Learned Optimism - Is Depression Learned?
Historically, depression has been looked at from a biological psychoanalytic viewpoint. Seligman, however, argues that depression may be a learned condition resulting from the way we explain bad events to ourselves. From this, he proposes, by changing or relearning these thought patterns, we can prevent relapses into depression.
The Thinking Brain - Part 3 - Putting it all together
When we perceive an object, our brains perceive a single option from all our senses. We can demonstrate this through experiments and we can also see what happens when brain damage occurs and association does not occur. While we know this happens, researchers cannot fully explain how this happens.
Reaction Time - Where'd who go?
Reaction time is our ability to quickly respond to external stimuli. It is important for sport but also for everyday life. As it is controlled by our central nervous system, the best way to improve reaction time is by practice. We can train our minds to detect external cues better but also to decide what to do quicker through exposure to different scenarios.
Learned Optimism - Is Pessimism a Bad Thing?
This week we will start looking at the book ‘Learned Optimism’ by Martin Seligman. The first chapter outlines the two ways of looking at life. Optimism and Pessimism. Ever heard the saying pessimist is either right or pleasantly surprised? Seligman, however, has found many negative side effects of being too pessimistic. he good news is that Seligman things we can change that habit. Learn more here
The Thinking Brain - Part 2 - Movement
Movement is almost essential to mostly everything we do in life. Simple tasks such as reaching out and picking up a glass of water actually involve very complicated processes in our brain. We need to know where the glass is, where we are, plan to reach for the glass, assess the weight of the glass, reach out and grab it and balance the water as the glass moves. The motor cortex does all this!