BrainStyles™ Applied

How Friendship Affects Your Brain

If it seems like friendships formed in adolescence are particularly special: That's because they are.

Childhood, adolescent, and adult friendships all manifest differently in part because the brain works in different ways at those stages of life.

During adolescence, there are changes in the way you value, understand, and connect to friends...

Happiness

What is happiness to you? A hug? A compliment that makes you feel proud? A successful diet? A new outfit? An accomplishment of an item on your To-do list? Do these last? n a survey of a group of 18 leading psychological experts who focus on positive emotions and ultimately, happiness, their consensus of definitions might help you focus on how to start leaning into something that is longer lasting...

Confident Aging

“Older people—say in their seventies—walking at a brisk pace …will tend to look younger, healthier and more vigorous than those who are ambling. This impression is borne out by the science. The slowest walkers – particularly men – are almost twice as likely to die in the next few years compared to the fastest...

Posture Affects Mental Resilience : Smiling...

According to Professor Amy Cuddy of Harvard, “bodies can change our mind.” In her studies over years, she concluded that “positive body language can significantly improve your thoughts, feelings, attitude, and actions through a number of mechanisms, all of which contribute to a more resilient you.” But wait, there’s more: “positive body language can help you become more optimistic, perseverant, and resilient.”

Changing how you stand and sit can create a...

Yes, Your Teen is Crazy

Yes, what you parents and grandparents are observing is true, and now brain research tells why.  According to an article in the Dallas Morning News (2/29/16, D. Howland) "the outbursts, the emotional 'allergy' to parents, and even the risk-taking behaviors is actually valuable to their growing up."  We've known for more than a decade that the teenage brain is different from that of adults and younger kids...

Can You Get Smarter?

According to professor Friedman, “The very notion of cognitive enhancement is seductive and plausible. After all, the brain is capable of change and learning at all ages.  Our brain has remarkable neuroplasticity; that is, it can remodel and change itself in response to various experiences and injuries. So can it be trained to enhance its own cognitive prowess?

“The multibillion-dollar brain training industry...

Memory & Intelligence : Am I Losing My Mind?

No matter what your age, consider your brain health. People with healthy brains are able to make decisions more easily, live more fulfilled lives, and may, in some cases, delay the effects of Alzheimer’s disease.  So how do you keep your brain healthy? The same way you keep the rest of your body healthy.

1. Manage Your Stress. Did you know that high levels of...

BrainStyles™ and a Health Crisis

Are you going through a difficult medical situation? BrainStyles founder Marlane Miller was diagnosed and treated with breast cancer. In this post, she explains how BrainStyles helped her through the process. Learn how BrainStyles may help also help you through a difficult medical situation like cancer.

Over the past few years I’ve been diagnosed and...

What's Wrong with Self-Help Books?

In a rather testy article on self-help books, Ms. McArdle says ‘”The “neuroscience” shelves in bookshops are groaning. But are the works of authors such as Malcolm Gladwell and Jonah Lehrer just self-help books dressed up in a lab coat?” So reads the headline of a piece in the New Statesmen, declaiming against the “Story-Study-Lesson” formula so successfully worked by authors such as...

Hearing, Timing, and Your Life

A BrainStyle™ defines the way our brain processes unfamiliar, incoming information most efficiently.  When we access our “left brain” and “right brain,” obviously there is much more going on than merely thinking, or cognitive processing, of facts and feelings.  Sensory input arrives in the billions of bits.  We recognize, sort, distill, associate, give words and thoughts to an event as we interpret the meaning, emote, label, and then, whew, decide what to say or do about it...

Golf and Your Brain

The sport I have attempted to learn over the last decade is golf.  I find the sport a very apt metaphor for most of living.  In this way, I believe it is a truly Zen[1] activity.  In a recent clinic to improve my game, I learned the following things which I believe translate to living and performing in the world

Don’t grip the club too tight
Tension prevents performance.  Tension stems from expectations for outstanding performance, executing a skill equal to the image I can create, or that someone else can perform...

Replacing Spite With Respect

One of the earliest principles to emerge when teaching what was to become The BrainStyles System® was how to “reframe” criticisms by focusing on natural brain-based strengths. This came to mean re-looking at the labels you use to name what you do and who you are with the brainstyles definitions of strengths.  Further work led to observations about the source of criticisms, along with the distinction between a brainstyle strength from a non-strength...

Valuing Your Gifts

Marlee Alex, an Oregon writer, begins an article entitled “Listening,” by describing how her self-inflicted criticism turned her natural gift into an adolescent curse.

“I am a listener.  Natural born.  But I didn’t always value this gift.  In my teens I desperately wished to be like everyone else: bubbly, chatty, effusive.  I even questioned if something was wrong with me because I was curious and quiet.”  What a discovery when she began to see what she could do with the very ability she used to disparage.  “I am beginning to see how my ease in listening...

Understanding Time Zero

In BrainStyles™, there is a unique concept called “Time Zero.” Simply put, Time Zero is when you confront a new or unfamiliar situation and must use your natural brain hardware to think through an answer and take action, rather than remember what to do. This requires our natural brain processing, or brainstyle.  Often this is disconcerting when we expect ourselves to be smart, quick, and know what we’re doing. We give up authenticity in favor of looking good...

Why Vince Lombardi Won

Vince Lombardi was, for the uninitiated, one of the “winningest” coaches of modern American football and took the Green Bay Packers to legendary status with his left-brained, tough, relentless focus on winning. He famously said, “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.”  For those with his gifts, tough perseverance come naturally

Another Coach

Grant is the father of an 8-year-old football player...

How to Handle a Tough Boss

Lou was standing when Gary came into his office. He opened impatiently, “It’s been a bad morning, Gary. I hope this won’t take long.  I’ve got to catch a plane this afternoon.  I just found out an hour ago.”  Uh Oh, thought Gary, but, typical for his brainstyle, he showed no visible reaction when under pressure.

Gary, a twenty-nine-year-old plant manager for a well known brand, set a meeting with the operations vice president.  He prepared for the meeting for weeks.  Gary has held his position for 18 months, and knew it was critically important...

Redefining Diversity Using BrainStyles™

In working with a well-known company who had conducted system-wide diversity training, I learned from the attendees that the gist of the message was to make them wrong for their hiring policies of the past.  The managers were made to feel guilty for hiring the best and the brightest college grads, and, along with other guilt-laden discussions, were provided a simple answer:  just hire more women and minorities.  The purpose of doing so was not clear to them, other than that this was the law.  The women and minorities in the room said they felt undermined...

The Strengths Contract

In this blog post, learn how one husband and wife learned to appreciate each other’s different brainstyle for problem solving in marriage. The result was something that they both wanted – a new boat. Written by master facilitator Linda Bush, notice how each use their strengths work through a problem.

The Way We Were

I’m accustomed to high-stakes negotiating including several house purchases, corporate contracts while at IBM, and ongoing vendor/supplier deals in my consulting business...

When a Time Zero Occurs on Vacation

The sun came through the clouds, and the family all agreed: time for a boat ride! While the men prepared the boat and water skis, Mom gathered up towels, snacks, sunscreen, and hats and tiptoed through the wet grass to the dock. Stepping around a mound of mud where the shore meets the dock, her first step slipped out from under her and she went down, slamming the other leg into the edge of a dock plank. Now in painful splits, she crept back up on the dock and tried to lift the bruised and bloody shin to lessen the pain and swelling...

Left Brained v. Right Brained

Do you find that you see situations differently from your partner?

Here is a situation where two people see the same situation very differently. The left-brained husband is more factual, quick to answer and objective; the right brain reacts without words until the feelings reach the left brain to speak them.

This is an example of a left-brained husband reacting very differently to a situation than his right-brained wife...

Using Our Natural Strengths

Michael Jordan once said, “There is no I in team, but there is an I in WIN.” While many assumed this to be a selfish quote, there is another way of looking at it. It brings up the question: if everyone played to his or her strengths, would the team benefit? Jordan’s 6 national championships with the Chicago Bulls say Yes.

The famous basketball player Michael Jordan once said, “There is no I in team, but there is an I in WIN.” While many assumed this to be a selfish quote, there is another way of looking at it. It brings up the question: if everyone played to his or her strengths...

When A Loved One Has A Different BrainStyle™

Sometimes talking to a family member or loved one may be challenging. Different communication styles, different ways of solving problems, and different ways of processing information may make it difficult to build a relationship. However, by understanding different brainstyles, we may better understand our loved ones. Our relationships with them will grow closer.

My father and I had very different ways of communicating. Most of the time I thought he just didn't understand me, or would just order me to do things. The summer before I started...