Mindsets and the negative impact of praise

 

The wrong kind of praise creates self-defeating behaviour. The right kind motivates students to learn.

(So says Professor Carol Dweck, a leading expert on motivation, personality and development. So if you`ve always believed that we need to motivate people through praise, you will find this article fascinating!)

We often hear these days that we've produced a generation of young people who can't get through the day without an award. They expect success because they're special, not because they've worked hard.

Is this true? Have we inadvertently done something to hold back our students?

I think educators commonly hold two beliefs that do just that. Many believe that (1) praising students' intelligence builds their confidence and motivation to learn, and (2) students' inherent intelligence is the major cause of their achievement in school. Our research has shown that the first belief is false and that the second can be harmful—even for the most competent students.

As a psychologist, I have studied student motivation for more than 35 years. My graduate students and I have looked at thousands of children, asking why some enjoy learning, even when it's hard, and why they are resilient in the face of obstacles. We have learned a great deal. Research shows us how to praise students in ways that yield motivation and resilience. In addition, specific interventions can reverse a student's slide into failure during the vulnerable period of adolescence.

Fixed or Malleable?

Praise is intricately connected to how students view their intelligence. Some students believe that their intellectual ability is a fixed trait. They have a certain amount of intelligence, and that's that. Students with this fixed mind-set become excessively concerned with how smart they are, seeking tasks that will prove their intelligence and avoiding ones that might not (Dweck, 1999, 2006). The desire to learn takes a backseat.

Other students believe that their intellectual ability is something they can develop through effort and education. They don't necessarily believe that anyone can become an Einstein or a Mozart, but they do understand that even Einstein and Mozart had to put in years of effort to become who they were. When students believe that they can develop their intelligence, they focus on doing just that. Not worrying about how smart they will appear, they take on challenges and stick to them (Dweck, 1999, 2006).

More and more research in psychology and neuroscience supports the growth mind-set. We are discovering that the brain has more plasticity over time than we ever imagined (Doidge, 2007); that fundamental aspects of intelligence can be enhanced through learning (Sternberg, 2005); and that dedication and persistence in the face of obstacles are key ingredients in outstanding achievement (Ericsson, Charness, Feltovich, & Hoffman, 2006).

Alfred Binet (1909/1973), the inventor of the IQ test, had a strong growth mind-set. He believed that education could transform the basic capacity to learn. Far from intending to measure fixed intelligence, he meant his test to be a tool for identifying students who were not profiting from the public school curriculum so that other courses of study could be devised to foster their intellectual growth.

The Two Faces of Effort

The fixed and growth mind-sets create two different psychological worlds. In the fixed mind-set, students care first and foremost about how they'll be judged: smart or not smart. Repeatedly, students with this mind-set reject opportunities to learn if they might make mistakes (Hong, Chiu, Dweck, Lin, & Wan, 1999; Mueller & Dweck, 1998). When they do make mistakes or reveal deficiencies, rather than correct them, they try to hide them (Nussbaum & Dweck, 2007).

They are also afraid of effort because effort makes them feel dumb. They believe that if you have the ability, you shouldn't need effort (Blackwell, Trzesniewski, & Dweck, 2007), that ability should bring success all by itself. This is one of the worst beliefs that students can hold. It can cause many bright students to stop working in school when the curriculum becomes challenging.

Finally, students in the fixed mind-set don't recover well from setbacks. When they hit a setback in school, they decrease their efforts and consider cheating (Blackwell et al., 2007). The idea of fixed intelligence does not offer them viable ways to improve.

Let's get inside the head of a student with a fixed mind-set as he sits in his classroom, confronted with algebra for the first time. Up until then, he has breezed through math. Even when he barely paid attention in class and skimped on his homework, he always got As. But this is different. It's hard. The student feels anxious and thinks, “What if I'm not as good at math as I thought? What if other kids understand it and I don't?” At some level, he realizes that he has two choices: try hard, or turn off. His interest in math begins to wane, and his attention wanders. He tells himself, “Who cares about this stuff? It's for nerds. I could do it if I wanted to, but it's so boring. You don't see CEOs and sports stars solving for x and y.”

By contrast, in the growth mind-set, students care about learning. When they make a mistake or exhibit a deficiency, they correct it (Blackwell et al., 2007; Nussbaum & Dweck, 2007). For them, effort is a positivething: It ignites their intelligence and causes it to grow. In the face of failure, these students escalate their efforts and look for new learning strategies.

Let's look at another student—one who has a growth mind-set—having her first encounter with algebra. She finds it new, hard, and confusing, unlike anything else she has ever learned. But she's determined to understand it. She listens to everything the teacher says, asks the teacher questions after class, and takes her textbook home and reads the chapter over twice. As she begins to get it, she feels exhilarated. A new world of math opens up for her.

It is not surprising, then, that when we have followed students over challenging school transitions or courses, we find that those with growth mind-sets outperform their classmates with fixed mind-sets—even when they entered with equal skills and knowledge. A growth mind-set fosters the growth of ability over time (Blackwell et al., 2007; Mangels, Butterfield, Lamb, Good, & Dweck, 2006; see also Grant & Dweck, 2003).

The Effects of Praise

Many educators have hoped to maximize students' confidence in their abilities, their enjoyment of learning, and their ability to thrive in school by praising their intelligence. We've studied the effects of this kind of praise in children as young as 4 years old and as old as adolescence, in students in inner-city and rural settings, and in students of different ethnicities—and we've consistently found the same thing (Cimpian, Arce, Markman, & Dweck, 2007; Kamins & Dweck, 1999; Mueller & Dweck, 1998): Praising students' intelligence gives them a short burst of pride, followed by a long string of negative consequences.

In many of our studies (see Mueller & Dweck, 1998), 5th grade students worked on a task, and after the first set of problems, the teacher praised some of them for their intelligence (“You must be smart at these problems”) and others for their effort (“You must have worked hard at these problems”). We then assessed the students' mind-sets. In one study, we asked students to agree or disagree with mind-set statements, such as, “Your intelligence is something basic about you that you can't really change.” Students praised for intelligence agreed with statements like these more than students praised for effort did. In another study, we asked students to define intelligence. Students praised for intelligence made significantly more references to innate, fixed capacity, whereas the students praised for effort made more references to skills, knowledge, and areas they could change through effort and learning. Thus, we found that praise for intelligence tended to put students in a fixed mind-set (intelligence is fixed, and you have it), whereas praise for effort tended to put them in a growth mind-set (you're developing these skills because you're working hard).

We then offered students a chance to work on either a challenging task that they could learn from or an easy one that ensured error-free performance. Most of those praised for intelligence wanted the easy task, whereas most of those praised for effort wanted the challenging task and the opportunity to learn.

Next, the students worked on some challenging problems. As a group, students who had been praised for their intelligence lost their confidence in their ability and their enjoyment of the task as soon as they began to struggle with the problem. If success meant they were smart, then struggling meant they were not. The whole point of intelligence praise is to boost confidence and motivation, but both were gone in a flash. Only the effort-praised kids remained, on the whole, confident and eager.

When the problems were made somewhat easier again, students praised for intelligence did poorly, having lost their confidence and motivation. As a group, they did worse than they had done initially on these same types of problems. The students praised for effort showed excellent performance and continued to improve.

Finally, when asked to report their scores (anonymously), almost 40 percent of the intelligence-praised students lied. Apparently, their egos were so wrapped up in their performance that they couldn't admit mistakes. Only about 10 percent of the effort-praised students saw fit to falsify their results.

Praising students for their intelligence, then, hands them not motivation and resilience but a fixed mind-set with all its vulnerability. In contrast, effort or “process” praise (praise for engagement, perseverance, strategies, improvement, and the like) fosters hardy motivation. It tells students what they've done to be successful and what they need to do to be successful again in the future. Process praise sounds like this:

• You really studied for your English test, and your improvement shows it. You read the material over several times, outlined it, and tested yourself on it. That really worked!
• I like the way you tried all kinds of strategies on that math problem until you finally got it.
• It was a long, hard assignment, but you stuck to it and got it done. You stayed at your desk, kept up your concentration, and kept working. That's great!
• I like that you took on that challenging project for your science class. It will take a lot of work—doing the research, designing the machine, buying the parts, and building it. You're going to learn a lot of great things.

What about a student who gets an A without trying? I would say, “All right, that was too easy for you. Let's do something more challenging that you can learn from.” We don't want to make something done quickly and easily the basis for our admiration.

What about a student who works hard and doesn't do well? I would say, “I liked the effort you put in. Let's work together some more and figure out what you don't understand.” Process praise keeps students focused, not on something called ability that they may or may not have and that magically creates success or failure, but on processes they can all engage in to learn.

Feeling anxious? Why trying to "keep calm" is a terrible idea

I believe that one of the most powerful tools we can use to combat nerves, anxiety and stress is to learn to reframe those emotions and make them empowering instead of debilitating. In this article, Drake Baer explains how:-

DON'T KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON. INSTEAD OF FIGHTING YOUR BODY'S NATURAL REACTION TO ANXIETY, EMBRACE YOUR AMPED-UP STATE, AND REFRAME YOUR ANXIETY AS EXCITEMENT. HERE'S HOW.

A strange sign has found its way to walls across our country: Keep Calm And Carry On, a World War II-era Britishism that's become a brightly colored, boldly fonted, and mostly misguided placard of staying cool under pressure. Mainly because it totally misses the way emotions work.

"People seem to have this very strong intuition when they feel anxious to try and 'calm down,'" says Alison Wood Brooks, a professor of business administration at Harvard. "But it's actually very, very difficult to do successfully, particularly when leading up to very anxiety-inducing tasks, [like public speaking, a job interview, or singing in front of people]."

Instead of trying to force ourselves to be calm, she says, we should be getting excited--due to a psychological something called arousal congruence.

Image: Flickr user Akio Takemoto

While keeping calm might seem like a simple enough instruction, it actually conceals two steps, for every emotion has both an arousal and a valance component--and you need to regulate each in order to change the emotion.

Arousal is physical: in the case of anxiety, you have an increased heart rate, a spike of stress hormones like cortisol, and a sudden appearance of sweat. Arousal is also automatic: it's a function of the parasympathetic nervous system, which is always looking out for danger. Since arousal is so automatic, it's hard to control.

Valence is cognitive: it's the way you interpret all that physiological stuff happening inside you--how you feel about your feelings. So if you're trying to "keep calm" while you're anxious, you have to shift your perception of your emotion.

If you're trying to "keep calm" while you're anxious, you have to shift your perception of your emotion.

Alison Wood Brooks

When you tell yourself to "calm down" you have to make two hidden steps, moving both arousal and valence. But moving from anxiety to excitement is easier: your body can stay in an amped-up physiological state, but you re-appraise your anxiety as excitement.

"That it's a two-step process is not intuitive," Brooks says, "and understanding that you're trying to do two different things makes people more emotionally literate."

It can also make people better performers.

Here's how to practice reframing your anxiety as excitement.

Brooks recruited a group of volunteers. They were asked to take part in three kinds of experiments: tackling public speaking, math, or singing in front of people.

The subjects were primed differently in each of these cases. Before making their speech, diving into their problem sets, or launching into "Don't Stop Believing," they were asked to make one of three kinds of statements to themselves:

• To keep calm
• To get excited
• Or nothing

In each of three cases, the anxious folks that told themselves a variant of "get excited" performed better: they gave more persuasive, competent, and persistent speeches; notched hire math scores, and belted out Journey with greater accuracy.

WHY YOU DO BETTER WHEN YOU GET EXCITED

Oscar Wilde, once quipped that "worry is misspent imagination": turns out that the dude was right. As Brooks explained to us, when we get worried, we're making poor investments with our attention: instead of thinking of the ways that big presentation will go right, we're spending our finite attention on what will go wrong, what's wrong with us, and what our parents did to make us inherit that behavior.

"Anxiety precludes you from exploring real solutions and real thought patterns that will come up with solutions," she says. "When you're in a positive valence, it primes an opportunity mindset, so you think of all of the good things that can happen. You're more likely to make decisions and take actions that will make that world likely to occur."

As the karaoke outcomes attest, we can actually prime that opportunity-oriented mindset.

Take, for instance, if you're about to go onstage: when someone asks you "how do you feel," tell them that you're excited. If you get in the habit of that, Brooks says, it could really improve your performance. If you're a manager, emphasize excitement rather than calmness. And if you're all by your lonesome, staring at a blank document and feeling anxiety creeping up your neck, tell yourself that you're excited to even put a paragraph on the page.

Bottom Line:

"A lot of times, anxiety is most debilitating when it leads to inaction, like you just don't know where to start," Brooks says, noting that the most productive people she knows are highly skilled at just doing a small piece of a larger project.

"Just do something and constantly work on it and revise it and hone it into a product or a performance that turns into something wonderful. I think this idea of reappraising anxiety as excitement can help inspire simple actions--to just get excited and do something."

The amazing history of the "to do" list - and how to make one that actually works

If you`ve ever struggled with getting things done and ended up making endless lists, this article by Belle Beth Cooper will throw some light on why we feel compelled to write "to do lists" and how to do them effectively:-

WHY DO WE MAKE LISTS AS HUMANS IN THE FIRST PLACE?

Philosopher and novelist Umberto Eco is a big fan of lists and has some fascinating ideas about why they’re so important to humans:

The list is the origin of culture. It’s part of the history of art and literature. What does culture want? To make infinity comprehensible… And how, as a human being, does one face infinity? How does one attempt to grasp the incomprehensible? Through lists…

Umberto Eco

Umberto explained in an interview that lists are often seen as relics of primitive cultures--simplistic devices that don’t belong in our modern day and age. However, the simple form of the list prevails again and again over time, because, as Umberto says, it has “an irresistible magic.”

Umberto Eco said, "The list is the origin of culture. Wherever you look in cultural history, you will find lists."

When we struggle to express ourselves, we use lists. Like Umberto says, lists help us to make sense of the world around us. We create lists of the sights we see on vacation, the places we want to visit, the food we need to buy at the grocery store, and the tasks we need to get done. It’s a simple habit of increasing our day to day productivity.

We pack all the madness and ambiguity of life into a structured form of writing. In short making lists is a great way to increase our overall happiness and feel less overwhelmed.

Not only that, but we also form and challenge definitions of the things around us by making lists of their characteristics. For instance, if we were to describe an animal to a child, we would do so by listing characteristics like color, size, diet and habitat. Regardless of whether this matches the scientific definition of the animal or not, that’s how we make sense of it.

The list is the mark of a highly advanced, cultivated society because a list allows us to question the essential definitions. The essential definition is primitive compared with the list.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, THE GODFATHER OF THE TO-DO LIST?

Benjamin Franklin is a great example of someone known for using lists to encourage his own self-improvement. He famously detailed a thirteen-week plan to practice important virtues such as cleanliness, temperance, etc. Each day he tracked his progress on a chart.

Benjamin also set himself a strict daily routine, which included time for sleeping, meals and working, all set for specific times of the day. Unfortuantely, the demands of his printing business made it difficult for him to always stick to his routine, but this image shows how he aimed to spend his time:

LISTS FOR PRODUCTIVITY

These days, we use lists for productivity as much as anything else: shopping lists, reminders, planning for events, and the to-do list are all variations on a productivity-based list that we use to help us get past procrastinating.

The to-do list in particular is one that we spend a lot of time and energy on perfecting. Somehow, we don’t seem to struggle when it comes to making a shopping list and buying everything on it, but getting the tasks on our to-do list done is a whole other ball game.

4 TOP TIPS TO WRITE A TO-DO LIST THAT WILL ACTUALLY HELP YOU GET THINGS DONE

Looking at the history of lists and how they’re used, we can glean some insights about how to create a to-do list we can actually complete.

1. Break projects into tasks, don’t succumb to the Zeigarnik effect

We kind of have a reminder system built-in to our minds that nags us about unfinished tasks, called the Zeigarnik effect. It sounds pretty cool that we already have this, but it’s actually not that reliable or healthy for us.

ASAP Science explains The Science of Productivity

What really happens is that there’s a disconnect between our conscious and unconscious minds--the unconscious mind can’t plan how to finish the task, but it gets annoyed with the feeling of it being unfinished. To shake off that feeling, it nags the conscious mind with reminders about the task--not to finish it, but simply to encourage us to make a plan.

If you’ve heard of David Allen’s GTD method, you’ll be familiar with his concept of “next steps,” which is pretty much the same thing. It’s the process of breaking down a project or task into smaller tasks, and planning which one will be the next step towards completing the whole thing.

This abates the nagging of the unconscious brain, as it’s satisfied that at some point we’ll get onto that task, and we know exactly how we’ll do it.

Maria Popova at Brain Pickings says the essentials of creating these do-able next steps are to make “a few very specific, aactionalbe, non-conflicting items.”

2. Prioritize ruthlessly

Maria’s post on the history of the to-do list also describes the story of a psychologist who gave a talk at the Pentagon about managing time and resources. Before the talk began, the psychologist asked everyone in the group to write a summary of their strategic approach in 25 words.

Apparently, 25 words was too little for the men to express their strategies, and the only response came from the single woman in the group, whose summary read as follows:

First I make a list of priorities: one, two, three, and so on. Then I cross out everything from three down.

I’ve heard this approach suggested before in various places, and it always reminds me of the CEO I worked with at my previous company, who had a Post-It on his desk that read, “prioritize until it hurts.” in other words, learning the powerful skill of saying no. I’m not sure if he ever managed to do that, but I liked the approach.

To-do lists invariably crop up when we have so many things to do that we can’t keep track of them all in our heads (Aha! We’re back to Umberto’s thoughts on how lists help us to create order from the chaos of our lives!). Which means that we end up with lists far too long for us to complete.

Prioritizing ruthlessly seems to be the only way to actually get done what’s most important in the little time that we have.

3. “Plan ahead”--advice for which Charles Schwab paid $25,000

Here’s another cool story of how to-do lists evolved in the workplace:

Almost 100 years ago, the president of the Bethlehem Steel company in the USA was Charles M. Schwab. His company was struggling with inefficiency and Schwab didn’t know how to improve it, so he called in Ivy Lee, a well-known efficiency expert at the time.

Lee agreed to help the company, with his fee being whatever Schwab felt the results were worth after three months.

Lee’s advice to each member of the company’s management team was to write a to-do list at the end of each day, which consisted of the six most important tasks to be done the following day. Then they were told to organize the list based on the highest priority tasks.

The next day, the employes worked through the list from top to bottom, focusing on a single task at a time. At the end of the day, anything left on the list would get added to the top of tomorrow’s list when the employees once again planned for the following day.

As the story goes, the company was so much more efficient after three months that Schwab sent a check to Lee for $25,000.

In your own planning, you can take Lee’s advice for free and use the night before to plan your workday. Setting out the most important tasks you want to complete the following day will help you to avoid time-wasters and distractions by knowing what to work on immediately.

4. Be realistic in your planning

Sometimes it’s nice to know that even our great heroes are fallible. This story about Benjamin Franklin’s struggles to keep up with his daily to-do list shows how important it is to be realistic about how much time we have and what our priorities are.

Franklin was known to be a meticulous tracker of his daily routine and his work towards the virtues he prioritized.

Unfortunately, the demands of his business meant that he didn’t always keep up with his ideal daily routine. He often got interrupted by clients and had to ignore his schedule to meet with them.

He also noticed that some of the virtues he aspired to practice, such as frugality--not wasting anything--took up too much time for him to live life as he wanted to. Preparing his own meals and mending his own clothes all the time, for instance, meant that he didn’t have enough time for business or his side projects.

The result of these conflicting priorities was unhappiness over not completing the tasks he set for himself. As a result, he had to re-prioritize, which is something we should keep in mind.

If we’re struggling to complete our to-do lists on a regular basis (we’ve all been there at some point!), we need to make a change to the list--make it more realistic.

Although a to-do list can be infinite, our time is not. We need to match the tasks we require of ourselves to how much time and energy we can afford to spend on them. This is where prioritizing can really come in handy, as well.

Starting to develop your own, personal daily routine is one of the most powerful ways to become a great list maker. You might find some inspiration from these seven famous entrepreneurs and their routines.

Find a way that works for you

As with pretty much any kind of lifehacking or productivity topic I write about, individual mileage will vary. We all need to take into account our unique situation when experimenting with advice like this. For me, prioritizing and planning the night before has really helped. For you, being realistic might be more useful.

BONUS: JOHNNY CASH’S PERFECT, SEMI-EFFICIENT TO-DO LIST

As a last example, I found a to-do list from Johnny Cash. This wouldn’t necessarily be one we’d advocate to help you become more efficient. But then again, we can’t argue with Johnny Cash’s success, can we?

Why saying "I can`t" is disempowering

If you`ve ever wondered whether self talk actually works and if so how it works, you`ll find the following article by Oliver Burkeman fascinating:-

Few topics have been more mangled and misunderstood in the world of popular psychology than that of "self-talk", the chuntering monologue most of us conduct through the day in our heads, or out loud when we're alone. (Don't pretend you don't.) Contrary to self-help lore, there's little evidence that positive self-talk works like magic. Telling yourself you're beautiful, a confident public speaker or a future billionaire won't make you any of those things; if anything, it's liable to have the reverse effect. The true impact of self-talk is more subtle. For example, it's been shown that if you want to accomplish a challenging task, you're better off phrasing it as a question ("Will I talk to my boss about that promotion?") than simply declaring it ("I will talk to my boss about that promotion!"). The declaration sounds better, but it's the question that generates more "intrinsic motivation", calling to mind your deeply held reasons for wanting to act. And a similarly tiny linguistic tweak, it emerged recently, could make the difference between resisting temptation and succumbing to it.

Researchers at two US business schools wanted to examine the effects of self-talk employing the phrase "I can't" versus the phrase "I don't", in the context of personal health goals. Suppose it's time for your weekly kick-boxing class, but the sofa looks inviting, so you try to talk yourself into action. Does it really matter if you say, "I can't miss my weekly class", or, "I don't miss my weekly class"? You wouldn't have thought so, but according to the experiments, published in the Journal of Consumer Research, it does. In one, students seeking to eat more healthily were instructed to use either "I can't" or "I don't" each time they confronted a temptation. Upon leaving, they were offered a token of appreciation for taking part: a chocolate bar or a granola bar. Of those instructed to resist temptation using "I can't", 39% went for the healthier choice; of those using "I don't", the figure was 64%.

Try repeating each of those to yourself, perhaps with a more personally relevant example – in my case, "I can't/don't check Twitter when I'm meant to be working." Monitor your immediate emotional reactions and you'll probably see what's going on. The "can't" framing implies an external restraint, which feels disempowering (even if you imposed the restraint on yourself). You might even be tempted to disobey solely to assert your independence. To say that you "don't" do something, by contrast, suggests autonomy, as well as long-term commitment. Who wouldn't rather be the self-directed, principled type who doesn't have more than one beer, or check email after 9pm, et cetera, than the rule-oppressed drudge who can't?

That's worth remembering when you're talking to others, too. It's often easiest to refuse some onerous request by claiming that you "can't"; sometimes, it might even be true. The trouble is that when you tell your overly demanding colleague/friend/spouse that you "can't", there's someone else listening: you. According to cliche, learning to say "no" is the key to seizing control of life. But how you say no matters, too: the subliminal result of all those "I can'ts" could just be to leave you feeling more powerless and put‑upon. The phrase you're looking for is "I don't". Don't doubt it.

Source: Oliver Burkeman

9 Scientifically-Backed Ways To Stop Worrying

Most people at some time fall prey to this damaging "disease". In fact it is almost endemic in our culture. Corrie ten Boom once said, "Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow. It empties today of its strength."

Indeed, numerous studies have shown that worry not only puts a strain on our mental health, but on our physical health, too. While worry in and of itself is not bad -- it spurs us into action, after all -- too much of it can lead to anxiety, which can have a lasting impact on health and happiness. For instance, research has shown that anxiety can take a toll on sleep, tax your immune system, raise your risk of post-traumatic stress disorder, and even affect your risk of dying from disease.

The problem with worrying is that it becomes a cycle of self-perpetuating negative thoughts. In a new review, University of Surrey researchers described worry as "a chain of thoughts and images that are affectively negative and relatively uncontrollable."

So what's the best way to stop the cycle? We rounded up some research-backed ways:

Set aside a designated "worry time."
Instead of worrying all day, every day, designate a 30-minute period of time where you can think about your problems. Penn State researchers found in a 2011 study that a four-step stimulus control program could help seriously stressed people take control of their anxieties, LiveScience reported. Step one: Identify the object of worry. Step two: Come up with a time and place to think about said worry. Step three: If you catch yourself worrying at a time other than your designated worry time, you must make a point to think of something else. Step four: Use your "worry time" productively by thinking of solutions to the worries.

Kick your online addiction. 

All that time you spend perusing your Facebook newsfeed probably isn't doing your mental health any favors. A recent study from Anxiety UK showed that nearly half of people feel "worried or uncomfortable" being away from email or Facebook. "These findings suggest that some may need to re-establish control over the technology they use, rather than being controlled by it,” Anxiety UK CEO Nicky Lidbetter said in a statement. Need some ideas for things to do away from your computer or cell phone? We've got you covered.

Be mindful.
The most effective strategies to stop worrying and rumination may be ones based in mindfulness, which involves nonjudgmental awareness of present thoughts and emotions, as well as cognitive behavioral therapy strategies, according to the University of Surrey review of 19 studies. Particularly, the review noted that "treatments in which participants are encouraged to change their thinking style, or to disengage from emotional response to rumination or worry," as well as "treatments which enable participants to adopt more concrete and specific thinking or which cognitively restructure thinking in a more positive and constructive way" seem especially effective.

Accept the worry -- and then move on.
Worrying about worrying is a dangerous cycle to fall into. A 2005 study in the journal Behaviour Research and Therapy showed that people who naturally try to suppress their unwanted thoughts end up being more distressed by said thoughts. Meanwhile, "those who are naturally more accepting of their intrusive thoughts are less obsessional, have lower levels of depression, and are less anxious," the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee researchers wrote. Therefore, people who get caught up in worry when they try to force themselves to stop worrying may want to try a different strategy -- acceptance.

Write your worries down.

Letting all your emotions out on paper before a big exam could help decrease test-taking worry, according to a 2011 study in Science. "It might be counterintuitive, but it's almost as if you empty the fears out of your mind," study researcher Sian Beilock, an associate professor in psychology at the University of Chicago, told U.S. News. "You reassess that situation so that you're not as likely to worry about those situations because you've slain that beast." While exams are no longer a threat to many of us, Beilock noted that the approach could work for people facing anxieties for other things.

Cut yourself some slack.
Dr. Susan M. Love, a professor at the David Geffen School of medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, told The New York Times that the perceived need to follow all the rules when it comes to health can be a source of stress and worry in itself. Love, who wrote the book "Live a Little! Breaking the Rules Won't Break Your Health" told The Times that at the end of the day, it's impossible to have perfect health, and you're probably a lot healthier than you realize. "Is the goal to live forever?” she said to The Times. “I would contend it’s not. It’s really to live as long as you can with the best quality of life you can. The problem was all of these women I kept meeting who were scared to death if they didn’t eat a cup of blueberries a day they would drop dead.”

Keep your hands busy.
Engaging in activities that keep your hands busy and mind distracted could help prevent flashbacks from traumatic experiences, according to research from the Medical Research Council in England. While the study didn't examine how this strategy impacts everyday worry, the American Association for the Advancement of Science's Bob Hirshon pointed out that "keeping your hands and mind busy interferes with storing and encoding visual images."

Make time for meditation.

Taking some time to find some zen can really help anxiety in your brain -- even brain scans say so. A study published earlier this year in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience showed that meditation training not only lower anxiety levels in people, but it also had effects on the anterior cingulate cortex and ventromedial prefrontal cortex brain regions (the former region controls emotions and thinking, the latter controls worrying).

Get your heart pumping.
Exercise may be a predictable way to beat stress, but it's only predictable because it's so effective. Research in animals, for instance, shows that exercise can affect brain activity of serotonin (a so-called "happy" brain chemical) as well as reduce the effects of oxidative stress, The New York Times reported. And Well and Good points out studies showing that exercise interventions can result in lower anxiety levels than people who stay tied to the couch. “Several studies have found the effects of aerobic exercise to be initially similar to those of medication,” Jeff Dolgan, an exercise physiologist at Canyon Ranch Hotel & Spa in Miami Beach, told Well and Good. “However, in the long term, exercise seems to work better.”

(Source: Amanda L. Chan - Huffington Post)

And here`s number 10!

Enjoy!

Do you believe in Karma?

What goes around comes around. What do you think?

What would life be like if we all lived like this?

The surprising (good) news about stress!

Stress. It makes your heart pound, your breathing quicken and your forehead sweat. But while stress has been made into a public health enemy, new research suggests that stress may only be bad for you if you believe that to be the case. Psychologist Kelly McGonigal urges us to see stress as a positive, and introduces us to an unsung mechanism for stress reduction......