Struggle Sucks

Struggle

A professor at law school said in his stentorian voice, Life is a struggle, gentlemen and lady, and the law reflects we live in an adversarial, struggling, coping culture.

The editor of the Law Review raised his hand to confirm this analysis. The 20% economically successful folks learn to cope with their struggles and challenges by using knowledge, persistence and determination to win 80% of the marbles, he brownnosed. He was paraphrasing Vilfredo Pareto, Italian economist and father of the famous 80/20 principle.

Later, I had to look up the word cope. It is from Middle English coming from coup, to strike. Synonyms are struggle, wrestle and strive. It has the modern meaning of
fighting with people and things, to a successful outcome.

So when you cope you stand a better than even chance of winning. When you hope, you cope. When not, you mope like a hopeless dope. Well it rhymes.

Sense

Then the professor said, the mental sense of struggle creates the behavior of struggling. When you believe you must struggle to defend against the opposition, you inhibit your (executive) brain learning centers, particularly your prefrontal cortex. Your conscious mind (left brain) works lousy.

In fact, struggling knocks your hippocampus (limbic system) the key to long-term memories, off line and out of whack. It is your beliefs that create your personal reality. Sound cornball, but it is how we are built.

We never permit facts to contradict our version of reality. You supply examples in relationships, politics and religion. It is always how we interpret what we see and
experience. The operative word is context, our personal belief framework.

Is this a Pollyanna dream of positive thinking? Consider this: what your eyes see (internally) your mind is bound to believe. Your emotions create mental pictures that cause 95% of your behavioral decisions. It continues to be researched using fMRIs by neuroeconomics scientists. Guess who cares about these results?

Learning

Knowing how to learn, metacognition, is a requirement in our knowledge economy.
Did you know the average college graduate changes careers (not jobs), five times
during his/her working career?

Learning is easy and instantaneous when you are motivated and relaxed (no stress).
It is not a struggle but fun and games. Remember when you were a kid and a
baseball or football fan? How quickly did you learn and remember the names of your favorite players and statistics? Right, you were motivated and enjoying yourself.

So

The secret to learning, which means new stuff, is to release your grasp on
what you are absolutely certain is the right and only answer. You have options,
there are other approaches. Just stop and search them out.

Only when you disrupt your comfort-zone and the homeostasis (status quo) of your brain, does your learning become easy and almost instantaneous. Your body, including your brain loves equilibrium, sameness without stress or tension disturbing the peace. Learning is an interruption unless you have a burning desire.

Disruption

Learning has to overcome natural boredom, yawning, and daydreaming. You better have good reasons to overcome the gatekeeper (filter) of your brain, which inhibits
new ideas opposing your old beliefs.

Want a new, better outcome in your decision-making? Change the channel on your mental movies from stressful to relaxing. What are seeing in your mind? Is your decision to buy or not buy internally (based on your beliefs and maybe a Cost-Benefit-Analysis), or externally driven (to impress relatives and friends)?

Are you deciding objectively or subjectively, how about associated or dissociated?
You got options and strategies to stop struggling and make better decisions.

Stress Knocks You Off

Dr. Robert Sapolsky at Stanford University published on February 27, 2007,
the reason Homo sapiens get stress related diseases is because we are too smart,
and have too much time on our hands. Free time permits us to create relationships
that produce anger, angst and chronic stress. The psychological stressors of competition and money cause your body and brain (limbic system) to react as if
your life is constantly at stake. It aint. Cope with it.

Wait. The physiological result of chronic stress is the release of hormones (adrenaline, cortisol, and glucocorticoids) for fight or flight. This screws with your metabolism and suppresses your immune system of leucocytes, phagocytes, lymphocytes and macrophages.

It sets off a fire alarm and does a dump on your Natural Killer, Thymus (T-cells) and Bone Marrow (B-Cells) immunity. You are now open to the Big C, Heart disease, stroke and Bipolar depression. Yes, really.

Know this

Did you know the two healthiest states in the U.S.?

Utah and Vermont, because they have a culture of safety nets for their citizens.

The two worse states?

Nevada and New Hampshire. Both value the principle of Go It Yourself.

Speed Reading

Chronic stress inhibits your brain neurons specializing in learning, memory and
judgment. Speed readers have a brain schema for a massive inputs of information
because we can read and remember up to six-times more than the average college
graduate. It is a matter of right-brain psycho-motor skills and easy strategies.

Learning is one example of overcoming stress. The more knowledge, the less you
obsess on the micro events in your life. And so it goes, is a non-stress attitude permitting you to focus on solving the macro events of your life.

You can find comfort in distracting yourself from stress by learning and enjoying art, music and personally engaging in golf, tennis or even softball. It is true that those who engage in lifelong learning live up to decades longer, and improve the odds (50%) of not suffering from Alzheimer and other forms of dementia during their lives. Homo Sapiens can use a range of support systems to reduce personal daily stress. Find and use them.

Japan

Did you know Japan is first in life expectancy? It may be because of the
number of supportive social networks. They also have one of the lowest
incidents of mental illness. Perhaps it is because they have one of the lowest number of psychiatrists per 100,000 population, for an industrialized society.

Endwords

It is your hippocampus, located in your limbic system, and deeply involved in learning and memory, that is disabled (inhibited) because of chronic stress.
It is most susceptible to the affects of the release of stress hormones from the
fight or fight syndrome. Professor Sapolsky ends by warning us to change our
life style to reduce daily stress. His final words are, we (humans) are malleable.

We suggest speed readers are less stressed because they value and implement lifelong learning. Join us.

See ya,

Copyright © 2007
H. Bernard Wechsler