My Not So Secret Obsession

As I was writing this blog, I realized I may be a little obsessed with school and psychology... bear with me, or don't... either way, it doesn't matter much to me. Writing is a good way to study for tests (in case you were wondering).

Wow. I am really loving my classes. Recently, I wrote a paper for behavioral neuroscience about the effects of meditation on the chemistry and neuronal connections within the brain. It was a pretty epic paper, if I do say so myself. It's too long to post though, and besides, I doubt anyone else would find meditative effects as interesting as I find them. Basic point: meditation changes the chemical release of cortisol, reduces stress, improves the immune system, and activates regions of the brain that are directly tied to the attention networks and pathways, etc., etc., etc. Yes, I'm awesome, I know. Maybe sarcastic fits better...

Social psychology is by far my favorite class though. We're learning about cognitive dissonance theory right now, and it makes complete sense. The jist of the theory is that when people do something contrary to their beliefs, they feel psychological tension (otherwise known as dissonance). This, in turn, causes the person to reflect on their "self" to either change the behavior, attitude about the behavior, or rationalize the behavior. It's amazing what we can tell ourselves to feel better about doing something contrary to our beliefs. We lie to ourselves quite often, I've realized. And we usually don't even realize it! It's a coping mechanism, and it does wonders to our mind and how we think about life and others.

Everyone has cognitive dissonance at some point in their life. I was thinking of putting examples up, but I'll pass on that. I'm sure you can think of them yourself... if you really even care... In fact, if you read this far, I'm shocked.

You should take social psychology; especially if you want to learn a ton about yourself - why you think how you think, why you do what you do, to find your true self. There are plenty of other ways to learn about oneself, but this class has shown me so many different techniques and theories that I am starting to put everything together.

Psychology in general is just a bunch of theories bundled together to make sense of human behavior. I love it! I know of no other person who gets as excited about class as do I. Kinda scary actually...

Anyways, that is about all I wish to share. Live life to the fullest, laugh as if there's no tomorrow, and love like there's no end. Well, there is an end (sort of), but don't worry about it.

The End <-- (see, here it is.)

Forces of Nature

I hate the weather right now... it's far too windy and I can feel the autumn breeze starting to fill the air. I thought I would be thrilled to see summer end, but I'm not. I'm ready to be busy again, but I don't want to be at the same time. Does that make sense? Well, it does to me. I'm tired of sitting at home with nothing to accompany me except my thoughts. I don't like helping around the house at the moment, and I need to go back to school, even though I don't necessarily want to go to all of my classes.

I am not looking forward to some of the classes I am taking. Yes, I can't wait to study social psychology and stress management, but statistical methods in psychology does not sound like the most entertaining class. Who knows, I might love it, but I don't want to. Not right now.

Have you ever thought about the connections that we have to different people in our lives? Well, I have. I have given this subject great thought, and I have a theory. People all have different connections: mental, psychological, physical, emotional connections. We can only really see the physical and feel the emotional connections in our lives. But, I have wondered what causes these connections. Is there some sort of 5th dimmension that we have not discovered where thoughts dominate the universe? I think so. I have no idea how this could be proven or even tested, but I think it might be quite an interesting study if someone actually took it seriously.

The brain power that it would take to supply these connections could be extremely small, or very large. I've always wanted to believe in things like supernatural power where the brain is the only instrument used to move the physical world. Does this make any sense at all? Oh well. I need to get these thoughts down before I forget.

I wonder if there's anyone else who thinks this is as interesting as I do. Maybe I'll find out in college. Two years until grad school! Woohoo! For now though, I probably ought to focus on actually getting the degree.