"How NOT To Choke When You're Nervous"

            Everyone experiences things in life where they are under a tremendous amount of pressure to perform well. Whether it be a job interview, a sports game, or the SAT, there is always the terrifying chance that you will choke under the pressure and fail. Science has actually found different ways to reduce the chance of choking, which, if implemented, could possibly help people to become more successful in stressful situations.

Scientist Sian Beilock, who has Ph.D.s in both psychology and kinesiology, says that choking happens when you try to control motor skills that you would perform better if you didn’t pay attention to them or when we allow ourselves to be distracted by anxious thoughts. It happens when we are very aware of the pressure that is placed on us to do well in a specific situation. An easy way of thinking about it is that if you worry about what’s going on, then it takes up space in your brain so that you don’t have enough room to focus on the task that you are trying to perform well.

Choking and pressure comes from a variety of places. One of these is stereotypes. Pressure can come from how well one is expected to perform – if they know that stereotypes or certain people expect that they will perform well, then they are more likely to do well. If, however, stereotypes expect them to perform badly, then they are more likely to perform badly. For example, when Asian girls taking a math test focus on the fact girls are not expected to do as well as boys on math tests, their performance suffers. If they focus on the fact that Asians are stereotypically better at math than people from other ethnicities, they are likely to perform well.

Another reason that some people choke is that they are self-conscious about their body movements. For example, if someone is worried about if they look funny while playing a sport, they may not perform as well as they can. Self-monitoring doesn’t allow you to be as good as you could be at what you’re doing. If a basketball player is worried about whether he looks good to the cheerleaders standing by the court, then he is not focusing as much as he can on doing well in the basketball game.

Over-thinking things doesn’t allow you to perform your best either. Studies have shown that writing about your worries and fears before a big test will actually increase your score. Although it might seem that it would be bad to focus on your worries right before a big test, it’s actually better to get them all written down and out of your mind before you begin a test or go into an interview.

The last thing that makes it easy for a person to choke is interpreting

things going on with your body in a negative light. For example, if your heart starts beating really fast and your palms get clammy, you will be more likely to choke if you attribute those things to nervousness. If you attribute them to excitement and readiness to get started, however, then you are less likely to choke.

            Knowing what factors add to the chance that you will choke in a pressure-filled environment will allow you to avoid them, and hopefully succeed more than you fail. I personally have experienced some of these factors that, when handled poorly, have caused me to choke, and when handled well, have caused me to perform well. I have tried writing about my feelings when I have felt really stressed before a big test, and I performed very well on the test. These factors have all come into play before my piano competitions and sports games also. When my heart is beating fast before a big volleyball game and I think it is because of my nervousness, I therefore become nervous. When I don’t make a big deal out of it, however, I don’t think that I am nervous, and perform better. I think that, with all of the pressure-filled situations out there in the world today, people would be better off knowing all of these factors that could cause them to choke so that they can try their best to avoid them.

Article Source: http://discovermagazine.com/2010/the-brain-2/06-science-reveals-how-not-to-choke-under-pressure

Image Source: http://www.abundantprivatepractices.com/bootcamp_mar09.html 

"Advantages to Paying Attention in High School Spanish"

It seems that every elderly person today is developing Alzheimer's. Chances are that you know someone who has dementia - possibly even a family member. Alzheimer's is a disease that affects not only the person who endures it, but all those who have a relationship with that person. The loss of memory often results in that person forgetting favorite memories or even a person altogether, even a close family member such as a daughter or husband. These devastating consequences have caused Alzheimer's to be one of the most dreaded diseases, and the fact that there is no cure yet for this disease makes the prospect of developing dementia that much more unpleasant. But, don't give up all hope of remembering your loved ones for the rest of your life - even though the scientific community has not uncovered a cure, it has learned that certain things can lessen the chance that your life will be severely affected by Alzheimer's.

A recent article from Discover Magazine called "Alzheimer's Study: Bilingual Brains are Dementia-Resistant" relates the new discovery that bilingual people have a greater chance of coping better with dementia than monolingual people. Psychologist Ellen Bialystok performed a study on 200 people, half of which were bilingual and half were monolingual, and presented the results of this study at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Washington D.C. recently. These people all had about the same level of mental capacity, but the bilingual people were diagnosed with Alzheimer's about four years later than the monolingual people. While speaking two languages doesn't mean that you won't contract the disease, it does prolong it for years, years that could be precious and invaluable for you and your family.

Bialystok also performed CT scans on these 200 patients, and even found that the dementia had affected the brains of the bilingual people more so than the monolingual people. This means that the disease had been more destructive in the brains of people who spoke multiple languages. Although one might think that the bilingual people might have reacted worse to the disease because of this, the opposite is true - the brains of the bilingual people, whether it was because of the extra 'brain exercise' or development from speaking two languages, allowed them to cope better with the disease, even though it was more advanced in their brains.

Babies who grow up speaking two languages are even better off than people who learn a second language later in life. While they enjoy the advantages of being better off if they end up contracting Alzheimer's, they also develop other very useful skills because of this bilingual knowledge. If a person who has spoken two languages all of his life looks at two people speaking different languages, he can determine which is speaking what language by simply watching him, without even hearing the words that the person is speaking! People who grow up deciphering between body languages and mouth movements of different languages can carry this knowledge over to other languages as well, which can prove to be a very useful life-skill. 

Learning of these potential health benefits to speaking more than one language pushes me more than ever before to learn another language. I wish that I had known of these health benefits and social benefits earlier - if I had, I might have put more effort into my high school Spanish classes, with the hope that I would be able to cope with Alzheimer's more efficiently if I ever get this disease when I am older. Because of the benefits of speaking more than one language, I believe that everyone should push themselves to learn another language - he would be able to have many social benefits such as being able to talk to people who speak only that language, and then that person would be able to battle Alzheimer's better in their older life. Such a discovery even makes me think about teaching my children another language from a very young age so that they will develop all of the benefits associated with being bilingual.

Article Source: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2011/02/22/alzheimers-study-bilingual-brains-are-dementia-resistant/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+80beats+%2880beats%29

Image Source: http://biopsyreport.com/2008/03/10/dementia-happens/ 

“Cancer? Psh…Ignore It”

H. Gilbert Welch, a physician at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, has come up with a new idea in the world of cancer and the treatments of this disease. He says that America has essentially become way too quick to jump to treat cancerous tumors found in patients, and that people might actually benefit from ignoring their tumors. I know, my first thought is…”What?!”  Dr. Welch puts forth some convincing arguments that might even persuade some people to wait and see what their body alone does with the cancer before seeking medical treatment. Then again, his seemingly nonchalant attitude toward the people who are harmed by such tumors puts me on the total opposite side of the fence.

Dr. Welch says that because American doctors are so quick to treat anyone who has the slightest sign of cancer, many people who didn’t really need the treatment have had to undergo treatments that have left them scarred psychologically and physically. The National Breast Cancer Coalition even opposed a legal bill that promotes that women under 40 years old should go through early-detection screening for breast cancer. Is the medical community really supporting the idea that women with a chance of developing breast cancer should not go through the steps to ensure that they can live as long as possible? Even if there are people who have to endure treatments that they don’t really benefit from, isn’t it worth it if we can save the lives of people who DID benefit from such treatments? Scientists have studied prostate cancer and the percentages of men who actually benefit from treatment. They say that fifty men had to be diagnosed and treated for one to benefit. Isn’t this worth it though? I’d rather that happen than that one man not get treated because his chances aren’t good that it will hurt him. What if it does?

Welch also mentions a study of two groups of Norwegian women who were screened for breast cancer – one group was screened three times, and one group was screened only the last time. In theory, the last scans would show all of the tumors that have been accumulating over a period of time, but this did not happen. There were actually tumors that showed up in the first two scans that did not show up in the last scan of the women who were scanned three times. The tumors disappeared! There is always a chance that cancerous tumors will disappear by natural causes, but there is also the very dangerous chance that the tumors will grow and become incredibly treacherous to the patient. Does the fact that some tumors disappear naturally mean that we shouldn’t immediately treat any tumors that we see in patients? I sure hope not. There will be tumors that will go away naturally – I understand that. But the chance that the tumors are malignant and will grow is too great, in my opinion, to wait and see if the tumor will go away on its own. My grandmother and aunt both suffered from and beat breast cancer. If the doctors had told them to ignore their first symptoms or tumors, who knows what would have happened. I think that even if there will be an enormous number of people who will get unnecessary treatment, it is worth it if it helps even just a few people who benefit from this treatment. In this type of dilemma, I’m on the “better safe than sorry” side.

Article source: http://discovermagazine.com/2009/new-science-of-health/new-rx-for-cancer-ignore-it-sometimes
Image source: http://shareforus.com/anti-cancer-food/anti-cancer