Happiness and the Full Moon

Just about any police officer will tell you that the craziness in people comes out with the full moon. But it is true that magnetic fields impact our personalities? Is there any scientific basis to it? The answer is yes and no, depending on whom you want to believe.

First a primer on frequencies. All brains emit waves. You’ve probably heard about this: delta waves are for sleep, alpha and beta waves are for activity. These brain waves measure below 70Hz and are mostly below 8Hz. Radio waves, cell phone waves, telephone waves, air traffic control waves, TV, microwave, radar, GPS, wireless LANs, heart rate monitors, etc. all measure at frequencies higher than that, in the KHz to MHz to GHz – kilohertz to megahertz to gigahertz – frequency ranges.

If you are conservative and want to believe the university researchers, the answer is that no harm comes from all of the invisible electromagnetic fields from cell phones, computers, electrical devices that are in our world today. There has been one Dutch study that has measured well-being and exposure at the 2100 MHz level and found a small effect. However, another study could not replicate the findings.

The only studies I know of have measured immediate effects from exposure. No study I’ve seen has been able to measure the long-term effects and here’s why. Good study design requires at least two groups of subjects to be tested: the test group and a control group. The test group gets exposed to whatever is being tested, while the control group doesn’t. If there’s a difference between the two groups, you have an experimental effect. Now how can we design a study where people have no long-term access to electromagnetism, given it is all around us. We could have people live in a Faraday cage – a special environment designed to keep out electricity – but that is impractical. Who would volunteer for that? There is also another type of box that keeps out magnetism. But to ask people to live there would be impossible. So there is no simple way to study the long term effects of electromagnetism on people.

But that hasn’t stopped a couple of scientists, whose work has not been widely accepted by the scientific community. Robert Becker, MD has written a book called The Body Electric that delves into this subject. Dr. Becker feels that the proliferation of electromagnetic devices has contributed to many of our current diseases: leukemia, attention deficit disorder, and cancer, to name a few. Valerie Hunt, PhD, explores the subject in her self-published book, Infinite Mind. She gets into the realm of psychic development, which she links to magnetic fields but not electric fields.

One of the problems I see in humans is we tend to ignore what we can’t see through our five senses. If it’s not there it does not exist. The extreme skepticism is a personality trait a regular scientist needs to succeed – this is good in drug trials so people don’t die needlessly, for example -- but is also a setback in having new discoveries become widely accepted. Take brain plasticity – the brain’s ability to learn and change -- as the perfect example. We all know we can learn and change; science had clear proof of it for 100 years. But it wasn’t until 1998 that most of the mainstream scientists finally accepted plasticity as the predominant view.

Another problem that is bigger is that to truly understand how humans are affected by our world requires deep expert knowledge in at least four different disciplines: neuroscience and all things medical, geology to understand the earth’s magnetic field, quantum physics to understand the observer’s contribution, and electrical engineering to understand the electrical impulses in and around the body.

Lynn McTaggert is one person who has attempted to blend research from all of these fields. Lynne is a reporter who does an exceptional job is distilling complicated scientific information into language most of us can understand. Her books, The Field and The Intention Experiment, are well-written and researched and contain a heavy quantum component; however, some of the research she quotes have been rejected by mainstream scientists.

So I’ll leave it up to you. What are you like when the full moon comes out?

Building Structure and Using Our Time Wisely

As we look at how we can bring happiness into our lives, one way is to create some routines or rituals and bring structure to our busy lives. Some suggestions from last night’s workshop were very helpful:

-- Mary Ellen sets a timer for 45 minutes to work on a project that she needs to complete, but doesn’t necessarily love. After the timer goes off, she starts on the next task – gardening -- which she does love.

--Ginnie sets internal deadlines and schedules a task she has to do on her calendar. In that way, she is making room for her priorities and not the world’s.

Here are few tips from my archives:

Start the day without first checking your email and calls – wait until mid-morning.
Work on your #1 priority task first thing in the morning. When I do this, I have nearly two blissful, uninterrupted hours to work my to-do list items. I make progress and feel better about my accomplishments.

Trim.
If all of the information you are receiving is not adding value to your life purpose, then cut it out. Cancel the newspaper subscription, unsubscribe to email lists, drop that negative friend, etc. You’ll be amazed at how much time you just gained.

Maximize down time.
Don’t do things at the same time everyone else does. To avoid long lines, I go to the grocery store during the weekday when everyone is at work. I rarely get caught in traffic because of the way I schedule my appointments. When I do get caught waiting, such as at a doctor’s office, I bring the book that I’m in the middle of reading or do simple yoga poses in line.

Share.
Avoid being Superperson, and let someone else help you get things done. Delegate personal as well as business tasks; time is time, no matter how you save it.

Align daily tasks with your life purpose.
Are you working on things that matter, or are you simply doing busy work? It’s easy to stay busy working on all the wrong things. For every task you do, ask yourself if it will move you toward your life goals.

The best resource I’ve seen in this area is David Allen’s book Getting Things Done. Now the challenge is finding time to read it!