PSICHOLOGY TODAY

Colors of Light and Life

All light doesn't affect us in the same way.
We spend a lot more time thinking about what colors to paint the walls of the rooms that we live in
than we do choosing the colors of the light bulbs we use to light those spaces. And that is
unfortunate.
Light comes in distinct colors, and selecting the right one to use in a space helps to make it more
likely that what we want to happen in a particular place will indeed occur.
Here, we wont discuss how we respond to being in spaces lit by those garishly colored red and
green and other bulbs sold around Halloween and other holidays. Well be reviewing the
implications of being in spaces lit by slightly warmer light or somewhat cooler light. The warmer light
were concerned with ranges from around 2700 degrees Kelvin to around 4000 degrees Kelvin,
which is where more clearly cooler light begins. Noticeably cool light is found at around 6500
degrees Kelvin, or so. To use the scientific research on light color in your life, you dont need to
search out the degrees Kelvin of a bulb you may be considering buying, its enough to focus on
whether a bulb is labeled warm or cool.
Being in cool colored light is great if were doing mental work; better cognitive performance has
been linked to being in places lit with cooler lights. The lights in your office, home or otherwise,
should be cool. If your home office multi-tasks, try to make sure theres a lamp on your desk
stocked with a cool bulb that you can turn on while you work. You want to be sitting in cooler light
when youre trying to concentrate. Cooler light can keep us awake, one of the reasons it's good to
stop using electronic devices (which emit blue-ish light), such as iPads, long before bedtime.
Being in warm light has been tied to very different consequences. We seem to feel more relaxed
under warm light than cool and to get along better with others when were in a warmer glowso
theres a good reason to light a fire in the fireplace before a potentially contentious family gathering
or at least start burning a few candles. The glow from a fireplace or candles also creates a
together zone in a larger room, a sort of room within a room. Research also indicates that we think
more creatively under warmer light.

Light of different colors can help calm us, or enhance our cognitive performance, or make it more
likely that well get along with others, and even think creatively. Light bulbs cant guarantee that well
be calm, etc. Nothing can. Like other sensory, social, cultural, etc., factors, bulbs of different colors
do, though, make some outcomes more likely than others.
Design informed by science is bright design, and that never goes out of style.

SUMMARY
Well, in this article talks about why the colors affect our lives when they are embody in our spaces
like in the office, living rooms, bathrooms etc. Selecting the right one to use in a space helps to
make it more likely that what we want to happen in a particular place will indeed occur. We can
relation the colors with some types of holidays or some celebrations around the world and this types
of relations talk about feelings and other sensations that causes them. For example, for Christmas
the first colors that you think are white, red and green. Another example when the Halloween occurs
immediately you think in purple, orange and black. This types of examples are really present in our
normal lives, for example, some people have the idea that when you bought your new house, you
must painting the lounge and the dining room must be painted of light colors, this reflects a sense of
freshness and cleanliness to get home. Some dark colors can sometimes bring symbols of sadness
for the simple fact of being opaque and no sense of joy.

PSICHOLOGY TODAY

Why Must We Make Fun of Guys Hanging Out Together?

Men's friendships are crucial for health, so let's stop mocking them.

In my years writing, speaking and teaching about friendship, I am always struck by an odd
contradiction: some of our most groundbreaking data on the importance of friend relationships
comes from studies looking at men, and yet as a culture we insist on snickering when guys put an
emotional value on their friendship. It's like we're uncomfortable with the idea that men's friendships
can be an emotionally important component of their lives. Why?
Take the word "bromance." It's tinged with almost homophobic snark, as if two men can't enjoy a
platonic relationship that actually means something: instead, we need to poke it a bit and bring it
down a notch. We treat a group of guys hanging out together as some sort of anthropological
oddity: "male bonding"as if it's not the same as any other two people hanging out and enjoying
each other's company. But isn't spending time with people you like the basis of what a good life is
all about?
In fact, we know that supportive relationships with friends are among one of the strongest predictors
of longevity (link is external). And how do we know this? It's not like it's just women who are being
studied. In fact, one of the most thorough longitudinal studies of all timethe Harvard "Grant"
Study, which began in the late 1930shas followed men alone. And, as its long-time lead
investigator George Vaillant put it, it solidly reinforced that warm relationships in young adulthood
predicted later happiness, in addition to mental and physical health.
Solid, quality friendships are associated with healthier immune systems, lower blood pressure,
lessened risk of depression and anxiety disorders, improved prognosis after the diagnosis of
cancer, and even decreased risk of dementia. Loneliness and low social support are associated
with an increased risk of heart disease.
Creating good relationships, and prioritizing them as something to spend your time and emotional
energy on, is a health issue not unlike remembering to floss or dragging yourself onto the elliptical
machine. Hanging out with friends is not frivolous or a luxury: it's a basic necessity in taking care of
ourselves, and arguably it is among the activities that, looking back, will have imbued our lives with

the most meaning. Whether they're watching the game or having a beer, orgasp!getting
together just to have a conversation, let's celebrate that men can get just as much out of friendships
as women can. And let's stop speaking of male friendships in a way that subtly makes fun of them
or makes them the object of scorn or embarrassment, so we can stop making it more difficult for
them to pursue this part of life that is ever-so-important to their happiness.

SUMMARY

PSICHOLOGY TODAY

Using Good Memory Habits to Boost Your Memory

Grandmas advice is the best for solving common memory problems.
We all make memory mistakes from time to time. If you have MCI, you probably make them more
often than you used to. The good news is that there are simple things you can do to boost the
likelihood that you will remember things that are important to you. In this posting, we talk about a
memory strategy that is a lot like Grandmas advice a pearl of wisdombased not so much on hard
scientific evidence but proven through years of experience.
Using good habits as a memory strategy
Most of us have a number of habits or routines that we build into our day. We read the newspaper,
have a cup of coffee, and brush our teeth habitually, often without even thinking about it.
If used correctly, habits can be harnessed as powerful memory strategies. They are great for
remembering things that you do on a regular basis. When habits become entrenched, they happen
automatically without much effort on your part. This means you dont have to spend time trying to
remember things you have done or need to do, because you can rely on your habit.
Here are some pointers about using memory habits to deal with specific memory problems:
Where did I put my keys?
It is a fairly common experience to misplace things that you use often, like your keys, wallet, reading
glasses, or mobile phone. This can be frustrating when you spend a lot of time looking for these
things, especially when you find yourself doing the same search day after day.
In this case, Grandmas advice a place for everything and everything in its place are good words
to live by. If you have a habit of always putting your car keys in a bowl by the door, for example,
then you dont have to try to remember where you put them last. Youll know exactly where they are
even if you dont remember putting them there, because they are always in the same place.

The way to develop this type of good habit is to start by figuring out a logical place to keep each
item. You are more likely to remember a logical place, like keeping your postage stamps in the
same desk drawer as your stationary and envelopes, than an illogical or neutral place. After figuring
out a logical place, the next step is to put the item in that place and then here is the difficult part
always put it back when you are not using it.
Often the reason that we lose things is because we put them down without thinking about where we
are putting them. When we dont pay attention, of course it is very difficult to remember. By making
a conscious effort to return an object to a specific place, you are breaking the bad habit of putting
things down without paying attention and building a good habit of using consistent, logical places for
items. With time, the habit of using the logical place will also become automatic, and acting without
paying attention will help rather than hurt your ability to find things.
Did I take my medicine this morning?
Another good use of memory habits is for remembering to do things that are repeated often, like
taking a medication twice every day. We dont spend much time thinking about the things we do over
and over again, and it is easy to forget to do them, or forget whether we have done them.
The key here is to develop a habit of doing something at the same time that you would normally be
doing something else. With time, the one activity becomes a cue to do the other. For example, if you
are already in the habit of brushing your teeth twice a day, you could keep your medication near
your toothbrush and make it a habit to take your medication when you brush your teeth.
What else do I need to remember?
There are many other everyday situations where habits can be used to help you remember
important things. If you find that you often forget to lock the door when you leave the house, make
it a habit to always turn around and double-check the door as soon as you close it. If you often send
an e-mail and forget the attachment, make it a habit to add the attachment before you start writing
the e-mail, while it is still in mind. If you find that you make appointments but forget to check your
calendar, keep the calendar in a prominent place, like on the kitchen counter, and check it whenever
you prepare a meal.

Developing good memory habits can be particularly difficult when it forces us to do things differently.
It is hard to break old habits and to create new habits. The flip side, of course, is that once you have
a new (good) habit, it is also hard to break. While you are developing a new habit, you may find that
you slip easily into your old habit, but keep plugging away at it. Eventually, your new habit will win
out and you will find that you are spending less time searching for lost objects or pondering whether
you remembered to do something you intended to do.

SUMMARY

So often in life one feels a victim, forced by circumstances, personality, or even up-bringing to suffer
in silence or "to grin and bear it." Many of us were brought up in the English tradition where one is
expected not to explain or complain but to carry on cheerfully regardless. Though this attitude
certainly has its advantages, yet it is interesting to look at what some writers have done with the
trauma in their lives and how they have used it as inspiration for their works, and how this may
have helped them to continue to live and to change their lives.
For example, one can take Dostoevsky who was condemned to death as a young man accused of
revolutionary activities, having participated in a radical intellectual discussion group called the
Petrashevsky Circle. The group was suspected of subversive activities, which led to Dostoevskys
arrest in 1849, his imprisonment by the Czar in the fortress of St. Peter and Paul, and his
sentencing to death. He was left in solitary confinement until December 22, 1849, when he and his
fellow revolutionaries were led forth to face the firing squad. As the men stood blind-folded against
the wall, that cold December day, a messenger from the Czar came galloping up and announced
their reprieve. Some of the prisoners were driven mad by this experience. Dostoevsky certainly
wrote of it in many different forms as well as his subsequent experiences in a Siberian labor camp,
where he worked for four years.
It is interesting to conjecture that "Crime and Punishment" his novel written in 1866 came out of a
reversal of this experience. In real life Dostoevsky was obliged to submit passively to an almost
death experience. On the page he reversed this completely in "Crime and Punishment" entering the
mind of Raskolnikov, a student, so convincingly. Raskolnikov plots the murder of an elderly pawn
broker and ultimately kills her with an axe as well as her innocent step-sister, Lizaveta Ivanovna. He
even makes this analogy himself at one point in his book, in fact at the moment when he hears that
the pawnbroker will be alone, and he will have the opportunity to kill her. He walked like a man
condemned to death. He was not reasoning about anything, and was totally unable to reason."
In my own case in real life I allowed my own sister to die passively, killed, I believe, by her battering
husband in a car crash. Yet in fiction I have been able to reverse this again and again, entering the
mind of the killer, as in "Crossways" which has three points of view, the sister who survives, the
killer, and a Zulu servant, or in "Cracks" where a group of school girls is responsible for the death of
the "foreigner" amongst them, or even in some of my later historical novels where I have given a
voice to those who in real life were silenced in some way, such as Freud's famous patient young Ida
Bauer who he called Dora.

SUMMARY