Got Risk Tolerance?

When you want to pick up the butter knife your Bicep and Tricepnmuscles work in pairs and in opposition, right? One extends, causing the other to contract or your motor function fails, and you are buttering your wrist.

We have two different brain circuits for risk and reward, and they are located in our PFC (Prefrontal Cortex). They work in opposition between our Fear of Risk and the Lure of Reward.

There is a conflict, a competition in our brain between these two separate brain circuits. Decision-making requires the dominance of one or the other. Next time fear may win, and reward take a backseat. It is a lifetime ongoing mind battle.

Accountants traditionally tend to be Risk-Averse, while their entrepreneurial clients Risk-Takers. Some loudly hear the whispering Promise of Victory over market forces, and cancel-out their visceral warnings of a wipeout.

The Dread of Defeat (Risk-Averse) has survival value, and is our mental balance to wild-eyed investing or marrying the first person you meet.

Are you Risk-Averse or Risk-Taking dominant? The answer shapes all your value judgments. We need both these circuits of analysis and planning to be successful.

See: Oct. 8, 2008, Cerebral Cortex jou
al; neuroscientist Dr. Antoine Bechara of USC.

Aging

Wanna know if your Fountain of Youth is flowing or you need to call the plumber? The physical shape of our neurons (nerve cells) decides how we are aging, according to Dr. George Bartzokis of UCLA. Google: the jou
al of the Neurobiology of Aging, 10.19.08

Remember from high school biology that your neurons are covered in insulation called Myelin. It protects your neuronal Axons running down from the cortex through your brain, and down the spine.

The purpose is for fast-signaling bursts in our brain to produce cognitive, motor and sensory functions. Ever notice how Seniors are often one or more steps out-of-sync?

Here it is. When the myelin (insulation) begins to unravel (break-down) in old age, we begin to slow up. If you grasp this, you are one in a million. It is your neuronal Action-Potentials (signals for action) that are controlled by the myelin.

Two-steps: we need myelin integrity (no unraveling of the insulation), and the frequency of AP (Action Potentials) bursts by your neurons. Aging means the repair person is laying down on the job or the sand is running out of your hourglass.

So What

Dr. Hans Selye popularized s-t-r-e-s-s research at the University of Montreal. He wrote 35 books and 1,500 scientific articles on the meaning of stress and how it causes physical and mental illness, leading to our early demise.

He predicted stress was the initiator of heart disease, cancer and stroke. Sure,stress is inherent in everyday life, but when it becomes Chronic stress, the clock is running down.

There is even a good kind of stress; Professor Selye called it Eustress (excitement positive expectation, and enthusiasm). If you will spend about 5-minutes daily exercising a stressbusting strategy like meditation, recommended by Dr. Herbert Benson at Harvard Medical School, your neuronal myelin will last up to 100 years.

Mood

It is your habitual state of mind (mood and attitude) that influences your immune system and your hormones, enzymes and neuropeptides to maintain your proper level of homeostasis. Believe this not because it is intuitive, but based on the latest international scientific research.

Optimism heals and produce longevity; pessimism is the partner of stress and anxiety, and creates an entry point for disease and an early send off.

Diaphragmatic Breathing

Did you know when we are frightened and stressed out, we withhold our inhalation, or just slow-down the breathing process? We need two things to live in addition to food and drink: oxygen and glucose for energetic activity.

Our 3-pound coconut requires 23% of all the oxygen we inhale. That’s a lot, right? When we are learning and accessing our memory, our brain requires an additional dose of 10% more oxygen. Ever notice how folks yawn when they are under stress?

It is a request for more oxygen, and a reduction of carbon dioxide and toxins.

Sit down and check out your breathing right now. If you can see your stomach pushes out with each inhalation. When you are exercising diaphragmatic healthy breathing, you mood, attitude and posture (facial expressions) improve.

When you are stressed you upper chest-breathe, and do not oxygenate your lungs deeply.

Secret Strategy

Intentionally spend up to 5-minutes deep breathing.

Step one: intentional breath deeply and see your stomach move.
Step two: hold your inhalation for a count of one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand.
Step three: release (exhale) slowly.

The result is your brain will speed up all its functions, and your organs, cells and tissues will want to kiss you.

Do this SpeedBusting strategy daily for 21 days and diaphragmatic breathing becomes your personal habit. It’s not that important, but it may add up ten years to your personal Fountain of Youth.

Want to reduce your risk of dementia (Alz and Park) by up to 60%? Google Dr. Yaacov Ste
Columbia Medical School and his Cognitive Reserve research.

Trouble concentrating? Use this mantra (focus term) to release the noise from your Stream-of-Consciousness (Internal Dialogue). Your mantra is Hu-u-u. Focus on your breathing on inhaling and on exhaling, and mentally say and hear the term Hu-u-u aloud (chant) or silently.

Feel the Hu-ing sound vibrate on your nostrils and lips. It helps you relax and eliminates subvocalization (self-talk) of your Monkey-Mind chatter.

Endwords

You have at least 50% responsibility for the rate of aging of your mind and body. Genes, getting hit by a garbage truck, and picking the right parents, is the other half.

If you cannot find 5-minutes daily to maintaining your health and life, you already require assistance from a mental health practitioner. Go for it, we need you here making the world a better place.

We suggest science has clearly proven exercising your brain (use it or lose it)adds up to 10 years to your longevity and avoiding the dementia of aging.

Question

Would it help your education and career to read and remember three (3) books, articles and reports in the time your competitors (peers) can hardly finish one?

Lifelong learning gives you something to do with all those extra years of healthy life. Ask us how to double your long-term memory, and triple your reading skills.

The winning terms are Speed Read and Speed Memory.

See ya,nncopyright © 2008
H. Bernard Wechsle
www.speedread.tvnhbw@speedlea
ing.org 1-877-567-2500nn------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------nnnnnnnn