How to Be More Persuasive With Mind Control

It's a common trick used by magicians, and it's easier than you think!

The Principle

When a magician tells you to "pick a card," watch out: Whether it's his speed in fanning out the deck or the way he has one card poking out just a tiny bit higher than the rest, he's probably already directing you toward the one he wants taken.

Your brain will naturally latch on to whatever is presented front and centre. So most people will do exactly as they're prompted and — here's the magic — believe they acted freely.

How To Use It

Suppose you want to go deep-sea fishing with friends on your birthday but know your wife won't be on board with the idea. "Give her three options," says Susana Martinez-Conde, Ph.D, a neuroscientist and the coauthor of Sleights of Mind. 

By building your preference with two other options she'll find even less palatable — like going to Vegas and buying a Ducati — you're subtly forcing the "card" you want her to pick. 

"When she chooses the lesser of three evils, she'll be bound to feel like she had a choice in the matter," says Martinex-Conde.

3 Ways to Power Up Your Brain

You work out and eat smart to build your body so take a similar approach to train your brain: use this plan to sharpen memory, boost creativity, and banish stress.

Thanks to advances in scanning technology, doctors now have unprecedented insights into how a man's brain works. "It's scary, but we can actually see how cramming for an exam, hitting the weights, or partying in Vegas can expand or destroy your mental circuitry," says P. Murali Doraiswamy, M.D., a neuroscientist with the Duke institute of brain sciences and a Men's Health brain-health advisor. "Throughout your life, your neural networks are constantly rewiring themselves in response to your diet, exercise, work, and social habits." By tapping into this ability of your brain to change its own structure and function, you can achieve peak mental fitness.

WORKOUT STRATEGIES TO BUILD MENTAL MUSCLE

Working out boosts production of the proteins that stimulate brain-cell growth, says John J. Ratey, M.D., author of Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain. "It also revs your heart to pump more blood to your brain, which brings glucose and oxygen to help your neurons work optimally." A variety of research shows that exercise may also improve memory, delay neural aging, and fight depression. 

Forty minutes of aerobic training three times a week for a year can increase the size of an older adult's hippocampus by 2 percent, which may lead to improvements in memory, according to research by Arthur F. Kramer, Ph.D., a psychology professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "It appears that the type of activity is interchangeable, but we're still trying to figure out the exact criteria for frequency." In his study, the participants walked, but he suggests moderate-intensity cycling, running, rowing, or swimming.

Strength training for 60 minutes, three times a week for 6 months can help improve short-and long-term memory performance and attention as you age, according to a Brazilian study published in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. The need to focus on technique when doing different lifts provides a cognitive challenge you may not get while doing a repetitive exercise like running, says Gary Small, M.D., director of the UCLA longevity center and coauthor of The Alzheimer's Prevention Program.

Laugh Your Way to Better Health: The Scientific Facts

You Need To Laugh More

We have all heard the phrase “laughter is the best medicine”; however very few of us know that this has actually been proven to be true. A good sense of humour and the ability to laugh can be beneficial for your health physically, emotionally and socially.

It is much cheaper than a trip to the doctor and works much better than any medicine out there, so why not give it a try?

Here are seven reasons why it would be beneficial to develop your sense of humour:

1. It is linked to healthy function of blood vessels.

Laughter triggers the dilation or expansion of the tissue that forms the inner lining of blood vessels, increasing blood flow. “It is conceivable that laughing may be important to maintain a healthy endothelium, and reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease,” says principal investigator Michael Miller.

2. It improves emotional health.

Laughter and humour trigger the brain’s emotional and reward centers, releasing dopamine, which helps the brain to process emotional responses and enhances the experience of pleasure; serotonin, which lifts moods; and endorphins which regulates pain and stress and induces euphoria.

Laughter mimics the euphoric states experienced in communal music-making and dancing. Evidence suggests these states are associated with the release of endorphins.

3. It plays an important role in social interaction and bonding.

It has been hypothesized that laughter has been around long before humans begun to use speech. Therefore there are already instinctive social cues humans are aware of in a social situation.

Laughter plays an important role in regulating conversation in humans and is also significant in facilitating social bonding between groups of individuals. A sense of humour is important in interpersonal communication and attraction, and an important component of social competence. A healthy sense of humour bonds friends and family and reinforces group identity. It can even be argues that laughter can promote a happier marriage.

4. It makes you more attractive.

Studies have shown that men with a good sense of humour are found more attractive. In turn, men are more attracted to women who laugh at their jokes. It makes you more comfortable to be around in social situations, such as parties, allowing you to broaden your social circles. It is also argued that having a good sense of humour in a job interview increases your chances of getting hired.

5. It lowers stress and anxiety levels.

Humour is described as an element of resilience and can allow you to put everyday problems in perspective, increasing your coping capabilities in difficult situations. It moderates the adverse effects of stress on health and promotes a positive mood to cancel out negative emotions. It helps to see the funny side in adverse situations. Genuine laughter is also contagious, so why not help improve someone’s mood by sharing a laugh with them?

6. It strengthens the immune system.

Stressful experiences in everyday life suppress the immune system, from the simplest situations such as the car not wanting to start, increasing the risk of infectious illness and heart disease. A good sense of humour prevents stress from affecting the immune system, protecting you from disease.

7. It beneficial to the respiratory system.

Laughter provides the fastest and easiest method of regulating breathing and flushing out the lungs. It leads to an immediate increase in heart rate, respiratory rate and oxygen consumption. Enthusiastic prolonged laughter rids the lungs of residual air and replaces it with fresh, oxygen-rich air. In simple terms, it allows you to breathe deeper, improving respiratory health especially for those with respiratory ailments such as asthma. It is so effective in fact, that Laughter Yoga has been developed. Laughter Yoga recharges the body and controls the mental state by regulating the flow of ‘life force’, inducing calmness, focus and energy.

Motivational Monday: Improve Every Tiny Thing by 1 Per Cent and Here is What Can Happen

Improve Every Tiny Thing by 1% and Here’s What Happens

Sir David Brailsford

In 2010, Dave Brailsford faced a tough job.

No British cyclist had ever won the Tour de France, but as the new General Manager and Performance Director for Team Sky (Great Britain’s professional cycling team), Brailsford was asked to change that.

His approach was simple. 

Brailsford believed in a concept that he referred to as the “aggregation of marginal gains.” He explained it as “the 1% margin for improvement in everything you do.” His belief was that if you improved every area related to cycling by just 1%, then those small gains would add up to remarkable improvement.

They started by optimising the things you might expect: the nutrition of riders, their weekly training program, the ergonomics of the bike seat, and the weight of the tires.

But Brailsford and his team didn’t stop there. They searched for 1 percent improvements in tiny areas that were overlooked by almost everyone else: discovering the pillow that offered the best sleep and taking it with them to hotels, testing for the most effective type of massage gel, and teaching riders the best way to wash their hands to avoid infection. They searched for 1% improvements everywhere.

Brailsford believed that if they could successfully execute this strategy, then Team Sky would be in a position to win the Tour de France in five years time.

He was wrong. They won it in three years.

In 2012, Team Sky rider Sir Bradley Wiggins became the first British cyclist to win the Tour de France. That same year, Brailsford coached the British cycling team at the 2012 Olympic Games and dominated the competition by winning 70 percent of the gold medals available.

Sir Bradley Wiggins winning a time trial in the Tour De France

In 2013, Team Sky repeated their feat by winning the Tour de France again, this time with rider Chris Froome. Many have referred to the British cycling feats in the Olympics and the Tour de France over the past 10 years as the most successful run in modern cycling history.

Chris Froome winning the Tour de France

And now for the important question: what can we learn from Brailsford’s approach?

The Aggregation of Marginal Gains

It’s so easy to overestimate the importance of one defining moment and underestimate the value of making better decisions on a daily basis.

Almost every habit that you have — good or bad — is the result of many small decisions over time. And yet, how easily we forget this when we want to make a change.

So often we convince ourselves that change is only meaningful if there is some large, visible outcome associated with it. Whether it is losing weight, building a business, traveling the world or any other goal, we often put pressure on ourselves to make some earth-shattering improvement that everyone will talk about.

Meanwhile, improving by just 1% isn’t notable (and sometimes it isn’t even noticeable). But it can be just as meaningful, especially in the long run.

And from what I can tell, this pattern works the same way in reverse. (An aggregation of marginal losses, in other words.) If you find yourself stuck with bad habits or poor results, it’s usually not because something happened overnight. It’s the sum of many small choices — a 1% decline here and there — that eventually leads to a problem.

In the beginning, there is basically no difference between making a choice that is 1% better or 1% worse. (In other words, it won’t impact you very much today.) But as time goes on, these small improvements or declines compound and you suddenly find a very big gap between people who make slightly better decisions on a daily basis and those who don’t.

This is why small choices don’t make much of a difference at the time, but add up over the long-term.

The Bottom Line

Success is a few simple disciplines, practiced every day; while failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day.

—Jim Rohn

You probably won’t find yourself in the Tour de France anytime soon, but the concept of aggregating marginal gains can be useful all the same.

Most people love to talk about success (and life in general) as an event. We talk about losing 50 pounds or building a successful business or winning the Tour de France as if they are events. But the truth is that most of the significant things in life aren’t stand-alone events, but rather the sum of all the moments when we chose to do things 1% better or 1%. Aggregating these marginal gains makes a difference.

There is power in small wins and slow gains.

Where are the 1% improvements in your life?