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2013-01-29

by Maria Popova“A good reader, a major reader, an active and creative reader is a rereader.” “All attempts at gaining literary polish must begin with judicious reading,” H. P. Lovecraft famously advised aspiring writers. We’ve already seen that reading is a learned skill and an optimizable technique, and that non-reading is as important an intellectual choice as reading itself, so it follows that reading, more than the mere monolithic act of ingesting text, comes with degrees of mastery. But what, exactly, does it mean to be a good reader? Last week brought us Vladimir Nabokov’s wonderfully opinionated insights on literature and life from a rare 1969 BBC interview. The beloved author, it turns out, was equally opinionated in his criteria for what constitutes a good reader. In his collected Lectures on Literature (UK; public library), Nabokov offers the following exercise, which he posed to students at a “remote provincial college” while on an extended lecture tour: Select four answers to the question what should a reader be to be a good reader: The reader should belong to a book club. The reader should identify himself or herself with the hero or heroine. The reader should concentrate on the social-economic angle. The reader should prefer a story with action and dialogue to one with none. The reader should have seen the book in a movie. The reader should be a budding author. The reader should have imagination. The reader should have memory. The reader should have a dictionary. The reader should have some artistic sense. The students leaned heavily on emotional identification, action, and the social-economic or historical angle. Of course, as you have guessed, the good reader is one who has imagination, memory, a dictionary, and some artistic sense–which sense I propose to develop in myself and in others whenever I have the chance. He goes on to consider the element of time in reading, making a case for the value of rereading: Incidentally, I use the word reader very loosely. Curiously enough, one cannot read a book: one can only reread it. A good reader, a major reader, an active and creative reader is a rereader. And I shall tell you why. When we read a book for the first time the very process of laboriously moving our eyes from left to right, line after line, page after page, this complicated physical work upon the book, the very process of learning in terms of space and time what the book is about, this stands between us and artistic appreciation. When we look at a painting we do not have to move our eyes in a special way even if, as in a book, the picture contains elements of depth and development. The element of time does not really enter in a first contact with a painting. In reading a book, we must have time to acquaint ourselves with it. We have no physical organ (as we have the eye in regard to a painting) that takes in the whole picture and then can enjoy its details. But at a second, or third, or fourth reading we do, in a sense, behave towards a book as we do towards a painting. However, let us not confuse the physical eye, that monstrous masterpiece of evolution, with the mind, an even more monstrous achievement. A book, no matter what it is—a work of fiction or a work of science (the boundary line between the two is not as clear as is generally believed)—a book of fiction appeals first of all to the mind. The mind, the brain, the top of the tingling spine, is, or should be, the only instrument used upon a book.

The death of a revolutionary

2012-12-28

The song of Song The shot that killed Song Jiaoren was not heard around the world. But it might have changed Chinese history Dec 22nd 2012 | BEIJING AND SHANGHAI | from the print edition Economist AT 10.40pm on March 20th 1913 a young man who represented one possible future for China stood on the platform at Shanghai railway station, waiting with friends to board a train to Beijing. Song Jiaoren—30 years old, sporting a Western suit and a wisp of a moustache—had just brilliantly led his new political party, the Nationalists, to overwhelming success in parliamentary elections, the country’s first attempt at democracy after two millennia of imperial rule. He was in line to become China’s first democratically elected prime minister, and to help draft a new constitution for the Republic of China. Song (above, centre) was exultant. A fortune-teller had told him—when he was a fugitive in Japan, plotting a violent end to the Qing dynasty—that he would serve as prime minister for 30 peaceful years. With his Jeffersonian ideals and admiration for Britain’s Parliament, he was ready to change his country’s fate. But an assassin’s bullet prevented him from trying. Armed with a Browning revolver, an unemployed ex-soldier in black military garb fired a single slug into his back and fled. Song was taken to a nearby hospital, where a bullet was removed from his abdomen. He knew death was near, and in the last political act of his life he dictated a telegram to his chief adversary, President Yuan Shikai (pictured bottom right): “I die with deep regret. I humbly hope that your Excellency will champion honesty, propagate justice, and promote democracy…” Song died on March 22nd. China’s best chance of democracy may have died with him. Who ordered his death? The official inquiry eventually ran cold. The ex-soldier who pulled the trigger and the men identified as hiring him, including the acting prime minister in Yuan’s cabinet, all mysteriously died or went missing within a year. Two were poisoned, another slain by a pair of swordsmen aboard a train. There was no shortage of people who might have wished Song gone. Ardent and self-assured, he had made many enemies both in the opposition and his own party. Liang Qichao (pictured left), the pre-eminent Chinese intellectual of the era, an erstwhile monarchist and at that moment a close ally of Yuan’s, was forced to deny a rumour that he was behind the assassination (according to sources dug up by John Delury, a historian). The Nationalist Party’s co-founder, Sun Yat-sen (top right), had been Song’s bitter rival for years; he opportunistically seized on the killing to foment a failed second revolution in a bid to regain control of the party. The man whom most historians blame, and who benefited most directly from the hit, was the recipient of Song’s dying plea for democracy. President Yuan had no interest in granting that wish. A career soldier who had served the Qing government and negotiated its abdication (to him), Yuan is the cartoon villain of this tale, with the bushy moustache, round open face and slightly overfed build of an indulged monarch. He was also canny, ruthless and megalomaniacal. Yuan did not want a strong prime minister, nor did he want the Nationalist Party to write a constitution that would limit his own power. He most certainly did not want democracy—and snuffed it out. In 1915 he tried to restore imperial rule and have himself made emperor. His death in 1916 left a divided country, fought over by warlords and bandits. But what if Song had lived? How close did China come to forging a democracy 100 years ago? Was Song’s dream of a liberal revolution doomed? How far did an assassin’s bullet change China’s destiny—just as the killing of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo soon afterwards changed Europe’s? Exile in Tokyo It is often said, even by some of the harshest critics of Communist rule, that China is not ready for democracy. Not quite yet. This was already a familiar refrain in Song’s lifetime. The scholar Liang visited America in 1903, looked scornfully at the “disorderly” life of the Chinese in San Francisco, and reached a harsh conclusion: “If we were to adopt a democratic system of government now, it would be nothing less than national suicide,” he wrote. “The Chinese people can only be governed autocratically; they cannot enjoy freedom.” Perhaps after 50 years, he suggested, “we can give them the books of [Jean-Jacques] Rousseau and tell them about the deeds of [George] Washington.” The Chinese people, long yoked by Confucian tradition and insulated from Western influences, may have been unprepared for the radical terminology of liberty. But it arrived nevertheless. Rousseau’s “Social Contract”, an ideological precursor of the French revolution, appeared in translation in 1898; young Chinese were beginning to read about the deeds of Washington, too. Yan Fu, the era’s most important translator of Western thought, introduced Chinese readers to Darwin’s theory of natural selection in 1898, to John Stuart Mill’s “On Liberty” in 1899, Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of Nations” the following year, and Montesquieu’s “The Spirit of Laws”—which, more than a century earlier, had influenced the drafters of the American constitution—in 1905. Until then China had been largely ignorant of three centuries of new thinking by the “barbarians” of the West. In the case of industrial technology, the effects of this disregard were parlous. The Qing emperor Qianlong had turned away the British emissary, Lord Macartney, in 1793, saying he had no use for British products, “ingenious” as they might be. Britain came later with modern ships and weapons instead, to force China to buy opium. Together the Western powers (and, in 1895, Japan) began carving up China and raiding its treasury with a series of unfair treaties. Lord Macartney is rebuffed By the end of the 19th century these humiliations had given rise to nationalism and anti-foreign sentiment that posed a threat to the Qing rulers, who as Manchus were already considered foreign by Han Chinese. In 1898 the Qing began reforming the hopelessly antiquated Confucian education system, allowing the introduction of some “useful” Western concepts. Peasants and landed gentry alike were forming political societies, some secretive, some subversive, some progressive, including several devoted to ending the practice of binding women’s feet. The telegraph was coming into use, bringing news of international events; meanwhile, some imperial edicts were still being delivered by horse post. The contrast between a slow-hoofed regime and a world hurtling into modernity could be felt in rural Hunan province, in China’s interior, where Song was a boy in the 1890s. He clamoured to hear of current events, especially military matters, and he enjoyed playing at war. Wu Xiangxiang, a biographer of Song, writes that he would call together the children of the neighbourhood in the hills around his village and, flag in hand, climb atop a rock and take charge. Song, like many of his generation, found bitter confirmation of Manchu weakness in the news of China’s embarrassing defeat to Japan in 1895. Then 13 years old, he ran off from his family “to wail under a Kusamaki tree”. He excelled at school and earned a degree that entitled him and his family to a relatively comfortable life in the Confucian scholar-gentry class. But he was attracted to Western teachings, and, unusually, he was encouraged even by his family to stray somewhat from his Confucian obligation to serve his kin. Kit Siong Liew, another biographer of Song, writes that his mother told him to “work toward the interests of all people under heaven”. At a provincial academy in neighbouring Hubei province, Mr Liew writes, classmates said Song “revealed his ambition to change and purify the world,” and talked of plots and revolution. He did not have to wait long for an opportunity. In 1904, at the age of 22, he fell in with a revolutionary group’s plan to bomb a municipal building in Changsha, capital of Hunan, and prepared to foment rebellion in his home province. But the plot was discovered—failed revolutionary gambits were to become a regular feature of the decade—and Song was forced into hiding. He fled to Tokyo, the destination of thousands of young Chinese reformers and radicals, taking advantage of another significant Qing reform at the turn of the century: allowing Chinese to study in Japan. His nearly six years in Japan transformed Song from a disciple of revolution to a leader. Japan’s Meiji Restoration had introduced Enlightenment thinking and constitutional government to that society decades earlier. It was there that substantial numbers of Chinese students learned the language of democracy (the Chinese words for “democracy” and “freedom” were created by Japanese writers using Chinese characters). Tokyo became a testing ground for Chinese political debate; Liang and Sun—and Song—first fought their proxy wars of ideas in Chinese-language newspapers there. It was not long before the new rhetoric became seditious, with powerful echoes of America’s Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights. Song would become the constitutional brain of the revolution. In 1905 he met Sun in Tokyo, becoming a founding member of the Revolutionary Alliance (a forerunner of the Nationalist Party), and took on the roles of political newspaperman, organiser, fund-raiser and strategist. But it was as a student of post-revolutionary governments that he distinguished himself. He became immersed in the constitutions of the world by translating several—including the American and French—to help pay the bills. He was persistently short of money and took succour in booze and opium. But he was clear-eyed enough to distinguish between the documents of the great liberal democracies and those of autocracies such as Prussia and Russia, which he also translated for a visiting Qing delegation in 1906. With her realm teetering, the Empress Dowager Cixi had taken a belated liking to constitutional monarchy. Song’s verdict on the Qing was laced with an exasperation that still resonates a century later: “Those of us who hope day and night for the Manchu government to effect peaceful reform, may they not now cease hoping?” Song was convinced that the Qing dynasty would fall, and that if the revolutionaries were not prepared, the next government would be worse. He was prescient on both counts. Despite serious rifts among the rebels—including between Sun and Song—and a string of blunders in their plots, the revolution was successful virtually by accident. A prematurely exploded bomb in the city of Wuchang in Hubei province sparked the Xinhai revolution of October 1911. A series of provinces declared independence, and on January 1st 1912 a republic was formed, with Sun as president; Song set about designing the institutions of a new democracy. But it was a weak revolution. Many provinces maintained back channels to Beijing, where Yuan, leader of a well-organised army, negotiated the abdication of the Manchus and his own ascension to the presidency in Sun’s place. Not yet 30 years old, Song believed that the institutions he had crafted, based on the principles of devout republicans such as Jefferson and Madison, could rein in a strong man. But this was not the American revolution, and Yuan was no George Washington. While the Republic prepared for its first elections at the end of 1912 Yuan ran roughshod over the new government. A taste of democracy Song put his remaining faith in the polls. In the elections of December 1912 to early 1913 more than 10% of the Chinese population would be eligible to cast votes, an elite but still large group of 40m male taxpayers who owned some property and had a primary-school education. (Women had not won the right to vote; one suffragist slapped Song in the face for not taking up their cause.) China’s first real democratic campaign had begun. What did this first go at democracy look like? Partisans roughed up opposing candidates and activists, carried guns near polling stations to intimidate voters, bought votes with cash, meals and prostitutes (some lamented selling too early, as prices went up closer to election day), and stuffed ballot boxes. At least one victorious candidate was falsely accused of being an opium-taker. In a word, it looked like democracy. Some historians discount these reports as scattered abuses in a fairly clean election. In any case, Song could not be thought naive: his Nationalists were accused of the preponderance of the election shenanigans, and they won in a rout, in effect taking half the seats in the legislature. Jonathan Spence, a historian, writes that Liang, who had come back to China to help organise a pro-Yuan party, took this defeat for the authoritarians terribly, writing to his daughter just two days before Song’s assassination, “What can one do with a society like this one? I’m really sorry I ever returned.” Disgusted, and believing his opponents had cheated, Liang would temporarily throw in his lot with Yuan’s rule, even as evidence suggested the president had assassinated his chief political rival. Ever the operator, Yuan worked to reverse the Nationalist victory at the polls by buying off elected officials, later banning the party altogether. Song, meanwhile, was rumoured to have turned down a huge bribe from Yuan. He spent his last days making victory speeches around the country, attacking the would-be dictator and promising to curb the power of the presidency. He may have been too ready to believe a fortune-teller’s prophesy. Dead before his time Might Song have saved the Republic by living? If he had not been assassinated, some scholars believe, Sun would not have attempted his second revolution, and Yuan would have continued as an incorrigible president with too much power—a disappointing outcome, but not as catastrophic as the country’s slide into anarchy proved to be. In this alternative history, China might have followed the path that Taiwan later did, with a militarised, authoritarian government slowly evolving into a liberal republic. The crucial question was whether Yuan could ever have been persuaded to tolerate Song. Could Liang have overcome his own bitterness about the election result to negotiate a peace between them? Could Song have patiently worked to build a government that would live longer than its president? Mao’s lesson China will never know. But without Song, the Republic was doomed. The Chinese people had taken enthusiastically to their new power to elect their leaders, but Yuan would disenfranchise them; they had begun to devour a thriving popular press, unleashed from imperial censorship, but Yuan would bring back the censors. His insatiable appetite for power alienated some of his old allies, including Liang, and his final bid to restore the monarchy was widely unpopular. But he did manage to manipulate an American constitutional adviser, Frank Goodnow, into endorsing his imperial ambitions. Goodnow had arrived in Beijing six weeks after Song’s murder, in May 1913, and saw only turmoil. He too declared the Chinese people unready for democracy. There were other turning points to come that might have sealed democracy’s fate, whether or not Song had lived. The Japanese invasion and occupation of China would have wrought havoc in the country under any government, creating an opportunity for, among others, Communist rebels. Japanese writers had given the Chinese language not only the words “democracy” and “freedom”, but also another Western concept, “socialism”. Eventually Chinese communists, led by Mao Zedong—another young revolutionary from Hunan, born 11 years after Song—would win a civil war and, in 1949, “liberate” China. The chaos of the Republic had played into Mao’s belief that dissent must be mercilessly repressed. Nearly three decades of his totalitarian rule followed. This year, as the Communist Party’s leaders again installed their own successors without public input, they declared, not for the first time, that “Western” democracy is not appropriate for the Chinese people.

Moderation as the Sweet Spot for Exercise(Repost)

2012-12-27

For people who exercise but fret that they really should be working out more, new studies may be soothing. The amount of exercise needed to improve health and longevity, this new science shows, is modest, and more is not necessarily better.That is the message of the newest and perhaps most compelling of the studies, which was presented on Saturday at the annual meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine in San Francisco. For it, researchers at the University of South Carolina Arnold School of Public Health and other institutions combed through the health records of 52,656 American adults who’d undergone physicals between 1971 and 2002 as part of the Aerobics Center Longitudinal Study at the Cooper Institute in Dallas. Each participant completed physical testing and activity questionnaires and returned for at least one follow-up visit.The researchers found that about 27 percent of the participants reported regularly running, although in wildly varying amounts and paces.The scientists then checked death reports.Over the course of the study, 2,984 of the participants died. But the incidence was much lower among the group that ran. Those participants had, on average, a 19 percent lower risk of dying from any cause than non-runners.Notably, in closely parsing the participants’ self-reported activities, the researchers found that running in moderation provided the most benefits. Those who ran 1 to 20 miles per week at an average pace of about 10 or 11 minutes per mile — in other words, jogging — reduced their risk of dying during the study more effectively than those who didn’t run, those (admittedly few) who ran more than 20 miles a week, and those who typically ran at a pace swifter than seven miles an hour.“These data certainly support the idea that more running is not needed to produce extra health and mortality benefits,” said Dr. Carl J. Lavie, medical director of cardiac rehabilitation and prevention at the Ochsner Medical Center in New Orleans and an author of the study. “If anything,” he continued, “it appears that less running is associated with the best protection from mortality risk. More is not better, and actually, more could be worse.” His analysis echoes the results of another new examination of activity and mortality, in which Danish scientists used 27 years’ worth of data collected for the continuing Copenhagen City Heart Study. They reported that those Danes who spent one to two and a half hours per week jogging at a “slow or average pace” during the study period had longer life spans than their more sedentary peers and than those who ran at a faster pace.This decidedly modest amount of exercise led to an increase of, on average, 6.2 years in the life span of male joggers and 5.6 years in women.“We can say with certainty that regular jogging increases longevity,” Dr. Peter Schnorr, a cardiologist and an author of the study, said in presenting the findings at a clinical meeting organized last month by the European Association for Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation. “The good news is that you don’t actually need to do that much to reap the benefits.”“The relationship appears much like alcohol intakes,” he continued. “Mortality is lower in people reporting moderate jogging than in non-joggers or those undertaking extreme levels of exercise.”There’s further confirmation of that idea in the findings of a large study of exercise habits published last year in The Lancet, which showed that among a group of 416,175 Taiwanese adults, 92 minutes a week of moderate exercise, like walking, gentle jogging or cycling, increased life span by about three years and decreased the risk of mortality from any cause by about 14 percent.In that study, those who embarked on more ambitious exercise programs did gain additional risk reduction, as seems only fair, but the benefits plateaued rapidly. For each further 15 minutes per day of moderate exercise that someone completed beyond the first 92, his or her mortality risk fell, but by only about another 4 percent. Whether and at what point more exercise becomes counterproductive remains uncertain. “In general, it appears that exercise, like any therapy, results in a bell-shaped curve in terms of response and benefit,” says Dr. James H. O’Keefe, a cardiologist and lead author of a thought-provoking review article published on Monday in Mayo Clinic Proceedings that examines whether extreme amounts of vigorous exercise, particularly running, can harm the heart.“To date, the data suggests that walking and light jogging are almost uniformly beneficial for health and do increase life span,” Dr. O’Keefe says. “But with more vigorous or prolonged exercise, the benefits can become questionable.“I’m a fan of distance running,” he adds. “I run. But after about 45 to 60 minutes a day, you reach a point of diminishing returns, and at some point, you risk toxicity.”His advice? The study by Dr. Lavie and his colleagues offers excellent guidelines for safe and effective exercise, Dr. O’Keefe says. “Twenty miles a week or less of jogging at a 10- or 11-minute-mile pace can add years to your life span. That’s very good news.” Indeed it is — especially since that routine happens to replicate almost exactly my own weekly exercise regimen.“I wouldn’t automatically discourage people from doing more if they really want to” and are not experiencing side effects, like extreme fatigue or repeated injuries, Dr. O’Keefe continued. “But the message from the latest data is that the sweet spot for exercise seems to come with less.” 适度运动比剧烈运动对身体或许更有利对热爱运动而又担心运动量不够的人来说，新研究得到数据也许是个好消息。锻炼运动量的多少若以提高身体素质和延长寿命为目的，新科学研究表明，适度运动效果最好，过多运动锻炼未必有益。星期六在美国旧金山召开的美国运动学院年会上，有一篇最新、最引人注目的研究文献。它就是南卡罗来纳大学阿诺德公共卫生学院和其他有关研究机构的研究人员整理出的资料，是美国达拉斯的库珀研究所有氧运动中心1971年到2002年间纵向跟踪研究项目的52 656美国成年人健康记录。库珀研究所有氧运动中心对参与的成年人进行过体格检查、身体测试和行为问卷调查，并对他们至少进行过一次跟踪访问。跟踪研究对象有27%人说，他们坚持有规律跑步，虽然运动量和跑步速度大有不同。研究人员并研究分析了这些人的死亡情况。在整个跟踪研究过程中，死亡人数有2，984人。这个数字（发生率）在跑步人群中是相当低的，比不跑步的人死亡风险率降低了19%。仔细分析过跟踪研究对象所选择运动量后，研究人员尤其发现，适度跑步对身体最有益。那些每周跑步1-20英里、平均跑步速度每英里10-11分钟的人，换句话说慢跑的人，死亡风险大大低于那些不跑步的人和那些每周跑步大于20英里以上的人（尽管公开承认很少），以及那些通常跑步速度高于每小时7英里的人。新奥尔良Ochsner医学中心心血管医疗中心主任Carl J. Lavie博士说：“这些数据有力支持增强身体和延长寿命不必进行激烈运动的观点。” 他还说，“运动锻炼可能有利于防止疾病延长寿命，但并非运动量越大越好，而是运动量越大越有害健康。” 他的观点得到丹麦科学家一份有关运动与死亡关系的新研究报告的支持。该报告是科学家们为哥本哈根市心脏病研究课题历经27年收集的极有价值数据，每周以‘较慢速度’跑步一个小时到一个半小时丹麦人有较长寿命，远远高于久坐不动和剧烈运动的跑步者。男子适度运动平均能延长寿命6.2岁，妇女能延长5.6岁。 “我们可确切地说，经常跑跑步有利于延长寿命。”在欧洲心血管疾病预防与修复学会上月召开的临床会议上，心脏病专家、论文作者Peter Schnorr如此说。“这个信息告诉我们，实际上，为了健康不必运动过度。” “这种关系有点像饮酒。”他还介绍说，已见报导，适度慢跑的人比不跑步的人和运动锻炼过度的人死亡率低。” 上月发表在“柳叶刀（The Lancet）”杂志的有关锻炼习惯调查研究的一篇文章，进一步地证实了这一论点。该文谈到在416 175台湾成年人中，每周进行92分钟适度锻炼的人，如散步、慢跑、骑自行车的人，寿命延长约三年，死亡风险降低百分之十四。那篇调查研究报告中谈到，从事雄心勃勃锻炼计划的人死亡风险似乎得到降低，但很快就在于原歩不动，若在原每周92分钟运动锻炼基础上，每次增加15分钟，死亡率便会增加，尽管只有4%左右。至于过度锻炼怎么会和在什么程度起到相反作用，目前仍未确定。James H. O’Keefe 博士说：“一般来说，锻炼似乎如同医疗治病一样，收益和反应是一条钟型曲线。” H. O’Keefe 博士是心脏病专家，星期一发表在梅奥临床学术会（Mayo Clinic Proceedings）上以他为第一作者的论文，引起与会者极大兴趣和讨论。该文提出了激烈运动锻炼，特别是跑步，到何种程度是否有可能伤害心脏。 “至今为止，研究结果表明，走路和轻松地跑跑步无论对身体健康，还是对延长寿命都是有好处的。” O’Keefe博士说。“但是，运动量越大、锻炼时间越长，对身体就不一定有好处。” “我是热心长跑运动的人。”他说，“我喜爱跑步。但每天跑45-60分钟之后，锻炼收益就逐渐递减，达到某一点时甚至会造成伤害。” 他对大家提出什么劝告？ Lavie博士和他同事的研究成果为我们找到一种有效安全的极好方法。O’Keefe博士说，“每周慢跑20英里有助于健身、益寿，但速度不要超出10或11分钟一英里。这无疑是个好消息。”我们几乎每个人都能正确地按这方法进行养生锻炼，这的确是特别有意义的。 “对那些有意进行大强度锻炼的人，我并非有意劝阻他们。”只要他们没有出现不良反应，如过度疲劳和意外损伤。O’Keefe说，“不过，最新调查研究数据告诉我们，适度锻炼最有利于身体健康。”

Quick and Easy Ways to Quiet Your Mind（Repost）

2012-12-27

Neuroscience tells us that, to be more productive and creative, we need to give our brains a break. It's the quiet mind that produces the best insights. But it's a challenge to take that sort of time off in the midst of a busy day. Here are three specific, quick and easy ways to build purposeful break time into your day. Quick meditationNew research from the UCLA Laboratory of Neuro Imaging suggests that people who meditate show more gray matter in certain regions of the brain, show stronger connections between brain regions and show less age-related brain atrophy. In other words, meditation might make your brain bigger, faster and "younger". As lead researcher Eileen Luders explains, "it appears to be a powerful mental exercise with the potential to change the physical structure of the brain."Tip: If you commute via public transportation (or even if you're a passenger in a car pool) use the time to close your eyes for 10 minutes. If you drive, leave a little early, park and spend 10 minutes in the car before you walk into work. Choose a very specific image, such as a waterfall, beach or tree, and try to focus on it alone. If other thoughts get in the way, gently push them aside. Do this once or twice per day. The goal is to let your mind achieve a sense of relaxed awareness. PulsingPsychologist K. Anders Ericsson, renown for his research and theories on expertise, points out that top performers in fields ranging from music to science to sports tend to work in approximately 90-minute cycles and then take a break. We are designed to pulse, to move between spending and renewing energy. Pulsing is the simplest, easiest, most immediate way to build breaks into your day. Tip: Download a "break-reminder" utility, such as Scirocco or Healthy Hints, and set it to ping you every 90 minutes. Focus hard on a particular task until that cue. And then take a walk, talk to a colleague, doodle or listen to music. Do anything that renews you and gives you a "second wind," even if you think you don't need it. You do. Five minutes later, get back to work. Daydream walks Most people have heard the story about how 3M's Arthur Fry came up with the idea for the Post-it note: he was daydreaming in church. Jonathan Schooler, a researcher at UC Santa Barbara, has repeatedly shown that people like Fry who daydream and let their minds wander score higher on creativity tests. What separates this from meditation is that, instead of emptying your mind, you're letting it fill up with random thoughts. The trick is to remain aware enough to recognize a sudden insight when it comes.Tip: Start by taking 20 minutes, two days a week during your lunch break to take a stroll and daydream. Think about anything you want besides work — a beach vacation, building your dream house, playing shortstop for the Yankees, whatever. Ramp it up to three or four days a week. The next time someone catches you daydreaming on the job and asks you why you're not working, tell them that in fact you're tapping into your creative brain. 令思绪迅速沉淀的简单方法马修·梅（Matthew E. May） | 2012年12月24号上午8:00 由精神系统科学我们得知，要想更高效、更富创造力，我们需要令大脑适时休息。冷静思绪可激发绝佳的灵感，但在繁忙的工作中挤出时间沉思绝非易事。以下是三种在工作中沉淀思绪的方法，快速简单，步骤详尽。快速冥想洛杉矶加州大学精神成像实验室的最新研究结果表明，经常冥想可令大脑特定的区域显示更多灰质，在大脑区域之间建立更强的联系，减少随年龄增长患有脑萎缩的风险。换而言之，冥想不但可使您的大脑更发达、反应更迅速，还能“更年轻”。正如首席研究员艾琳·吕德斯（Eileen Luders）所述：“这项高强度思维训练可能会改变大脑的物理结构。” 提示：搭乘公共交通工具通勤，甚至塞车等候时都可以闭上眼睛冥想10分钟。如果驾车上班，可提前出发，泊车后在车内冥想10分钟，然后再步入办公室。冥想时选择一个特殊的图案，例如瀑布、海滩或树木，尝试将注意力全部转移至此。如果不能完全集中，则慢慢将杂念排除。每天进行一两次。目的在于彻底放松大脑。间隔休息心理学家安德斯·埃里克森（ K. Anders Ericsson）因其在专业知识领域的研究和理论而闻名于世，他指出无论音乐、科学或体育界，每个领域的佼佼者都倾向于工作90分钟左右后稍事休息，依次循环。间隔休息的目的在于耗能后可马上恢复能量。在工作期间，间隔休息是最简单、方便、直接的方法。提示：下载一个“休息提醒”程序，例如Scirocco或Healthy Hint，设置成每90分钟提醒一次。提示响起之前全神贯注工作，休息时自处走动一下、与同事聊聊天、随便涂鸦或听听音乐。即使不疲倦，也要放松，可令您再次“精神焕发”。五分钟后继续工作。漫步幻想很多人都知道3M公司的亚瑟·佛莱（Arthur Fry）提出的便利贴创意，即在教堂里做“白日梦”。加州大学圣塔芭芭拉分校的乔纳森·斯库勒（Jonathan Schooler）不断证明像弗莱一样喜欢幻想、畅游脑海的人在创造力测试中得分较高。区别于要清空脑海的冥想，漫步幻想需要您徜徉在想象中。技巧是保持一定清醒，出现奇思妙想时可立即捕捉。提示：起初持续20分钟，每周两次，午休期间边散步边幻想。想象任何无关工作的事情，海滩度假、建造梦幻之屋、代表洋基队参加棒球比赛等。然后将每周幻想次数增加至三到四次。下次其他人发现您在幻想，询问您不工作的原因时，可以告诉他们实际上您正在构思一个极富创意的想法。