Do you suffer from nostesia?

Chances are, either you or a family member suffers from it.  It’s not a rare condition. In fact, by some estimates, one in five is afflicted with it.  Might you have it? 

Nostesia derives from two familiar words: nostalgia and amnesia. So it’s easy to understand that those afflicted with the disease long for the past, but have clearly forgotten that the “good old days” weren’t all that good.  Nostesiacs, it is said, have fallen victim to the “Golden Age Fallacy.”

Authors, bloggers, playwrights and pundits weigh in.   

Woody Allen, in his wildly creative film Midnight in Paris, offers insights when his lead character shares: “Nostalgia is denial; denial of the painful present. . . . And the name for this fallacy is called golden-age thinking - the erroneous notion that a different time period is better than the one one’s living in. It’s a flaw in the romantic imagination of those people who find it difficult to cope with the present.”

Author Jamie Vollmer, who coined the word nostesia, informs us that “written expressions of . . .  disapproval regarding ‘these kids today’ and ‘these schools today’ go back as far as Plato.”

And how about the phrase “age of uncertainty?” How long has that been around? Says author Dan Gardner, as quoted in thefourthrevolution.org: “We call our time the ‘age of uncertainty‘, believing that there is something uniquely uncertain about this moment. But the phrase ‘age of uncertainty,’ which has appeared in the New York Times 5,720 times, made its debut in 1924!”

To those who maintain that the world “was simpler back then,” blogger Erik Rasmussen delivers his verdict: “Remember back when you were a child, and the world wasn’t so complicated and messed up? That was a simpler time, wasn’t it? Wrong! It was a simpler time for you because you were a child, free to play and almost entirely free from responsibility. We live in the most peaceful time in all of human history.”

Further, Rasmussen rejects the theory that Smartphones are making us more lonely, more isolated, less social. He explains: “As with absolutely everything, you can do Smartphone social networking too much, but reasonable people set reasonable boundaries. Yes, I have been in a room with two other people, and every one of us was using their Smartphone. But I’ve also been in a room with two other people in which all three of us were reading books. Does that mean that books are destroying our relationships? Down with reading! Why aren’t we talking to each other?!”

Added Jon Krutulis of trythought.com: “Even from the perspective of a few hundred years ago, we live like kings. We enjoy luxuries and benefits that were simply unknown in times we credit with being ‘the good ‘ol days’.” Added Krutulis: “It is easy to look at the social problems that plague us and claim that our morals are in decline; however, look at the things we have conquered: disease, slavery, serfdom, inequality, etc. We have alleviated suffering, pain, and injustice that made life in these Golden Times ‘nasty, brutish, and short’.”

A host of books affirm the notion that nostesia is an illness without merit. Author Norman Finkelstein, in The Way Things Never Were, points to the 1950s and 1960s when the fear of communism and nuclear attack reached into our schools.  Author David Fryxell, in Good ‘Ole Days My Ass, shares over 600 “terrifying truths” that reveal that the Good Ole Days, for most people, were a “filthy, dangerous, exhausting slog simply to survive.” And Joseph Campbell, in Getting It Wrong, dismantles prominent media-driven myths about times gone by.  

Is there a cure for nostesia?  Vollmer insists there is: “Nostesia can be cured, but it must be aggressively treated.” So what’s the cure? Powerful doses of good news, along with frequent reminders of the struggles endured by our predecessors. 

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Which of our senses has no art form?

We treat our senses to all sorts of pleasures – music for our ears, art for our eyes, perfume and gastronomy for our nose and tongue. But what about touch?  It may be the only sense without an art form.

“Touch is the first system to come online, and the foundations of human relationships are all touch,” explains Berkeley psychology professor Dacher Keltner, in a New Yorker piece by Adam Gopnik. “Skin to skin, parent to child, touch is the social language of our social life.”

At our core, human beings are social animals and research has confirmed that we have an innate ability to communicate emotions via touch alone. In a fascinating series of experiments, researchers demonstrated that human beings were capable of communicating eight distinct emotions – anger, fear, disgust, love, gratitude, sympathy, happiness, and sadness – through touch alone, with accuracy rates as high as 78 percent. "I was surprised," said DePauw University psychologist Mathew Hertenstein, in a Psychology Today article written by Rich Chillot. “I thought the accuracy would be at chance level," about 25 percent. (In the experiment, two people were separated by a curtain – one was given an emotion, then told to communicate it to the other via touch alone.)

Whether it’s a handshake, a high-five or a deep and warm embrace, touch has its own special language.

It’s unique in so many respects:

•         “. . . During intense grief or fear, but also in ecstatic moments of joy or love . . . only the language of touch can fully express what we feel,” noted Chillot.
•          Said Gopnik: “Perhaps the reason that touch has no art form is that its supremacy makes it hard to escape. We can shut our eyes and cover our ears, but it’s our hands that do it when we do. We can’t shut off our skins.”
•          Ryan Genz, co-designer of the Hug Shirt told Gopnik: “We can transmit voice, we can transmit images – but we [can’t] transmit touch.” Commenting on social media trends, evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar, in an interview with Bloomberg.com, noted: “In the end, we rely heavily on touch and we still haven't figured out how to do virtual touch. Maybe once we can do that we will have cracked a big nut.”

What have we learned about touch? 

The scientific inquiry of touch is still in its infancy. Johns Hopkins University neuroscientist David Linden, author of “Touch: The Science of Hand, Heart, and Mind,” told Gopnik: “Over the past 50 years, there have been probably a hundred papers about vision for every paper about touch in the scientific literature.” Linden added: “People go blind often. But almost no one is touch-blind – the fact that you have to say ‘touch-blind’ is a hint of the problem. Being touch-blind isn’t compatible with life. There are no national foundations for the hard-of-touch.”

Nonetheless, new as it is, enormous strides have been made on quantifying the benefits of touch. University of Miami School of Medicine's Tiffany Field, director of the Touch Research Institute, has linked touch, in the form of massage, to a slew of benefits, including better sleep, reduced irritability, and increased sociability among infants – as well as improved growth of preemies.

According to the Institute, touch has also: lessened pain, lowered blood pressure, stimulate the hippocampus, lowered heart rates, reduced stress hormones, increased levels of oxytocin, improved pulmonary function, increased growth in infants, lowered blood glucose and improved immune function.  In one study, according to an article by Maria Konnikova for the New Yorker, Fields found that “even short bursts of touch – as little as fifteen minutes in the evening, in one of her studies – not only enhance growth and weight gain in children but also led to emotional, physical, and cognitive improvements in adults.”

What else have we learned?

•         Newborns that are touched gain weight faster and have superior mental and motor skill development – an advantage they retain for months. (Source: Livestrong.com article by Mary Bauer);
•         There is some evidence that the level of aggression and violence among children is related to lack of touching (Source: Livestrong.com article by Mary Bauer);
•         People who are touched briefly on the arm or shoulder are more likely to comply with requests such as volunteering for charity activities. (Source: in-mind.org article authored by Mandy Tjew A Sin and Sander Koole);
•         Touch predicted performance across all the NBA teams (Source: team led by psychologist Michael Kraus);
•         In a series of studies, diners who were touched by the waitress (e.g., a touch on the shoulder) left between 18% and 36% more tips than diners who were not touched (Source: professors April Crusco and Christopher Wetzel)
•         At a home for the elderly, though who were touched while being encouraged to eat consumed more calories and protein up to five days after the touch (Source: Eaton, Mitchell-Bonair & Friedman).

Teens, atheists, senior citizens, doctors and teachers

•         By the time children reach their teen years, they receive only half as much touching as they did in the early part of their lives. Adults touch each other even less. (Source: Livestrong.com article by Mary Bauer)
•         Warm climates tend to produce cultures that are more liberal about touching than colder regions (Source: Psychology Today article by Chillot);
•         Atheists and agnostics touch more than religious types, "probably because religions often teach that some kinds of touch are inappropriate or sinful,” according to professor Peter Anderson of San Diego University, as quoted by Chillot);
•         Senior citizens receive the least touching of any age group (Source: Livestrong.com article by Mary Bauer); and
•         More touch-oriented doctors, teachers, and managers get higher ratings (Source: Psychology Today article by Chillot).

Would more touch benefit us all?  No doubt, say the experts. But in a touch-phobic society such as ours it’s challenging to create a culture that promotes touch (people in Spain, for instance, were found to be far better at communicating via touch than their American counterparts). In 1998, Fields called for “a shift in the social-political attitude toward touch,” noting that, “leaving your humanity behind every time you leave home isn't very appealing.”

The future of touch?

Imagine an online shopper “feeling” the linen of a summer shirt while sitting at their computer. Imagine receiving a long-distance Swedish massage. Or imagine a surgeon in Los Angeles performing surgery in Botswana, and actually feeling the flesh and organs of the patient.

It’s all possible.

So hug a friend today. It’ll feel good.

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True or false: we use only 10% of your brains?

The answer is false, just one of the many neuromyths (i.e., misconceptions about the brain and learning) that we carry around as lay people.  And a study of teachers in the UK and the Netherlands found that teachers also believe in many neuromyths, leading to concern that some of the brain-based educational programs being adopted worldwide are not necessarily serving students well. 

Of further concern, the study found that “possessing greater general knowledge about the brain does not appear to protect teachers from believing in neuromyths.” Indeed, teachers who scored highest on general knowledge about the brain and learning believed in more neuromyths than their colleagues.  Said the researchers:

“Possessing greater general knowledge about the brain does not appear to protect teachers from believing in neuromyths. This demonstrates the need for enhanced interdisciplinary communication to reduce such misunderstandings in the future and establish a successful collaboration between neuroscience and education.”

In the study, teachers in the UK and the Netherlands were given 32 statements about the brain and learning and were asked to rate them as correct or incorrect.  Fifteen of the statements were neuromyths, and the study found that teachers believed 49% of these.

FACT OR FICTION?  

To test your knowledge we’ve selected a dozen of those statements (e.g., on exercise, sugar intake, sleep cycles and learning style). Which ones do you think are correct? (answers appear below*)

1.      Language acquisition – Children must acquire their native language before a second language is learned. If they do not do so neither language will be fully acquired.

2.      Physiology – Boys have bigger brains than girls.

3.      Rehearsal – Extended rehearsal of some mental processes can change the shape and structure of some parts of the brain.

4.      Left vs. right – The left and right hemisphere of the brain always work together.

5.      Hemispheric dominance – Differences in hemispheric dominance (left brain, right brain) can help explain individual differences among learners.

6.      New cells – Learning is not due to the addition of new cells to the brain.

7.      Learning style – Individuals learn better when they receive information in their preferred learning style (e.g., auditory, visual, kinesthetic).

8.      Breakfast – Academic achievement can be affected by skipping breakfast.

9.      Sugar – Children are less attentive after consuming sugary drinks and/or snacks.

10.   Sleep – Circadian rhythms (“body-clock”) shift during adolescence, causing pupils to be tired during the first lessons of the school day.

11.   Learning style – Individual learners show preferences for the mode in which they receive information (e.g., visual, auditory, kinesthetic).

12.   Exercise – Short bouts of co-ordination exercises can improve integration of left and right hemispheric brain function.

The researchers explain: “. . . [E]xamples of neuromyths include such ideas as ‘we only use 10% of our brain’, ‘there are multiple intelligences’, ‘there are left- and right brain learners’, “there are critical periods for learning’ and ‘certain types of food can influence brain functioning’ (e.g., Organisation for Economic Co-operation, and Development, 2002; Geake, 2008; Purdy, 2008; Howard-Jones, 2010). Some of these misunderstandings have served as a basis for popular educational programs, like Brain Gym or the VAK approach (classifying students according to a VAK learning style). These programs claim to be ‘brain-based’ but lack scientific validation (Krätzig and Arbuthnott, 2006; Waterhouse, 2006; Stephenson, 2009; Lindell and Kidd, 2011). A fast commercialization has led to a spread of these programs into classrooms around the world.”

The study was conducted by Sanne Dekker and Jelle Jolles (VUUniversity Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands)  and Paul Howard-Jones (University of Bristol, Bristol, UK).

*statements 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10 and 11 are correct

Fear, happiness or arousal: which state is best for appreciating art?

Apparently it’s fear, according to researchers from the City University of New York who have now drawn an uncommon link between danger and art appreciation.  One review of the findings spawned this provocative headline (from Research Digest): “Why you should watch a horror film before going to the art gallery,” but fear not, the film doesn’t have to be of mega-length. Apparently a short video clip will do.

In recent years researchers have confirmed a link between one’s emotional state and their perception of artwork.  But this was the first study, according to its authors, that examined which emotional state (fear, happiness or physiological arousal) provides the most juice for enjoying abstract art.

A Research Digest review of the study asked: “Why should feeling afraid enhance the sublime power of art?”  And the researchers, quoted in this same review, explained: “The capacity for a work of art to grab our interest and attention, to remove us from daily life, may stem from its ability to trigger our evolved mechanisms for coping with danger. . . . Art is not typically described as scary, but it can be surprising, elicit goose bumps, and inspire awe. Like discovering a grand vista in nature, artwork presents new horizons that pose challenges as well as opportunities."

In the study, participants were asked to evaluate a series of abstract works of art, but before the rating began, they were assigned to one of five conditions, designed to induce emotions of fear, happiness and/or arousal (via physical activity).  The chief finding, according to the study abstract: “Only the fear condition resulted in significantly more positive judgments about the art. These striking findings provide the first evidence that fear uniquely inspires positively valenced aesthetic judgments.”

Bob Duggan, in a piece published by bigthink.com, explained that study participants were asked to evaluate the abstract art on how “inspiring, stimulating, dull, exciting, moving, boring, uninteresting, rousing/stirring, imposing and forgetful” they were.  And Duggan pointed out that “to control for subject prejudices either for or against a certain artist or art movement, works by the relatively unknown Russian geometric abstract artist El Lissitsky were shown.”

The study is titled “Stirring images: Fear, not happiness or arousal, makes art more sublime” and is co-authored by Eskine, Natalie Kacinik and Jesse Prinz.

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Alcohol, Marijuana or E-cigarettes: which of these is a gateway drug?

The “gateway theory” of substance abuse has again taken center stage as dozens of states debate the legalization of marijuana, and, quite suddenly, a new substance has entered the conversation: e-cigarettes. In the first national analysis of the increasingly popular e-cigarette, researchers found that e-cigarettes “may actually be a new route to conventional smoking and nicotine addiction,” according to the study, out of the University of California, San Francisco.  The study involved nearly 40,000 youth nationwide.

Noted lead author Lauren Dutra, a postdoctoral fellow at UCSF’s Center for Tobacco Control Research & Education: ““Despite claims that e-cigarettes are helping people quit smoking, we found that e-cigarettes were associated with more, not less, cigarette smoking among adolescents.”

Both the UCSF study, and another that involved 75,000 Korean adolescents, found that teens who use e-cigarettes (battery-powered devices that deliver an aerosol of nicotine and other chemicals) were less likely, not more likely, to stop conventional smoking.  Explained senior author Stanton Glantz, UCSF professor of medicine and director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education: ““It looks to me like the wild west marketing of e-cigarettes is not only encouraging youth to smoke them, but also is promoting regular cigarette smoking among youth.” The UCSF study cited statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention which estimates that 1.78 million U.S. students used e-cigarettes as of 2012.

Said the report: “In spite of the growing consumption of e-cigarettes and the fact that there has been limited research on their health effects, e-cigarettes are currently unregulated by the FDA.  Unlike traditional tobacco products, e-cigarettes are not subject to federal age verification laws and can be legally sold to children unless state or local laws bar their sale to minors.  Presently, 28 states prohibit the sale of e-cigarettes to minors.”

Marijuana legalization

Is marijuana a gate drug? The body of research continues to grow, and the dial, increasingly, points to no. Maintains the Marijuana Policy Project: “[Marijuana is] simply the first (or more likely, third, after alcohol and cigarettes) in a normal progression to more dangerous substances among those predisposed to use such drugs.”

A 2012 study out of Yale, in fact, found alcohol’s gateway effect to be much larger than marijuana’s.  The study set out to examine the “gateway effect” as it relates to the abuse of prescription opiate drugs.  In other words, the researchers wanted to know if a person’s early use of substances (alcohol, cigarettes, marijuana) correlated with abuse patterns later in life.  The short conclusion: yes, “people who used alcohol or tobacco in their youth are almost twice as likely to abuse prescription opiate drugs than those who only used marijuana,” according to an article authored by Stephen Webster for www.rawstory.com.  Webster noted that, according to the CDC, prescription opiate overdoses kills more Americans each year than cocaine and heroin overdoses combined.

Webster cited two additional studies which pointed the finger at alcohol.  The first, published in the Journal of School Health, “pinpointed alcohol, instead of marijuana, as the most commonly abused substance for first-time drug users.” The second, published in 2010 in the medical journal Lancet, “ranked alcohol as the most harmful drug known to man, with more than double the potential harms of heroin use.” 

The fact that fewer Americans now consider marijuana a gateway drug may account for the rising tide for legalization. A Huffington Post article listed 14 states which appear next in line to legalize the product – following positive experiences in Washington (the state) and Colorado. The 14 states, according to Huffington Post, are as follows (in each state, surveys found that a majority of residents are in favor of legalization): Alaska, Arizona, California, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, Nevada, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and Vermont.

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When you get out of the pool, why do your fingers and toes wrinkle?

Consider this: when human beings step out of the pool, just two areas of their body wrinkle up, their fingers and their toes.  Consider further that scientists have little idea whether other mammals (save for the macaques) experience this same phenomenon. What’s the purpose?

Years ago, it was believed that wrinkled fingers and toes was caused by osmotic (think: osmosis) reactions. Two common theories were advanced: 1. Fingers wrinkle because water enters the tip, and seeks to balance the water content on both sides; and 2. Wrinkling is the result of water passing into the outer layer of the skin and making it swell up.  But in the 1930s, researchers discovered that if you sever the nerves in your finger (not recommended, by the way), the wrinkles won’t form. 

The ready conclusion? Wrinkling is an involuntary reaction by the body’s autonomic nervous system (the system that controls breathing, heart rate and perspiration). Specifically, wrinkling is caused by blood vessels constricting below the skin.

But why does it exist?  What’s the evolutionary purpose? Recently, neurobiologist Mark Changizi and colleagues developed a theory that wrinkling is designed to enhance human grip, and last year an independent research team out of the UK’s Newcastle University confirmed his hypothesis.  They found that, like rain treads on tires, pruney fingers “create channels that let water drain away, allowing them to make better contact with damp surfaces,” according to a piece authored by Ed Yong, for National Geographic’s Phenomena.

Becky Summers, author of an article written for Nature magazine, quoted Tom Smulders, an evolutionary biologist at Newcastle University, UK, and a co-author of the paper. Said Smulders: “We have shown that wrinkled fingers give a better grip in wet conditions — it could be working like treads on your car tires, which allow more of the tire to be in contact with the road and gives you a better grip.”  Summers, paraphrasing Smulders, explains that “wrinkled fingers could have helped our ancestors to gather food from wet vegetation or streams.” The analogous effect in the toes, the article adds, could help us to get a better footing in the rain.

Summers goes on:

“Given that wrinkles confer an advantage with wet objects but apparently no disadvantage with dry ones, it's not clear why our fingers are not permanently wrinkled, says Smulders. But he has some ideas. ‘Our initial thoughts are that this could diminish the sensitivity in our fingertips or could increase the risk of damage through catching on objects.’”

Some take issue with Changizi’s evolutionary hypothesis, raising the concern that testing human beings in their current form won’t necessarily help us explain evolutionary origins. Said Yong, in his piece for Phenomena: “The new study . . . raises some interesting questions about how to test evolutionary explanations. So far, all of the evidence for Changizi’s idea comes from looking at modern human fingers. . . . If modern human fingers grip wet marbles well, and form patterns that resemble rain treads, does that tell us anything about the origins of such patterns or are all such explanations merely just-so-stories?”

Steve Ferber is author of “21 Rules to Live By,” available either at Amazon.com or Island Expressions, located on Daniel Island. Reviews at www.21rules.com. 

Marriage/Relationships: The Secret to Making Them Work?

Marriage/Relationships: The Secret to Making Them Work?

Let’s start with three:

1.      Stop trying to change your partner;

2.      Never begin a sentence with the word "you"; and 

3.      Avoid trigger phrases (e.g., "you’re being just like your mother/father").

And here’s three more: 

4.      Know your partner’s love language; 

5.      When you spend time together, try to make it “sacred” time; and

6.      Hold your hugs for at least 20 seconds ("that’s how long it takes for your oxytocin – the ‘cuddle hormone’ – to kick in," explains Dr. Jim Walkup).

We all know the basics: patience, kindness, support, respect and trust. But we are human, so every now and then it’s good to pause, collect ourselves, and re-focus on what makes a relationship tick, and keep on ticking. Here then are a few tips, culled from hundreds we’ve come across. Hopefully you’ll find a few that will make your relationship thrive.

Don’t try to change your partner. Says Dr. Rick Kirschner, Relationship Coach: "The biggest waste of effort in a marriage is trying to change your spouse, since the problems you have with your spouse are generally problems you have in yourself. When you try to change your spouse you come across as a nag and wind up sending the message that 'who you are is not enough.' Nobody likes getting that message, and it leads to distance and polarization. Let your spouse be who he or she is and focus on changing yourself."

Spend time together. But make it “sacred” time. Marni Battista, CPC, founder of Dating with Dignity, says that to keep the spark alive and avoid ‘roommate syndrome’, "couples have to understand the notion of spending ‘time’ together versus creating ‘sacred’ time together. Spending time at social events, time with family and doing ‘chores’ together does not count as sacred time. Instead, carve out special time to not only be intimate, but also ensure that you continue to share new experiences together such as hiking, exploring someplace new, or arranging a stay-cation in your own city."

Control or connection? Psychologist and marriage counselor Lee Horton points out: "You can have control or you can have connection with your partner, but you can't have both. Pursue connection!"

Know your partner’s love language. In his Huffington Post article, Walkup explains: "This one is so important. Just because your mom sang your praises for cleaning up your room doesn’t mean your partner is as impressed by the act. We each value different loving behaviors and gestures in our relationship. Often couples have completely different love languages."  Walkup encourages us to periodically ask: “What things have I done that make you feel the most loved?” Walkup also recommends grabbing a copy of Gary Chapman’s "The Five Languages of Love."

Touch every chance you get. "This isn’t just about sex," according to a piece at sixseeds.patheos.com, “although sex is another consistent habit of happy couples. Physical touch includes cuddling, kissing, hugging, foot rubs, shoulder rubs, holding hands and putting your arm around each other. The simple act of touch binds a [couple’s] hearts together like nothing else. If you are one of the many in a 'touch-starved' [relationship], make it a priority to bring more affection and physical touch" to the relationship.

Watch those words! Marcia Sirota, a psychiatrist and the author of "Women Decoded: The Secret Strategy for Relationship Success," shares 10 phrases to avoid. Here are three:

"You’re being just like your father/mother." Says psychologist Megan Fleming, as quoted in Brittany Wong’s Huffington Post piece: “It doesn’t matter how healthy a relationship your partner has with his or her parents: comparing them to dear old dad or mom mid-argument is a particularly low blow, even if the comparison is true.”

"Will you please just relax." Says Sirota, as quoted by Wong: "Unless your goal is to prolong your partner’s anger during an argument, don’t tell them to ‘calm down’ or ‘relax’."

"We need to talk, but now is not a good time." Psychologist Susan Krauss, as quoted by Wong, explains that phrases such as these create "anxiety without providing an avenue for alleviating that anxiety. . . . It’s also a controlling statement. If you feel the need to talk, then wait until you have the time and ask if your partner has whatever length of time you need."  

Author’s note: quotes from Kirschner, Battista, Horton, Monet and Marshall are drawn from an article at www.yourtango.com.

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