Category Archives: mind

READING REPORT: February 20, 2015

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This week’s Reading Report will be short. I didn’t complete any books this week.

 

Most of my reading was divided between two books that I’ve mentioned in earlier reports. The first is Zen and the Brain by James H. Austin. This is probably the most expensive book that I’ve purchased since the ridiculously overpriced textbooks of college. While I’ve been known to pan decent books for being overpriced (e.g. most recently Zen Mind, Strong Body by Al Kavadlo), I will say that I’ve found this book to be worth it. There are vast numbers of books on the fascinating findings of neuroscience research. Also, there is a vast canon on Zen, meditation, and the quieting and mastering of the mind. However, there are only a small (though growing) number of books that deal with the intersection of these two subjects, and none covers the subject in as much depth as Austin’s work–as far as I’ve seen. The chapters I’ve been reading of late deal with emotions, visceral drives, and memories–all relevant issues for one who is seeking personal development in a scientifically-minded manner. The next chapter will deal with GABA. I’m looking forward to this because I know there is scientific evidence that yoga can reduce depression through its effect on GABA levels, and I look forward to having a better understanding of how this works.

Zen&Brain

 

The second book that’s consumed a lot of my time over the past week is The Pyjama Game. I’m about 2/3rd of the way through this book and will finish it in the upcoming week. It is in part a micro-history of judō and in part an account of what it’s like to be a practitioner of the martial art of judō. While the micro-history chapters are chronological, they’re interspersed with chapters that are more of a personal accounting of the author’s experience (and the experience of individuals with which he interacted with first-hand–i.e. other amateurs.)  The era that was covered in my reading of the past week was an interesting one. It chronicled judō’s shift from a time in which Japan completely dominated the sport to one in which Russians, Europeans, and Americans started to make headway and—in some ways–unique contributions to the art. This includes judō‘s rise to Olympic status, and how the sport has progressed since that time.

pyjamagame

 

There were another couple of books that I read substantial parts of as research for the novel I’m writing. The first of these is The Taiheiki, which is–as was the style in medieval Japan–a mix of part history and part literature. It tells the story of Emperor Go-Daigo’s retention of power, largely through the efforts of valiant loyalist warriors–most notably the famous Kusunoki Masashige.

Taiheiki

 

The second research work is entitled Fighting Techniques of the Oriental World: AD 1200 – 1860. As my novel takes place partly in 14th century Japan, China, and Southeast Asia, this reference comes in handy for learning about the activities of warriors across several nations.

FightingTechniquesOrientalWorld

 

I purchased three books this week. In a way, I was successfully (and happily) suckered. For those who haven’t realized, Amazon is very clever. If you look at a book once or twice, the price will often rise a little when you go back. This drives a few suckers to buy it at a higher price before it rises to some imagined peak price. I’ve noticed this on enough occasions to believe that it’s not just coincidence. Furthermore, as one trained as an economist, I know this is a sound pricing strategy. What I’d not yet experienced is that if one keeps periodically checking on the books–but not buying–the prices will creep back down to a new low, probably only a tiny bit under the first price you saw. I bought three books that I’ve been looking for both on Kindle and at my local bookstore, but which have stayed above my reservation price.

 

The first, and most expensive, was Buddha’s Brain, which is along similar lines to the aforementioned Zen and the Brain. The book is by a neuroscientist who specializes in neuroplasticity, and who examines how one can go about “rewiring” one’s brain to be happier and more well-adjusted.

BuddhaBrain

 

The second book is called The Relaxation Response. It was the cheapest book of the three and is much older than the book Buddha’s Brain. In it Dr. Benson (Harvard MD) describes the relaxation response as the body’s counterpoint to “fight or flight” mode. In this state of relaxation, the body–among other things–goes to work on repairing what ails it. There’s a lot of evidence that a human body can repair most of what can ail it if it gets enough rest–i.e. sufficient break from stress.

Relaxation Response

 

My final purchase was A Confederacy of Dunces. This book is considered to be one of the best comedic novels in American literature. It’s also a book that all depressed writers (which is to say all writers struggling to get things published) should read for the cautionary tale of the novel’s tragic back story. The author, John Kennedy Toole, committed suicide (at least in part) because he couldn’t get it published. His mother then took up the torch, shopping it around. It took her seven years, but she finally got it published after convincing the novelist Walker Percy to look at it, and having achieved his recommendation. In 1981 it won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

confederacy of dunces

BOOK REVIEW: Zen in Motion by Neil Claremon

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Zen in Motion: Lessons from a Master Archer on Breath, Posture, and the Path of IntuitionZen in Motion: Lessons from a Master Archer on Breath, Posture, and the Path of Intuition by Neil Claremon

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Amazon page

When one thinks of Zen, one thinks of stillness. Sensory and motor deprivation is what scientists call it. But stillness is a favored term among Zen Buddhists. Being someone who is fascinated by movement and activities at the body-mind intersect, this title immediately snagged my attention despite the narrow print on this thin book’s spine. The value of a Zen state of mind in the practice of movement arts is clear and well-established. Zen in Motion recounts the lessons of the author as a student of the Japanese style of mounted archery (kyūdō.) Claremon studied with a Japanese Kyūdō master residing in New Mexico.

It will be clear to many why mounted archers might take allegiance in Zen. Charging down a trail on a horse towards a small, round target, there’s no time for conscious thought in calculating pull and release. Furthermore, there’s stillness in motion (sounds like a koan) that must be maximized because the slightest imperfection in movement can send an arrow astray.

It should be noted that this is neither the first nor the only book written on the nexus of Zen and Kyūdō. (Though it’s the first one I’ve read in full.) Probably the most famous book on the subject is Eugen Herrigel’s Zen in the Art of Archery, but there’s also a more recent book by John Stevens, entitled Zen Bow, Zen Arrow that tells the story of Awa Kenzō (who was Herrigel’s teacher.) The logical question is what is the value-added of Claredon’s book. If we have two books by more famous authors on seemingly the same subject, why should one read this one? I believe Claremon carved out a good niche with this book that makes it sufficiently different from the books of those other authors.

What is Claremon’s niche? The body portion of the mind-body equation is at the forefront in this book. Claremon directs most of his energies to topics such as breathing, posture, grounding, walking, and balance. While I haven’t read Herrigel’s book completely, I did skim through it. Zen in the Art of Archery seems to focus more heavily on the mind portion of the equation—i.e. the philosophy / psychology of Zen, if you will. This may make it sound like Claremon’s book isn’t much about Zen, which is widely considered a mental pursuit. However, one must remember that postural alignment and breath are crucial in zazen, and that Kinhin, walking meditation, is a well-established practice in Zen Buddhism. Furthermore, I don’t want to imply that Claremon leaves out the mental piece altogether, just that the balance of the discussion is toward the physical. (Whereas, it seems like the balance of Herrigel’s discussion is in the realm of the mental—but Herrigel gets into physical topics as well.) Having said all that, an argument could be made that a more appropriate title might be “Ki (Chi) in Motion” as the author devotes a great deal of space to discussing life energy (Ki in Japanese or Chi in Chinese.)

Another valuable piece of Claremon’s work is that there is plenty of value to individuals who don’t practice archery, but who are interested in discovering how these lessons might apply to other movement arts. For example, I found the topic of the 10-point “Diamond Being” that is a central concept in the book to be quite thought-provoking. The 10 points that are roughly arranged in a diamond shape (vertical alignment of 3 nodes down the left side of body, 4 nodes down the body’s centerline, and 3 nodes on the right side, and all these nodes connected by edges (line segments)) and map to the human body. While much of what Claremon said about this construct was esoteric and not of much use to the scientific-minded reader (i.e. sending ki between the various nodes), the construct had value in thinking about postural alignment, for example. There is an entire chapter devoted to healing that, of course, has a value to non-archers as well as archers.

Some of the concepts that are mentioned can be thought of in terms of the modern-day construct of “Flow,” which is related to Zen states of mind and which has gained a following among modern practitioners of high-speed / high-risk sports.) For example, the idea of perceiving time at a slower rate, which is an established part of Flow states valued by skiers and skydivers, would be a valuable state of mind for shooting an arrow from a moving horse toward a small target. Another example is discussed on the chapter of the fear of falling. Whatever one calls the mental state, avoiding an adrenaline dump and the fear associated with it is critical.

The only graphics are drawings, but they seem adequate to the task.

I enjoyed this book. For me the book’s greatest weakness was a tendency to be ethereal and esoteric. While the author denied believing in magic, there was a fair amount of explanation that no scientifically-minded person could hang his hat on. To be fair, this may in part be because the science of some of these experience isn’t yet well-established. (I recently watched a clip from a Discovery Channel program called “Human Weapon” in which there were some Chi related activities that the technicians and experts said they couldn’t explain for all of their state-of-the-art equipment.) However, it could also be that false experiences were arrived at by the leading statements of a trusted teacher.

I’d recommend the book particularly for those who have interests in activities at the intersection of body and mind.

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BOOK REVIEW: Sleep: A Very Short Introduction by Lockley & Forester

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Sleep: A Very Short IntroductionSleep: A Very Short Introduction by Steven W. Lockley

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Amazon page

This is one book in a large series of books put out by the Oxford University Press. All of these “Very Short Introduction” books are brief summaries of the state of research on a given topic in the arts, sciences, or humanities. Based on this book, I’d say the series is geared toward a readership of educated non-specialists. I say “educated” because the book did get into some technical areas, and while it doesn’t presume any particular knowledge of the science of sleep, it does use a scientific vocabulary with occasional academic sentences (i.e. packed with precise detail and lacking concern about readability.) That said, I’d say the readability is higher than the journal articles from which the information for the book was drawn. I suspect I’ll read more from this series. They are cheap on Kindle, provide a concise injection of the basics for a wide range of topics, and are pleasantly readable if you’re used to reading academic literature.

This particular book is about sleep. While, on average, sleep takes up one-third of a person’s life, it’s a subject that is often taken for granted. Like water, one doesn’t really think about it until one isn’t getting enough. However, as the book discusses in detail, all sorts of problems are associated with sleep deprivation, insomnia, and parasomnias (i.e. sleep events like sleepwalking, night terrors, nightmares, bedwetting, sleep-eating, and groaning.)

The book is written in nine chapters covering: the history of sleep, sleep generation and regulation, a brain on sleep, reasons we sleep, variation in sleep throughout one’s life-cycle, the nature of poor sleep, the connection between sleep and health, and the effect of our shift to a round-the-clock society.

There are a number of fascinating questions addressed by this book including:
1.)What does sleep do for us?
2.)Have people always tended to sleep eight hours per night?
3.)Why are some people morning people and others night owls?
4.)Why does one feel drowsy after lunch, but not necessarily when it’s time to hit the sack?
5.)How long can one go without sleep?
6.)Do all animals sleep?
7.)How do sleep and hibernation differ?
8.)Why do teenagers and the elderly have such odd (but different) sleep habits?
9.)Why do people sleepwalk, sleep-eat, groan in their sleep, or have night terrors?
10.)What is the effect of long-term insomnia on health?
11.) What happens to sleep if one has no rising and setting sun cues?
12.)What is jetlag and how can one fight it?

I learned some interesting facts, such as:
1.) On average, women report more insomnia, but, paradoxically, tend to sleep better than men.
2.) Pre-industrial people slept for about 10 hours a night on average, it’s believed.
3.) Many parasomnias occur mostly during REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep.
4.)The government can deprive prisoners of sleep for 7.5 days without it being considered torture (then they have to allow a full 8 hours sleep before another 7.5 day period started.)
5.) Long-term insomnia has been linked to heart-disease.
6.)Shift workers have a 50% greater incidence of breast and prostate cancer than day-workers.
7.)Visiting teams win 46% of the time if they are in their home time zone, 44% if they are traveling ‘with their body clock,’ and only 37% if they are traveling against their body clock.

I found this book interesting and informative. However, there are many books on the subjects of sleep and dreams that are more catered to a popular audience. Such books delve into intriguing cases and don’t dig as deeply into the minutiae of the science of the subject. I’d recommend this book, but not for readers who get bogged down or bored with scientific and technical discussions. If you’re looking for a book that’s loaded with pithy facts and fascinating stories, you can find a book closer to the mark by journalists who focus on science writing and who’ve got more flare for creative writing.

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BOOK REVIEW: Warrior Pose by Brad Willis / Bhava Ram

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Warrior Pose: How Yoga (Literally) Saved My LifeWarrior Pose: How Yoga (Literally) Saved My Life by Brad Willis

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Amazon page

It may strike one as hokey that this book has one author, but two names on the byline. But, it’s apropos of an autobiography describing the fundamental transformation of a man.

Part I is the story of Brad Willis, a journalist on the rise. Willis goes from stumbling into a reporter job at one of the smallest markets in the country to being the Asia bureau foreign correspondent for NBC (National Broadcasting Corporation, one of the largest American television networks.) There’s no mention of yoga in this part of the book. It’s the story of a driven journalist covering major world events. Willis made a name for himself reporting from Soviet occupied Afghanistan in the 80’s. He tells harrowing tales of covering the drug war in Latin America, the Desert Storm Gulf War, and human trafficking in Thailand. He was also one of the few American journalists to visit North Korea. There was nowhere he wouldn’t go for the story, and he took serious risks along the way. His highly driven nature is the one point of consistency throughout the book. Willis is not a man to do anything half-assed, be it following a story or pursuing the yogic path.

Then Willis’s world was torn asunder by health problems, and this is the subject of the second part of the autobiography. First, a fall caused a hairline fracture in one his vertebrae that became crippling when Willis refused to take time off from work or to do anything for it. He couldn’t be diverted from his on-the-go foreign correspondent’s pace. Considering the dangerous places Willis traveled, it’s ironic that he initially broke his back on vacation at a Caribbean resort while closing a window during a storm. When the deterioration of his vertebrae made work untenable, he underwent a surgery that failed and left him “permanently disabled.”

Then Willis was diagnosed with a cancer in his throat that spread from his tonsils into lymph nodes. On top of the ailments themselves, Willis’s health rapidly declined because he became dependent on painkillers and other prescribed medications, and—against advisement—he began to drink alcohol in conjunction with these meds. Not only did he become hooked on the medications and alcohol, he became dependent on a back brace, a cane, and a lethargic lifestyle that kept the body from healing itself. Yoga is only briefly mentioned in passing in this part of the autobiography.

The third part is about Willis’s transformation into the yogi Bhava Ram, and his successful battle against cancer. After an intervention that resulted in drug rehab, he was referred to a pain center at Scripps that employed alternative therapies. (As an aside, the book is in part an indictment of a healthcare system in which this Pain Center both helped many people and was completely unsustainable because insurance companies could reject claims on the basis of the treatments being unconventional—but because it was staffed by medical professionals it was too expensive for most people to afford without insurance. Willis points out that there was never a rejection of any claim for any of the expensive medications or surgery that failed to helped him, but the Pain Center that put him on the road to good health went under due to failure to pay.) The Pain Center was the key to his turn around. After progressing with physical therapy, biofeedback, and—most uninsurable of all—Jin Shin Jyutsu, Willis is introduced to Yoga.

The final part charts Willis’s pursuit of yoga both through a series of teachers as well as any books that he can get his hands on. He voraciously reads up on the subject, and begins a sadhana (personal practice) that is marked by all the drive he had earlier given to his journalism career. The practice starts out rough. His muscles have atrophied, his spine curved, and he gained a tremendous amount of weight on a steak, potato, and beer diet mixed with a sedentary lifestyle. However, over the period of a couple of years, well beyond when he had been told he would be dead, he transforms his body and his mind through an intense daily practice and an adjustment of his world view.

I’d recommend this book for anyone. It will definitely be of interest to yoga practitioners—though don’t be surprised that yoga doesn’t come into play until the final quarter of the book. It could also benefit individuals with serious health problems as a way to reconsider how they approach health and treatment. Willis points out that falling into the role of victim was one of the main killers. He inherited a bad situation through an accidental fall and a case of cancer that he believed was attributable to his experience in Iraq (i.e. related to depleted uranium shells.) However, it was only when he stopped gorging on food, alcohol, and self-pity that he made a turnaround.

Even if I wasn’t interested in yoga and alternative approaches to healing, I would’ve found this to be an intensely engaging read. Willis’s journalism career gave him a unique insight into some of the major world events of the 1980s and 90’s. Willis builds lines of tension and sustains them. One wonders what will happen to his marriage to a woman who married one man (a confident and successful foreign correspondent in Hong Kong) and found herself in a marriage with another—first a lethargic addict and then a man who sunk himself hook-line-and-sinker into to the yogic lifestyle. One wonders whether his cancer remission will hold. One wonders whether he can keep clear of the pain meds and stick to the life of a yogi. I haven’t read a book that caught me this much by surprise in some time. I hadn’t heard of this book before I bought it, and didn’t have particularly high expectations (it was on sale on Kindle or I probably never would have picked it up), but I quickly became hooked.

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TODAY’S RANDOM THOUGHT: “That” Doesn’t Make You So Mad

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Source: Avengers Movie

Source: Avengers movie

“That makes me so mad!” One hears it all the time. It has to be among the most commonly uttered phrases in the realm of emotional experience. And, of course, it’s completely and utterly wrong. Your anger is a wholly contained neurochemical response. To credit something external with your anger is to grant that person or thing power over you–to enslave yourself. (Stoic philosopher, and former slave, Epictetus was known to piss off gentlemen citizens by asking them if they were “really free.”)

 

This isn’t to say there isn’t just anger.  However, think about what emotions are. Our emotions are a system evolutionarily evolved to allow us to make decisions with limited or no information. Without emotions our species, if we ever came to be, would have likely become extinct by way of “paralysis by analysis.” We know that happens to people who have neurological damage that keeps them from experiencing emotion. You might think they would become cold and rational Mr. Spocks, but the defining characteristic of such people is that they become paralyzed by indecision. It turns out that we make a lot of decisions with limited information or from an inability to determine a clear winner by way of facts and reason. Emotion plays and important role in those cases.

 

Chances are that if your immediate gut reaction to something is anger, you probably haven’t worked out a rational argument for your preference. If one has a clear line of reasoning rooted in fact, anger isn’t necessary to justify a position or decision. If your gut reaction to something is emotional, see whether you can  noodle out a rational reason before you swing into too rash an action…. unless the crosstown bus is careening at you.

 

 

 

BOOK REVIEW: Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

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Flow: The Psychology of Optimal ExperienceFlow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Amazon page

Recently, I read and reviewed Steven Kotler’s The Rise of Superman, which is about how extreme athletes use a mental state called “the flow” to pull off some miraculous feats (e.g. “hanging righteous air” to use an appropriate term of art.) That book got me intrigued about the flow, and wanting to learn more. The logical next read was the book by the man considered the godfather of flow, the man who coined the term, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Csikszentmihalyi is a Professor of Psychology at the Claremont Graduate University and formerly of the University of Chicago.

A Note on Editions: The book I read is the 2013 edition of a book that was first published in 1990. The two editions have different subtitles. The 1990 edition was entitled Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience and the 2013 edition is Flow: The Psychology of Happiness. It’s not hard to imagine what happened. The 1990 version was titled to appeal to scholars, and the former title both has more syllables and suggests that one might be able to use LaGrangian Methods (the calculus of constrained optimization) to maximize bliss—which would be double bliss for an academic. As Csikszentmihalyi’s work attracted widespread attention, there was a need for a title that didn’t sound painfully dull. To be fair, the word “happiness” has gained some purchase in scholarly literature in recent years, but in 1990 saying one was studying “happiness” would be akin to saying one would study the “cuddliness quotient” of kittens (actually the latter, having the word “quotient” in it, would test better with department chairs and funders.)

Flow is a state in which one’s entire mind and body is devoted to overcoming a challenge that is intrinsically rewarding. There’s a lot packed into that definition. First, the task must be difficult but within the skill-level of the individual. If it’s too easy, it’s too boring for flow. If it’s far too challenging relative to one’s skill, it may become frustrating before one can build enough skill to achieve it. Flow states can be achieved via many different kinds of tasks, and the middle chapters of the book are devoted to different types of flow-inducing events. Chapters 5 through 8 address, respectively: physical activities like yoga and the martial arts, mental activities like poetry, word play, and chess, work activities, and solitude and social activities.

Second, tasks must usually be autotelic, or intrinsically rewarding. If the only reason that one is doing an activity is for a paycheck, to stave off nagging, or to attract attention, one will be unlikely to find the flow. That doesn’t mean that one can’t receive external rewards, but the activity has to have something intrinsic that keeps one at it. Csikszentmihalyi’s approach was to interview people to access how happy they were, and what activities allowed them to achieve said happiness. He shares many anecdotes about individuals who were blissful, including people who derived happiness from work activities such as factory work, work that most people would find unpleasant and only tolerable to earn a living. Of course, these happy individuals didn’t just do the job in the manner of the poor schlubs who hated their work-life. Instead, they found ways to make the work challenging and, in doing so, they often made themselves indispensable and gained not only job security but also the respect and admiration of others. What is key is that one’s mindset determines all of this, and the book focuses on the notion of controlling one’s inner life to achieve happiness via the flow.

Third, flow is not achieved in a distracted state; all of one’s being has to be surrendered to the act at hand. Multi-tasking is not conducive to the flow.

The ability to override one’s evolutionarily-programmed instincts is key to being able to obtain a flow state. One must be able to stay on task and devote one’s consciousness to the action at hand. This is the central theme in chapter 2, entitled “The Anatomy of Consciousness.” The book also speaks to a subject that I’m currently interested in, which is how states of mind and body that have been known since ancient times, but whose mechanism of action weren’t well-understood, are explained in the world of modern science. Csikszentmihalyi refers to yogis and Taoist masters as he describes the flow. Flow state isn’t new; it’s just newly put in the context of science, rather than mythology.

I enjoyed this book and found the chapter on the flow in movement and bodily activities particularly educational. Csikszentmihalyi has written a few related books on creativity and the flow applied specifically to sport. I would like to learn more about the neuro-anatomy and neurochemistry of the flow, as this book doesn’t delve into the hard science of the flow, and much of this science has occurred since the time this book was first published anyway.

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BOOK REVIEW: The Future of the Mind by Michio Kaku

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The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the MindThe Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind

by Michio Kaku

My rating: 4 of 5 stars Amazon page

The Future of the Mind continues a line of inquiry that Michio Kaku has been following with his earlier books Physics of the Impossible and Physics of the Future. The central question remains: what sci-fi imaginings might come to fruition, which of them are impossible given the laws of physics in the known universe, and what breakthroughs or discoveries would be necessary to achieve the achievable. Technology is the inevitable gateway to these advanced breakthroughs. Humanity has eliminated gross evolutionary pressures through technology—this might not remain true, but we can certainly not expect X-men style mutations as a result of the foreseeable progression of humanity (which is more likely to be described by the horrible—though probably presagious 2006 movie Idiocracy than it is by the X-men movies.)

The theme of the book, as the title suggests, is the mind. As the most complex system that we know of, the human nervous system offers fertile ground for investigation. Among the sci-fi mainstays considered by Dr. Kaku are telepathy, telekinesis, false memories (think Total Recall), intelligence enhancement, mind control, artificial intelligence, and the nature of alien minds. Along the way he considers the challenges of reverse engineering the brain and whether consciousness could take a non-material form (e.g. embedded in a beam of light.)

As always, Kaku’s book is easy to follow, even for the scientific neophyte. Few others write on the topic with such clarity. While part of Kaku’s book deals with the same concepts covered by Roger Penrose in his book Shadows of the Mind, the Kaku book scores much higher in readability. Of course, the flipside is that Kaku’s book offers less explanatory power. So if one isn’t looking for pop science simplification, The Future of the Mind is probably not for you. However, if you want the jist of the science and have neither the background nor the energy to digest the mathematical and biological nuance, you’ll find this book readable.

Incidentally, Kaku is more optimistic about the ability to computationally replicate consciousness than Penrose, which the latter argues is impossible. Professor Kaku’s optimism runs through all of his books. He takes the stance that if one can imagine it–and figure out a technological or theoretical loophole around the known barriers –one can achieve it. Therefore, some of his discussion of what could come to pass depends upon theories about, for example, black-holes being true. It should be noted that Kaku is quite clear about the differences of opinion that exist about these theories and the role that differences between theory and reality could play in making science fiction into scientific reality.

I enjoyed this book. I’ve been reading a lot about neuroscience lately—entirely on the pop science level- and found this book to be beneficial to my understanding of the subject. It begins by discussing what is known about the brain and consciousness—it turns out that a lot remains unknown, but the technology of recent years has vastly improved our understanding of the brain, and it continues to do so by the day. The book also delves into the depths of what could come to be. There is definitely pragmatic understanding to be gained as well as outlandish, but fun, science fiction ruminations.

For sci-fi fans and writers, it’s definitely worth reading. I had many new conceptions of the future as I read the book. (I might suggest reading Physics of the Impossible first, which gives an overview many “impossible” technologies and explains how few are just flat impossible regardless of technological development and scientific discovery. My review of that book is here.) Many of the ideas covered may seem a bit eccentric, such as what first contact with an alien race would look like. (Kaku is of the notion that the transmission of an immaterial consciousness(es), possibly in conjunction with self-replicating machines would be the likely shape of such an alien presence.)

I recommend this book for almost anyone. We are really only beginning to venture out of the dark ages understanding the mind, and this book provides an interesting map what might be possible.

As I mentioned it, sadly, this may be the more likely future of the human mind:

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BOOK REVIEW: The Rise of Superman by Steven Kotler

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The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human PerformanceThe Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance by Steven Kotler

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Amazon page

This is NOT a book about the comic book hero. It’s a book about a mental state called “the flow” and how adventure and extreme athletes have used it to make tremendous strides in their sports. The characteristics of the flow include extreme focus, time dilation / time distortion, a vanishing sense of self, extremely high performance, fearlessness, and a falling away of everything non-essential to the task at hand.

Kotler is by no means the first author to write about the flow. The term was inaugurated by a book entitled Flow first published in 1990 by a University of Chicago Psychology professor named Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Csikszentmihalyi coined the term in the process of conducting a study on happiness. He found that happy people tended to engage in activities in which they could immerse themselves and find the zone. Contrary to the early part of Kotler’s book–in which it sounds like adventure athletes cornered the market on flow–Csikszentmihalyi says that said activity could be work or hobby and that the flow is to be found in poetry writing, yoga, martial arts, copy writing, or potentially any activity in which the skill level and challenge are both high.

(To be fair, Kotler does get around to recognizing that extreme athletes neither invented nor exclusively exploit the flow. However, his—well-taken—point is that such athletes are unusually good at finding, and dropping deep into, the flow in part because risk-taking behavior is an important trigger. And for free climbers [rock climbers without ropes], mega-ramp skateboarders, and bodysuit skydivers sometimes there are only two possible states of existence—the flow and being scraped off a rock.) It should be noted that some of the elements of flow sound a lot like the states that have been described by various mystical religious traditions for centuries, e.g. the dissolution of a feeling of separation between self and the rest of the universe. Warning: religious readers may find it disconcerting to read that there are scientific explanations for states that were once attributed to communion with god or the like.

While I’ve given Kotler’s book high rating, I haven’t yet given one reason to read it—and I do recommend people read it. First, while Csikszentmihalyi is the “father” of flow research, his methods were decidedly low tech–i.e. surveys and interviews—but Kotler reports on more recent studies involving neuroanatomy, neuroelectricity, and neurochemistry. Second, while Kotler delves into the science of the flow, he does so in a manner that is approachable to non-scientists. Finally, all of the narrative accounts of extreme athletes interspersed with the more technical commentary make for a very readable book, even if one is not particularly knowledgeable of—or interested in—such sports. I gave this book a high rating both for its food-for-thought value, and because of its high readability.

I will admit that I was not so enamored of the book when I first began it, and other readers may find the same irritation. For one thing, Kotler’s adoration of extreme athletes comes off sounding like diminishment of mainstream athletes and others involved in “flowy” activities. A prime example of this is seen in Chapter 1. Kotler gives us an endearing description of how gymnast Kerri Strug won the gold in the 1996 Olympics by sticking a landing on a shattered ankle. However, he then comes off a bit douchey when he suggests that Strug’s achievement pales in comparison to Danny Way’s skateboard jumps at the Great Wall of China.

For another thing, in his zealousness to prove that extreme sports practitioners are full-awesome while mainstream athletes are “meh,” Kotler makes some comparisons that seem apples and oranges to a neophyte such as me. If they are fair comparisons, he certainly doesn’t explain why they should be considered so. The best example of this is when he states that Olympic divers took decades to achieve increases in rotation that extreme skiers and skateboarders surpassed in much less time. This seems unreasonable for two reasons. First, divers have a very standard distance in which to achieve their acrobatics. In other words, they don’t get to build a “mega-platform” that’s 50% taller like Danny Way creates “mega-ramps” that were bigger than ever before. Of course, if you can increase the distance between yourself and the ground you can increase your spins, rotations, or whatever much more quickly (yes, your danger goes up vastly, I’m not diminishing that.) Second, the divers gained zero advantage from technological improvements, but the same cannot be said for skiers and skateboarders. In other words, if you go from skis made of oak to ones made of carbon nanotubes (that are 50 times stronger and 1/100th of the weight) of course you’re going to make gains faster.

Perhaps, I’m overstating Kotler’s disdain for mainstream athletics, but that’s what happens when one uses a national hero as a set up to show how much more awesome a relatively unknown skateboarder is (among skateboarders Way is extremely well-known but he’s not a household name as the Olympian was–at least for a short time in the late 90’s.) I suspect that Kotler was just trying to convince a general audience that the athletes he’s speaking about aren’t pot-smoking knuckleheads who are as likely to be seen on America’s Funniest Home Videos crushing their nads on a handrail as setting a new world record. These men and women are serious people engaged in serious activities, and they give it their all. They do deserve more respect for that than they are probably given by broad sectors of the populace. Perhaps, the importance of what these folks are achieving does need to be conveyed because the demographic that reads books and the one that follows extreme sports probably has wide wings of non-overlapping area. (I’m not saying skateboarders are illiterate or bookworms don’t skate–just that the Venn diagram has substantial areas of mutual exclusivity.)

As I indicated above, in each chapter we get both some insight into the nature of the flow and its triggers and stories of adventure / extreme athletes that serve as examples of what’s being discussed. In chapter 2 we learn what the flow looks like in terms of brain waves (i.e. high theta/low alpha, or between meditation and a relaxed / resting state of wakefulness.) In chapter 3, we learn about the neuroanatomy of the flow in terms of what areas of the brain it lights up, and what areas shut down–which is more important to flow states. In chapter 4, we learn about the neurochemistry of the flow and that a cocktail of dopamine, norepinephrine, endorphins, anandamide, and serotonin makes up the chemistry of flow, but, critically, not so much with the adrenaline. The subsequent chapters deal with triggers of the flow, and what conditions best set up achievement of this state of mind.

Chapter 9 stands out as an important, but quite different, portion of the book. It deals with the downside (or dark side) of the flow. This has a lot to do with the fact that the aforementioned internal substances (and the flow state in general) are quite addictive. While it’s unfair to say, and unlikely, that the extreme athletes Kotler writes about (i.e. the ones at the top of their games) are drug addicts as some might assume of skate boarders, snow boarders, and the like, it may not be unreasonable to say that they have a kind of monkey on their backs—albeit a perfectly legal one rooted in their own neurochemistry.

As I’ve said, I recommend this book for anyone who is interested in this state of mind. One needn’t be interested in extreme sports to get a lot out of the book.

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Paleo-Stressing: Acute v. Chronic Stress

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"What happened to the good ole days when I ate you people--not lived in your cages?"

“What happened to the good ole days when I ate you people–not lived in your cages?”

Paleolithic dieting is all the rage these days. I’m no expert on the paleo-diet, but–as I understand it–this refers to the practice of eating the foods consumed by our pre-agrarian ancestors. The idea is that if one consumes the foods that our species is evolutionarily-optimized to eating, one will be healthier.  Whether one believes in the merits of the paleo-diet or not on the whole, it’s hard to argue that one wouldn’t be better off eating less highly-processed and highly-refined foods and more things that look like food at a glance.

 

Our diet isn’t all that has changed since the days of our pre-agrarian ancestors. Modernity has brought with it an entirely new way of experiencing stress. Eliminating or reducing stress is a common topic of discussion, but not all stress is created equal. There’s a necessary form of stress, a stress that makes one better, stronger, faster, and smarter. We don’t want to willy-nilly eliminate stress; we want to reduce the wrong type of stress.

 

Our ancestors—like animals–experienced brief periods of intense stress (e.g. saber-tooth tiger attacks), followed by longer periods in which they were free of deadlines, carpools, and after-school activities. Now, no one likes to have a saber-tooth tiger stalking them. It’s unpleasant. Modern humanity has gone to great lengths to eliminate those short bursts of terror, but not without cost. (If you don’t believe me read Robert Sapolsky’s Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers.)

 

Whether or not you believe that eliminating acute instances of terrifying stress is bad for mankind, it’s hard to argue that modernity’s leveling process didn’t eliminate stress, but instead resulted in a chronic stress on a smaller scale. People today have impossibly long daily to-do lists, and they have to accept trade-offs between work, family, and personal development.

 

It’s true that you don’t get eaten by a giant cat when you drop the ball, but life is so packed diverse events that one may feel like one is dropping some ball constantly. If your boss thinks you’re a model employee, then your kids are probably going to need therapy. If you have a contented home life, your boss may have his or her eyes open for someone who can give the firm consistently 70+ hour work weeks. If you feel you’re doing alright on both the work and family front, your body and / or mind is probably a train wreck.

 

Chronic [mini] stress may feel better than acute [catastrophic] stress, but it takes its tolls in various ways. First, with our sympathetic nervous system (fight-or-flight reaction) constantly engaged our body’s power to heal itself is reduced. When the parasympathetic nervous system is engaged, the body devotes resources to long-term goals like getting healthier, but in stress mode activities not relevant to immediate survival shut down. This is a great system if you have periodic life and death stress, but is not so good if you’re under constant stress.

 

Second, chronic stress reduces sleep, and sleep is essential to one’s mental and physical well-being. There are a wide variety of symptoms associated with sleep deprivation such as forgetfulness, decreased concentration, decreased alertness, reduced reasoning ability, diminished problem-solving capacity, and depression—all of which can diminish our physical health through accidents, ailments, suicide attempts, and lack of energy for exercise.

 

Third, chronic stress can make one fat, with all the health issues that result. Some people use food as a coping mechanism. Other people eat too fast or choose their food poorly because of time constraints or because they are not mindful of eating as their monkey minds churn at a mile a minute. Then there is the more convoluted and complex issue of cortisol–a hormone released under stress that is linked to weight gain in at least some cases. Even if you don’t have a problem on the calorie intake side, the stressed individual may not do so well on the calorie burning side—either because of a lack of time to exercise or a lack of energy.

 

Modern humans are uniquely suited to chronic stress because we are the only species that achieves the same physiological stress response by remembering and obsessing about a stressful event as experiencing it. Abandoning the modern approach to living isn’t an option most are willing to entertain; but there are ways to combat chronic stress.

 

Move – Meditate – Mindfully Breath: The bad news is you’ve got to shoehorn these activities into your schedule daily (or at least several times a week.) The good news is that they don’t need to take up a lot of your day. There are a number of systems that address all three components in one handy package such as Qi Gong, Yoga, and some martial arts. I don’t think it matters so much which one chooses as how one goes about one’s practice.

 

Movement strengthens and strategically stresses the body, but it also increases one’s bodily awareness so that one becomes aware of how stress is manifesting itself in one’s body. Meditation teaches one how to live in the present moment, and it trains one to recognize the seeds of negative thought and emotion earlier so that one can counter-act them. Obviously, breathing is essential to life, but learning to be aware of one’s breathing patterns and to “manually override” the breath patterns associated with harmful emotional states is a beneficial skill.

 

Massage / Bodywork: Whether self-administered or other-administered (the latter allowing greater distressing–particularly if the masseuse is skilled) massage is an activity, like movement, that can help one become aware of where one is physically holding one’s stress. These physical manifestations of stress can exacerbate the whole experience of stress. One should take time periodically to have bodywork done. A day rarely goes by in which I don’t work on my own neck, shoulders, head, or face, and I occasionally get professional Thai Yoga Bodywork done.

 

The Places that Scare You: Force yourself to go someplace (not necessarily literally a “place”) that scares you once in a while. This needn’t be skydiving or hand-gliding—but it could be. It may be a martial arts class in which one has to put on the gloves occasionally and go at it. It may be joining Tostmasters and having to give a speech in front of a crowd. It may be traveling to some backwater where you don’t know the language, but you want to learn. This is a very personal issue. (i.e. A Type-A personality he-man may not find that skydiving is outside his comfort zone. If so, sorry, skydiving doesn’t count, he may need to learn ballroom dancing, or something else that truly takes him outside being comfortable.) KEY POINT: The problem with hiding from all stressors is that it doesn’t result in a stress-free life, what happens is that smaller and smaller stressors loom bigger and bigger in one’s mind. Which brings us to…

 

Perspective:  One must put life’s challenges in perspective. Each person’s problems are important to them, and I don’t want to diminish anyone’s problems, but—come on—you’re not going to be eaten by a freaking saber-tooth tiger.

BOOK REVIEW: The Science of Yoga by William Broad

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The Science of Yoga: The Risks and the RewardsThe Science of Yoga: The Risks and the Rewards by William J. Broad

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I brought a great deal of interest and enthusiasm towards this subject as I began reading this book. As I proceeded to read, my feelings about The Science of Yoga became much more mixed. At its best, the book shows the state of scientific research on yoga and crushes myths that are deeply ingrained, and it points out risks of which yogis and yoginis should take notice. At its worst, it is sensationalism run-amok–suggesting hugely expensive solutions to issues that are either relatively small problems or that the author fails to prove are really problems at all. Put more simply, at its best it’s outstanding, but at its worst it’s tripe. What I will say about this book is the same thing that its author says about yoga, which is that—on balance—it does more good than harm.

The book is arranged into seven chapters, each of which discusses the scientific research on a different dimension of controversial beliefs about yoga. These include the historic claims of supernatural yogic abilities, the issue of whether yoga increases cardiovascular health, the role of yoga in mental health and well-being, the safety of practicing yoga, the role of yoga in healing, the sexual claims of yogis, and whether yoga enhances creativity. It is written in a scholarly format, heavily end-noted and with bibliographic citations. There is front matter giving information about key people, time lines, and yoga styles in outline form.

In an afterword, Broad points out that this has been his most controversial book to date. I can see why, but, to be fair, I’m sure much of the criticism is unfairly based on a failure to read the book or a desire for the author to treat many of yoga’s mythical aspects as science (as many of its practitioners do.) The former problem was exacerbated by the fact that a single chapter excerpt was published in the New York Times as a teaser for the book. Designed to spark controversy (always good for readership), it was one of the most negative of chapters—the one dealing with yoga injuries. Some who took umbrage probably didn’t realize that Broad is a yoga practitioner, and that there are chapters that are overwhelmingly positive on yoga (e.g. the chapter on “mood” which deals with yoga’s influence on psychology has mostly great things to say about the discipline.) While all of the chapters combine a mix of good and bad news, one comes away from some of them seeing a positive picture of yoga and others with a negative one. In the first half of the book it seems as though chapters may have been arranged to alternate positive and negative dimensions.

Of course, there will also be people who are outraged because of the discussions of the debunking of the con games of their beloved yogis, or for a failure to discuss the critical importance of things like Chakra fluffing. It should be noted that Broad doesn’t deride or mock such spiritual beliefs, he more or less ignores them beyond the occasional off-hand mention—as one would expect in a book about science.

My primary criticism with The Science of Yoga is a common one consideration of problem-solving utilizing public policy (not just with respect to yoga), which is to become so impassioned about a problem that you lose all sight of cost-benefit considerations or the negative feedback effects incentivized by your “solutions.” The problems about which Broad gets so exercised as to suggest an overhaul of yoga as we know it, largely fall into two categories. First, there are problems that are exceedingly rare but catastrophic for in individual involved. This is exemplified by the apparent heightened incidence of strokes among individuals engaged in certain inversions (e.g. a shoulder stand in which the neck is under compression.)

In an interesting turn away from science, Broad makes assumptions in the face of lack of evidence about the incidence of stroke in yoga practitioners. He assumes that yogis have at least the same incidence of stroke due to vertebral artery injury as the general population because of inversions and other yogic activities that put pressure on blood vessels in the neck. He does make clear that it’s just a guess, but one could equally well speculate that those who practice yoga suffer a diminished rate of such strokes because of greater flexibility and strength in the neck. (For the most part the human body is an anti-fragile system, i.e. it grows stronger when subjected to stresses—up to a point—than when shielded from stresses.) While he does call for increased study of the issue, he’s also simultaneously calling for expensive reforms. In essence, he’s calling for a solution before awaiting the evidence that there’s actually a real problem. Stroke is the 800 pound gorilla of the risks the Broad writes about in terms of damage, and so it’s not surprising that he paints the risk in ominous terms. He criticizes the Yoga Journal for dismissing it as a “minuscule number of cases”, but even taking his estimate of 300 (and realizing it could be much lower and is compared to 800,000 cases of stroke per year in the US according to the CDC) “minuscule” does not sound that out of line in a country of 314 million people.

Second, there is the issue of bad information being spread by yoga teachers and authors either because they don’t know any better or because they have an incentive to deceive. This is exemplified by the widespread notion that yoga (and particularly pranayama— breathing exercises) increases one’s cardiovascular fitness. Is it wrong? Yes, but it’s not clear that this propagation of bad information has hurt anybody. That may sound harsh, but—think about it–many people lead long and fruitful lives believing things that aren’t true. Now you may say, “Yes, but people who believe the Earth is flat can’t get hurt believing that, but yoga practitioners can be hurt by wrong information.” I would agree that some wrong information could be damaging, but consider the example given, which–I might add–is one of the main thrusts of Broad’s book. If it were the case that many people got fat because they thought yoga would help their cardio when instead it decreased their metabolism (as the evidence suggests it does), then no one would believe the myth. The idea wouldn’t have the strong hold that it does. What happens more often is that people either lose weight because they stress and eat less or they stay the same—either way they haven’t been hurt any more by bad information. Even if someone came to yoga to lose weight and gained some, they will abandon yoga and go to Zumba or Taebo with greater flexibility and probably a diminished risk of injury for having done yoga.

By spreading information about the risks and the state of scientific understanding of them Broad is doing good work. However, he goes on to suggest that we need lots of bureaucrats to monitor and license yoga and that we need much more rigorous requirements for yoga teachers than the 200 or 500 hour Yoga Alliance certifications that currently exist (or the teaching certificates issued by the gurus or teacher trainers of various styles of yoga), and herein lies two problems. It’s not clear that a problem exists to merit such an expensive solution.

First of all, many of the worst cases that he points out were people engaged in questionable practices on their own. I’m sorry for my frankness, but you can’t regulate stupid out of existence. There was one kid who sat for hours in Vajrasana (sitting on haunches), one who fell asleep in a forward bend, and another who had a stroke after holding a shoulder stand on a hard surface for hours. Now, my experience may not be as extensive as others, but I’ve attended yoga classes in the US, India, and Thailand. I’ve had teachers tell me to hold a pose for 5 deep breaths. I’ve even had teachers tell me to hold a pose for 10 deep breaths. No teacher has ever said to me, “Hold that pose for four hours or until you have a stroke, whichever comes first.” Even teachers with a couple hundred hours of instruction and a couple hundred more of experience don’t—as a rule—give patently stupid advice. (To the degree that there are rare exceptions, thinking that no teacher would ever again give a piece of bad advice if they just all had PhDs is a little presumptuous.)

The major problem with Broad’s suggestion of a need to overhaul the system and install bureaucratic gatekeepers and overseers and to make teachers jump through vastly more educational hoops is that it increases the cost of doing yoga with a teacher. Now, I know that yoga is associated with relatively affluent people, but—believe it or not–there are yoga practitioners who aren’t SUV-driving, Abercrombie&Fitch-wearing, maid-hiring suburbanites. If the monthly cost of attending yoga class goes from tens of dollars to hundreds of dollars because every yoga teacher has to have a PhD in Kinesiology and every studio has to comply with the extensive regulations and licensing fees of the newly formed Department of Yoga Management, then many people who are happy with the level of instruction they are currently getting are going to be emulating books and videos and injury rates could actually go up.

Another example of a “problem” that is not definitively shown to be a problem is Broad’s extensive criticism of an author of a popular book on yoga (i.e. Larry Payne) for using a Ph.D. designation that was from a southern Californian diploma-mill. While there is something objectionable about putting a PhD behind one’s name that wasn’t justly earned, it’s not at all clear that this was a problem. One expects to hear how Larry Payne left a pile of wrecked souls in his wake. However, while Broad devotes pages to ridiculing Payne for putting PhD after his name, the few mentions of the Payne’s interactions with others suggest that he helped them get healthier (e.g. Dr. Ursatine) and that he furthered the state of his professional field. The implication being that the credential matters vastly more than the individual’s experience and diligence. Interestingly, Dr. Fishman (for whom Broad has nothing but kind words—presumably because he holds an MD) is quoted as speaking glowingly about Payne and his contributions to the field.

Another example of sensationalism can be seen in the chapter on sexuality. While we would expect this chapter to be entirely about the claims of yoga being able to enhance one’s sex life, a fair amount of it is devoted to pointing out instances of lecherousness among yogis. I’m not saying that it’s bad to point out bad behavior of gurus in terms of harassing or molesting their female students, but unless there’s some evidence that this inclination is tied the sexual practices of yoga, this would seem to be the wrong venue for the discussion. In other words, if yogis are no more lecherous on the whole than other teachers or coaches, then it would seem that mention of this issue is just to titillate. If yogis are uncontrollable horn-dogs because of yogic practices, then fine, but you’ve got to establish that there’s evidence for that somehow.

Overall, I’d recommend that individuals interested in the scientific literature on yoga read this book. It provides a good overview of the literature, and is well-cited. The books weakness comes from insisting that a large number of mole hills are really the Himalayas. These mole hills can be addressed with education, but can never be eliminated. Suggesting we upend the apple cart to produce “solutions” to marginal problems is ridiculous. We may think a world in which there was never another fatal traffic accident would be nice, but I assure you we would not want to live in the world in which all the actions were taken necessary to achieve said goal. If one compares the extrapolated estimates of hospital visits for yoga injuries, they are really quite few and we have no reason to believe that the vast majority aren’t life-threatening or permanently disabling.

For me it would have been a great book if it laid out the risks and rewards, and suggested caution. Of course, then it probably wouldn’t have gotten any more attention than the many books that already exist on the subject of yoga injuries, so maybe some good can come of Broad’s implication that going to the yoga studio is akin to storming the beaches at Normandy and that we need to stop the horrors or yoga practice.

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