An axiom is a premise that is accepted to be true for the purposes of the discussion or intention of the context in which the alleged or implied or accepted truth is injected into. Axiomatic means that the issue is self- evident, a given, that all reasonable people will agree that the definitive constructs of the phenomena in relativity is an obvious and agreeable conclusion among all parties.
Earthing
Human connection to the Earth and the natural forces of the Earth are a vital element of life that have been seemingly neglected by many as the World has evolved and technology, populations, and proximity seem to have taken the lead with time management. Instagram, Facebook, increased commercial development and infrastructure for buildings, travel, and living preclude a proximity for a simple walk in the grasslands, or woodlands, or on a beach, or in the mountains. There are important reasons for said technology advancements, and no one could possibly discount the value of a greater and broader infrastructure that development has provided. Many areas of the World have specialized green-space or protected national lands. You see, it is not the lack of opportunity that has filtered our reliance on the natural elements of the Earth and our personal health and wellness, it is the loss of reasoning perhaps?
The National Institute on Health in the USA actually goes as far as warranting from evidence-based research that “a disconnect between humans and the Earth in physical contact may be a primary contributor for physiological dysfunction and unwellness” In other words science supports that idea that not connecting regularly with the Earth, as a human, with direct physical contact will lead to poor health and contribute to a decrease in mortality, or increased disease, and dysfunction (Chevalier, Sinatra & Oschmann, et al). The benefits of Earthing (the process of walking barefoot in nature, swimming in a creek, lake, river or ocean, or connecting with a tree, rock formation, or any other natural element that exposes the skin and the Earth to a mutual embrace, a touch, a connectivity of influence, include the following as examples for health benefits:
· Promotes sleep and homeostasis
· Reduces both chronic and acute inflammation
· Reduces stress and the release of stress hormones such as adrenaline, or cortisol
· Induces hormones such as Serotonin, Dopamine, or Oxytocin
· Increased blood flow regulation
· Contributes to pain management
· Neutralizes free radicals that are responsible for a host of immunity and dysfunction issues (or at a minimum correlated with)
· Removes toxins both internal and external exposure (i.e. pollution from air or environments we live and dwell, intake of processed foods, aforementioned stress, and heavy metals to name a few)
Today is the day to start – tomorrow is the day to continue!
Take a walk and remove your shoes
Swim in a natural (safe) environment
Touch the trees and communicate with them
Sit on those rocks with bare skin exposed (legs are fine lol – no need for the whole skin to be bare – unless that is your preference of course!)
Garden or just use your hands to dig in the dirt (be kid for a little while)
Lay down on the ground and watch the sky dance above you
Get creative and find your own path to Earthing! The good news is that it only takes 30 – 40 minutes a day to optimize the human body and with the World in chaos, illness, and for some despair, don’t you think a little recharge is something that we can all use TODAY?
Reference:
Word of the Week - Entropy
When there is a breakdown in a system or structure, a lack of energy supply to complete the task or objective. A descent into chaos or collapse as a result of insufficient resource material or activity.
Always be mindful that you prevent or minimize entropy wherever you can! In the World of self-development, and of many other paradigms, communication is a vital element for preventing entropy.
Confirmation Bias
One of the most common of the logical fallacy interference with human behavior is found from confirmation bias. Humans will generally seek to confirm something they desire to be accurate or look for situational examples that rationalize or explain their perspectives in a favorable light. Heuristics are the filters from which choices and specific influences are ran through prior to adjudications or response. Life experience directly, indirectly, or vicarious, or virtual will subconsciously create these filters.
All healthy humans hold desire and many want to be loved/like/appreciated according to many scholars postulations including but not limited to Maslow’s Pyramid which place love and belonging the need to be liked or appreciated as one of the highlighted levels of self-discovery and development. Being that one wants to be noticed for their opinions, the person will generally look to find their positions favorable in some manner or another. A bias then forms. A method of association with the like-minded or similar positions that support our own desire or hope for a phenomenon to be a specific way.
The logical fallacy of confirmation bias leads an individual to seek out information or data that can support the position in a positive way. In fact this bias is so strong in some people that there could be four different possible answers to a question and the person will only accept one that is compatible with their own mindset as a truth, ignoring any evidence to the others or discounting the possibility by finding flaws, fault, or accusations of misinformation within the additional options. One method of defeating the confirmation bias is apply the null hypothesis rule of thumb. You cannot prove something true but you can prove it to be false. Examine areas where you may hold a confirmation bias by looking at how to prove your position false, not how to support it as truth.
The idea sounds a bit odd but using this method you create a stronger argument for your position (unless of course you ultimately do prove your position wrong). Think of it this way, if you are trying to prove yourself wrong and are not able to do so then the position that you have taken needs no biased confirmation to support that position, the evidence will be overwhelming in support of your position that others can try as hard as you did to prove the position wrong and would be unable too (unless it is wrong of course – we are speaking of an objective wrong, not a subjective wrong here). Should you prove your position wrong even if it was a strong desire for you, is it not better to know that the position was incorrect or that the idea was flawed in some manner? Either way, if you utilize the null hypothesis idea of seeking to examine something to prove it false rather than seeking information to prove something true – you will have the strongest position to discuss with the evidence that you need! Confirmations should be about the evidence not about the bias!
Etymology
The study of the use of words and their meanings specifically any changes that occur in the use of the word over time!
Talk - Therapy
Talking to people has historically been an approach to self-improvement. Although, some historians would argue that geographical, cultural, and gender differentiations have prevented the full extent of talk therapy or may have even criticized the effectiveness of such an idea, the idea that talking to someone about your needs/problems/concerns/ or opinions may be beneficial. Some would suggest that the exact opposite comes from sharing your thoughts and feelings with others. The truth is, competence, and ethical professionals are generally equipped to discuss things with you from a more pragmatic perspective that places individual attention on your needs or benefits from the talk. I certainly do not dismiss the value of talking with family, a mentor, a trusted peer, or an overall enhanced communication process and the influence such a process holds on personal development. I would caution that talking to the incompetent, the well-meaning but opinionated (their views are right and all others are wrong), and the unethical or even deviant can cause much trouble or produce negative outcomes for the person seeking solace just for solace sake. Reliance on an untrusting, uncaring, or incompetent person to talk to must be evaluated for each individual’s betterment or destruction, this is one of those unhappy truths when humanity is considered in the depth by which the measures warrant.
With that caveat aside, the idea that a person talking to just talk will not always equal improvement (no matter what the unicorns and faux Guru’s say or suggest). I want to introduce you to some of the positivity found within talk therapy or talking with another person to assist you with your own personal development needs. Talking to others that are competent, and ethical will most certainly provide you with areas and ideas that can assist you with your own journey toward being a better human. Knowledge, experience, scope of practice capacity, and personal disposition are all factors for consideration when you choose to talk to others from a candid and personal context. The focus here is to discuss four types of talk therapy to consider.
Cognitive Behavioral Talk Therapy
The basic idea of CBT is to create an environment or space for people to discuss their thoughts and how those thoughts lead to behavioral choices (again we do not go into the required depth of the construct here in this blog post – we merely introduce you to the terms and the general idea behind the construct as it relates to human personal development, or performance enhancement). Some would include NLP, and positive self-talk as forms of CBT while others postulate varying perspectives on modality of the talking specifics and design purpose such as Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy (REBT) where the purpose of the discussion is to assist another in finding mindfulness regarding their irrational thoughts and resulting behaviors. Other concerns addressed through CBT are said to be sensations, sensitivity, imagery, and personalization of trauma as a few more examples of areas where CBT is utilized.
Dialectic Behavioral Talk Therapy
Very familiar in use and assessment with typical CBT. The main differentiation being that DBT focuses on extreme negative influences from emotional exaggerations, or harmful (self or to others) irrational thoughts. Basically a specialized area of CBT that focuses on darker and more violent or harmful thoughts and emotional connectivity to behaviors or considered behavioral responses (suicide, mass shooting, necromancy, or sexually deviant concerns such as pedophilia to name a few examples of the type of darkness being discussed with this type of talk therepay)
Psychoanalytic Talk Therapy
Freud, the idea that discussion with skilled and competent practitioners an individual will find blockages, or subconscious influencers of their conscious barriers, or hindrances of specific behavioral choices or consideration. Hypnosis, or opening of memory and mindfulness of past actions that led to feelings of regret, doubt, or fear (could be the positive memory too when applied to memories of satisfaction, comfort or companionship). Generally centered around a need or desire for healing or personal change in circumstances and wanting to discuss internal reasoning or rationalization perhaps, are are few examples of when psychoanalysis, or psychodynamic therapy is utilized.
Humanistic Talk Therapy
The conversations that emphasize free will, self- discovery, self – actualization, and how to become better. The idea that discussions can lead to activity or actionable process and performance exercises which increase the persons personal growth and higher self, or individual capacity.
Word of the week - Rapacious
An aggressive greed or lust, one that lives off of prey and is not concerned with the destruction or process of obtaining what they want. An unquenchable hunger for something of desire, need, or use.
Amygdala
The amygdala is actually two separated regions – each human has a left side and a right-side amygdala. Researchers are uncovering more each day as the connectivity and capacity of each side does differentiate with emotional reception, filtering, and sending order signals to the motor neurons via direct pathway and neurotransmitter release. When one begins to speak about regions of the brain the discussion can become quite deep and mired in academic language for specificity. A specificity of operational order, or functional associations that science an evidence now has determined is both unique and similar to any individual when compared with any other individual.
The idea that the amygdala is related to emotional response and control mechanisms is a short way to describe the detailed functional importance of how these regional structures of the brain influence choice and behavioral actions or reactions to stimuli. The amygdala plays a significant role in the limbic system processing of emotional associations and motor commands based on these heuristics. However, much of personality is agreed in the evidence to be both innate (already genetic inside of us) and environmentally induced or developed based on how our perceptions of circumstances determine our associated emotional connectivity.
The fear response is the highlighted discussion when one reads the literature regarding the amygdala’s primary role. However, harm avoidance is also taking a space on the center stage of the significance of amygdala influence for behavioral modification programs. For example, one may not be afraid of speaking per se, but will avoid speaking in public because of a thought that they might appear “stupid” or they might offend another. The result is the amygdala overrides the simple process of speaking or communicating. Hardly the same as the importance of fear when a loud boom goes off near your home, or when a creepy snake slithers through your garden on a sunny day.
The amygdala is associated with the anxiety levels a person feels based on how much negativity is bonded between a stimulus and the persons potential series of reactions. The good news is that the amygdala can be trained to respond in varying ways. Any person can use their own personality to create how they want to perceive the world and thereby influence the measures of how to respond emotionally to specific situations. More on how to train your amygdala can be both researched individually or of course, we are happy to talk with you about specific training options for you, of which the amygdala may be an area of focus that we look too for development of specific emotions or emotional responses desired.
Organismic Integration Theory - Self Determination Theory
As many of the previous blog posts written here have postulated, there is an admitted bent towards personal development and a high degree of emphasis on postulating terminology, ideology, and proficient practices that can increase the performance actuality and additional capacity for increased performance skill levels. Increasing levels of capacity for those individuals that follow along with the readings. Today is an introduction to Organismic Integration Theory and evolves into Self-Determination Theory. The former is the methodology by which one turns extrinsic motivation factors into intrinsic associations, or purpose. Intrinsic motivation being considered the highest level of motivation (some will arguably opine that addiction is the highest level of motivational influence but for today we accept the axiom that intrinsic motivation is King).
Edward Dici, and Richard Ryan are the psychologists responsible for both theories, and the extended relationship between one another. Research conducted and written instruments from these two men during the 1970’s and 1980’s are where the origination points are discovered. Suffice it to say that many other practitioners’ postulations and written instruments have been added to the literature and research concerning the ideas of self-regulating motivation and responsibility for performance influences. The main differentiation or extension for organismic integration is the internalization component of actionable reliance. The integration to take external environmental influences and internalize those influences to become intrinsic concerns or motivators is the key element. Again, much more depth is found when the construct is thoroughly examined for personal efficacy.
Development, especially personal development, is the systematic process of opening or becoming one’s full potential thereby continuing to expand said potential with each growth or evolutionary step. Some will posit a finite capacity and others will opine that an infinite capacity is a potential for all to assume. The differences being in sections or specificity of ability and growth potential. i.e. one might expand by becoming adept at rhythm and balance where they have reached a peak for strength and speed, or one might grow in the field of writing where they were prior a functional mathematician that reached skill capacity or a motivation limit in the former field of interest or practice. Personal development being unlimited in potential methods for expanding skill acquisitions or levels of performance mastery alike in the process of personal growth.
Self-determination Theory places an emphasis on three main components for individual need and capacity of all personal limitations, perspectives of limitations, or technical/psychological adjustments. Postulating that the mind and the psycho-motor integration must be both innate and environmentally influenced by individual choice and purpose for adapting or overcoming, or adjusting to specific reality restrictions, or potential enhancements available to the individual. The cause and effect being that self-regulation is both a controlled motivation exercise while simultaneously integrating or creating altered positions that eventually become autonomous motivators. These three components are:
Autonomy – Individuals want to know they are masters or at least the influencers of their own destiny. The rights of passage, trial and error, participation, and adjudication is within their own control and they are rewarded or punished as a result of those choices and actions. A lifetime of such participation provides associations for them. Personal development by individual choice and willingness to engage being the result!
Competence – The idea being that a person wants to become competent at what they achieve through mastery. However, the bar for this has unfortunately been set lower in new teachings, and many in the World are OK with being just OK. Self-determination allows this position but the original intent was introduced with the assumption that individuals want to become the best that they can become – they want to be better as individuals, and they will seek competence in all that they endeavor from a proficient practice rather than a sufficient acceptance. Technically though self-determination allows for sufficient mindsets to rest here and accept mediocrity as a level of achievement. (We at Madzook generally disagree with mediocrity unless it was achieved by someone that was performing at a level lower than mediocrity in the first place. Mediocrity is only an acceptable achievement if it is an improved position from a prior capacity)
Psychological/Social/or connective relatedness – In other words self-determination is extremely influenced by humans need and desire to feel connected to humanity as a whole. The idea being that one will seek to become or to perform better if the individual believes or feels that their actions are meaningful and connected to a greater external population. This could be a spouse, partner, offspring, work group, civic organization, team, neighborhood, race, gender, Deity association, country, or the whole encompassing humanity as a species. The capacity is highly individualized here but the construct of feeling a sense of connected belonging is the synthesis of all interactive activity for any and all individuals – simply put the meaningfulness or connection is influential with the specificity of the individual and the feeling satiated by the choices and actions taken.
In summation, an individual seeks personal choice to feel competent and connected to their version or perspective of a contextual world in which they participate as an individual. The choices, and actions taken are all in direct relationship to the three constructs and how those constructs integrate for that individual – specifically.
Word of the Week - Simile and Metaphor
Writers use words that add a vivid life description in the text. Often times the writer will use comparative imagery to draw a visualization of something related to what they are trying to convey so as to associate the meanings with the ideas being utilized for the comparative description. Two of these word types are Simile and Metaphor – A Simile will always have the words “like” or “as” in the comparison while a Metaphor uses abstract comparison by saying the first issue is exactly like the second issue (even though it is clearly not the exact same and emphasis of word choice for the comparison using metaphor will always provide intensity and influential imagery)
Example Simile: He acted just like a Devil when he was angry.
Example Metaphor: John is the Devil in Disguise when you piss him off.
Meditation and Mindfulness
Mediation is a broad term used to define varied aspects of seeking specific intentions through breath work, and/or a focused concentration control or release. An oxymoron to those that are learned as to the varying aspects and intentions of specific meditations and mindfulness practices. Today, I will discuss more depth for mindfulness and the variables or potential results from specific intentions for increased practice efficacy. First, However, I must offer a brief summation for the differences in a generalized sense for more awareness of the many different styles and intentions of the broad terms meditation or mindfulness, two terms often confused and integrated by faux gurus, and trainers acting well outside of their scope of practice competence.
Meditation generally is divided into three varying distinctions (each division also breaks down for more depth and specificity but that is too long to list for purposes of this blog post).
Meditation – Seeking to connect to the void – the nothing, a blank space for all conscious and subconscious thought and feeling to become one with the ether, the void, the stillness or emptiness.
Mindful Meditation – Seeking to connect with the everything, the thoughts and feelings are free to flow openly, and the practitioner is encouraged to connect without judgment to the feelings and thoughts as the environment delivers such constructs for them to interact with. Mindful of the surroundings, the sounds, the smells, all of the sensory stimulus and the energy, or presence of feelings and/or thoughts (a distinct difference exists between a feeling and a thought).
Visualization Meditation – Seeking to focus on one specific thought or feeling at any given time – athletes, public speakers, and many other varied practitioners utilize this form of specific focus – intention to create a map or association so strong in the minds eye that the performance or action of the desired focus comes to fruition.
Again, these three divisions are highly generalized and commentary suggesting the constructs listed here as incomplete are surely applicable. Explore each form of meditation at your own need and purpose. Now on to the explanations into differentiating the term mindfulness as a meditation practice.
What do you want to become mindful of? Would you like to scan your body to become aware of the body’s status or disposition? Mindfulness scanning the body is an effective method of becoming in touch with what your body is saying to you. The key here is to remain relaxed and focused – do not apply judgments, simply feel and think as both the thoughts and feelings reveal to you. A spiritual mindfulness practice may lead one to interact with their Deity, or to examine their own depth of spirituality within any given personal ideology. Again, the key is to allow the forces to come into your mind, becoming more aware of the presence of each, stay unconditionally open to what is happening inside of you at the present moment. Reserve judgments until you begin to openly reflect on your mindfulness meditation experiences at a more conscious reckoning with your newfound awareness of internal dispositions or questions.
Other types of mindfulness include movement with a purpose – such as Kundalini Yoga, Tantra, or Qi Gong. Become mindful of the body and the mind integration with each movement and feelings, thoughts and physical consumption that take place from a subconscious – conscious integration point. Jung would postulate this is part of the collective unconscious as new movements manifest within each of us during our specific mindfulness explorations into the energy centers and meridian lines. Does curiosity, acceptance, and demeanor or reactionary response become associated for you as you mindfully understand the process and the correlations taking place.
The key for establishing a deep and powerful mindfulness practice is found in the acceptance of what is happening without real time adjudications, utilizing breath, movement, and integration of external and internal dispositions. One must fully open and become centered within themselves in order to gain from a mindfulness practice. This does not mean act on every impulse; it simply means that you begin to know who you are at the moment in time that you are feeling or thinking something specific to you. Self – Discovery leads to personal development and mindfulness for discovery is important.
Mindfulness for development is also an intention to consider. You see, the art of mindfulness and the skill of developing into an effective practitioner involves reflective thinking with critical thought but not during the practice itself. In other words, generally speaking – mindfulness is very individualized and how to practice can be discussed with you, but a guided meditation is something entirely different than interacting within your own mindfulness practice. Getting experience is difficult because we all need someone to show us how to begin, but most of the people doing so are now just modern-day snake oil salesman playing on feelings alone. Be sure to seek competent persons when starting out your own practice – and keep in mind (haha a little pun) – if it feels wrong (the advice from that person making you uncomfortable or doubtful), it probably is! You are not obligated to listen to people that you do not connect with! However, connecting with a fool is a connection that you must break away from also!
Isometric - Movment Paths - Fluidity
The human body holds a specificity in range of motion. As the body ages, grows, or deteriorates in both anatomical structure and motion capacity the mind (the neurons) are associated to limited pathways of movement. Expansions of movement are also possible of course. Specific training is Functional Anatomy Training methodology that increases or maintains the body’s capacity for motion and specific functional strength that the intention of the motion is meant to accomplish. There are many great training methods for Functional Movement available today. As always, I encourage you to search for one that best fits with your personal situation in mind.
The ultimate goal for functional training is to expand the range of motion, and to increase the specific strengthening of the muscles involved and the familiarity or recall mechanisms for the neurological associations induced or operating during the functional release and control of physical structures accordingly. Sports specific utilization has been the most common application for such specified training up to this point in time. However, now the importance of daily functional strength and conditioning exercises has become common place in physiology, injury rehabilitation, and for fine motor skills enhancements in both disabled, and highly capable anatomical performers. Isometric training involved with the functional movements specific to a path of operating structures, tissues, and nervous system requirements has become a personal development tool for the advanced and the layman alike. Utilization includes enhanced performance physicality through movement potential, injury prevention, and pain reduction.
Isometric resistance training through a pathway for intended motion increases the strength on both sides of the articulation (the joint or movement axis point). The idea being that structural integrity of the tissues and kinesthetic connections, (bone, joint, soft tissue, muscle contraction and relaxation) are enhanced for improved mobility. The purpose originates with improving one’s quality of life through specific movement pathways for daily functional importance. Yoga, Pilates, Capoeira, are also great introductions to baseline movements and advanced mobility training - A few good places to look further into the importance and relevance of Isometric Movement pathway training include:
https://functionalanatomyseminars.com/functional-range-conditioning/
Happy movement! Keep moving, keep thinking, and you will always be able to keep doing!
Socrates, Plato, Aristotle - A Lineage for the Modern Thinker
The influences of Greek philosophy on Western Ideology, Democracy, and World educational practices is a storied one of many contributions. One of those significant contributions rests within the line of three great men dedicated to knowledge, epistemology, ontology, and the fields of science, education, psychology, neurology, medicine, history, government and especially critical thinking (So much so that a deeper method of query is literally called the Socratic Method). Many of these great thinkers’ contributions have inspired and aspired minds of universal and global significance toward humanity constructs and developments. Doctors, Generals, World Leaders, Scientist, Writers, Performers, Educators and anyone affected by such practitioners have all benefited from the works and minds of these three individuals. A true proximity to greatness is learning how those minds and choices were developed within the specific context of their time and beyond.
Socrates was the teacher of Plato, and Plato the teacher of Aristotle, Aristotle eventually was the mentor and tutor for the only general said to have never lost a battle. Alexander the Great of Macedonia. Socrates was a soldier before he became a philosopher. According to Plato whose writings are the most prominent regarding Socrates, Socrates was an Infantry Soldier that used the long spear, a shield and a mask while fighting on the front lines in at least three known military campaigns. In fact, it is also reported that Socrates once saved the life of a very famous Greek General during one of those battles.
Socrates was all about the questions – he thirsted for knowledge and wanted all others to do the same. Challenge the status quo, look for both objective and subjective truth, use logic, reason, and evidence to support or refute all claims. Socrates believed that eudemonia or eudemonic happiness was the measure of success in mankind. Socrates fathered critical thought processes for the modern Western World as we now know it. Of course, there were most likely logical thinkers and many questions to find answers for prior to Socrates, but the man made a mission out of teaching people to incorporate that methodology into daily life. A message that eventually resulted in a conviction for corrupting the youth of Greece and thereby he was sentenced to death by poison. He was forced to drink hemlock for the crimes of teaching people to ask better questions!
Plato, one of Socrates most advanced students then set up his own school where he went on to advance the works of Socrates and introduced the Theory of Forms (summation for efficacy – a metaphysical theory that espoused a separation of realty in the physical world and other areas of realistic phenomena occurrences that influenced mankind and behavior). Plato was a very well written scholar in stark contrast to his predecessor. Some of Plato’s works worthy of deep reading include;
· The Republic
· The Great Dialogues of Plato
· The Trial and Death of Socrates: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito and Phaedo
All are highly recommended works of literary art for the deep thinker. Plato was also the teacher of Aristotle. Aristotle eventually disagreed with his teacher and the underlying elements of metaphysical and abstract thinking as a separated form or entities in general. Aristotle was more of a holism ideology where he believed that forms from both the metaphysical and physical are integrated into a being rather than a separation of the being itself. One could certainly postulate that the Socratic method of questioning superiority, and existing ideology was distinctly found in Aristotle. A gift from his lineage which Plato played a large part of.
Aristotle went on to become a powerful teacher and philosopher in his own right and through his own merits. Aristotle was the private tutor of Alexander the Great. Aristotle was the pioneering influencer to separate branches of knowledge and practice, including separation of philosophy from psychology. Physics and metaphysics, and rhetoric, and logic. However, the main principle of human inductive reasoning was part and parcel of integration within the branches of knowledge from which the examination and conclusions were conducted.
Each of these three men deserve much more than can be opined or offered about their life’s works from a simple blog post. I would encourage many of you to utilize such blog posts, Google searches, or websites to find the basis of the work and to seek greater understanding of the underpinnings available to the deep thinker that progressively examines the ancient text and mindsets that parallel many great minds of history – is it a parallel or was it an influence?
Word of the Week - Alexithymia
Alexithymia - The inability for a person to identify and express their emotions. The emotions and feelings that are stimulated through the sensory nervous system but fail to relate to a motor command associated to the indescribable feelings or disposition. The motor neurons are still operable and will be subjected to both unconscious and conscious reactions or potentials but the ability to express why, how, or establish a relationship association are absent, suppressed, or not processed as a precursor to the reactionary command.The inability for a person to identify and express their emotions. The emotions and feelings that are stimulated through the sensory nervous system but fail to relate to a motor command associated to the indescribable feelings or disposition. The motor neurons are still operable and will be subjected to both unconscious and conscious reactions or potentials but the ability to express why, how, or establish a relationship association are absent, suppressed, or not processed as a precursor to the reactionary command.
Hicks – Hyman Law of Reaction
Reaction time is particularly important in combination with specificity of need. For example, a person in an occupation such as law enforcement, soldier, professional athlete, or other reactionary dependent positions of vital merit and efficacy application rely on the reactionary speed of their choice and response with literally life altering precision. For the layman, the scholar, or the adept at cognitive importance in freedom of choice and decision making, the idea of increased reaction speed seems to be significant in performance enhancement or personal development for proficient behaviors in response to potential stimuli. Memory and heuristic filters will indeed by an important influencer of our potential options when responding to known, or associated stimulus. However, the newly formed situational awareness or need for response may also be affected by the cognitive or emotional capacity and disposition of the individual and the context of importance, as applied through cognitive training for specificity of responding to varied stimuli.
There is a law of psychomotor reaction performance known as Hick’s Law (sometimes called the Hick’s-Hyman Law). First written in 1952 by William Hick, and Ray Hyman. The two psychologists were researching reaction time affected by presence of potential responses to a stimulus. The results determined that the more options a person must examine to respond with, can result in a greater delay of any potential response, or in fact eliminate any meaningful and timed correctly response at all. Determining that it is quite possible to have too many options for an immediate response. In turn the significance can lead to an improper, ineffective, or lack of response all together in many situations where a quick and effective response is vital, or at a minimum preferred. One must think of the old adage coined by Bruce Lee “I am more concerned about a man that has practiced one kick, ten thousand times, than I am about a man that has practiced 10,000 kicks, one time”
The Hick’s - Hyman Law should be reviewed by various individuals, of this there is no doubt in importance that may find reason for you individually. Specifically, the personal trainers, educators, or coaches of individuals involved in quick thinking reliant protocols will also need to understand the depths of this reactionary physical law in order to create significant relevance to the trade, craft, or need of their client base. As always, our blog post is the introduction of the issue and MadzookJoe suggests that you dive further into the construct for your own self-improved personal development concerns. The actual formula is as follows:
Reaction Time = Movement Time + Processing Speed · log2 (n),
(Variables = Processing Speed · log2 is the time taken to come to a decision. (n) is the number of available options for response. The movement time is the total time that is not involved with the actual process of the decision making - such as observation sensory ability i.e. site, sound, or touch limitations, enhancements, or variances, and physical functional capacity i.e. muscle size and mass, bone structure, balance or any other extended physical functionality involved in the kinesthetic movement(s) required).