This is my first week in Sunrise Hill Therapeutic Community. I still don’t know what the highlight of my week is. It was a new adventure for me. A kind of adventure I never thought I’d get to experience from commuting (Hello, Cubao! Hello, QC!) to the actual practice of my program. It’s funny because last summer, I told myself that I need a sunrise and that, I’m tired of the sunset. Look at what institution I am now affiliated to.
I wanted to write more about my experiences but I guess ,I’ll just write some other time. Maybe when I get to finish the 200 hours for this setting.
— Freud (via hannah-balls-itch)
(Source: cheeseburgerinsomnia)
— Sigmund Freud (via illuminatedbeing)
Based from what I’ve learned on my social psych class, a couple of lie to me episodes, and a few articles I’ve read over the internet, true happiness can be seen in someone’s eyes. I don’t know if that’s true but they say that a genuinely happy person will exhibit this microexpression of a crow’s-feet that appear at the corners of the eyes (try to visualize, i don’t feel like googling an image of it; it’s like your facial muscles around the eyes have this tiny wrinkles)
That’s the reason why I covered my eyes with a bonnet and tried my best to smile. I closed my eyes and a stream of consciousness tried to invade the melancholic thoughts that I have at that very moment. I felt sad and weird with what I am doing nevertheless, I tried my best to think of happy thoughts then, I smiled.
I’m full of emotion right now, that describing what I felt when I took this picture may seem utterly meaningless to others.
We try to be happy and we pretend to be happy. We cover our eyes (not literally like this) and overlook things. We don’t really want to hide our true feelings and emotions but it’s one way of saying that “I’m strong. I can surpass this shit.”
— Rollo May
A new study suggests genetics may influence an individual’s enjoyment of performing good deeds for other people.
According to the study by researchers at the University of Bonn, a minute change in a particular gene is associated with a significantly higher willingness to donate time or money.
People with the genetic alteration gave twice as much money on average to a charitable cause as did other study subjects.
Researchers working with psychologist Professor Dr. Martin Reuter invited their students to take a “retention test” — the roughly 100 participants were to memorize series of numbers and then repeat them as correctly as possible. They received the sum of five Euros for doing this.
Afterwards, they could either take their hard-earned money home or donate any portion of it to a charitable cause. This decision was made freely and in apparent anonymity.
“However, we always knew how much money was in the cash box beforehand and could therefore calculate the amount donated,” Reuter said.
The scientists had asked their study subjects to undergo a cheek swab beforehand. They were able to extract DNA for genetic analyses from the sampled cells. In these analyses, they focused on one gene, the so-called COMT gene. It contains the building instructions for an enzyme which inactivates certain messengers in the brain, the most well-known of which is dopamine.
It has been known for nearly 15 years that there are two different variants of the COMT gene: COMT-Val and COMT-Met. Both versions, which occur in the population with approximately equal frequency, differ in only a single building block.
In the case of people with the COMT-Val variant, the associated enzyme works up to four times more effectively. Thus considerably more dopamine is inactivated in the brain of a person with this variant.
This mini-mutation also has effects on behavior: “Students with the COMT-Val gene donated twice as much money on average as did fellow students with the COMT-Met variant,” Reuter said.
“This is the first time that researchers have been able to establish a connection between a particular gene and altruistic deeds. However, it was already known from studies on twins that altruistic behavior is also partly influenced by our genes. ”
The Bonn scientists focused their analysis on the COMT gene with good reason: For several years, it has been known that dopamine is involved in regulating social behavior in animals and humans.
Dopamine, together with substances such as the neuropeptide vasopressin, influences sexuality and bonding. It is also linked with positive emotionality — such as the good feeling some people get from helping others.
The results were published in the journal Social Cognitive & Affective Neuroscience.
— Roger Ebert (via psychotherapy)
— Carl Jung (via quotewhore)
(Source: quotewhore)
It is not the emotion that greatly influence an individual’s behavior. It is their belief toward the emotion that causes their emotional reaction.
will now work on anything that me and my group mates can work on. We must finish this shit by the end of the day. HOPEFUL!
Buenos dias!
I’m not really in the mood to do anything today. I have tons to do on my 3 majors plus papers, topic defense, quizzes, recitations. I want to get used to these things but I still can’t find any motivation for me to do these. Fridays have never been a rest day for me. My free time is usually alloted to studying(yes, i actually study on weekends, what a bummer), reading(i love reading.. but our readings.. that i don’t love), writing(i’ve loved it ever since but now, i’m quite lazy doing it), thinking (yeah, of course). I’ll try my best to do at least one of those tons of stuff to do . I hope I can. At least I have memorized the alphabet for my Spanish class.
P.S.
Major Headache, by that I mean literally and figuratively.
