[b]Happy Father�s Day Weekend Members.[/b]
I�ve just returned home and I have dropped N to see what condition your condition is N and to look at my meter. Hey look at that?! I am still a Fresh Air Freak ;)
My goodness, the beach is busy too. Congratulations to the Century Quitters!
I see many new members as well. :) That�s terrific. I imagine each of you is feeling lucky to have discovered the SSC. There is a plethora of information here.
*and N an effort to make this post more than a �hello�*
Did you know that according to research, individuals who create positive mental pictures of the outcome of their self-help efforts actually change faster and the improvements last longer (Lazarus, 1984), if they have these fantasies of success several times a day.
For example, a smoker might imagine being free of the fear of harming his/her health, free of feeling hooked by a drug, free of social criticism, free of dead taste buds, and so on. PLUS, self-praise and rewards are a powerful re-inforcers.
AND
Never EVER underestimate the power of humor. (or humoUr for UK�ers and Canadians)
[b][size=3]Jokes activate brain reward region[/b][/size]
[u]Humor triggers release of feel good chemical dopamine.[/u]
[size=1]Dartmouth College Study [/size]
There's truth in the maxim 'laughter is a drug'. A comic cartoon fired up the same brain centre as a shot of cocaine, researchers are reporting.
A team at Stanford University in California asked lab mates, spouses and friends to select the wittiest newspaper cartoons from a portfolio. They showed the winning array to 16 volunteers while peering inside their heads by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).
The cartoons activated the same reward circuits in the brain that are tickled by cocaine, money or a pretty face, the neuroscientists found. One brain region in particular, the nucleus accumbens, lit up seconds after a rib-tickler but remained listless after a lacklustre cartoon.
The nucleus accumbens is awash with the feel good chemical dopamine. The region's buzz may explain the euphoria that follows a good joke, the team suggests. "Intuitively, it makes sense," agrees Bill Kelley, who studies humor at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire.
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[color=blue]In a School science c