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Showing posts with label Psychology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Psychology. Show all posts

Brain Freeze

Not being keen on early mornings, I arose from a warm snuggly duvet to the cold brisk air. My first thoughts, coffee! But not today, I couldn't. I wasn't allowed any stimulants before getting my brain scanned - insert any four lettered word here - *&^%!!

We arrived at the university for my scan, and that in itself made me feel like I was already being tested, like a rat in a maze. But we found the building and entered. I was greeted with various paperwork, then ushered into a small room. Whilst I continued filling out various forms and what not, the Doctor?, Scientist?, person in white coat, started attaching various leads to my head. Several part of my body had to be shaved, to ensure good contact was made with the cables for monitoring purposes. I remained calm on the outside but full of trepidation inside. Finally all the cords were attached and I headed down to the machine. At this point I looked like a futuristic rastafarian, as different coloured cables were coming out from my head and several body parts.

Once inside the room I saw the machine, and I was immediately warned that if I had ANY metal to remove it as it would act like a MISSILE once the machine was turned on - OK, if I wasn't panicking before, that did it. I quickly double and triple checked my body and pockets. Then once strapped into the machine I was asked to perform simple tests so they could see how I handled pressure etc. The machine was a little claustrophobic and very noisy. The tests took around 2 hours in total. Below you can see what they saw of my brain. Yes, I was surprised not to see a big empty space too.

The image below was not actually taken on the day and is an artists impression of what was expected to have been found. It turned out I'm normal, whatever that is?!?

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Brain Training

There was an ad placed recently on Gumtree to have your brain scanned - the study involves completing some simple computerised tasks during an MRI brain scanning while they monitor your bodily reactions (e.g. heart rate), then a day later, another that involved being connected to EEG brain monitoring equipment whilst you perform simple computer based tasks - of course I applied to both, and why not! The hardest part of these tests is the fact I cant drink coffee for 24 hours!!
Here are my psychological results from the second test: I'm a O76-C52-E79-A10-N71 Big Five!!

Not sure what that really says about me, but I think at this point, I'm too set in my ways. Maybe that's not a bad thing, at least you know what you're getting, most of the time. I do think I'm easily frustrated with myself, the world and life in general - then on other days I wake up and the world seems at peace with me. Do we all have this inner turmoil? Is it just those with artistic temperaments and middle aged women that have severe mood swings!? Or is this an effect of a bi-polar disorder?

Even as a kid, I always shot for the stars. I don't see it as a huge fault, yes, typically I get disappointed when I don't achieve what I want, but by the same token dreaming big doesn't phase me. Speaking to a stranger on the street or pushing for something I believe in has never been an issue, having said that, selling something I don't believe in has. I had a job when I was young selling 'rendition' perfumes that I just didn't buy into at all, and consequently couldn't sell them. But by the same token, I have done work that I believe in 100% and sold it with all my heart, sometimes getting frustrated when people didn't see what I saw.

Typically, I believe in people more than products (unless its Apple), I get pissed off that people aren't invested in enough. I have had the fortune to meet and work with some amazing talent, who are just crying out to be discovered or given a break. Having done; acting, magic and photography amongst other 'creative' jobs, I constantly see the same battles being fought for funding, training, assistance, guidance etc. To address this issue I am currently playing with the idea of starting a co-operative for photographers and looking at finding ways to make the industry more sexy instead of this insular entity that it currently appears to be. See, there I go again, trying to fix the world :/


The big question is: will you EVER be satisfied?!

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Being Mindful of Where I Need to Go

I'm trying to figure out how to get my motivation back to where it was 18 months ago. But I can't seem to work up the state of mind that it takes. That got me to wondering, what is the psychological mindset that it takes to get into the groove? What is that motivator? I'm sure it's different for everyone. But what was it that made me "ready" 18 months ago that I'm having trouble recapturing today?

For one thing, I was so fat I couldn't bend over to pick something up that had fallen on the floor. For another thing, I spent about a month mentally preparing myself for what would be a long and difficult journey. I watched FitTV even if I didn't workout. I looked for healthy recipes even if I didn't prepare them—yet. I read other blogs. But the whole time, I kept telling myself that on this particular date in the future, I would begin.

So that's the point I'm going to start at today. I'm not going to rush myself. I'm going to stop pressuring myself with internal talk like, "By next Friday I will be" how ever many pounds I've decided is a good number. I'm saying one month from today, I am going to begin again. Until then, I will be preparing. Not by eating everything in sight, but by becoming mindful of what it is that I need to do.

So my beginning date is June 5.

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I Have My Fat Suit On

This morning I met with a psychologist at my gym. As part of our program, we have the opportunity to explore why we overeat. I had my first session today. I know that I'm an emotional eater—and any emotion will do. I eat when I'm angry, happy, sad, whatever. So what I needed were some tools to deal with it. I'm going to try using a rubber band wrapped around my wrist so I snap myself whenever I have a negative thought. I'm going to try tracking how I feel about myself when I want to overeat. You've probably heard all of this before. I have too. I'm just actually going to try to do it this time.


And as it turns out, I have a lot of emotions going on right now. My number one difficulty is a fear of success—not failure but success. If I succeed in my weight loss goals, I won't know how I'm supposed to behave. I won't know who this person is. I've hidden behind my fat for so long that I'm not sure I can make it without my "uniform." I think that's also one of the reasons that I plateaued and couldn't get past it. So we'll see what happens if I snap myself enough times.

Today I feel unsure of how to move forward. I have some ideas, but I'm not entirely sure. I want to meet my weight loss goals. I'm just not sure of how to get there. I'll write more later.

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