Mind Hack VII: Using the Theory Of Mirror Neurons To Gain Rapport, Increase Influence And Lead Others

When I learned about this scientific concept of mirror neurons, I finally understood at a biological level how humans bond. As I have always wanted to believe, if one can understand the maechanics of a process, one can duplicate it or hack the process to make it better or give it the results one desires.

If you learn about the idea and use of mirror neurons, you will have a better chance of increasing your influence of others and lead others by examples. From the New York Times…

Cells That Read Minds

MONKEY SEE When a monkey watches a researcher bring an object—an ice cream cone, for example— to his mouth, the same brain neurons fire as when the monkey brings a peanut to its own mouth. In the early 1990’s, Italian researchers discovered this phenomenon and named the cells “mirror neurons.”

By SANDRA BLAKESLEE
Published: January 10, 2006

On a hot summer day 15 years ago in Parma, Italy, a monkey sat in a special laboratory chair waiting for researchers to return from lunch. Thin wires had been implanted in the region of its brain involved in planning and carrying out movements.

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Cells That Read Minds

 Every time the monkey grasped and moved an object, some cells in that brain region would fire, and a monitor would register a sound: brrrrrip, brrrrrip, brrrrrip.

A graduate student entered the lab with an ice cream cone in his hand. The monkey stared at him. Then, something amazing happened: when the student raised the cone to his lips, the monitor sounded – brrrrrip, brrrrrip, brrrrrip – even though the monkey had not moved but had simply observed the student grasping the cone and moving it to his mouth.

The researchers, led by Giacomo Rizzolatti, a neuroscientist at the University of Parma, had earlier noticed the same strange phenomenon with peanuts. The same brain cells fired when the monkey watched humans or other monkeys bring peanuts to their mouths as when the monkey itself brought a peanut to its mouth.

Later, the scientists found cells that fired when the monkey broke open a peanut or heard someone break a peanut. The same thing happened with bananas, raisins and all kinds of other objects.

“It took us several years to believe what we were seeing,” Dr. Rizzolatti said in a recent interview. The monkey brain contains a special class of cells, called mirror neurons, that fire when the animal sees or hears an action and when the animal carries out the same action on its own.

But if the findings, published in 1996, surprised most scientists, recent research has left them flabbergasted. Humans, it turns out, have mirror neurons that are far smarter, more flexible and more highly evolved than any of those found in monkeys, a fact that scientists say reflects the evolution of humans’ sophisticated social abilities.

The human brain has multiple mirror neuron systems that specialize in carrying out and understanding not just the actions of others but their intentions, the social meaning of their behavior and their emotions.

“We are exquisitely social creatures,” Dr. Rizzolatti said. “Our survival depends on understanding the actions, intentions and emotions of others.”

He continued, “Mirror neurons allow us to grasp the minds of others not through conceptual reasoning but through direct simulation. By feeling, not by thinking.”

The discovery is shaking up numerous scientific disciplines, shifting the understanding of culture, empathy, philosophy, language, imitation, autism and psychotherapy.

Everyday experiences are also being viewed in a new light. Mirror neurons reveal how children learn, why people respond to certain types of sports, dance, music and art, why watching media violence may be harmful and why many men like pornography.

How can a single mirror neuron or system of mirror neurons be so incredibly smart?

Most nerve cells in the brain are comparatively pedestrian. Many specialize in detecting ordinary features of the outside world. Some fire when they encounter a horizontal line while others are dedicated to vertical lines. Others detect a single frequency of sound or a direction of movement.

Moving to higher levels of the brain, scientists find groups of neurons that detect far more complex features like faces, hands or expressive body language. Still other neurons help the body plan movements and assume complex postures.

Mirror neurons make these complex cells look like numbskulls. Found in several areas of the brain – including the premotor cortex, the posterior parietal lobe, the superior temporal sulcus and the insula – they fire in response to chains of actions linked to intentions.

Studies show that some mirror neurons fire when a person reaches for a glass or watches someone else reach for a glass; others fire when the person puts the glass down and still others fire when the person reaches for a toothbrush and so on. They respond when someone kicks a ball, sees a ball being kicked, hears a ball being kicked and says or hears the word “kick.”

“When you see me perform an action – such as picking up a baseball – you automatically simulate the action in your own brain,” said Dr. Marco Iacoboni, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who studies mirror neurons. “Circuits in your brain, which we do not yet entirely understand, inhibit you from moving while you simulate,” he said. “But you understand my action because you have in your brain a template for that action based on your own movements.

“When you see me pull my arm back, as if to throw the ball, you also have in your brain a copy of what I am doing and it helps you understand my goal. Because of mirror neurons, you can read my intentions. You know what I am going to do next.”

He continued: “And if you see me choke up, in emotional distress from striking out at home plate, mirror neurons in your brain simulate my distress. You automatically have empathy for me. You know how I feel because you literally feel what I am feeling.”

Mirror neurons seem to analyzed scenes and to read minds. If you see someone reach toward a bookshelf and his hand is out of sight, you have little doubt that he is going to pick up a book because your mirror neurons tell you so.

In a study published in March 2005 in Public Library of Science, Dr. Iacoboni and his colleagues reported that mirror neurons could discern if another person who was picking up a cup of tea planned to drink from it or clear it from the table. “Mirror neurons provide a powerful biological foundation for the evolution of culture,” said Patricia Greenfield, a psychologist at the U.C.L.A. who studies human development.

Until now, scholars have treated culture as fundamentally separate from biology, she said. “But now we see that mirror neurons absorb culture directly, with each generation teaching the next by social sharing, imitation and observation.”

Other animals – monkeys, probably apes and possibly elephants, dolphins and dogs – have rudimentary mirror neurons, several mirror neuron experts said. But humans, with their huge working memory, carry out far more sophisticated imitations.

Language is based on mirror neurons, according to Michael Arbib, a neuroscientist at the University of Southern California. One such system, found in the front of the brain, contains overlapping circuitry for spoken language and sign language.

In an article published in Trends in Neuroscience in March 1998, Dr. Arbib described how complex hand gestures and the complex tongue and lip movements used in making sentences use the same machinery. Autism, some researchers believe, may involve broken mirror neurons. A study published in the Jan. 6 issue of Nature Neuroscience by Mirella Dapretto, a neuroscientist at U.C.L.A., found that while many people with autism can identify an emotional expression, like sadness, on another person’s face, or imitate sad looks with their own faces, they do not feel the emotional significance of the imitated emotion. From observing other people, they do not know what it feels like to be sad, angry, disgusted or surprised.

Mirror neurons provide clues to how children learn: they kick in at birth. Dr. Andrew Meltzoff at the University of Washington has published studies showing that infants a few minutes old will stick out their tongues at adults doing the same thing. More than other primates, human children are hard-wired for imitation, he said, their mirror neurons involved in observing what others do and practicing doing the same things.

Still, there is one caveat, Dr. Iacoboni said. Mirror neurons work best in real life, when people are face to face. Virtual reality and videos are shadowy substitutes.

Nevertheless, a study in the January 2006 issue of Media Psychology found that when children watched violent television programs, mirror neurons, as well as several brain regions involved in aggression were activated, increasing the probability that the children would behave violently.

The ability to share the emotions of others appears to be intimately linked to the functioning of mirror neurons, said Dr. Christian Keysers, who studies the neural basis of empathy at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and who has published several recent articles on the topic in Neuron.

When you see someone touched in a painful way, your own pain areas are activated, he said. When you see a spider crawl up someone’s leg, you feel a creepy sensation because your mirror neurons are firing.

People who rank high on a scale measuring empathy have particularly active mirror neurons systems, Dr. Keysers said.

Social emotions like guilt, shame, pride, embarrassment, disgust and lust are based on a uniquely human mirror neuron system found in a part of the brain called the insula, Dr. Keysers said. In a study not yet published, he found that when people watched a hand go forward to caress someone and then saw another hand push it away rudely, the insula registered the social pain of rejection. Humiliation appears to be mapped in the brain by the same mechanisms that encode real physical pain, he said.

Psychotherapists are understandably enthralled by the discovery of mirror neurons, said Dr. Daniel Siegel, the director of the Center for Human Development in Los Angeles and the author of “Parenting From the Inside Out,” because they provide a possible neurobiological basis for the psychological mechanisms known as transference and countertransference.

In transference, clients “transfer” feelings about important figures in their lives onto a therapist. Similarly, in countertransference, a therapist’s reactions to a client are shaped by the therapist’s own earlier relationships.

Therapists can use their own mirror system to understand a client’s problems and to generate empathy, he said. And they can help clients understand that many of their experiences stem from what other people have said or done to them in the past.

Art exploits mirror neurons, said Dr. Vittorio Gallese, a neuroscientist at Parma University. When you see the Baroque sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s hand of divinity grasping marble, you see the hand as if it were grasping flesh, he said. Experiments show that when you read a novel, you memorize positions of objects from the narrator’s point of view.

Professional athletes and coaches, who often use mental practice and imagery, have long exploited the brain’s mirror properties perhaps without knowing their biological basis, Dr. Iacoboni said. Observation directly improves muscle performance via mirror neurons.

Similarly, millions of fans who watch their favorite sports on television are hooked by mirror neuron activation. In someone who has never played a sport – say tennis – the mirror neurons involved in running, swaying and swinging the arms will be activated, Dr. Iacoboni said.

But in someone who plays tennis, the mirror systems will be highly activated when an overhead smash is observed. Watching a game, that person will be better able to predict what will happen next, he said.

In yet another realm, mirror neurons are powerfully activated by pornography, several scientists said. For example, when a man watches another man have sexual intercourse with a woman, the observer’s mirror neurons spring into action. The vicarious thrill of watching sex, it turns out, is not so vicarious after all.

From Science Daily …

Mirror, Mirror In The Brain: Mirror Neurons, Self-Understanding And Autism Research

ScienceDaily (Nov. 7, 2007) — Recent findings are rapidly expanding researchers’ understanding of a new class of brain cells — mirror neurons — which are active both when people perform an action and when they watch it being performed.

Some scientists speculate that a mirror system in people forms the basis for social behavior, for our ability to imitate, acquire language, and show empathy and understanding. It also may have played a role in the evolution of speech. Mirror neurons were so named because, by firing both when an animal acts and when it simply watches the same action, they were thought to “mirror” movement, as though the observer itself were acting.

Advances in the past few years have newly defined different types of mirror neurons in monkeys and shown how finely tuned these subsets of mirror neurons can be. New studies also have further characterized abnormal-as well as normal-mirror activity in the brains of children with the social communication disorder known as autism, suggesting new approaches to treatment.

“The tremendous excitement that has been generated in the field by the study of mirror neurons stems from the implications of the findings, which have led to numerous new hypotheses about behavior, human evolution, and neurodevelopmental disorders,” says Mahlon DeLong, MD, of Emory University School of Medicine.

Mirror neurons, a class of nerve cells in areas of the brain relaying signals for planning movement and carrying it out, were discovered 11 years ago, an offshoot of studies examining hand and mouth movements in monkeys. Mirror neuron research in the intervening years has expanded into a diverse array of fields. And the implications have been enormous, encompassing evolutionary development, theories of self and mind, and treatments for schizophrenia and stroke.

Findings being presented at Neuroscience 2007 include new research based on work in monkeys, showing that subsets of mirror neurons distinguish between observed actions carried out within hand’s reach and those beyond the animal’s personal space.

In his study, Peter Thier, PhD, at Tübingen University, first identified a group of mirror neurons by recording single nerve cell activity from electrodes when a monkey gripped different objects and when the monkey watched a person grasp the same objects, both nearby and farther away. About half of the nerve cells that were active when the monkey picked up the objects also sprung into action when it watched a person do so. Thier was assisted by research fellow Antonio Casile and PhD student Vittorio Caggiano, and worked closely with the lab of Giacomo Rizzolatti, MD, at the University of Parma.

They also noticed that some of these confirmed mirror neurons were active only when the monkey was watching activity within its personal space, defined as within reaching distance; others responded only to actions performed in a place outside the monkey’s grasp. Thier and colleagues recorded this preferential activity in 22 nerve cells, or together half of the mirror neurons. The other half of the mirror neurons showed activity that did not depend on how close the grasping action was to the monkey.

Although at this stage assigning a functional role is still speculation, Thier suggests this proximity-specific activity in mirror neurons may play an important role when we monitor what goes on around us, or serve as the basis for inferring the intentions of others and for cooperative behavior. “These neurons might encode actions of others that the observers might directly influence, or with which he or she can interact,” he says.

Other findings show that mirror neuron activity is instrumental for interpreting the facial expressions and actions of others but may not be sufficient for decoding their thoughts and intentions.

The studies examined changes in certain electroencephalograms (EEG) or brain wave patterns known as mu rhythms, which have a frequency of 8-13 hertz, or oscillations per second. Previous findings based on EEG recordings from the part of the brain that is directly involved in relaying signals for movement and sensing stimuli, known as the sensorimotor cortex, indicate that mu rhythms typically are suppressed by mirror activity in premotor areas of the brain. However, this does not happen in children with autism. As a result, the new work suggests, alternative strategies for reading faces and understanding others develop in the brains of these children.

Pursuing two parallel studies, Jaime Pineda, PhD, at the University of California, San Diego, aimed to contribute evidence supporting one of two theories about the ways we evaluate the actions and intentions of other people-either implicitly or through language-based theoretical concepts.

Using EEG recordings to examine patterns of brain wave activity, Pineda first worked with 23 adults, who were asked to look at photos showing just the eye region of people making various facial expressions. In three separate trials, the subjects were asked to identify either the emotion, race, or gender of the people in the photographs. In a subsequent task, subjects looked at three-panel cartoon strips and were asked to choose a fourth panel that completed the strip-either the conclusion of a series of physical actions or the result of a person interacting with an object. A sequence of a prisoner removing the window of his cell, then looking at his bed, for example, could be followed by a frame of the prisoner asleep, yawning, or using the bedsheet to make a rope. Answering correctly depended on interpreting the cartoon character’s intentions appropriately or understanding how physical objects interact.

Pineda repeated the studies with 28 children, 7 to 17 years old, half of whom had autism. The other half were typically developing children.

Recordings from the studies with adults showed a correlation between mu suppression, or mirror neuron activity, and accuracy for both tasks. In fact, the suppression of mu rhythms during the facial expression task also correlated with accuracy in the exercise with the cartoons, suggesting that reading people’s expressions and interpreting their intentions may draw from similar activity in the brain.

Recordings from the typically developing children showed similar patterns of suppression during the two tasks, indicating that mirror neuron activity is fully developed by age 7.

In contrast, recordings from the children with autism showed that mu rhythms were enhanced during both tasks. Enhancement is an indication that the mirror neuron system is disengaged. However, because the children still were able to perform the task, Pineda says, “we propose that children with autism develop alternative, non-mirror neuron-based coping strategies for understanding facial expressions and interpreting others’ mental states.” He suggests that “these compensatory strategies involve inhibition of residual mirror neuron functioning.”

These results could be applied to the development of treatments for autism. Pineda and his group have been using neurofeedback training to successfully renormalize functioning in this system. That is, they see mu suppression that is more characteristic of the typically developing brain following such training. “Our findings are consistent with the idea that mirror neurons are not absent in autism,” Pineda says, “but rather are abnormally responsive to stimuli and abnormally integrated into wider social-cognitive brain circuits.

“This idea implies that a retraining of mirror neurons to respond appropriately to stimuli and integrate normally into wider circuits may reduce the social symptoms of autism.”

Advances in recording brain activity also have made possible findings showing that mirror systems are active even when we are not observing an action with an eye to repeating it.

Suresh Muthukumaraswamy, PhD, at Cardiff University, found that the mirror system is activated when we watch specific actions, even when we are concentrating on a separate task.

The results are based on previous research showing that motor systems in the brain are activated when a person observes an action being performed and on interpretations suggesting that we understand and learn to imitate the actions of others through these brain mechanisms.

Working with 13 adults with an average age of 29, Muthukumaraswamy compared brain activity recorded via magnetoencephalography (MEG). This monitoring technique measures the weak magnetic fields emitted by nerve cells, and, recording from 275 locations, Muthukumaraswamy was able to monitor changes in activity every 600th of a second.

“Although MEG has been in existence for more than 20 years, recent advances in hardware, computing technology, and the algorithms used to analyze the data allow much more detailed analysis of brain function than was previously possible,” he says.

Brain activity was recorded as the subjects passively watched a sequence of finger movements, watched the movements knowing they would be asked to repeat them, added up the number of fingers moved as they watched, and performed the sequence of movements themselves.

Results from these recordings showed similar activity when the subjects performed the movement sequence and when they watched someone else do it. In addition, Muthukumaraswamy noted increased activity in areas of the brain regulating motor activity when subjects observed the movements knowing they would later do them, and when they added up the number of fingers used, compared with passive watching.

“These data suggest that activity of human mirror neuron systems is generally increased by attention relative to passive observation, even if that attention is not directed toward a specific motor activity,” says Muthukumaraswamy. “Our results suggest that the mirror system remains active regardless of any concurrent task and hence is probably an automatic system.

“A good scientific understanding of the properties of the mirror system in normal humans is important,” he adds, “because this may help to understand clinical disorders such as autism where the mirror system may not be functioning normally.”

Other findings based on EEG recordings provide the first evidence of normal mirror activity in children with autism: People familiar to children with autism may activate mirror areas of the brain in normal patterns when unfamiliar people do not.

Previous research has shown that mu rhythms are suppressed when a subject identifies with an active person being observed. Based on this work, Lindsay Oberman, PhD, at the University of California, San Diego, examined the role of two separate factors in the mirror system response of children with autism.

Six videos were shown to a group of 26 boys, 8 to 12 years old; half had autism. Three videos showed images representing varying degrees of social interaction: two bouncing balls (the baseline measurement), three people tossing a ball to themselves, and three people throwing the ball to each other and off the screen to the viewer. The other set of videos showed people with varying degrees of familiarity to the subjects: strangers opening and closing their hand, family members making the same hand movement, and the subjects themselves doing the same.

EEG recordings from 13 electrodes in a cap showed that mu activity was suppressed most when subjects watched videos of themselves, indicating the greatest mirror neuron activity. For both groups, the measurements showed a slightly lower level of suppression when subjects watched familiar people in the video and the least when watching strangers. This indicates that normal mirror neuron activity was evoked when children with autism watched family members, but not strangers.

“Thus, to say that the mirror neuron system is nonfunctional may only be partially correct,” says Oberman. “Perhaps individuals with autism have fewer mirror neurons and/or less functional mirror neurons that require a greater degree of activation than a typical child’s system in order to respond.”

The mirror neuron system may react to stimuli that the observer sees as “like me.” If this is the case, suggests Oberman, “perhaps typical individuals apply this identification to all people (both familiar and unfamiliar), resulting in activation of these areas in response to the observed stimuli, while individuals on the autism spectrum only consider familiar individuals (including themselves) as ‘like me,’ ” she says.

This evidence for normal mirror neuron activity in autistic children may indicate that mirror system dysfunction in these cases reflects an impairment in identifying with and assigning personal significance to unfamiliar people and things, Oberman suggests. Whether deficits in relating to unfamiliar people that are characteristic of autism are the cause or the result of a dysfunctional mirror neuron system is unclear.

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Mind Hack VI: Increase Your Reading Speed Over 500% Using The Evelyn Wood System

This was one of those techniques and methods that really will help you in your life. If you can read even 50% faster than the speed you are reading at now, you would be able to learn much more than before. An increase of 500% (and sometimes much more) in reading speed has been very well documented by educators.

The most well known system out there to increase your reading speed was created originally by Evelyn Wood. The program has been around for at least 60 years and it is very well established around the world. For any parent who wants to give their child a major advantage in reading, learning, and school, I feel that this skills is a critical one to have.

From resource 1

Evelyn Wood’s discovery began when she was working on her Masters Degree at the University of Utah shortly after WW11. She submitted an 80 page term paper to her professor Dr. C. Lowell Lees and then watched in amazement as he read and graded it in less than ten minutes. His untrained reading rate: 2500 words per minute, yet he could not explain how he did it. Mrs. Wood, a school teacher, began to wonder if she could do the same thing and if there were others with similar skills. A two year search turned up some 50 people from all walks of life, teenagers to an eighty year old. They could read from 1500 to 6000 words per minute, and understand and remember what they had read. Analysing them she found they read more than one word at a time, seeing words in meaningful patterns, and moved their eyes quickly, smoothly, and easily down the page. They adjusted their speed to the type of material they were reading and knew how to find the thoughts in a paragraph, and the central idea in an article or book. “The purpose of reading,” Mrs. Wood wrote, “is to get the information, feeling, and understanding the author is trying to convey. And, gauged by this purpose, these natural readers succeeded admirably.”

Painstakingly Mrs. Wood began to teach herself these principles, until she was able to read several thousand words per minute, and along the way had developed a system for teaching others. Tested and proven at the University of Utah, in 1959 the first Institute was opened in Washington DC and the process was started that has altered forever the the way people learn from written sources. Since then the course has expanded throughout the United States, to Australia in 1968, and around the world.

Me: A few months ago I bought this book HERE on speed reading off of Amazon and it really is very good.

There are a lot of these Evelyn Wood Programs going on these days. these are the types of claim they make, which is true. (source)

Double Your Reading Speed — Guaranteed!

You’ll learn how to determine your current reading rate, then increase it immediately. Your reading speed will double – guaranteed! Finish the newspaper in five or ten minutes. Rifle through magazines, reports, and trade publications in record time. Polish off entire books in one sitting. Plus, there’s an advanced comprehension and retention system that will help you understand more.

Program Highlights:
  • Read even the most complex material at increased speeds — move from the average reader’s 250 words per minute to speeds exceeding 1,000 words per minute
  • Remember ideas, concepts, information — retain what you’ve read for months instead of just days or hours
  • Understand what you read with remarkable depth and clarity — without long, laborious notes, without slow reading and continuously going back to the material
  • Absorb verbal information — meetings, presentations, conversations — and recall accurately what was said or discussed
  • Manage the stacks of information you face every day without the usual frustration and fatigue — even financial and legal documents, periodicals, and more
  • Help your children improve their grades and prepare for tests or college entrance exams (Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics is appropriate for anyone who reads at a 6th grade level or higher)
  • Stay on top of your coursework as you pursue your own graduate degree!

 

Body Hack VIII: Using Blowfish To Cure Hangover Symptoms

This post has to do with a recently FDA approved over the counter drug called “Blowfish” which is supposed to be able to reduce the symptoms of a hangover after a big night of drinking alcohol. I remember seeing articles about Blowfish last year and I always thought that it was a smart little trick that one should have if they drink a lot.

The official site for Blowfish is HERE. You can ever try out the pill free for yourself. I wanted to post only 1 great article I found on the review and analysis of this hangover pill. There are many other articles but I chose the specific article because I felt it was  a little more informative and objective in analysis than the others.

From ABC NEWS  . For other reviews, go to Daily Mail UK and EMaxHealth

‘Blowfish’ for Hangovers: Cure or Red Herring?

Katie Moisse

By Katie Moisse
@katiemoisse

An Alka-Seltzer-like tablet that claims to cure hangovers is set to hit New York City drug stores in January.

The tablet, called “Blowfish,” combines aspirin, caffeine and an antacid to fight the headache, fatigue and upset stomach typical after a night of drinking. When dropped into a glass of water, it fizzes up a lemony brew that packs the hangover-fighting power of two extra-strength aspirins, three espressos and a greasy breakfast.

“It’s the only over-the-counter drug that’s specifically hangover related,” Blowfish creator Brenna Haysom told ABC News. “The [Food and Drug Administration] has specifically said our formula is effective for treating hangover symptoms.”

The FDA did not immediately return ABC News’ requests for a comment. Contrary to recent headlines, the agency did not approve the drug. Because the over-the-counter formula combines drugs that are already approved, it didn’t have to. It does, however, regulate the manufacturing process and the drug’s packaging.

“Like all drug packaging, it has a lot of warnings for people with certain conditions,” said Haysom, describing the health risks of aspirin – a blood-thinner – for people with bleeding conditions.  “And pregnant women should not take it, but hopefully they don’t need to be taking it!”

A hangover is a collection of symptoms that emerge when alcohol’s intoxicating effects start to wear off. Research on hangover treatments is scarce, but alcohol is thought to trigger an inflammatory response – a process blocked by non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs like aspirin. The inflammatory response is similar to the body’s defense against flu, and is linked to lethargy – an energy lull boosted by caffeine. Finally, the chemicals produced by the body to break alcohol down are hard on the stomach – collateral damage tempered by an antacid.

But it’s unclear whether Blowfish, which contains acetylsalicylic acid and citric acid — both of which could mitigate some of its stomach-soothing effects — is better than the age-old hangover remedy: Aspirin and a cup of coffee.

“Almost no research at all has been done on the hangover state,” said Dr. Timothy Collins, associate professor of medicine and neurology at Duke University Medical Center’s Pain and Palliative Care Clinic. “One of the things we know from headache clinical trials is that at least 25 percent of patients getting a placebo say it worked really well for them. One in four people are going to say this helps, but we just don’t know.”

A two-tablet dose of Blowfish (which is what the makers recommend for a typical hangover) contains 1,000 milligrams of aspirin, 120 milligrams of caffeine 816 milligrams of sodium and 25.2 milligrams of phenylalanine. The makers, West Village-based Rally Labs, are so convinced of their product’s hangover-quashing effects they offer a money-back guarantee.

“People are skeptical because there have been so many weird hangover cures over the years,” said Haysom, describing herbal hangover remedies not controlled by the FDA. “Word of mouth is really important for us.”

Other purported hangover treatments have to be taken before a night of drinking – a forethought that doesn’t always come easy.

“Out of personal experience, the worst hangover is the one you didn’t expect on a morning you have to do stuff,” said Haysom, who abandoned her job in finance to create Blowfish. “It really came out of my own experience of wanting to go out but having to work really hard the next morning.”

Because it’s marketed as a hangover treatment, Blowfish has sparked worries that people might be more inclined to drink too much.

“Anything you advertise as being effective is going to be seen in some areas as promoting the overindulgence,” said Collins. “There’s this perception that if you drink too much and have a hangover, you deserve it.”

Blowfish is already sold at Ricky’s in New York City, and will be sold nationally early next year.

Mind Hack V: Using Qualification, Commitment And Consistency, And Breaking Rapport To Make People Like You More

I decided not to leave this post empty because the techniques, ideas, and methods I would have given out would be too powerful and dangerous for most people to learn or have. The techniques have been used in the past in social engineering, to manipulate other people, and do evil actions.

Maybe one day I will come back and write (and/or copy and paste) this article about how these things are done but just not right now.

Body Hack VII: Using Sodium Pentothal, Sodium Thiopental Or “Truth Serum” To Induce People To Tell You The Truth

The first thing that might go through your might when you first read the title is something like “Bullshit”, or “No way”. If you ever wanted to get the truth out of a person, and make them more receptive and talkative, this was the chemical of use for a long time.

From the wikipedia article about the compound HERE…

Sodium thiopental

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sodium thiopental, better known as Sodium Pentothal (a trademark of Abbott Laboratories), thiopental, thiopentone sodium, or Trapanal (also a trademark), is a rapid-onset short-acting barbiturate general anaesthetic. Thiopental is a core medicine in the World Health Organization’s “Essential Drugs List”, which is a list of minimum medical needs for a basic healthcare system. It is also usually the first of three drugs administered during most lethal injections in the United States.

Barbiturates

Main article: Barbiturate

Barbiturates are a class of drugs that act on the GABAA receptor in the brain and spinal cord. The GABAA receptor is an inhibitory channel that decreases neuronal activity, and barbiturates enhance the inhibitory action of the GABAA receptor. Barbiturates, benzodiazepines, and alcohol all bind to the GABAA receptor. Barbiturates that act on the barbiturate binding site of the GABAA receptor directly gate the chloride ion channel of the GABAA receptor, whereas benzodiazepines acting on the benzodiazepine site on the GABAA receptor increase the opening frequency of the chloride ion channel. This explains why overdoses of barbiturates may be lethal whereas overdoses of benzodiazepines alone are typically not lethal. Another explanation is that barbiturates can activate GABA receptors in the absence of the GABA molecule, whereas benzodiazepines need GABA to be present to have an effect: this may explain the more widespread effects of barbiturates in the central nervous system. Barbiturates have anesthetic, sedative, anxiolytic, anticonvulsant and hypnotic properties. Barbiturates do not have analgesic effects.

Uses

Anesthesia

Thiopental is an ultra-short-acting barbiturate and has been used commonly in the induction phase of general anesthesia. Its use in the United States and elsewhere has been largely replaced with that of propofol. Following intravenous injection the drug rapidly reaches the brain and causes unconsciousness within 30–45 seconds. At one minute, the drug attains a peak concentration of about 60% of the total dose in the brain. Thereafter, the drug distributes to the rest of the body and in about 5–10 minutes the concentration is low enough in the brain such that consciousness returns.

A normal dose of thiopental (usually 4–6 mg/kg) given to a pregnant woman for operative delivery (caesarian section) rapidly makes her unconscious, but the baby in her uterus remains conscious. However, larger or repeated doses can depress the baby.[citation needed]

Thiopental is not used to maintain anesthesia in surgical procedures because, in infusion, it displays zero-order elimination kinetics, leading to a long period before consciousness is regained. Instead, anesthesia is usually maintained with an inhaled anesthetic (gas) agent. Inhaled anesthetics are eliminated relatively quickly, so that stopping the inhaled anesthetic will allow rapid return of consciousness. Thiopental would have to be given in large amounts to maintain an anesthetic plane, and because of its 11.5–26 hour half-life, consciousness would take a long time to return.

In veterinary medicine, thiopental is used to induce anesthesia in animals. Since thiopental is redistributed to fat, certain breeds of dogs – primarily the sight hounds – can have accelerated recoveries from thiopental due to their lack of body fat and their lean body mass. Similarly, overweight or obese animals will have prolonged recoveries from thiopental. Thiopental is always administered intravenously, as it can be fairly irritating; severe tissue necrosis and sloughing can occur if it is injected incorrectly into the tissue around a vein.

Truth serum

Thiopental (Pentothal) is still used in some places as a truth serum to weaken the resolve of the subject and make them more compliant to pressure.[21] The barbiturates as a class decrease higher cortical brain functioning. Some psychiatrists hypothesize that because lying is more complex than telling the truth, suppression of the higher cortical functions may lead to the uncovering of the truth. The drug tends to make subjects loquacious and cooperative with interrogators; however, the reliability of confessions made under thiopental is questionable. Sodium thiopental features as a truth serum in several Hollywood films, in comics and other literature, and even in popular music.

Me: Now we see from another source, the io9 on what they say

….Like heroin, sodium pentothal is a brand name. The drug was manufactured and trademarked by Abbott Laboratories, and its free-for-all name is sodium thiopental. It’s a barbiturate, a drug that acts on the central nervous system, which it depresses to calm anxiety, induce drowsiness, eliminate pain, and sometimes entirely knock someone out. That is not why it’s become world famous. Sodium pentothal made its name in detective, spy, and pulp novels, where it was famously used as a ‘truth serum.’ Novelists weren’t making it up. Psychiatrists and police officers both swore by it in the first half of the twentieth century – but whether it which of its powers were fact and which were fiction is still debated.

But Does It Work?

Well, it might. If someone is dead set against telling your their secrets it might make them so disoriented that they’ll spill something. It’s just that, to make it at all effective, you have to positively know what you’re looking for already, because if they tell you that, they’ll generally tell you a lot of other things as well. And you’ll have to work on your tone, because someone under the influence of any of the ‘truth drugs’ will most likely tell you what you want to hear. The drugs make people a little more obliging, but mostly they suppress the parts of the brain that have to kick into gear if a person is to assess what’s wrong with a question, articulate it, and assert themselves to their questioner. It’s easier just to let their imagination go with the flow and tell the questioner exactly what they want to hear.

That is not a problem if all the questioner wants is a confession, right or wrong. If they want information, though, sorting out a person being honest, being imaginative, misunderstanding the question, and outright lying because it’s easier, is tough to do. One of the reasons Multiple Personality Disorder was nailed down as only being cause by severe child abuse is Doctor Wilbur insisting that that was the only cause. Earlier patients mentioned mildly traumatic events in childhood but not necessarily direct abuse, nor was that trauma the only cause of the split in personality. Wilbur then founded an organization which trained therapists to use drugs and hypnosis and probe for childhood abuse. After many leading questions, patients would finally go along with what their therapists were saying, the therapist would declare that a memory had finally be recovered, and the cause of the illness would be reinforced. Recovered memory abuse would range from Sybil’s false memory of being flown to (occupied) Holland during World War II to help an English officer smuggle out his wife, all while in the persona of a twelve-year-old, to fantastic stories of Satanic cults sacrificing humans inside regular towns. When cases against parents started falling through, and lawsuits started piling up, truth drugs fell from favor fast. Meanwhile, when the Supreme Court declared that confessions under the influence were coerced, which was unconstitutional, and the easy confessions turned into a lot of freed prisoners, with occasional scrambles to collect old evidence.

In the end, sodium pentothal proved useless not because no one could get information, but because everyone could get too much. It gave questioners information in endless streams that were near-impossible to sort into fact and fiction. It dangled exactly the reply people wanted in front of them, but made anyone who was informed about the drug question if it was only there because they wanted it. It can’t offer any certainty that information gotten out of a person was anything more than fantasy. And since certainty is what ‘truth serum’ is supposed to be all about, then it definitively fails.

Me: I guess I was wrong and maybe should change the title of the article. It seems that the chemical compound can not really get the truth from someone else, mainly because the person will indeed become more talkative, but in the pricess will say many things and the person asking the question will not be able to separate the answers they want from the other things the person being questioned says.

Mind Hack IV: Using Neuro-Linguistic Programming Swish Pattern Technique to Remove Negative And Traumatic Past Memories And Thoughts Instantly

One of the most common technique from the study of Neuro-Linguistic Programming is the Swish Pattern Technique. The article posted below is from the Personal Development Planet

What is the NLP Swish Pattern?

(in English, please…)

The objective of this article is to introduce you to the NLP Swish Pattern, which allows you to install an automatic, positive response to a certain stimuli – which has previously provided you with a negative outcome.

Ah, simple! Hmm… as with much of NLP, this sounds like jargon. To put it better, an NLP Swish Pattern is a cheat to acting ideally in a situation that you generally under-perform in. Think selling, getting fit, chatting up members of the opposite sex, speaking to groups, asking for a pay rise, eating healthily – even sex. All can be improved with this little gem of a technique.

The aim of this article is to demystify the Swish Pattern – and demonstrate the numerous benefits and applications of using it. In the next article, I’ll show you How To Use the NLP Swish Pattern.

By using this technique, you’ll embed a new automatic and positive response into your subconscious – which means that no conscious thought or willpower is required to make the new response permanent. You’ll just start to act in the new way you decide. This can be a little overwhelming a first, but you’ll soon get over the shock and start enjoying your new behaviour.

How Does the Swish Pattern Work?

You act the way you do now in any given situation because your subconscious believes it is the most appropriate way for you to act, based on all your years of experience.

If you’ve been highly confident, assured, charismatic and utterly bedazzling throughout your life, you’re in for an absolute treat – your subconscious will make you act like this on demand.

For the rest of us, who have ballsed up in epic proportion over the years – embarrassing ourselves in front of strangers, the opposite sex, friends, Romans, countrymen and everyone in-between… Well, this is a technique that can help.

When you next find yourself in a situation that used to cause you to under-perform, rather than thinking about all your past failures, mishaps and misdemeanours – and living them out again – with the NLP Swish Pattern a new and compelling image will fly into your brain at breakneck speed – of you feeling brilliant, confident and performing at your best. It’s fair to say that it’s much more likely that you will perform to your potential if this is the case!

What Makes You Act The Way You Do?

To perform at your best in the future, first you will have to find out whichexact external stimulus triggers you to act a certain way – and then we will arm this trigger with a new, improved picture of yourself that helps you to act in the way you want to.

For example, if you want to exercise more, you can use the NLP Swish Pattern to change a dread of the gym into an excited desire to work out. When you think of the gym, what used to be an image of you struggling on the treadmill – sweating, hyper-ventilating, exhausted and miserable – will be replaced with a picture of you after the gym – grinning, buzzing off endorphins and feeling brilliant about yourself for being such a wonderfully motivated and healthy human being. Having this pop into your head at the moment you make the decision whether to go to the gym or not is sometimes all it takes to get you there – and at the very least, it will be a gentle kick up the backside.

Another example is if you constantly snack on crisps, chocolate or other unhealthy crap. You can use the Swish Pattern to replace the desire for unhealthy grub with a craving for healthy fruit and vegetables – even exercise. I kid you not – it actually works, and I’ve tried it out on myself and a fair few friends.

One girl used to love her chocolate, for example. She loved it so much, I couldn’t even get a bite. Now, when she thinks of eating a chocolate bar, an image of her feeling happy, healthy and utterly amazing flies into her brain – instantly cancelling the urge for the snack. Best of all, I inherited all of her surplus stock.

What Can I Use The Swish Pattern For?

You can use the this technique for pretty much any situation which is causing you grief.

It should be noted, however, that I’ve found it most effective for relatively “small” changes, rather than gigantic life-altering 180 degree turnarounds. Big changes will require more than this – which is effectively a bit of a brain trick. Try it out on smaller problems first – and test the results.

It’s a little complex, but the technique really seems to work – particularly in conjunction with other techniques such as Creative Visualisation.

If you’re intrigued and want to give it a go yourself, click on the link below to learn how to do a Swish Pattern now.

I’d recommend reading through the instructions fully before you attempt to play with it, and then give it a go – I’d guess it will take you about 20 minutes all in all – which is not long at all for the benefits you can expect. Enjoy!

How To Do An NLP Swish Pattern

(With Only Limited Jargon & Confusion)

This exercise will show you How to Use the NLP Swish Pattern – which will help you to act ideally in a situation which is causing you problems at the moment.
If you follow the instructions below, you will discover the cue that makes you act out your undesired response at present – and learn how to replace it with a positive and empowering self image – which will help you to perform at your best.

If you’re not sure what this means, click on this link to find out more about the NLP Swish Pattern.

NLP Swish Pattern 1: Identify the Problem Behaviour

Before you use the NLP Swish Pattern, you have to know which problem behaviour you are looking to change.

This could be one of the examples listed in my Introduction to NLP Swish Patterns (link above) – such as you don’t exercise enough, you eat too much crap – or it could be a fear of meeting new people, of speaking in public, or a fear of failing at any particular endeavour.

All that matters is that it’s an exact behaviour that you would like to change – to replace with a new positive and empowering response.

Pick a specific problem you are looking to solve with the NLP Swish Pattern before you move on.

NLP Swish Pattern 2: Find The Cue

Your current problem behaviour is likely to be triggered automatically by a specific stimulus. This means that you don’t consciously choose to act the way you do, you just do. It’s an automatic response – just like when the Doctor bangs your knee with a hammer and your leg shoots up.

There is a certain trigger for you that causes you to act out this problem behaviour. If you can identify the trigger, you can change the response with an NLP Swish Pattern.

For example, if you’re putting off going to the gym, what is the exact moment that you decide not to go? It could be the thought of packing your bag and walking to the gym that makes you decide against it. It might be the mental image of you struggling on the running machine that saps your enthusiasm. It could even be the “better” thought of you lying on the sofa, junk food and TV remote in hand, as a preferred way to spend your afternoon.

Either way, there is a specific cue that generates the automatic response. Find this before moving on.

If you’re struggling to identify your specific cue, try this little exercise –imagine that you have to teach me this problem behaviour.

Imagine that I want to learn how to avoid exercise, or how to eat more crap, or how to be petrified of speaking in public – or whatever your particular issue is.

What is the one image that I would need to picture that would absolutely decide my hand for me? Which pictures, sounds and feelings would I have to replicate in my brain to confine me to acting out the undesired response? If you really, truly wanted to convince me why you act the way you do, how would you do so? What do I need to see and feel to make me act this way?

That should’ve helped you to find your trigger! If you haven’t identified your cue yet, simply imagine performing your desired response now… what pops into your mind first? How do you manage to convince yourself that this better and more beneficial behaviour is a bad or scary idea?

When you’ve identified your cue, jot it down on a bit of paper and break state – this simply means clearing your brain and doing something else for a few seconds. Jump up and down on the spot, hum a song, recite the alphabet backwards or look out the window for a while… Whatever you fancy. Just think about something totally unrelated for a minute before proceeding. This helps your brain to reset before you go on to identify the new behaviour you wish to install.

NLP Swish Pattern 3: Choose Your Ideal Response

Choose a suitably compelling snapshot of you performing at your best now – a picture that excites and motivates you.Now we get to the fun part. Here, you get to choose the self image that you will install in your subconscious – the positive response you will generate automatically when the cue occurs from now on.

For example, you might see yourself immediately after a gym session – buzzing on endorphins and feeling wonderful. You might imagine a slim and healthy you who is eating healthily and feeling awesome. It could be a confident and assured you who has just delivered an engaging and well-received presentation to a crowd of strangers and received rapturous applause. Whatever the response you wish to install, get a clear picture of it now.

All that matters is that this response is powerful for you – it has to motivate you and you only.

Now… ramp it up! Make the picture big and bright and gorgeously compelling… make the sounds brighter and clearer… and thoroughly indulge yourself in every last glorious detail of this wonderful picture… and make sure you feel exactly how you would feel if you acted in this ideal way in real life… better, in fact.

Now, locate where the feeling in your body is, give this feeling a colour, and double its intensity and brightness… and then double it again! Make yourself feel awesome now by seeing yourself performing at your best – and living it now in the present.

Absolutely wallow in this gorgeous collection of images, sounds and feelings. Make yourself feel as amazing as you possibly can… and then double the intensity of the feelings again! Make sure your brain is filled with a gloriously bright, crisp and powerful image of you at your best – and feeling on top of the world.

When you’ve got this wonderful image sorted, break state. Count to ten in Japanese. Converse with a pet. Contemplate the nature of the universe… whatever takes your fancy.

NLP Swish Pattern 4: Time To Swish!

This is where the magic happens! What you are going to do is take the original cue image from step 2 and replace it with the new, empowering picture from step 3.

So first, get the old cue picture in your mind. You should be associated – which means seeing it through your own eyes. Make it big and bright and see every little detail.

Now, take a postage-stamp sized picture of your new, powerful self image, and plonk it in the corner of your vision. Make it small and dark and disassociated for the moment – which means looking down at yourself from a third party perspective, not through your own eyes.

Now, we’re ready to Swish!

Take the postage sized picture of the new you and push it further and further away from you until it is just a tiny speck. I like to visualise this little picture stretching all the way back to the moon, where I load it with an unimaginably powerful rocket launcher. (In a second we’re going to need this image to absolutely fly at you, growing bigger and brighter and more compelling by the millisecond – and I find the best way to do this is by imagining the new picture has a rocket strapped to it. Some people prefer pretending it’s on an elastic band – work out what’s right for you!)

When you’re ready to Swish, fire your rocket or elastic band at full power. As the new image comes hurtling towards you, becoming bigger and richer and bolder – send the old cue image in the opposite direction, armed with its very own rocket launcher, making it darker and smaller and less powerful and flying away from you.

Some people like to make an audible “Swish” sound when they do this – I guess it’s the sound you’d imagine these memories to make as they fly past each other.

As the new self image hits you – associate. See it through your own eyes! Imagine every last glorious detail again and make it big and bright and bold and beautiful! Feel all the amazing feelings rush through your veins… And think how good it would be to behave like this from now on.

Take a few moments to revel in the wonderful feeling of this new self image. This is key – indulge yourself. Don’t rush this bit… enjoy your success.

Now, break state.

NLP Swish Pattern 5: Embed The Change

(Don’t moan! It will only take you ten minutes tops – and if you’ve come this far, it’s bloody worth it!)It’s now time to thoroughly embed this change. For the NLP Swish Pattern to work, you need to repeat the last step 10 times, breaking state in between each one. You’ll find that you’ll do this quicker as you progress.

So, load up the old cue image – put the new empowering belief as a speck in the corner – push it back as far as it can go – load it up with your rocket or spring – and Swish! Send the old memory to the moon, and bring the new memory crushing home to you!

Take a few moments between each attempt to really enjoy the feelings… you should be having fun when you do this.

To finish, when you have Swished 10 times, think of the cue and then try and think of your old problem behaviour. If you’ve done it correctly, it will be quite tricky to even imagine the old behaviour – and even if you can, it’s most probably lost the majority of its strength. You might even find it a bit funny to imagine yourself behaving in the old way… Success!

You’re now left with a new way to act whenever you experience the cue – so enjoy the results from this NLP Swish Pattern!