includes you. Orientation and Control Everyone has a basic urge to be able to design and control their environment. We need to know where we are going and how to keep ourselves on the right path to reach our chosen destination. A situation that is unclear and ambiguous stimulates a negative reaction in the limbic system of the brain, specifically the amygdala. This in turn, will stimulate an immediate fear reaction. If the resultant stress can be controlled and mastered this may stimulate reward circuits and be saved as a learned memory. Otherwise, this can destabilise the neuronal circuits and trigger a negative cycle of thinking. (Whalen, P.J. (1998) Fear, vigilance, and ambiguity. Initial neuroimaging studies of the human amygdala. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 7(6). 177-188.) What may matter more, is not that you are actually able to control your environment but that you believe that you control it. This is known as having an "internal locus of control" When the locus of control is external, we'll blame everyone and anyone else and outside forces for what happens to us. (Fournier, G. (2016). Locus of Control. Psych Central. Retrieved on June 3, 2018, from https://psychcentral.com/encyclopedia/locus-of-control/). The big downside of an external locus of control is that even if they are to blame, they don't give a damn because they are in it for themselves and their own locus of control. In modern society our greatest punishment is to remove or reduce a persons ability to control what happens to them by imprisoning them, beating them or executing them. Attachment Our need for attachment is laid down at birth in our brain and memory. This means that our perceptions, behaviours and emotional reactions and motivations can be laid down very early in life. This is directly linked to the availability of an attachment figure, usually one of the primary caregivers, for normal social and emotional development. When this is not the case this has a negative influence on the fulfilment of this need for attachment. (Bowlby, J., Ainsworth, M., & Bretherton, I. (1992). The origins of attachment theory. Developmental Psychology, 5, 759-775) Whether your primary caregiver wasn't there physically or emotionally doesn't make a great deal of difference. Pleasure maximisation (and avoidance of pain) We follow a simple logic to increase our pleasure and avoid unpleasurable, dangerous or painful experiences. Our experience over time gives rise to a whole network of mostly unconscious triggers and associations that are linked to either positive or negative experiences and our resultant pleasure or pain. You may be seeking hedonistic pleasure focusing more on the subjective experience of maximising personal pleasure and minimising personal pain, or a eudaemonic experience with a more rounded psychological well-being that encompasses the combination of the other three basic needs being fulfilled for a long term meaning or purpose. Our subjective experiences colour our view of the world and each person has their own unique internal rating process based on our own unique previous experiences. In short: We strive to increase our belief of our own self-worth to ourselves and our perception of how others value us. We need to believe that we have some ability to control what happens to us and we need to feel cared for by another human being. Lastly, we seek to maximise the personal pleasure we derive from life and avoid unpleasant experiences. To be able to deliberately impact our feeling of drive, motivation, inspiration or engagement we need to be able to fulfil these four needs in a way that satisfies us personally. And to understand that, we need to get back to those chemicals I talked about earlier. This is going to help us hack your thinking by knowing the main chemicals involved and what you can consciously and deliberately do to alter the cocktail mix that your SNS, HPAA (and PSNS) do unconsciously for you. So now it's time to geek out on some chemistry. What's chemistry got to do with my feeling driven and inspired? Well everything! How you FEEL in any situation is your conscious interpretation of the physiological response of your body, triggered by the combination (or cocktail) of chemicals released as a result of your conscious thinking and your SNS, PNS and HPAA and unconscious responses. It's alot more complex than the five chemicals I'm talking about here, but understanding how these affect you will help you understand the essence of how a change in the balance of these chemicals inside you changes how you feel, and hence your motivation and desires. You will already know much about adrenaline and cortisol - your key stress hormones. And just in case you don't, I have a wonderful little whiteboard video you can watch. But you also have some "happy" chemicals. These are Oxytocin, Serotonin and Dopamine. Five chemicals you need to know about: Oxytocin - regarded as the “love” hormone. Makes you feel "loved", "trusted", "cared for". Serotonin – closely linked with your mood amongst many other vital functions. Makes you feel "proud", "satisfied", "content". Dopamine – triggers the joyful hope of anticipated reward. Makes you feel "happy", "joyful", "driven"or "motivated". Cortisol – our stress chemical. Makes you feel "stressed", "anxious", "on-edge" Adrenaline – creates arousal and readiness to ‘fight or fly’. Makes you feel "frightened", "scared", "angry", "stronger", "alert". Good times, bad times, you know I've had my share... (whoops, a little Led Zeppelin slipped in there.) When our thinking and perception of the environment is associated positively to our own experiences, this triggers the release of our "happy chemicals" : serotonin, dopamine and oxytocin. On the other side, when we feel stressed, anxious or upset about the fulfillment of our basic needs, this is the result of cortisol, norepiphrene (the brain's 'adrenaline') and adenaline. On the positive side: Increased self-esteem means more serotonin. Greater orientation and control means more dopamine. Having a trusted attachment means more oxytocin, and When pleasure is maximised we get more dopamine. On the negative side: Lowered self-esteem means more cortisol. Reduced orientation and control means more cortisol. Little or reduced attachment increases adrenaline, as does pain increase adrenaline. Your approach to your four basic needs may not be the same as mine of course. Generally speaking, I am a very positive and optimistic person. Someone else might be more negative and pessimistic about it. These approaches are known as your motivational schemata. Motivational schemata Motivational schemata are the instruments and methods that a person will develop through their lifetime to help satisfy their basic needs or to protect them. Within this there are two base schemata. On the one hand the approach schema which is a result of a person striving to fulfil their basic needs. On the other hand if a person strives to protect their basic needs this is known as an avoidance schema. What does this mean? Depending on your approach, you may be someone who continuously seeks to fulfil your personal needs, or someone who focuses their attention on avoiding the bad things. The way you speak, as in the words you use habitually, often reveal your schemata or approach. By the way, neither is right, nor is one necessarily better than another, expect to say that we tend to get in life, what we focus on. Thus if you focus on avoiding pain, you'll probably experience (or be aware of) more pain than someone who focuses in the exact same circumstances on pleasure. Dale Carnegie summed this up beautifully: Two men looked out from prison bars, One saw the mud, the other saw stars.” Are you happy or unhappy? Happiness is a perception of how well the world matches your expectations and desires. There are days when we don't feel as if we are progressing towards our purpose. Heck, many people don't consciously know their purpose, but unconsciously we are all aware of those days when something just isn't right. we have no sense of progress or fulfilment. These are the "blah" days. the days when we don't feel like "getting up and going". The days when we have lost our mojo. Well those days are days we have incongruity between our perception of the world and how well you have fulfilled your basic needs. Any mismatch between your current motivational schemata and your perception of the world defines your feelings, behaviours and actions. Whether you act with the intention of fulfilling your needs or protecting what you perceive that you have. You sense a need for change. And maybe, just maybe, the world will see fit to make that change happen to you. Some call this luck, or karma or synchronicity. But in the 99.9% of times when that lady luck doesn't happen to call on you today, you'll want to be able to pull yourself out of that funk and reignite your engines. As a leader, it is your job to inspire others, to engage them and motivate them to do the things that matter. And that's awfully difficult to do when you are not feeling inspired, engaged or particularly motivated. And you already know that it's unlikely that someone else is going to lift you up right now. Sure it would be nice, and I know that you deserve it, but here's the rub: your boss isn't inspiring you because they ain't feeling it either. So let's choose to take charge of life and choose to switch the motivation engines on. We can even measure how well we are aligned to our basic needs by assessing how much each of the four needs matters to use personally and how well that is currently being fulfilled. I'm sharing a simple SOAP assessment tool that you can use to measure the congruity between your current work environment and your preferences: Now this is going to be a whole lot easier for you if you already (consciously) know your own life purpose (that is you are a eudaemonite). Per chance you don't have clarity on that then here's a podcast and guide for you. In the meantime let's switch on your shall we? If you're busy paying attention to something else right now, like emailing, facebook trawling, driving a vehicle wait until you can take five minutes out. I'll need your complete attention. Ready? Breathe! Yes, I said: "Breathe." Deep, long, slow breaths. In through your nose and blow it from your mouth. Surely I'm kidding you? You've been doing this all the time and feeling "meh". Yes, there is more to it, but right now just breathe. Give it a few more seconds of deep breathing. ... Powerful huh? Breathing is your first step Now as you continue focussing attention on your breathing, I'd like you to touch your lips with your (clean) fingers. You might like to lick your lips with your tongue. Now, you can choose what to do for the next four minutes. Practice deliberate physical and mental relaxation Meditate Pray Bring your attention towards sensations in your body Focus attention on immediate sensory experiences and feelings (also called mindfulness) Choose one of the five. I like to spend my time meditating on a verse from the Bible and praying to God. Whatever you choose, be aware of your breathing, deeply in through the nose and blowing sharply out through your mouth. Pause the podcast and do it now, safely of course. Come back when you are done and I'll wrap this up with why it works. Good to have you back (or maybe you're going to do it later.) What just happened? Your brain needs a lot of oxygen because it burns a lot of energy, 20% of your body's calorific burn for a 3 pound mass! You just increased the availability of oxygen in your body and hence available to your brain. Breathing out sharply through your mouth reduces cortisol in your body, which reduces your stress and anxiety. Because you have taken executive control (by deliberately choosing what to do instead of your body reacting to the environment) you have reduced adrenaline production. The threat must have passed if you aren't concerned about it! With the two key stress hormones reduced, you then touched or licked your lips, which triggered your PSNS (Parasympathetic Nervous System) to get working - remember this is the system that slows your heart rate and calms you down. You're clearing your thinking brain to consider positive, uplifting thoughts and ideas. Touching your own body (especially the lips) also stimulates the release of oxytocin - better still when you do this with your life parter. This makes you feel more loved, trusted or cared for and increases your feeling of attachment. Thinking positive, uplifting thoughts stimulates dopamine and serotonin production and you are believing that you have taken charge of the situation, which increases your self-esteem and sense of orientation and control. You will also begin to feel greater pleasure whilst reducing pain through this very simple exercise. To find your Mojo again, Take 5 All it takes is 5 minutes to breathe and either pray, meditate, be mindful, or simply be relaxed to regain that sense of control, to engage and re-ignite the fires of your motivation. And if it doesn't happen in the first 5 minutes. Take just 5 more.

Partizipative Sensornetze (PSNs) stellen eine neue Art von Sensornetzen dar, die auf Basis von freiwillig zur Verfügung gestellten Mobiltelefonen etabliert werden. Sie ermöglichen eine großflächige Erfassung von Messdaten im direkten Umfeld von Menschen und können für zahlreiche Anwendungsszenarien verwendet werden. Neben ihren Vorzügen bringen PSNs aber auch Schwierigkeiten mit sich. Zwei zentrale Herausforderungen sind die ressourcenschonende Datenerfassung und der Schutz der Privatsphäre – beide resultieren aus der Instrumentalisierung privater Mobiltelefone zur Datenerfassung. Da der primäre Verwendungszweck der Geräte nicht die Aufzeichnung von Messdaten ist, darf diese deren Ressourcen nicht merklich belasten. Außerdem muss sichergestellt werden, dass durch die Erfassung von Messdaten die Privatsphäre der teilnehmenden Nutzer nicht verletzt wird. Der erste Teil der Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit dem Aspekt der ressourcenschonenden Datenerfassung. Zunächst werden PSNs betrachtet, bei denen punktuell Messungen durchgeführt werden. Bei diesen Netzen müssen die teilnehmenden Geräte über die durchzuführenden Messungen unterrichtet werden. Damit hierbei die Ressourcen der Endgeräte nicht unnötig belastet werden, wird ein Konzept vorgestellt, das einerseits eine robuste Verteilung der Messaufgaben sicherstellt, gleichzeitig jedoch versucht, die Energieressourcen der Mobiltelefone zu schonen. Bei PSNs mit großflächiger und kontinuierlicher Datenerfassung spielt die Verteilung der Messaufgaben keine so entscheidende Rolle. Hier muss vielmehr sichergestellt werden, dass die Energie- und die Übertragungskosten auf Seiten der Nutzer möglichst gering bleiben. Aus diesem Grund wird ein Ansatz zur lokalen Gruppierung von Messknoten beschrieben, der durch eine Aufteilung der anfallenden Aufgaben und eine intelligente Auswahl der Knoten zu einer ressourcenschonenden und weniger redundanten Datenerfassung führt. Der zweite Teil der Arbeit befasst sich mit dem Schutz der Privatsphäre der Teilnehmer und beinhaltet zwei Themenblöcke. Zum einen wird ein Ansatz zur automatisierten Erzeugung von Privatsphäre-Zonen vorgestellt, der ohne das Eingreifen der Nutzer die Zonen an das jeweilige Umfeld anpasst. Diese Zonen werden um die vom Nutzer häufig besuchten Orte erstellt und verhindern so mögliche, auf der Identifikation dieser Orte basierende Deanonymisierungsangriffe. Zum anderen wird ein Kalibrierungssystem für PSNs beschrieben, dessen Fokus sowohl auf der Verbesserung der Datenqualität als auch auf der Wahrung der Privatsphäre der Nutzer liegt. Hierfür ermöglicht dieses eine rückwirkende Anpassung bereits übertragener Daten, verhindert aber gleichzeitig durch eine Modifikation der Kalibrierungsparameter und der Upload-Zeitpunkte eine direkte Zuordnung zu einem Nutzer.

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Eric Martsolf, Ethan on NBC/DirecTV's Passions, will be joining the hosts of BWR on March 4, 2008! Be there as he takes questions from fans, ask the hosts questions, the upcoming PSNS' Farewell Cruise, and more.

11 year old Passions star, Coltin Shires, will be making his first appearance on BWR! Hear what it is like to play Little Ethan, how he feels about the upcoming Passions' cruise, and much more!