• Featured testimony --You can do it!
• Commentary: The power of expectation
• News briefs
  Napping to learn
  Miracle pill for couch potatoes
  The wrong motive--but the right results

Testimony

I am a 46 year old male who has been drinking since I was 16. Ten years ago, my wife left me and took my 3 month old son with her. I started drinking everyday. A pint of scotch a night. Last year I stumbled across your website and purchased the "Free Of Alcohol" tape. I had tried everything else and was desperate. I put off using the tape until about a month and a half ago. Today I am no longer even interested in alcohol. I've tried to quit on many occasions but failed. Your InnerTalk tape is miraculous! I plan on working on my smoking and weight management next. I am recommending your tapes to everyone I know. Thank you!!! Respectfully; D.J.S.

Thank you all for sharing--it really makes our work a joy!

The Power of Expectation

Everyday I am reminded of just how much power our thoughts, expectations and beliefs have on all that each of us will ever experience in life. As I experience my own personal growth, I cannot help but notice how often matters of stress or frustration and so forth are bound up in expectations. A disappointed expectation is a stressful/frustrating experience waiting to happen. Think about it. How many of your frustrations, problems, life difficulties and so forth are tied up to some “broken or unfilled expectation?”

Expectation is a map to both success and disappointment. Expectation is often the so-called “quid pro quo” that underlies everything from our notions of reward and punishment to our relationship rules. If I do this then you should do this. If you do this then I am entitled to do this. Expectations of this type are actually contractual in nature.

Disappointment seldom arises from spontaneous events and it never occurs when an attitude of gratitude meets everything that comes as bearing some potential for good. I like that expectation mind set that greets even the most disturbing of events with the idea that, “I can’t wait to see what good comes from this.”

We live in a difficult time. The daily news is enough to make most people just a little more than slightly ill at ease. Danger, danger, danger—broadcast from everywhere. It’s times like these that we all can use some extra serenity in our lives. When it’s all too easy to be “up-tight” anyway, it’s all that more important that we take time to put some balance in our lives if it’s only by augmenting a positive outlook and a gratitude expectation.

We at InnerTalk wish you the very best in everything including the joy of peace, balance and harmony. Now, on to the news.

News Briefs

Accelerate your learning by taking a nap

It’s being billed as “Snooze Power,” the latest in accelerated learning techniques, according to researcher Sara C. Mednick of Harvard University. In a study where participants identified subtle changes in an image, the participants allowed to nap following the first two sessions did markedly better on the last two sessions than participants that simply proceeded session to session without the nap. As interesting, nappers that napped for one hour responded progressively faster where non-nappers speed declined. (Milius 2002)

Attention couch potatoes

This copy is not from Ripley’s Believe It or Not—no, this is actually from New Scientist. The headline, “A miracle pill for couch potatoes?” The article addresses new research findings by a team headed by R. Sanders Williams of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. The researchers identified a high level of a continuously active enzyme called calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase (CaMK) in the muscles of mice they had genetically engineered. Observations of the muscles suggested that they behaved as though they had been exercised even though the animals were kept quiet. These observations included slow twitching of the muscles and “large numbers of mitochondria, the tiny energy factories of cells—another hallmark of sustained exercise.” (Westphal 2002) Imagine it—layback on the beach and sprout well toned muscles. Oh the glories of technology!

The wrong motive but an interesting finding

The more you donate the higher others hold you in their esteem—true or false? The answer is TRUE. According to a new study by Manfred Milinski of the Max Plank Institute of Limnology, the more students donate the higher the regard they receive from fellow students. “This suggests that there is a broader social gain to charity,” says Milinski. (Randerson 2002)

Milius, S. (2002). Snooze Power. Science News. 161: 341.

Randerson, J. (2002). Don't give a little, give a lot. New Scientist. 27 April, 2002: 15.