The Mortal Instruments

So, I’ve talked a lot about books that I’ve recently read and movies that I’ve recently seen, but this time I’m going to tell you about my favorite book series. This book series is The Mortal Instruments, written by Cassandra Clare. There are 7 (I think) books in the series and I’m trying to finish the very last one now. To be honest though, I’ve been trying to finish it for about a year now… Oops. The reason is because I really don’t want to finish the last one because I don’t want the series to be over yet. I’ve connected with the characters so much that I feel when I finish this book, it’ll just be over. Have you ever had that feeling? It’s like a part of me will be over when I finish it.

                I really like this series because it’s nothing like I expected it to be. My best friend told me to read it and at first I was like “um, okay? What’s it about?” and when she told me that it was about vampires and all these mythical creatures I instantly was like “you have got to be kidding me?’. Then she reassured me that it was better than I was thinking. When I started it, I couldn’t put it down.

                I think the reason I liked it so much was because you could never predict what was going to happen next. I really love books like that because it makes you never want to put the book down. It makes it a real page turner. It’s one of those books that you could sit down with some hot cocoa and a blanket and only intend to read for an hour but end up reading for 3.

                I can never decide which book is my favorite because each one has their own twist and turns which make each one majorly different from the others. For example, in one, you find out that 2 people are siblings but they don’t want to be because they love each other and then in the next book, they have to try and separate themselves because it’s too hard for them to be together and in the next book, you learn that they aren’t really siblings so they did all this avoiding each other for nothing. That is probably my favorite part of the plot is trying to figure out how their relationship has developed through the books.

                My goal for my Christmas break is to finish this last book so I can reread all the books again and hopefully relive the stories again. When I finish it, I’ll probably write about it and let you all know what I thought!

Cinderella Man

In my United States History class, we are watching Cinderella Man so we can see how the Great Depression impacted individuals everywhere. I thought it did a great job at showing how everyone was affected and what it might have been like. When I was watching some parts, I almost had a feeling of guilt for how much I take for granted on a daily basis and how much harder it actually could be. In other parts, I felt scared or worried for if it were to happen again (which it probably won’t, but still).

My favorite parts of the movie are watching the fighting scenes, which may sound a little weird and crazy but watching them and seeing the main character, James J. Braddock, I saw how much he really liked fighting and how much he needed this so he could provide for his family. It showed him doing anything and everything to make sure that his family was taken care of and that they were happy. Another part that I really enjoyed was the part when he had to go get the relief check from the bank so that he could get his kids back and so that he could keep his family together. Watching that part was so sweet because it really showed how much he cared about them and it also showed how he wanted to keep his family together at all costs because that was important to him.

                My least favorite part in it was when his wife, Mae, sent the kids away without consulting with him first. I didn’t like this part because it kind of showed a little bit of giving up, even though I completely understand why she did it. It made me sad because when James got home and saw that his kids weren’t there, he had a look of complete anger and confusion because he thought that him and his wife were going to talk about every decision that they were going to make and when they didn’t, he thought it was her giving up and he wasn’t quite ready to give up yet. This part showed me that there were a lot of things that people would do to try and keep their families safe no matter how hard the decision is to do it. It also showed me how some people would just give up when things got hard and how other people would try everything to keep safe and try and salvage what they had left.

                If you have not seen this movie, I would highly suggest you do because it truly is fantastic, and it really shows you how hard people worked to save their families during the Great Depression.

Christmas Movies

                You know what is great about this time of year? I think it would be watching all the holiday movies. I don’t just love watching the movies because they are cute little Christmas movies, but because they also show super big lessons everyone should follow.

                One major lesson that could be taken out of any movie is to be grateful for everything you are given and don’t wish something away because it could all change in a matter of a day. For example in the movie, “The Family Man”, a man who is very ungrateful for everything he is given is given a lesson in gratefulness.  He is shown what his life would be like if he would have married his high school sweetheart and how his life would be so much different. In this new life, he is shown that he has so many more responsibilities and so many more people relying on him to take care of them. This is a great lesson to learn because, especially around the holiday time, is a time of giving and that always brings out the gratefulness in everyone. However, I believe that we should not only be grateful during the holiday season, we should do it all the time.

                Another great thing about watching holiday movies is that I think it brings people together because there is always that one move that the whole family can just sit down and watch and enjoy together. My family holiday movie is “A Christmas Story” because my family and I watch it every year and its one time during the year where we are all in the same room, watching and laughing together.

                I love Christmas movies so much and I can’t wait to watch them all over my holiday break and spend some quality time with my family and friends!

Beautiful Boy

                Have you ever wondered what it would be like to love someone who has done something terrible that could very easily jeopardize their life drastically? Well as I have learned in the novel I’m in the middle of reading right now, there are many families going through this. This terrible thing I’m talking about is drug addiction. Drug addiction is a scary thing for me to think about because it’s yourself harming your body and I hate the thought of that. I always have and reading this novel Beautiful Boy it makes me realize how hard it would be to have to deal with this. It makes me realize how hard it would be to still trust someone after hearing someone you have trusted for so long has been lying to you, like in the story of Nic in Beautiful Boy.

                Even though I’m not super far in the novel Beautiful Boy, I already really how it’s written because when I read it, I feel like I’m standing in the background watching it happen rather than reading it. I think by writing in that way, readers are able to fully grasp how the characters are feeling. This novel is also written in the point of view of the father, so the readers get a different perspective on how its affecting his son rather than just seeing how Nic (the son) is dealing with it. Parents are always going to have a different reaction to everything compared to their children, so writing it in the perspective of the father and how he has to deal with his son change has a bigger effect. I think it does because parents are always watch their child and they know everything about them and the second they notice something different, they question what happened. Also, I’m pretty sure that when people become parents, they gain some kind of special super power that allows them to know everything so before children get in trouble parents are able to think about what is going to happen in the end so they how to deal with it.

                So far in the story, the relationship between Nic and his father is the kind where the parents trust the children and don’t meddle in their personal lives. I think that gave Nic an open opportunity to go out and try new things because he wasn’t getting a lot of pressure put on him to stay away from it. It makes me wonder what would have happened if his parents would have been harder on him when they first found out, instead of how they actually reacted, being all calm and telling him to stay away from it because it was bad. I know that if I would ever try drugs (which by the way, I’m never going to) my parents would ground me for life and never let me out of the house. I feel like they would also be very disappointed in me, which for me, would be the hardest part to handle.

                I cant wait to read more of this and figure out what was going through Nics head when he decided he wanted to keep doing drugs. I’ll probably write another blog post on this book when I read more! So until then, later lovely people!:)

Looking for Alaska

                For my first blog post about books, I kind of wanted to start of a little easier to gain the feel for this kind of thing. To start, I wanted to talk about my favorite book of all time, Looking for Alaska by John Green.

                This is my favorite book by far for many, many reasons. The first reason is I love the way it is written and formatted. I just think the way John Green laid out the book was genius because he just starts the story and you are just thrown into the story of Miles’ boring, uneventful life. That is until he meets some friends who are about to change his life forever. When he meets these incredible people, his life is suddenly changed from boring to crazy and unpredictable.

                I think that was perfect because it describes how life is for most everyone. Most people are just living life and suddenly something changes and then you have to change to compensate for that major change. Once you get settled in that new life, something else changes. Without change everything would be the same and it would all be boring.

                I also really like the fact that I couldn’t really predict what was going to happen next. In most other books I read, I can normally predict that the girl is going to end up with the guy, or the good guy is going to die before the villain is killed. However, in this, what I predicted to happen, happened really early in the novel and it confused me because I didn’t know what else could happen. I thought that was fantastic in because it kept me fully engaged in the read and I never wanted to put it down.

                One last thing I loved about this book, is the way it sounded in my head when I read it. When I read it, it wasn’t one of those “grammatically perfect” languages. It was more of the language I would use when I’m talking which made it easier to pick up on and kept me more engaged than if it was just plainly telling the story. Green made you really feel like you were Miles while reading it, just because of the way he used “I” and “we” when he was talking about Miles going out with friends, and when I read those parts I got goose bumps. I still do get goose bumps every time I read or think about it because it just made me realize many things, such as don’t take anything for granted because one moment, it could be there and the next it could be gone.  

New Topic...What?!

Hola fellow bloggers! I would like to inform you all that I have decide to change my blog topic. Now before anyone objects to this change, I would like to tell you the reasons why.

The main reason I wanted to change my topic was because I was struggling to find a topic each time. I was actually getting quite frustrated about this because there are so many interesting psychological topics to talk about. However, there was never one that I could stick with and keep researching and stay with, which got really confusing for me after a while. Another reason is I would really like to try exploring another path of analyzing and thinking that is different than a science base. Don’t get me wrong, science is still my favorite subject to study and it will probably make some more reoccurring appearances in my posts, but I think I would like to switch to reviewing books and movies because I believe that I will always have my own opinion on the book, no matter how many times I read the book or watch the movie. Another really interesting think about doing my blog about books and movies is that when there is a movie made from a book, or a book made from a movie, there is always something to talk about regarding how similar or different they are. And by the way, the book will always be better.

One more plus about doing my blog about books and movies is that it will challenge me to read more and watch movies more. By doing this, I can also work on my comparing and contrasting skills. I would say that is a good thing because, as of right now, I find it kind of hard when im trying to relate something to something else because I haven’t taken the time to expand my thinking outside of the “typical” reading selections for teenagers. By reading more, I would be able to expand my thinking and hopefully that would make me a more studious student and it will help me in all aspects of school, not just language arts.

I hope everyone is alright with this change, because like I said, there might still be some sprinkles of science and psychology because I’m still not quite ready to give that up yet. Happy reading!

Too Self-Conscience?

We all have that one day where it just seems like everything that can go wrong, does go wrong. When that happens, we don’t know how to deal with that properly so we just become very self-conscious and like you are always watching out for something else to go wrong. When we are more self-conscience, we have a hard time focusing on everything else that day. Could this cause actual psychological problems?

When all we are worried about is what others think, it brings us down and we are unable to think about anything else. This can cause you to think more and more about it because you really want something to go right and it just doesn’t and then you are there just wondering why it didn’t work. All this self-conscience thinking can start to add up and then you are constantly living in a cycle of wondering what everyone thinks of you. That kind of thinking very bad for you.

There are a couple things you can do to save yourself from this cycle. One thing is to just stop caring about other people think. Everyone is going to have their own personal thoughts on everything and they should never have to affect you. Another thing you can do is realize that everyone has off days and just because you think it happens all the time for you doesn’t mean it isn’t happening to everyone else too. Knowing this, we might be able to get over the fact that something didn’t go right for one day and there are going to be plenty of other days where things don’t go quite right.

I admit that I feel like I have these days more than I’d like to and I never really thought about admitting that it happens to everyone and just because one day someone might have a better day than you doesn’t mean that can’t change the next day. Just always remember that everyone goes through bad days and it’s just a part of being human and there is nothing you can really do to change it.

               

Practice Makes Perfect

Practice makes perfect.

We hear this all the time as we are growing up and it has influenced us all throughout our life. But why? When we are learning something, we learn it fully and then we practice it over and over again until we can do it in our sleep. Why can’t we just learn something and never have to touch it again but be able to remember it for the rest of our lives?

                We all know that when we learn something, most of the time it doesn’t just come naturally because if it did, then we would have nothing to learn and everything would just be boring. The fact that we have to practice it over and over again it still what amazes me. Wouldn’t you think it would just be easier to hear something and then be able to retain it forever? Unfortunately, that’s not always what happens, unless it’s a special occasion. For example, those people who are born with rare talents that take other people years to pick up. Other than that we have to practice all these things and still there are things that we need to learn even when we think that there is nothing more to learn.

                We have to practice something because when we create another neural pathway in your brain we have to rehearse it so that it doesn’t close up and then it’s no longer function able. I still think however that it would just be easier if we could just learn something once and not have to worry about it anymore. Just think about all the other things we could learn because the learn time would be cut in half and then we would have more time to learn other things. I wonder if there is some kind of genetic modification that might arise in the future so that we could actually do this. I just think that would be the coolest thing ever because then we might be able to figure out other things from this because we would be able to expand our thinking a lot faster. Sadly, I don’t think we are anywhere close to even thinking about this, but hopefully someone in the future will think of something.

Creative thinking

Does brainstorming with peers cause limited creativity? When teachers say partner up and discuss the questions on the board, we all get a little more excited because that means that if we don’t know something then we can go off of something else someone says. However, is relying on other people bad for us?

                When we are paired up with someone, whether it be a really good friend, or that weird kid that sits in the corner, we suddenly are okay with the whole discussion because we don’t have to think the whole response up by ourselves. There is just that feeling of relief, however, maybe being paired with someone really doesn’t help with anything. Have you ever thought about when you are in a group with someone and you are trying to think of the answer to a question and you can’t seem to think of anything? But the second someone says something, we automatically go with it because we can’t think of anything better. Then you sit there and try and think of another alternate solution, and our mind just keeps going back to the other answer.

                I think there may be some parts good about working in a group because then you are learning something whether or not it be your own ideas, but you are at least retaining some kind of information. Going off of what everyone else says though doesn’t help us improve in anyway because then we start to lose the ability to think outside the box. Don’t get me wrong, I believe working with others and helping others out is good because it helps us learn as a person but when we always are working in groups at school, we are never able to grow as creative thinkers and start to form our own conclusions.

                Relating this back the human brain, we are always looking for ways to improve ourselves and when we are always relying on someone or something, we are not able to think creatively and that is going to inhibit our creative thinking neural pathways. My advice for this would be working by yourself every now and again because then you are going to be excising those pathways and making them stronger.

Diabetes and Stress

I know I write a lot about stress and stuff you can do to prevent it, but I just really find this one topic very interesting and like learning about it and expanding my knowledge on it.

                Right now I want to talk about what we think of when we hear people talk about stress? Do you think about a lot of work? Maybe you think about needing resting time, but one common thing people tend to do when you are faced with stress is food. When we are stressed, we think that eating is going to help because it gives us something else to think about and it also helps produce a “feel-good” sensation in your body. However could all this sugar-eating be contributing to a large increase of diabetic people in the United States?

                Diabetes is a disease in which your kidneys are producing enough insulin in which you are able to maintain a steady blood sugar. When you are not able to maintain a steady blood sugar, that’s not good for your body because it causes it to not be able to break down the sugars as well and then you are not able to get your energy which causes you to either go too high or too low in your blood sugar range.

                Relating this all together, people with diabetes are normally more likely to not handle stress as well because they are not able to have that backup plan of “stress eating”. Also research says that if we are able to maintain our stress patterns, we might be able to decrease of cases of diabetes because we wouldn’t be finding that happy stress reliever and we would be a more healthy community.

                I think that a good way to also help with maintaining the stress levels would be finding something else to do other than eat or something. It would be better for you to exercise or read or find a new crafty idea. This could cut down on the gaining weight, which causes you to be at higher risk of diabetes and you also might start to live a happier life.

Genetic Modification

Would it be beneficial to be able to see infra-red or ultra violet? When seeing infra-red you are able to detect body heat off living organisms and ultra-violet you are able to see things like sunrays and sunlight. With a little bit of genetic modifications, us humans would be able to see things that we have never been able to see before, however, would that be helpful to us? Or could it just be another cool things that the human body can do?

                Today in my AP Bio class, we talked about light and the different wave lengths and in this discussion, we got a little off topic and started talking about all the different colors and how we are able to see those. Then when we got even farther off topic, we started talking about different animals and how some, such as a snake, are able to see this infra-red color which helps track down their pray. That led into the class wondering if we were able to see these, would that help us in any way, shape or form and if it was even a possible thing to do. To help solve this mystery, we asked and my teacher told us that we could potentially be genetically modified to be able to see these colors because we would just have to change one small DNA sequence to tell our brain not to filter these things out and then we would be able to see all these cool colors and energy forms.

                However, knowing this, do you think that it would be beneficial in any way? I think it would be more cool than beneficial because we don’t really hunt prey, like snakes, so it wouldn’t really be a helpful tactic there. However, being able to see the ultra-violet would be pretty cool because when you are able to see the sun’s rays and how strong they are. By doing thing, you could be able to save yourself from the harmful rays in the summer by judging how strong they are on that given day.

                Right now, I think in this generation, we are not reliant on this trait and I don’t think we are close to needing to be reliant, so for right now, it would just be a super cool trait for us to have but it wouldn’t help or harm us.

Nothing Sparks a Memory Like a Song

                “Nothing sparks a memory quite like a song”

-Spotify Music

On Wednesday last week, I went to hear a lady speak about her findings in her scientific research. I thought it would be cool to go hear her talk about it because it dealt with my two favorite things. Music and the Human Brain.

                This neuroscientist like to learn about the brain in a way that I never thought of before. She wanted to know if there really was some kind of correlation between music and memories. In order to find this out, she had to do some tests to see if there was a specific part of the brain was responsible for this. She found out that there was, in fact, a part of your brain that would “light up” when you would hear a song and feel an emotional tie with a memory. To come to this conclusion, she did tests on normal people with no brain damage, on people with brain damage in the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for memory, and people with brain damage in other regions of the brain, to make sure it wasn’t all brain damaged patients. In her experiment, she played music for all the patients and ask them to tell her any memory that came to mind. According to her hypothesis, she predicted that the patients with no brain damage at all would experience more, vivid memories and the patients with memories related brain damages would experience little vivid memories. When she concluded her experiment, she found that her hypothesis was correct in that patients suffering from memory related brain damages experience less vivid memories and people with brain damages elsewhere and people with no brain damage experience vivid, more emotional memories.

                I think this kind of information could be used to help students learn new topics in school. I think that would work because if they hear a song while learning something and then hear that same song again, maybe it could help them remember the idea better. This could also help patients slow the process of aging because elders could listen to a playlist made for them so they don’t forget things as easily. Lastly, knowing where all these memorable experiences are being retrieved from in the brain came help scientist find to cure people who experience brain damaging accidents. I think that would be super cool if they could find a way for elders to keep the memories they had when they were little instead of having them slowly erased from their memory.

Is Ebola more of a Fear than an actual threat?

Ebola has been around for many, many years and yet we are just now starting to freak out about it. One question I have among many others is why? I realize that due to our scare about it being brought into the United States we are freaked out that it might take your life next. But, as I heard from many different new reports and even my AP Biology teacher said that it is isn’t able to go through the air and many scientists believe that it isn’t going to be able to mutate itself to do that. At least, not right now.

                I do believe however that we should take precautions without going to overboard with it. For example, we need to stay as hygienic as we possibly can, and we can do that by washing our hands and not sharing any food or drinks with anyone. We mostly need to keep our bodily fluids to ourselves so in order to do that, if you don’t feel good, I believe it would be at best interest to yourself and to everyone around you that you stay home and away from everyone. This allows you to replenish your body’s energy so that it is able to go on functioning properly. Another thing you can do is cover your mouth with your hand or elbow to decrease the amount of body fluid from spreading to others.

                So once again I will say, why is there so much concern with this disease spreading now than 10 years ago? The best solution I have for that is the fact that now that it’s in our own comfort zone, we don’t know what to do. We always thought we were safe and just felt bad for the people in Africa dealing with this. Of course we probably said, let’s go cure them, but did anyone go over? Maybe a few but not a lot because we didn’t want the disease because we wouldn’t know what to do with it. So now that the disease is in our country, and has affected a few people, we now are thinking that we are inferior because a disease that wasn’t even supposed to be here is affecting us and we can’t stop it. That is a big psychology concept, the fact that if you believe something for a long time and then you are suddenly changed from that way of thinking, you don’t know how to react.

                I think once again that we should just keep our sanitation up so that we can try and limit the spread of germs, but there isn’t much to be scared of, unless the disease finds a way to mutate itself, which is very unlikely.

Study Habits

Are we learning good study habits or are we just trying to remember things for a couple days and then forget it right after the test? For many of us, that’s how our brains work because now-a-days, it seems we aren’t going to school for the education anymore, we are going there to pass and if we pick up a few extra things along the way then there’s a bonus for us.

                However, I think most of that comes from my generation being lazy sometimes and not actually taking the time to comprehend the stuff, but we merely just remember it for a little bit and then forget it. If you know that you can classify with this then here are some tips that can help you actually learn the concepts and not just remember them. One, you can fully learn something and then make sure you know it and then leave it for a couple of days and then come back and see if you can still fully remember everything. Another thing to do is instead of getting all worked up about something because you can’t figure it out the first time we can take a deep breath and skip it and come back to it when we are nice and calm so that we can think through it logically and not just go through it sloppily. That’s another thing, racing through your homework and in class work has no benefit because you didn’t let your brain think through it and comprehend it. Without it doing that then you are really unlikely to remember what you need to.

                Knowing this now a little better than when I started this post, I realized that I need to spend more time doing things that are going to better myself in all aspects. For example, I put the pro in procrastination. This leads me to wait until the very last minute which I have learned is something that I really need to get better at because it doesn’t help at all and it just causes me to be more stressed out than I need to be. I also learned that I need to spend more time doing the things assigned if I actually want to learn things instead of just know things.  

Crazy sleep cycle?

As you grow up from your elementary years to your middle school, then high school, then college, it always seems the amount of sleep we get daily decreases. It seems that the more homework you get the faster time goes and less amount of time we have to do it. When this occurs we slip into routine of staying up until 1 in the morning writing that paper that you procrastinated until the last minute and getting up at 5 or 6 in the morning to get ready for another day of school. Then while we have school to worry about, we are trying to juggle that with maintaining a job so that we can start figuring out how to make it in the “real world”. As our sleep cycle varies more and more as we get older, it becomes crutial that we try and make it better again.

                The reason you want a solid sleep cycle is because for one, you are constantly “recharging” your brain and allowing it to distress from the previous day. In order to function properly we need to give our brain a couple hours of rest a night. However, when we get older, we don’t plan ahead and think about all the things we could be doing to stay ahead so that we are able to say on the correct sleep cycle.

                Some things that can help regulate your sleep cycle is once again, not procrastinating your projects and waiting until the very last minute to do them because when you do that, you just add more stress onto yourself which is never good. Another thing you could do is limit yourself on what you can and can’t do. For example, if you know you want to do something like an extra sport or class but you know it’s going to pile on and make it hard for you to get everything done, then maybe you should rethink that decision because you still want to have time to relax and just be a teenager.

                When you don’t sleep, it can negatively impact yourself, which I believe I already talked about in a previous post but I will touch on them again. One is you can affect your learning habits make it so you have a hard time remembering stuff because your brain doesn’t have enough time to rest itself. Another is it can cause more health related issues such as depression which can be caused by all the stress you have to go through to get everything done on time.

                I think it’s very important to try new things and experience what it is like to be out in the “real world” as my parents like to call it. I also think it’s very important to also leave enough time to just have time to yourself or time with your friends and family. Finding that happy middle is a very difficult thing to do but I know that if we really work on not procrastinating and doing things well the first time we can all have enough time grow as a person and make new discoveries as well as having enough time to spend with yourself.

New Protein that is Involved with Cancer?

This is straying from my normal topic a little bit, but last week I read a really cool article for my AP Biology class and thought I would share it with you all.J

This article talked about cells and two new proteins discovered in the cell that help in transforming new cells into whatever kind of cell it needs to be, called YAP/TAZ. This protein is really cool because when a cell divides, creating a new cell, the protein attaches itself to the DNA in the nucleus of the cell and changes it into the different type of cell that it needs to be, whether it be a lung, skin, or blood cell.

Another thing about this protein is that it is the “switch” that turns off or turns on the process of cell division. For example, if you get a cut on your arm, YAP/TAP will “turn on” the process of cell division and create new cells to clear up the cut on the arm. However, if the protein does not turn off the process of cell division, the cells keep going, which is a new leading factor of the cause of tumors.

As you can probably conclude, this discovery of the new protein is a very huge impact on everyone. It is because it now suggests that cancer may not be genetic but may be more based on how your proteins are working in your body. This can help scientists and doctors because it gives them a new lead on where to start to cure cancer and get rid of it once and for all. The fact that we found out that the shape of a cell and how our proteins work just helps us figure out new ways to think about other discoveries which can help us create new treatments to cure this and also help narrow down how scientists can figure out this problem that has troubled us for many years.

Finding out this new scientific discovery is huge and very exciting because it is one step closer to curing cancer which is good because we wouldn’t lose so many people way too early than we actually should.    

Marijuana- Good or Bad?

Marijuana. It’s a drug everyone knows very well now because of the legalization that was sparked in Colorado. However, I’m not worried about where it is legalized… until it spreads to the rest of the country, but I am worried about the effects it has on our brain and body that some people don’t know or don’t care to know about.

In an article that I read I found out that the drug has a lot of effects on the brain than I originally thought. For one, I knew that it produced a “feel good” feeling. This is due to the chemicals in the drug mimicking the same chemicals that are produced by the brain naturally that give you the good feelings. One effect that I was not aware of was the fact that it slowed the efficiency of the memory. According to this article, the hippocampus, which is responsible for memory, is effected because the chemical receptors bind to the hippocampus receptors and restrict it from continuing their job.

I believe the legalization of marijuana should not be legalized because of all the other side effects it causes. For example, besides the fact of it causing memory loss, and the “feel good” feeling, it also causes anxiety, panic and distrust. I think that all these aspects contribute to our generation lagging behind any other generation. Because children have better access to these drugs due to them becoming more legal, could be considered a leading factor in the growth of our declining generation. However, many people could argue that because the drugs have such a strict restriction, children are more curious to try them. I can see where they are coming from when they say these things, however, I still believe that if we give children and adults easier access to these drugs, they are going to be more likely to try them. All this can lead to many children and adults to grow up with long term to permanent disorders that will restrict them from doing what they really love when they actually grow up more and learn what they actually were doing when they tried all these stupid things.

Development of the Brain

Click here to read the study

    
         When I looked at this website, it instantly caught my eye because it was about new discoveries on how infants brains can transform into children brains and then to adult. This has always interested me because I have always wondered how our brains are able to transform themselves and without us doing anything physical to them. An even cooler part of this article was that they tested the different brain developmental aspects of children with specific disorders, such as being blind and concluded the differences between the two.

                The neuroscientists were shocked to gather the findings but also intrigued to continue their studies so that they can continue to develop more information. These findings show how the brain is developed through out time and the different experiences play roles in our everyday life by affecting our brain development.

                I’m really excited to hear about new discoveries when it comes to learning how the brain develops because, like I said before, I’m super interested when it comes to learning about the brain and how it functions. I think learning about how the brain develops can just lead to more information about ourselves that we before had no idea about. I think it is very important to know everything about ourselves and right now in this day and age of science, I think there is so much more we can learn about how our brains work which leads to how the body works together as a whole. I also think that learning the simple, fundamental things about our brain can help us later when it comes to learning how to treat different disabilities some people have, such as blindness. And if we can figure out how blindness works and how it affects brain development, we can soon try to come up with a treatment that cures it better. I also think that if we know what blindness is and how it affects us, we can have a little more respect for those people who are affected by this because we will know more how it works. If more and more people have a respect for it, we will have a new, more improved ways for parents, teachers, co-workers and even family members to coup with it as well as the ones actually dealing with it.

                This is just the beginning of all the discoveries that have been found and there are still many more to be found. All these discoveries will help us improve ourselves by giving us something in common while still having those differences between each other.  

Stress Talk

Stress takes a toll on everyone whether they like it or not. The reason it does is to keep everyone on their toes so they don’t get bored doing the same thing over and over again. If life was easy, it would be boring.

            When people are put under large amounts of stress, they are not able to function properly until they are able to get their stress levels back down to a normal level.  When you are put under a lot of stress, it’s best to not freak out because that just adds more stress. It’s best to let yourself calm down and think through what you are going to do logically so you don’t mess up and have to just keep piling more and more stress onto yourself.

            I feel like I am in the most stressful time of the busiest year of my life. Junior year. It is very stressful because many of us are just starting our new jobs, and trying to maintain school work, and trying to get enough time with friends and family, while still trying to get enough sleep at night so you can function properly. Also we are right around the corner for college and we need to start looking things up and trying to figure out what we want to do with the rest of our lives. It’s a hard time, however, I know that if we manage our time and do not procrastinate with everything, we can all make it through with minimal amounts of stress.

            The best way to handle the stress, it to, like I said, take some time for yourself. Do not add more and more things to do for your “to do” list because that’s not going to help at all. Instead, take a nap, let your mind shut off for a few hours so you can try and reboot it. Or try saying yes to going out with your friends who you haven’t seen in forever. Anything that brings you joy and will help take the stress levels down, the better.

            So just remember to do as many things in high school as you can so you can be prepared for opportunities after high school but remember to take some time for yourself and stop to smell the daisies.

Memento

 

            I watched a movie last year and it was called Memento. This movie was about a man who is trying to piece his life back together after he suffers from anterograde amnesia after being attacked by one, maybe two men. As the movie progresses, you are trying to figure out, along with the main character who killed his wife. As you watch this moive, you feel like you yourself have anterograde amnesia because the movie plays from start to finish backwards revealing a little more every time.

            The main character Leonard, had anterograde amnesia, which means that he cannot form any new memories and keep them locked in his brain. This would have to do with something going wrong in the process of translating it from your short term memory into your long term memory. As you watch more of the movie, you realize that the main character has to do everything in his power to try and remember what he had tried so hard not to forget. By doing this, he takes pictures and gives himself tattoos all over his body.

            I would very much recommend this movie to anyone who would like to see what it would be like to have anterograde amnesia. Also if you want to see kind of what it would feel like to have it, this movie would be the way to go. You might have to watch it muiltple times in order to fully understand what happens because in some parts it goes from showing you the movie backwards to present day and it just gets kind of confusing. But it really is a great movie!

 

Phobia or Fear?

Do you have a fear of something? Everyone is scared of something, whether it be spiders, or falling off a cliff, or something as simple as tight spaces. Fears however are much different than phobias. Fears do not limit you on daily tasks. If you are scared of something so bad that you can’t even go near or even think of that thing, you probably have a phobia of that particular object. Because phobias limit you one everything you do on a daily basis, it is very hard for people with certain phobias to live a normal life.

            I don’t believe that I personally have any phobias, however, I am scared of a lot of things. But because they do not keep me from living a normal life, they would not be considered phobias. For example, I’m scared of being kidnapped, but me being scared of that does not lead me to live in constant fear of it. For people with phobias of being kidnapped, they would not even be able to function and go outside normally because they would be living in constant fear that someone is going to come up and take them.

            Some symptoms of phobias is dizziness, breathlessness, nausea, and in some cases a full on anxiety attack. Because these sympotoms can escalate to extreme cases, many go seek medical treatment. Phobias affect more than 10% of people in the United States alone. Because there is so many people with phobias living in the United States, they are able to go to the doctor and get many different options as to how to treat different types. For example, one type of treatment is called flooding. In this treatment, the patient is confronted with the fear for an extended amount of time with no way to get out of it. To me, this type of treatment seems a little too aggressive for my liking, however it seems to work because they are able to see that their fear is not actually harmful to them. Another type of treatment is counter-conditioning. In this treatment, the patient is taught to feel a different type of emotion when encountering that fear rather than feeling panicked. This type of treatment is mostly used for those who cannot handle the exposure treatments such as flooding.

How Do You Beat The Best?

                How do you beat the best when everyone is telling you that you can’t? You beat the best by being the best.

                What would you do if you were one week away from playing the best football team in the league? Would you get scared and back down? That’s not the way anyone should handle anything. You need to tell yourself that you are the best and after telling yourself that multiple times, you will eventually believe it. If you go in with a positive attitude, you will leave with a positive attitude, if you believe in yourself the entire way.

                Imagine, you are playing the best team in the league and right off the bat, they score twice and are up 16-0. Everyone would imagine you to just give up because they would lose all hope in winning. No one would ever expect the losing team to score 7 times in a row all before the first half is over. It takes courage and a lot of will power to bring yourself up after being put down real quick.

                Now, how did the junior cougars pull this off in their football game today? They used a little psychology and a lot of will power. The coaches had added another practice and whenever they got the chance, they would tell them they were going to win and how badly they were going to beat the other team. By telling the kids this more times than I can count, they boys got it in their head that they were going to win. That’s psychology, my dear.  

                This works for any situation you are feeling unsure of. Whether it be a test, or another sporting event. If you tell yourself enough times that you are going to come out successful, you will be surprised with the outcome every time. Fake it, until you believe it. That is a quote everyone should live by because you by doing this, you will believe in yourself a lot more and help yourself build more and more confidence.

"Sports do not build character. They reveal them."

                “Sports do not build character. They revel them.”

                -John Wooden, legendary UCLA basketball coach

                We all love that feeling of going out on the field, court or mat with a million people screaming your name. It, not only, makes everyone feel better about themselves but it also has benefits on the brain and how it interacts with the rest of your body.

                Playing sports, or just exercising in general is not only good for you physically but it also allows you to grow as a person and become exactly who you would like to be. The more frequent you do what you love, the happier you will be because you will be flooding your body with all of the positive energy you create which just makes you a happier person all around.

                Whether you are playing a sport or exercising, your brain produces a natural chemical called endorphins which are used to relax the body and produce a “feel good” sensation”. These endorphins help your body because they allow you to push past all the hurt you may be feeling and help you go past your goal, so you can better yourself in every way.

                One way you benefit from sports, other than physically, is it helps create a better relationship with you and other people, because they are able to negotiate right and wrong and learn why they might be wrong, or learn why they did something right. They tend to build a much respected relationship with all adults and peers as well. It also helps you learn how to cooperate and not be self-centered because most sports involve people working together as a team. Working as a team teaches children at a young age that not everything revolves around them and that they need to learn to share the responsibility. Another thing you benefit from is better results academically. Since you get a chance to do something other than constantly studying and preparing for school, you get a chance to let your stress out. You are also more likely to join in with other clubs and groups and be a better-rounded person. The best thing, I believe, is that it keeps more children away from risky behavior. When you are on a sports team, there are many more people relying on you to be a good person and it’s not just yourself anymore.

                If you are not on a sports team, or do not do some sort of exercising, I highly suggest you do because it will make you happier and a well-rounded person because you will always have something there to do that makes you happy.

PTSD

How does PTSD affect the brain? Many of us know what it is, but do we really know how it affects us?

            Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental disorder that some obtain after a traumatic experience. Many things can cause PTSD, for example, the sudden loss of a loved one or being physically close to something with a traumatic outcome. The most common cause of PSTD is when soldiers come out of war after being in for so long. When soldiers come out of battle, many suffer from symptoms pertaining to PTSD. Some of these symptoms include, feeling unsafe everywhere you go, having reoccurring dreams of the traumatizing event, or becoming depressed or anxious constantly. These are only a few of the symptoms and for some they only last a few weeks to a few months. However, with some patients, it lasts the rest of their lives.

            Men and women who have served time in the military or are currently serving in the military have to experience many traumatizing situation that can scare them for life. For some, it could be just going into the war. This is traumatizing to some because they don’t know if they are going to make it out to see their families or not. Others are traumatized by watching a friend get shot and killed. Others, get shot at themselves. Those people who experience combat first hand are more likely to get PTSD than those who work back at the base. However, whether you are in the military or you have a sudden loss of the family, doesn’t mean you have any less chance of being a patient of PTSD, because it all depends on what the situation is and how the brain decides to handle the stress.

The part of the brain most affected by PTSD is the hippocampus, which is responsible for retrieving memories and different emotions.  When we are put under large amounts of stress, our body produces cortisol, which is a hormone which helps us respond to stressful situations. However, under extreme situations, such as traumatic ones, the body produces too much cortisol which can actually damage some of the cells that make up the hippocampus. When cells are damaged in the hippocampus, we are at a higher rate to obtain PTSD.

Because researchers know that a major link is between PTSD and the hippocampus, they can try and find cures and methods to help PTSD patients look at a new way to live and not have to live in fear anymore.

Over Working Yourself?

                Do students have too much work to do that it’s actually affecting their health? Think about all the tasks you have to complete tonight and the next night. Is it a lot? Do you think you will get it done in the allotted time period? And will you still have time to hang out with friends and family? What about a job? Can you manage to work a few hours there for a few nights a week?

                If you can do all this stuff, chances are you are decreasing your health as well. Many children start to feel this as they get older and start to put more on their plate than they can actually handle. There are many reasons students will feel the need to do this. For instance, they want to be the best they can be so their parents are proud of them, or they want to be number one in the class to show the teacher they can do it. Another big one is that some just like to do it because they want to better themselves. There are many other reasons why teenagers in particular take on many more responsibilities, but those are just a few of the main ones.

                Taking on these responsibilities however can have negative side effects on your behavior and your health. For one, it can make you more irritable, which I’m sure we have all felt that time when we have so much stuff to do so we snap on everyone that tries to talk to us. Another thing that can happen, is it can result in us becoming less interested in activities that we used to love doing. Another very important thing that can result from too much responsibility is when we start to seclude our self from others. This can be a problem because then we are not getting the necessary interaction needed to comfort ourselves and also we do not get the necessary support from our parents and friends.

                In order to keep yourself sane while trying to better yourself would be to just remember how much work is needed to be done if you really want to add another activity to your daily routine. Also if you find yourself too stressed out, try backing down a little bit and wait to catch up on all your other priorities and then add in the other stuff when you are ready for it.  

Too Much TV?

We can all sit down and watch TV when we don’t want to do something that we know we should be doing. Have you ever had to clean your room and instead turn the TV on for “background noise” and end up watching more TV than cleaning your room? We all do it, but is it really the best thing for your brain? Can it lead to some harmful effects in the long run?

                There are two types of brain waves produced within your brain. One kind is Beta waves, which are produced when you are thinking logically. The other kind is Alpha waves, which are produce when we are in a relaxing state, such as when we are meditating or watching TV.  While watching TV, you don’t have to do much logical reasoning because the show gives it straight to you, causing your body and brain to go into a relaxation mode. However when you are reading a book or a magazine, you are more likely to read it and then think about what they are actually trying to say, causing your brain to be in a more active mode.

                In 1969, an experiment was conducted to test this hypothesis, and the results came back showing that in less than one minute, the brain starts to slow down, and starts producing Alpha waves. Then just as quickly as it slows down, it speeds back up when you pick up a book or magazine.  Another finding from the experiment is when you are watching TV, the parts of your brain that are normally in charge of logical thinking tune out and stop working at that moment.

                Other, more specific ways watching TV has harmful effects your brain is it can decrease your attention span, it can cause impaired brain development in children during their critical growing period and believe it or not, it can actually rot your brain. We have all heard out parents say “get away from the TV, it’s going to rot your brain cells”, however studies show that it can gradually decrease the neural pathways. For this reason, reading is called exercising your brain. By doing this you are reopening those neural pathways and even making new ones.

                Even if all you do is turn off the TV for an hour or two a day and read, sing or whatever hobby you have, it can lead to increased life expectancy. Researchers aren’t 100% sure why watching TV increases your risk of death, however it could be because decreasing your brain cells leads to degenerative brain disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Dementia.

Lying like Pinocchio?

We all have told a little lie to protect a friend or family member. We all know that we shouldn’t tell lies, however sometimes we think it’s the only option we have. Even though, we may not grow a super lo ng nose like Pinocchio, lying can have some serious impact on your stress levels and your brain.

So with all the fuss about lying and how many problems it can cause, why do we do it? Because the only problem with telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth is actually telling the truth. We don’t want to hurt that one person’s feeling or say that we were studying all night when you never really touched that book.

There are many other reasons why we lie even though we know it’s not good. For example, we lie mostly to get ourselves out of awkward situations. We all know that feeling of “I really don’t want to be here, so I’m going to tell a small fib so I can get out of it”. This can lead to you telling more and more lies as you get older though because you were so good at the first one, what makes you think you can’t do it again so you keep going.

Stress is caused from lying even though you don’t see it short term, it will come back and get you in the long term because you have to put effort into what you are saying and make sure it sounds believable. You also have to be sure that the lie isn’t going to get out because if it does then you have a lot more explaining to do than just what happen, but also why you didn’t want to share.  

So I guess the point of this whole blog post is to say suck it up and try telling the truth even though it might not end up very good for you in the short term, at least it won’t come bite you in the long term.

Dreaming

Have you ever wondered what’s going on in your brain when you sleep and dream? To me, that has always been a wondering question. However, not many people actually know exactly what is happening when you dream, some think it’s just random brain impulses and others think it’s the brains way of telling you something that you didn’t even know about yourself. Hopefully one day, a scientist or a random person on the street will find out the truth behind it, but until then, let’s dive into the unknown and see what we can come up with ourselves.

When we sleep, there are four different cycles our body goes through. One is when we are in a light sleep and is easy to wake up from. When we move into the next stage of sleep, we often move into a deeper sleep and your heart rate and breathing rate decrease a little along with your body temperature. As you move into stage three and four, you fall into an even deeper sleep. When you reach stage 5, your body goes into a stage called REM (rapid eye movement). During this stage, we are more likely to dream, along with an increase in heart rate and the change of rapid to shallow breathing rates. As you sleep, the faster stage 3 and 4 get and the more stage 1, 2 and 5 you get. If your bodies don’t go through REM sleep, it is believed that you will have a harder time learning and remembering things because, another thing that happens during REM sleep is that you rejuvenate your body and brain and get it ready for the day ahead.

Have you ever had a really good dream but can’t remember what it was about, or what happened? Like many of you, that has happened to me countless times and I cannot figure out why. When I looked it up, a theory from the theorist Sigmund Freud had an idea. He theorized that when we dream, we are dreaming of repressed memories, or memories that we try to forget. Another theorist, L. Strumpell, thought that because we learn things from doing them over and over again, it is hard to remember dreams when they are at random most of the time.

If you can remember what your dreams are but have no idea what they mean or what they symbolize, some researchers have been able to draw a parallel between that dream and what it might mean. For example, the falling dream, which I’m sure everyone has had some time in their lives, can be connected to some insecurities you may be feeling or some kind of anxiety. Another common dream you might have had is forgetting you had a test and feeling like you’re going to be late to take it. Researchers suggest that you may be feeling tested and you don’t think you are up for the challenge.

There is still a lot of work to be done to figure out why we dream and what it symbolizes, however, the little bit of theories that we do have may push someone to figure the whole theory out.

How to Handle Stress in a New Way!

Have you ever felt so stressed and can’t seem to focus on anything? If yes, have you ever found a way that helps you get passed that stress? For instance, sleeping, exercising, eating maybe? How about meditation? I’ve never actually thought that meditation can be so beneficial, but it is because it helps relax the brain and keep yourself focused.   

During meditation, we are able to “turn off” our brain and just let our minds wander for a little bit. The biggest part of your brain affected is the frontal lobe because it is the part of the brain that is responsible for our decision making and when we are put under a lot of stress with a bunch of different decisions to make, clearing your brain and letting everything evaporate for a little bit is very beneficial. Another part of the brain that is affected is the parietal lobe and the thalamus which are two regions of the brain that help take in the senses and help decode what the message is and helps get it to the correct area of the body, respectively. Mediation helps with these two areas by allowing them to slow the intake of senses allowing them to catch up or just rest for a little bit.

Other ways mediation is beneficial to your brain besides more focus and less anxiety is that it allows you to have more compassion and creativeness in everything you do. This is because while you are in the mediation state, the brain is able to “turn off” like I said before and a part of the amygdala, which is in charge of some emotional feelings, is slowed down so when you relax that part, you gain more compassion for the things you do.  Also mediation is shown to increase gray matter in your brain which can lead to more focus throughout the day and help put you in a positive mood. The last good thing about meditation that can be very beneficial to your brain and body is that it has been seen to slow down the aging process which is also caused by the increasing gray matter.

So if you are under a lot of stress, or just have some time to kill and don’t want to do anything, I would highly recommend trying meditation. All in all it’s a great way to just gather yourself before you have a huge test or meeting. However it is that you gain stress, I would definitely say try meditating even if its for a few minutes. Anything to clear your mind is good.

Music Affecting the Human Brain

Psychology is something that can be studied at great depths for as long as we all live. The reason why is because there is always something new being learned about why we all have different ways of behaving every day.  My favorite aspect to study in psychology is the human brain and what part of the brain is responsible for what. For instance, I find it very fascinating to learn about why we learn things and how our mind can take in one thing and remember it forever.

Psychology is such a cool branch of science because like I said earlier it shows you why you act the way you do and to me, that’s the coolest thing! Have you ever wondered why you do something that can can’t be explained by genetics? Most of it can be explained by psychology and if not, it should in the next few years. There are many different experiments that can keep expanding on the knowledge that’s already known.

Like I said earlier, my favorite thing to study in psychology is the human mind, and here’s why. The human mind is affected by many things. Music for one thing can affect what mood you are in and can predict our personality. For example, a study shows that if you like pop music, your personality can be described as having a high self-esteem and hardworking but are not very creative or at ease. Country music fans are described as hardworking and outgoing. Obviously, just because you like a certain type of music does not mean that you are exactly what the psychology study shows but kind of shows you a little what you might be like. Pretty cool huh?

                Another cool thing about music that can affect the way you think and learn is that studies show that the more music you listen to with a heavy bass line, the more extravert and outgoing. However the more classical music you listen to the more creative you are and the higher IQ you would have.

                Another way music affects the brain is because it scratches every part of the brain. For example, when you are listening to music, the amygdala, which is the part of the brain that is responsible for some emotions, tends to affect the different emotions you feel. Also the auditory cortex is responsible for the first stage of hearing the music, after that, the hippocampus, which is responsible for memory, remembers the music and any musical experience.

                All of this stuff about music is just a little bit about what affects the brain, and there are many more.