Today I transferred the ownership for a motor scooter that I purchased the day before yesterday and went for a ride–the first on my scooter. I bought the scooter for a number of reasons. I plan on saving a lot of money on gas. I hope to save money on parking. Scooter and motor scooters park free in Toronto. But mostly I just like the idea of travelling slower, being aware of the passing scenery in a new way, the wind in my face… I had originally thought I would buy a motor cycle but then last summer, everyone I knew that owned one crashed and all of them were injured–one quite seriously. Scooters go slower. Certainly mine does. It’s only 5o cc with a top speed of about 35 mph. Having ADHD I’m easily distracted and driving a car I miss a lot of stuff. Don’t get me wrong. I’m a good driver but I miss things I would rather enjoy. I feel when I’m on the scooter a bit like the feeling I described while Nordic walking a kind of zone thing and I guess that would be reason enough for getting it. Those moments certainly help to ease the tension of coping with the distractions and tensions that go with having ADHD.
Today I went to buy a lock that immobilizes the scooter when it is parked. The sales guy said to me, “Don’t lose the key. We’ll have to take a cutting torch to it to get it off.”
I replied, “I’m going to lose the key I have ADHD.”
He said, without a pause, “That’s why some people buy a third key.”
Most of the time I think I’m the only one (plus a few of my friends) who loses things like keys and directions and receipts. Hell I even lost the ownership certificate on the way back from registering the scooter this morning. The truth is I lose a lot of things but wallets and keys I don’t (touch wood). I use a trick I learned many years ago to always leave them in the same place. My wallet is only ever in two places. One is in my pocket and the other is on my bedroom dresser top. Same with the keys. Oh I have occasionally left my wallet on a counter top while paying for somethings but I’ve been lucky. Either the clerk found it and hurried after me or I’ve noticed before I got to far away. Once or twice I’ve left my keys in the lock in the door after opening it and noticed they weren’t in my pocket (or on my dresser ) and gone to look at the door.
My worry now is that I have put the scooter key and the lock key on one ring that is different from the one I use for all the rest of the keys. The reason is that I don’t want the whole bunch of them dangling together hanging from the scooter ignition. I am worried but I plan to follow the same rules although it will mean having two sets of keys in my pocket or on the top of my dresser. I do know that I won’t have to worry about leaving them in the door.
In the last post, I promised to write more about a recent study on mindfulness and its effect on mind fitness. They study was conducted by Amishi Jha of the Department of Psychoogy and Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania and Elizabeth Stanley of Georgetown University. Their conclusion was that mindfulness training made a measurable improvement on mood and working memory in a Marines training for deployment in Iraq. The program called Mindfulness-based Mind Fitness Training (MMFT) was designed to produce protective results on the psychological health in individuals who were enter into situations that would produce extreme stress (read combat) and was incorporated into pre-deployment training. Study participants included 48 males with an average age of 25 from a detachment of Marine reservists. The experimental group comprised 31 Marines with 17 in the control group. The MMFT group attended an eight week course. The effect of the training on mood was measured by the Positive and Negative Schedule (PANAS) while working memory improvement was measured using the Operation Span Task. Working memory capacity degraded and negative mod increased over time in the control group during training. The MMFT group, on the other hand, experienced improved working memory capacity and a decrease in negative mood. You can read more about the study in the journal, Emotion as well as the latest edition of Joint Force Quarterly, the advisory journal of the Join Chiefs of Staff.
I have been fascinated by the idea of mindfulness ever since I first heard it described in a bar by a tennis pro who was trying to seduce my tennis partner…the most unlikely circumstances indeed. I have headed down a lot of blind allies since then including attending a class on mindfulness meditation by some well-meaning practitioners of Tibetan Buddhism. For awhile I thought that I was confused about the idea of separating mindfulness from meditation or was it the idea that I could be meditating and doing something else such going for a walk or eating a meal? Recently, in bookstore specializing in psychology and spirituality I came across a most-unlikely guide–The Idiot’s Guide To Mindfulness. In this book was all that I had been searching for–instructions on how to practice mindfulness in any activity and completely removing it from its Tibetan Buddhist roots (not that I have anything against Tibetan Buddhism). Now it is quite possible that it is entirely coincidental but since I began reading the book and trying to be completely in the moment I have felt better, happier. In addition, a few weeks ago, I started Nordic walking in the cemetery right across the street from where I live. Nordic walking is an exercise that seems to lend itself to mindfulness practice.
While doing it, you are traveling much slower than you would if you were running. The rhythmic nature of using the poles and swinging your arms is quite natural and requires little attention from the conscious mind so you are more aware of your surroundings and you walk more upright than you would if you were…well just going for a walk. All of this adds up to the perfect setting for the practice of mindfulness. I have been seeing the cemetery in whole new ways and I have lived beside it, or near it, almost all of my life.
Now I have come across a study that concludes that mindfulness, which the study defines as the ability to be aware and attentive of the present moment without emotional reactivity or volatility, improves working memory as well as mood.
In the next post I will talk more about this study.
Today I came across a website called Ethiopian Review which presented a number of interesting, if counter-intuitive, health tips. I have nothing against Ethiopians but it is not the first place that would come to mind to search for this kind of information. However, like this site, much of the research there is sourced from authoritative sources with commentary by the authors.
Swearing Eases Pain
Researchers at Keele University discovered that subjects who swore could withstand pain better than than those who used less offensive words.
Getting Angry Is Good For Blood Pressure
Generally accepted wisdom is that getting angry raises your blood pressure and therefore is ill-advised. At Carnegie Mellon University, scientists found that people who were irritated in high-stress situations and responded by getting angry, produced a stress hormone called cortisol which acts to lower blood pressure. The worst way to respond to a high stress situation, according to findings of the study, would appear to be fear which resulted in higher blood pressure.
Stress boosts Memory
This is the item most appropriate to this blog and the information comes from a study conducted at the University of Buffalo where researchers found that a brief period of stress can boost memory and learning capabilities. Professor of Physiology and Biophysics, Zhen Yan trained lab rats to complete a maze and then one half of the group were put through a stressful, 20-minute swim. The wet rats made fewer mistakes when re-running the maze than the ones who did get the stressful swim.
Coca Cola (R) Works To Prevent Cognitive Decline
Soda pop has a bad name in most circles but neuroscientists at Glasgow Caledonia University found that fizzy drinks with 25 grams of sugar (the same as a can of Coke(R)) helped subjects with memory. In fact those subjects who had the drink were able to recall about 17% more information than the control group. This is a bit of a no-brainer since the brain uses glucose as fuel. It is what the body does naturally in stressful situations where good recall might be a beneficial in surviving but the mechanism tends to decline with age and therefore, what the older you get the more you should drink.
By now, two weeks into the new year, some of you may already have made and broken at least one New Year’s resolution. Don’t despair. If your resolution involved forming a new habit, like going to the gym at least twice a week, it may take just a little longer than two weeks to become fully formed. Neuroplasticity research indicates that new habits can rake three to four weeks to become part of your daily life. I have written about the dark side of neuroplasticity in previous posts but the lessons are these for breaking old habits and forming new ones:
1. You can do it but it will take time and effort and, most importantly, planning
2. You will have to go about it very deliberately
3. You will have to persist–three or four weeks or longer
4. If you revert to an old habit, just try again…persist
For myself, I am renewing a resolution I and a friend made last year. We had done our grading for first degree black belts in karate two years previously, and were going to go for our second degree. We didn’t make it. His health had worked against him and as for me…well the teachers who were guiding us didn’t think I was ready. So this New Year’s resolution is the same. Just last week I ran into another black belt that went for the grading as my friend and I and he told me he did the second degree grading last June. I was dismayed and amongst the many thoughts that ran through my head was one about dropping out of karate altogether. That one saddens me since I took up the martial art in the first place to improve my cognitive functioning. I didn’t entertain that thought for long and have now recommitted.
More on this at a subsequent date…