The Bad Apples

When Dale Carnegie wrote his classic book on human relations, How to Win Friends and Influence People, he left out a chapter; it wasn’t finished on time, so the book was published without it. The chapter was supposed to cover the subject of dealing with people you cannot win with.

For most people, when you treat them fairly, they treat you fairly in return. But as you know, there exists in this world a small percentage of people who will simply take advantage of you when you try to treat them fairly. There are people who will play games with you, deceive you, and some who will actively prevent you from making your relationship work. Carnegie’s unwritten chapter was for the times when “somebody has to go to jail, be spanked, divorced, knocked down, sued in court.”

Even beyond those extreme cases, every once in awhile you’ll get stuck working with or having to interact with someone who continually brings you down or in some way makes your life difficult. They may seem to be very nice people. They might smile and come across with a lot of charm. But the end result of your interactions are: You’re worse off. You try to make things work, you try to be fair, and you get the short end of the stick every time. You’ve tried to talk with them, perhaps, and it doesn’t make things better, and they probably make you feel bad for saying anything.

I have no fancy methods for dealing with these people. You can’t really deal with them. If they’re doing something illegal, you can certainly call the police, but most are too clever to do something illegal. My wife uses a good analogy in her speeches. She says trying to make things work with these people is like trying to wrestle with someone who is covered with mud: You’re going to get muddy. No matter what you do or how well you do it or how noble your intentions, you’ll get muddy.

So instead of trying to make things work out with these people, the goal is to avoid dealing with them at all. Go for minimal impact. Have as little to do with them as you can get away with (without causing yourself trouble). Ideally, you would eliminate them from your life completely. Stop calling, stop visiting, stop being nice. You don’t have to be mean about it. Just fade them into the background and then all the way out of the picture.

I know this isn’t a perfect world. Sometimes you’ll have to keep interacting with someone who won’t let you make things work. So go as far as you can to minimize their effect on your life. Talk to them as little as you can, look at them as little as you can. Focus your attention on your purpose and on the rest of the people around you. When you come across someone and nothing works with him, cut your losses. Don’t waste any more effort trying. This is a big world full of wonderful people and a few bad apples. Concentrate your attention on the good people and waste as little of your attention as you can on the ones who bring you down. You can do it a little at a time and it will improve your attitude. And if it improves your attitude, it’s good for your relationships with your family and friends, and it’s good for your health.

Adam Khan is the author of Principles For Personal Growth, Slotralogy, Antivirus For Your Mind, and co-author with Klassy Evans of How to Change the Way You Look at Things (in Plain English). Follow his podcast, The Adam Bomb.

Tranquility First

Do you think it is possible to live your life as if tranquility were your first priority? Immediately you may think it's not practical. You would be ineffective. You wouldn't get anything done. You would become a wimp. But that's not so. That's a kind of thinking you have been given. You didn't carefully think that one through and come to that conclusion on your own. You haven't tried it first and discovered it didn't work. So for the moment, let's suspend our preconceived notions and explore this.

First, an analogy. When you are settling down for a plane flight, the attendant gives instructions on what to do in case of an emergency. One of the things they'll tell you is if you have an infant, you need to use the oxygen mask first. Then give your baby a breath on it. Why? Because that is the only way it will work. If you give one to your baby first, you might pass out, and if you are passed out, you could both die. You must stay alive and awake so you can keep your baby alive. It's just pure logic.

In the same way, it is pure logic that if you want to be happy and if you want the people around you to be happy, tranquility in your own bodymind must come first. Your own inner peace must come first because every interaction you have is strongly influenced by your inner state and your inner state radiates out to others and influences their inner states. No matter how well you control your facial muscles and body language and tone of voice, you cannot prevent your inner state from radiating out from you and affecting others.

But what about being ineffective in this dog-eat-dog world? What will happen if you have tranquility as your first priority? You will still get things done. But you will do your work with the purpose of maintaining and deepening the tranquility. So the main purpose of doing laundry, for example, is not to get the clothes clean or get it over quickly. The main intention while doing anything is to maintain or deepen the state of tranquility. It is done in whatever way will lead to peace.

I've tried this. It makes me move slower. I don't get quite as much done per hour. Aha! But wait. I also don't waste a lot of time on useless activities. And my actions are more thought-out because I'm not rushing from one thing to another without taking the time to think. So my actions are fewer but they're higher quality, and I'm happier. And the people around me are happier. It works. And it works better than the other way.

Just give it a try. In practical terms, this will mean that if you're tranquil at the moment, all you need to do is decide what to do next and do it with the purpose of deepening your inner peace. But if you're not tranquil at the moment, your only purpose is to become so. Meditation is a good first choice. If you can't meditate at the moment, take a deep breath, relax any tense muscles you have, and think about your situation in a way that produces tranquility.

Maintain the clarity (with continual reinforcement) that living in tranquility is your top priority and focus. Even above success or helping others. Then go about your business working toward success and helping others in the spirit of maintaining your tranquility while doing so.

The Buddha said something well worth thinking about. He was a teacher, giving public discourses in many different places, and people would often ask him about whether or not God exists or whether the universe had a beginning or has always existed. Buddha didn't answer these questions. He said that speculating about these questions doesn't help you attain inner peace.

That's an interesting point of view, don't you think? I mean, if anyone asked me my opinion about anything, I would be glad to give it. But maybe that attitude isn't very helpful if what I want to attain is a deep calm.

When I get into a discussion over these essentially unanswerable questions, I get worked up. Inevitably. Opinions get thrown about with some degree of certainty and disagreements are bound to pop up. You can argue and debate endlessly on these questions and never really get anywhere. Meanwhile, you've agitated yourself. You have not only not moved toward peace and freedom, you have moved away.

But it is not just these questions that are worth looking at. Look at the point of view Buddha is in. He is interested in doing only what leads to tranquility. Imagine what your life would be like if that was your criteria. What if when you were trying to decide on something you did whatever leads to serenity?

What if the underlying purpose in everything you did was to develop or maintain or deepen a state of tranquility? What if you went through your normal day, doing your normal work, but with the small added intention that tranquility comes first? I think you can see it might be worth a try.

Adam Khan is the author of Principles For Personal Growth, Slotralogy, Antivirus For Your Mind, and co-author with Klassy Evans of How to Change the Way You Look at Things (in Plain English). Subscribe to his blog here. You can email him here.

Having the Time

I was reading a true story about a Norwegian soldier who had been put out of action by frostbite and was confined to a small sled in the middle of the Arctic wilderness. Some friends were hiding him from the German soldiers who were occupying Norway. He was alone for twenty-seven days except for a short visit by someone about every three or four days. He had a book with him, but he didn’t read much of it during those twenty-seven days. He “never seemed to have the time.”

When I read that last line, it jolted me awake and has been bugging me ever since. Do you understand why? Here was a man who couldn’t walk, who was confined to a sleeping bag in the middle of a silent, snow-covered, completely uninhabited area in the Arctic, and he was too busy to read. What’s wrong with this picture?

What’s wrong is the same thing that’s wrong with you and me. We’re too busy. You are, aren’t you? Yeah, so am I. Short of time. More things to do than you have time to do. Always trying to catch up.

But what has been dawning on me with a certain degree of irony and ridiculousness is that my lack of time is completely created by me.

There is no shortage of time. There is only the greedy effort to get more from our days than we can, while at the same time greedily wanting to also spend some of that time in leisure.

It’s silly. And it’s tragic. It costs us the experience of living. Time seems to fly by. Wow, where did those last ten years go? Were we so busy getting things done we forgot to enjoy our own lives?

Let’s just relax, shall we? Let’s quit trying to do so much. We don’t have to get all that stuff done. We don’t have to be perfect parents — kids have been raised by imperfect parents for a long time and still turned out okay. We don’t have to be perfect at anything. We don’t have to do it all. And we don’t have to be happier. But when we realize we don’t have to cram so much into our days, we will be.

Excerpted from the book, Principles For Personal Growth.

Time Management Made Simple

A lot of books have been written about how to manage your time by eliminating wasted motion and saving seconds where you can. But that’s how you make a factory more efficient, not a human being.

People have one main source of inefficiency: We’re prone to get sidetracked or distracted from the important things that need to be done and somewhat lost in the numerous unimportant things we also want to do. So the secret of becoming more efficient is first, know what’s important, and second, avoid getting off track. These can both be accomplished with a single technique.

Of all the words written about time management, the most valuable technique can be stated in one sentence: MAKE A LIST AND PUT IT IN ORDER.

There are always things to do. Since none of us can hold much in our minds while busy doing other things, we need to write things down or we forget — or have the uneasy feeling that we might be forgetting. So you need to make a list.

Write down only the important things you need to do. This should be a small list, no more than six items. Don’t clutter up your list with trivial or obvious things. This isn’t a schedule book, it’s a To Do List, and its purpose is to keep you focused.

You’ve made your list. Now, put the tasks in the order of their importance. Putting the list in order makes your decisions smooth and effective. You’ll know what to do first (the most important), and you’ll always know what to do next. You also know you’re making the best use of your time because at any given moment you’re doing the most important thing you need to do.

There’s no need to rush around or feel stressed to be efficient. Feeling tense or pressured makes you less efficient in the long run by causing unnecessary conflicts with people, mistakes, illness, and burnout. You are in more control of your life when you are calm. Make a list and put it in order. This puts your mind in order and puts your day in order. It’s a good investment of your time because you’ll get more done that really matters.

Adam Khan is the author of Principles For Personal Growth, Slotralogy, Antivirus For Your Mind, and co-author with Klassy Evans of How to Change the Way You Look at Things (in Plain English). Follow his podcast, The Adam Bomb.

Stress Control

Getting criticized by your supervisor; finding out that someone you love has lied to you; receiving some bad news — these things cause stress. And stress has negative consequences, as you well know. But these are only stressful events. The source of stress that wreaks the greatest havoc on your health and sanity is ongoing stressful circumstances.

Like what? Like when a stepchild moves in with you, permanently disrupting the privacy you had with your spouse; or when your younger brother marries someone who verbally abuses your favorite niece. These are the kinds of stresses you have to live with. They don’t just come up and rock your world for a little while and then go away. They stay. And, like living in a house with a fire alarm going all day long, it starts to wear you down.

But there is something you can do about it. When you have an ongoing stressful circumstance in your life, you can modify your level of responsibility. Either take more responsibility or less. Start by asking yourself, “Am I trying to control something I can’t or shouldn’t control?” or “Is there something I should take responsibility for that I have been leaving out of my control?”

It might help to write it out. Write the questions and then jot down some ideas — where are you taking too much or too little control of some aspect of your life?

Be specific. You are responsible for your child in general, for example, but specifically, do you control what he wears or what he eats or when he goes to bed? You must decide. What exactly do you control and what is either out of your control or none of your business? You must decide.

If something is out of your control (or is none of your business and you’ve been trying to make it your business), you will relieve yourself of a lot of stress by letting go of it. Drop that one. Recognize it’s out of your control and busy yourself with things that are in your control. You may be in the habit of trying to control that thing, so you’ll have to remind yourself again and again for a couple weeks: “Oh yeah, I’m not trying to control that anymore.” Write it on a card and carry it with you. Post notes to yourself on your bathroom mirror. Do whatever you have to do to remember you no longer have to waste your energy trying to control that thing.

Now, if you find something you should and can control and haven’t been, roll up your sleeves and get to work on solving the problem. Use the problem-solving method from page 266. Deliberately take steps to repair the troubling circumstances. That’ll relieve your stress better than anything else. It may be difficult at first; it may actually cause you extra stress to face the situation and try to deal with it, but in the long term, your stress level will go down.

Take responsibility for what you are responsible for, and stop taking responsibility for what is not your responsibility. It’s that simple. Control what you can control, and let the rest go. It will relieve a great deal of your stress. Control stress by stressing control.

This article was excerpted from the book, Principles For Personal Growth by Adam Khan. Buy it now here.

A Simple Way to Reduce Stress: Get Less Done in More Time

Adrenaline causes physical changes, some of which are to make you capable of moving quickly and to motivate you to move quickly. Moving fast goes with anxiety. Fast, jerky movements are one of the things adrenaline produces. But here's another feedback loop. You can actually make yourself feel more nervous by moving quickly. You see and feel how you're moving and what the tension in your muscles feels like and it has a psychological effect on you.

So when you feel tense, or when you want to feel more relaxed, try moving deliberately slowly and calmly. It tends to make you feel calmer and more confident, sometimes dramatically so. I have noticed myself many times doing something quickly when I have no reason to be moving that fast. It is merely a habit. I might be taking a walk and suddenly I notice I'm marching along at a furious pace, especially if I'm feeling tense. When I deliberately slow down, it has an immediate and noticeable effect on my state of mind.

I sometimes find myself driving quickly or doing the dishes as quickly and efficiently as I can — even walking down the hall from the living room to the bedroom like the house is on fire. When I notice it and consciously slow down I'm often surprised at how much calmer it makes me feel.

The surprising thing is that sometimes when you move slower, the task gets done almost as quickly. Which means your striving for efficiency isn't doing any good and actually does harm because it creates an unhealthy feeling of pressure.

This is such a simple method. All it requires is for you to notice yourself hurrying and change your speed to something slower, calmer, and more deliberate.

A related principle — kind of an assistant principle — is to give yourself extra time. If it takes twenty minutes to drive to work, give yourself half an hour and take your time. Go to bed a little earlier if you have to, and get up a little earlier. It doesn't take much extra time to give you a feeling of calm control. The night before you may need to watch a little less television, but watching television tends to increase feelings of tension anyway, so that's a good thing.

Do the dishes or yard work while deliberately avoiding efficiency. We forget how efficient we try to be. Go at your own pace and do only one thing (or less) at a time. It is very calming.

This method goes against the grain of modern Western culture. You don't have to make this your lifetime modus operandi, but try it once in awhile on a task. Try this method on a different task until you've tried them all. You'll discover something about how you stress yourself out. You'll find out you normally eat faster than you really want to, you try to do several things at once, you try to be efficient with your time, and you try to cram as much into your day as you can and you wonder why you feel stressed!?

It's not your fault. It's the culture we live in and the times we live in. But that doesn't mean you can't do anything about it. You sure can. Consider this technique as a kind of training. Think of it as a one-day vacation or even a one-hour vacation and deliberately get less done and take your sweet time doing whatever you're doing. It is surprisingly relaxing.

Notice when you are moving quickly and slow your speed. It's a technique you can use just about any time, and it's easy.

Adam Khan is the author of Principles For Personal Growth, Slotralogy, Antivirus For Your Mind, and co-author with Klassy Evans of How to Change the Way You Look at Things (in Plain English). Follow his podcast, The Adam Bomb.

How to Bring Order to Your Chaotic Life or Job

The manager of a large restaurant hired my wife and business partner, Klassy Evans, as a consultant. The manager was having problems that caused her a great deal of stress and she didn’t know what to do about it. For example, no matter how many times the manager talked to certain employees, they still continually showed up late for work and always had a good excuse.

Klassy suggested something simple: Every time a person shows up late, assign them a cleaning task to be completed before they go home that day.

It worked. Not only were fewer people showing up late, but some things the manager wanted clean were getting cleaned. The restaurant was under better control and the manager was less distressed.

My son used to leave his window open and his heater on when he left for school in the morning. No matter how many times I told him to turn off his heater, he never seemed to remember. Saving my money wasn’t very important to him. It’s the vexing kind of problem commonly experienced by most parents.

I decided to make it important to him and fined him one dollar from his allowance every time I found the heater on and the window open.

Would you believe it? His memory made an immediate, complete, and permanent improvement after losing only one dollar!

You control yourself for the same reason you try to help your child develop self-control, and for the same reason a manager tries to maintain order with her staff: A person or family or organization with self-control is more likely to succeed.

The way to gain control is to set standards and stick to them firmly. Establish standards and make them known. Then keep those standards come hell or high water. Whenever you find yourself in a situation where you need to have control, remember this well.

If you’re a boss or a parent, think hard about the standards you set and make sure you set those standards carefully. Once you’ve announced the standard and the penalty for deviating from it, hold to your promise without flinching, and you will have gained a new level of control. You will have derived order from chaos. The method allows your child or your employee to learn self-control and by doing so, you increase the amount of successful action.

When he was first put in charge of a regiment, General Grant found chaos and disorder. The men were dressed slovenly, they showed up late and there was rank insubordination.

Before you can accomplish something, you first have to establish order, and that’s what Grant did. When someone showed up late for roll-call, the whole regiment went without food for twenty-four hours. A man was tied to a post all day if he disobeyed orders. When a soldier cussed, he was gagged.

Rules were established, cleanliness was created, and order was the name of the game. They could get on with the task of training and fighting.

Then Grant took these same men and captured Fort Donelson and fifteen thousand prisoners in one afternoon! That victory turned the tide for the Union forces.

Discipline is difficult. Our yearning for freedom bucks against it. But without discipline, little can be accomplished.

It’s a simple fact: Ultimately, it’s more difficult and painful to do without discipline than it is to buckle down and establish control.

Set standards and stick to them through storm and thunder. You will derive gain from the pain. Success will be your sweet reward.

Adam Khan is the author of Principles For Personal Growth, Slotralogy, Antivirus For Your Mind, and co-author with Klassy Evans of How to Change the Way You Look at Things (in Plain English). Follow his podcast, The Adam Bomb.

How to Solve Problems Easier

A question that naturally comes to mind when something goes wrong is “Why?” But it’s a question fraught with danger. Research has repeatedly shown that the human brain is designed to answer a question with whatever knowledge it has (no matter how little) and come up with a plausible answer (however wrong). Self-blame or victimhood is a frequent side effect.

For example, you can ask why you’re overweight and, without any problem at all, your mind will come up with answers. But all it can give you are theories. What’s the “real” answer? Is it because you weren’t loved as a child? Is it a genetic weakness in your family? Is it an evolutionary holdover precaution against famine? Is your mouth simply bored?

The problem with a WHY question is that you get too many answers you can do nothing about. You can’t change your childhood or a genetic weakness.

There is only one good thing about asking WHY: It can be entertaining. It’s intriguing. It’s like a mystery and mysteries capture our attention like nothing else. But if what you want is to handle the situation well or solve the problem and get on with the business of living, ask HOW not WHY. It’s more efficient.

Since your mind will try to answer any question you put to it, the kind of question you ask makes a big difference. So ask what you really want to know: “How could I get slimmer?” Or “How can I avoid this problem in the future?” Or “How can I solve this problem now?” Or “How can I make things a little better?” Let your mind go wild on one of those questions. The answers will be more productive.

With HOW, you go straight for a useful answer. You avoid getting sidetracked into what can become an endless search for “understanding.” With HOW your answers lead to actions. And it is actions that solve problems and produce real change.

Adam Khan is the author of Principles For Personal Growth, Slotralogy, Antivirus For Your Mind, and co-author with Klassy Evans of How to Change the Way You Look at Things (in Plain English). Follow his podcast, The Adam Bomb.

Honest Abe

We celebrate Abraham Lincoln's birthday (February 12), and we should. Lincoln was one of the few great men who really was great. Before he became president, Lincoln spent twenty years as an unsuccessful Illinois lawyer — at least he was unsuccessful in financial terms. But when you measure the good he did, he was very rich indeed. Legends are often untrue, but Lincoln was the real thing. George Washington never chopped down a cherry tree, but Abraham Lincoln was honest. During his years as a lawyer, there were hundreds of documented examples of his honesty and decency.

For example, Lincoln didn’t like to charge people much who were as poor as he was. Once a man sent him twenty-five dollars, but Lincoln sent him back ten of it, saying he was being too generous.

He was known at times to convince his clients to settle their issue out of court, saving them a lot of money, and earning himself nothing.

An old woman in dire poverty, the widow of a Revolutionary soldier, was charged $200 for getting her $400 pension. Lincoln sued the pension agent and won the case for the old woman. He didn’t charge her for his services and, in fact, paid her hotel bill and gave her money to buy a ticket home!

He and his associate once prevented a con man from gaining possession of a tract of land owned by a mentally ill girl. The case took fifteen minutes. Lincoln’s associate came to divide up their fee, but Lincoln reprimanded him. His associate argued that the girl’s brother had agreed on the fee ahead of time, and he was completely satisfied.

“That may be,” said Lincoln, “but I am not satisfied. That money comes out of the pocket of a poor, demented girl; and I would rather starve than swindle her in this manner. You return half the money at least, or I’ll not take a cent of it as my share.”

He was a fool, perhaps, by certain standards. He didn’t have much, and it was his own fault. But he was a good human being by anyone’s standards and I’m glad we celebrate his birthday.

Honesty makes you feel good about yourself and creates trust in others. It improves your relationship with yourself and with others. It’s not much in fashion these days to talk about the benefits of honesty and decency, but the benefits are there and they are valuable and worth the trouble.

Lincoln didn’t talk much about religion, even with his best friends, and he didn’t belong to any church. But he once confided to a friend that his religious code was the same as an old man he knew in Indiana, who said, “When I do good, I feel good, and when I do bad, I feel bad, and that’s my religion.”

Honesty. It may be corny, but it’s the finest force for good in the world, and it always will be.

Adam Khan is the author of Principles For Personal Growth, Slotralogy, Antivirus For Your Mind, and co-author with Klassy Evans of How to Change the Way You Look at Things (in Plain English). Follow his podcast, The Adam Bomb.

Rx to Relax

When you get angry, upset, anxious, tense, frustrated, or worried, adrenaline goes into your blood stream. It makes your heart beat faster, putting strain on your cardiovascular system. These strains add up, and later in life, things can go wrong because of it. Every time you are able to lessen the intensity of one of these feelings, it will benefit your health. It also makes life a more pleasant experience.

There’s a very simple way to lower your adrenaline level: Relax. Here’s how to relax on the spot:

Breathe deeply. When you tense up, your breathing gets quicker, more shallow, and higher in the chest. You’ll feel better right away, and your heart will slow down, if you’ll just make your breathing more relaxed. Deeper. Slower. Sigh in a relaxed way.

Loosen tensed muscles. Just about any time, but especially when you’ve got the adrenaline pumping, muscles tend to tighten, particularly muscles around your neck, upper back, and face. Pay attention to your muscles in those areas and when you find one that’s contracting for no good reason, relax it. If at first you have trouble relaxing a muscle, tense it first, then relax it.

Say the word “relax” to yourself. Make sure your inner voice is relaxing. Don’t yell at yourself, “Relax!!” Say it soothingly.

These three tasks are easy to do, can be done in the midst of your work, and will slow your heart down to a healthier level. When you become more relaxed, you think better, you’re more creative, and you can use more of what you know — including what you know about human relations, so you’ll get along with people better. Your life will be smoother and better. This is one of those little habits many people have formed that serves them well throughout their lives. I hope you use it too.

Adam Khan is the author of Principles For Personal Growth, Slotralogy, Antivirus For Your Mind, and co-author with Klassy Evans of How to Change the Way You Look at Things (in Plain English). Follow his podcast, The Adam Bomb.

Some Speculations on Prayer

Doesn't prayer — wishing strongly for something — cause you to clarify and intensify your sincere intentions? Wouldn't that alone help you achieve what you're praying for? Wouldn't it help you stay focused on it and persistent about it? Of course, I'm here only talking about praying for something you can help make happen. If you're praying for rain, intensifying and clarifying your sincere intentions would be worthless (setting aside pure miracles for a moment).

As you can probably tell, I'm not a religious man. I wasn't indoctrinated with any religious teachings as a child, and I'm glad I wasn't. And yet I've had enough experience to suspect that somehow prayer has real, measurable effects in the world. Scientific studies indicate it as well (see the book, Healing Words).

That prayer might have real effects in the world seems amazing and mysterious to me, I guess more than it would be to someone raised with stories of miracles, and I guess I still don't quite believe it. But I don't quite disbelieve it either. When I first came across the studies, I immediately dismissed them as ridiculous. But then I realized that made me a believer of a different sort, didn't it? Dismissing what is a large collection of scientific research would mean I had "blind faith" that prayer can't have an effect. I don't want to be a believer one way or the other. I want to have open eyes and an open mind. I don't want to prematurely close my mind.

What I'm saying, though, is that even if prayer has no miraculous effects, it might still be worth doing if only to purify and clarify and strengthen your own good intentions. I know from experience that a clear intention makes that intention more likely to be accomplished than a vague intention. And I know that motivation is more easily sustained if you focus your emotions on it, which is what a prayer would do. That means that as long as the prayer didn't put you in a hopeless or helpless state of mind, it might be helpful.

Something else I was thinking about is metta meditation. Have you ever heard of it? It is a Buddhist form of meditation that focuses on love, kindness, and good wishes for others. Metta meditation is, then, a form of prayer. You are wishing good for others and yourself.

And I think prayer can include not only intending something, but also appreciating something, and reveling in that appreciation. Feeling grateful as a sort of meditation. A prayer of gratefulness.

You can also, of course, pray to ask for something you cannot influence with any actions you can take. That means if you are actually helpless to influence something, you don't have to feel helpless if you feel that you can pray and that does something. So if you used prayer in that way it might help you feel less helpless.

You can also pray for something in you, like strength of will, or seeing opportunities, or learning or growing. This also I think would help to clarify what you want to change about yourself. It would focus your attention on something you could actually influence: Your character.

I am not going anywhere with this. Just thinking out loud. What do you think? Let me know.

Read about a study on prayer: Send a Blessing.

Adam Khan is the author of Principles For Personal Growth, Slotralogy, Antivirus For Your Mind, and co-author with Klassy Evans of How to Change the Way You Look at Things (in Plain English). Follow his podcast, The Adam Bomb.

Send a Blessing

We now have scientific evidence that prayer may actually work. Researchers in California started out with about 400 patients recovering from heart problems. Half the patients received prayers (from a distance), the other half didn’t. Nobody in either group was told there was any praying going on.

According to Dr. Dale Matthews, a professor at Georgetown Medical School, those patients who were the targets of prayer had half as many complications and they had a lower rate of congestive heart failure than the patients who were not prayed for.

Could it be? Other experiments show the same thing. In 1988, Randolf Byrd, MD, a cardiologist from the University of California at San Francisco School of Medicine started with 393 patients who had either heart attacks or severe chest pains, or both.

Half were prayed for at a distance, half weren’t prayed for at all. Seventeen of those not prayed for (NPF) needed antibiotics, compared to three in the prayed-for (PF) group. Fifteen NPFs needed diuretics, compared with five PFs. Twenty NPFs had congestive heart failure; only eight PFs had it. Fourteen NPFs had cardiopulmonary arrest, compared to three PFs. Thirteen NPFs got pneumonia, compared to three PFs. Twelve NPFs needed mechanical respirators. None of the PFs did.

I’m scientifically oriented and skeptical. I think the scientific method is the best thing going to sift facts from wishful thinking. And here we have scientific evidence, but maybe the studies are flawed or biased in some way. You can find something wrong with just about any study. But what the heck — it might be true! So go ahead and send blessings to your friends. It can’t do any harm. Send them a wish for wellness or happiness or good luck or even a specific good event like meeting and falling in love with Mr. or Ms. Right. Whether your particular prayer has a direct effect on your friend or not, it will definitely have an effect on you. It feels good to send a blessing to someone even with only a vague hope it may help them.

Do what you can for the people you love. And when your day is done, it couldn’t hurt — and might help — to send a blessing too.

This article was excerpted from the book, Principles For Personal Growth by Adam Khan. Buy it now here.

If You Would Like to Be Enlightened, First Aim to Be a Little Less Uptight

Do you want to live in bliss? Then don't get uptight. Uptight is a perfect word for the opposite of calm serenity. That's just what it feels like. When you're not deeply calm, you have a feeling of seizing up. Clenching. Contracting.

Let's add a new word to the English language: downloose — the opposite of uptight. And we have several effective ways to get downloose:

1. Meditate
2. Relax tensing muscles
3. Take deep breaths
4. Think more relaxed

If you have been aiming at bliss, but it seems unattainable, aim for being downloose instead. If you aimed at a deep and abiding feeling of calmness or downlooseness, you would do a lot better. And you'd probably experience more bliss, because you know things you can do to get downloose, to produce calmness. But you don't really know how to create bliss. It is like the ultimate calm. A far-off distant dream. But deep calm you can do right now. You can become calmer in this moment. You can move more calmly. Breathe deeper. Relax tensing muscles. Say a prayer. Repeat a mantra. Think about something differently. If you did any of these, you would feel calmer.

Downloose is just a clearer, more concrete thing to aim at.

Keep the primary purpose simply feeling deeply calm. Aim all your activities in that direction. Some activities, like writing, do not interfere with tranquillity, but some do. And sometimes it's the way you go about an activity that agitates. Pay attention and keep changing what leads away from calm.

I felt disturbed today and things seemed to go badly and I didn't know why. I gave it some thought tonight and realized that speaking without thinking does not lead to bliss. Or even to deep calm. It was a good insight.

I got the insight because I remembered that calmness is my goal.

What did I do that took away the calm? What did I do that disturbed the feeling of downloose, that made me feel uptight? Good questions. The questions made it very easy to see something I never would have thought of. I changed my values with that insight. I have never valued silence, but now I see how the breaking of silence directly disturbs the calm. Read more about that here.

Aiming for bliss or enlightenment is to vague and too big of a step to contemplate from the foot of the mountain. Aim to be less uptight at first. More downloose. Simply aim for calmness. It sends you in the right direction, and perhaps you can aim for better things from higher up the mountain. For now, keep it simple and attainable, and you'll keep your motivation to put in the effort. At least, that's what I think.

Adam Khan is the author of Principles For Personal Growth, Slotralogy, Antivirus For Your Mind, and co-author with Klassy Evans of How to Change the Way You Look at Things (in Plain English). Follow his podcast, The Adam Bomb.

Why Silence is Golden

Great sages from all ages have been known for their silence. "He who knows does not speak," said Lao Tzu, "And he who speaks does not know."

Silence is golden. There might more wisdom in this saying than most people have guessed. In experiments, speaking raises blood pressure and listening lowers it. And it's not just because you're making sounds. Reading aloud alone does not raise blood pressure, but reading aloud to someone does.

Let's look at this for a minute. Let's say you were committed to becoming calmer and more serene. With that commitment, very soon you would realize that mostly listening in the presence of others would help you be more serene. You would notice that jumping in with your opinions definitely doesn't help create tranquillity in yourself or others. Arguing politics or religion can definitely destroy any calmness you may have achieved.

Nervous, pointless chitchat doesn't help create calmness, either, but sometimes small talk does. You'll have to pay attention to what's happening and most importantly, you'll need to keep the goal in mind (becoming more tranquil). What has been missing is the goal, not the ability. If you haven't been aiming for tranquillity — if you were aiming for persuasiveness or being right, or trying to prove how smart you are — you would never discover why silence is golden.

Spouting opinions, arguing, trying to make yourself right, reacting to things without having given it a lot of thought, spewing memes carelessly into the memosphere — these do not bring peace. They do not help you live in tranquillity.

I don't think once in 60 years I've ever caused myself trouble or hurt someone's feelings with silence, but I've done it with speaking hundreds or even thousands of times.

But there are several arguments one can make against this general policy. For example, you have a lot to teach which will be lost if you don't share it. Silence doesn't seem very golden from this perspective.

But if your teachings aren't thought out, even good information given in the wrong way or at the wrong time or to the wrong person can create unnecessary problems. The principle is not "never speak" but to be mostly silent. And besides, isn't example also a good way to teach? And if you are mostly silent, doesn't what you do say get more respect?

Another argument against being mostly silent is that you'll miss opportunities to straighten out people (especially your children or your employees) if you only speak when you've thought through what you want to say.

But after you've thought it out, your "straightening out" will be much more effective, and you can do it at the right time in the right way and while you're in the right state (calm and peaceful and kindly).

How many times have you regretted saying something without thinking first? Plenty. But can you think of a single instance where you regretted thinking about something first?

Another argument is that opinions should be changed if they're wrong.

Opinions are rarely changed by argument. Sometimes they are changed by one good question, timed right and delivered without self-righteousness. This requires time to think things through, and a great deal of silence and a general state of calmness. But for the most part, as much as we natural arguers try to fool ourselves, studies show that even making a good case for something almost never changes a person's mind if they already believe something else.

Another objection is, "Won't people think you're a dunce if you don't say much?"

Probably just the opposite. They're more likely to think you're wiser, and if you're a good listener, they'll think you must be very smart to listen to them with so much interest and attention.

What if you listened a lot and offered your opinion rarely? What would happen if you offered information or advice only when people asked you for it? What if you offered chitchat rarely, and did a lot of listening and observing and thinking about things? It would be easier to maintain a deep calm. And you'd grow wiser.

No, I say unto you the wise are eager to listen and think and hesitant to speak. Silence is golden.

Adam Khan is the author of Principles For Personal Growth, Slotralogy, Antivirus For Your Mind, and co-author with Klassy Evans of How to Change the Way You Look at Things (in Plain English). Follow his podcast, The Adam Bomb.

Clean Your Own Doorstep

John was trying to live his life with lots of calm and tranquility. But today his wife, Sharon, was trying to mount a new phone on the wall and had a very frustrating time of it. John resented her for putting so much negative emotion into the atmosphere.

Which means basically he was saying (if he was bold enough to say it out loud), "I know the circumstances are upsetting, but please change your way of dealing with your circumstances so they don't bother you as much."

But what about John? Sharon being upset is his circumstance. Can he change his way of dealing with it so it doesn't bother him as much? And if he can't, how can he ask her to? And if he can, why does he need to ask her to?

So John thought about it. And he asked himself, "Given that my intention is to live in serenity, what would I have to think about Sharon being upset that would result in me being serene about it?" In other words, if he was already serene about it, what would he be thinking?

And he came up with an answer. He'd be thinking something like this: "It was just circumstances. Those circumstances would have frustrated anyone. She got extra upset, but she has genuinely frustrating circumstances compounded by other frustrating circumstances in her life. She's dealing with it the best she can and actually she's dealing with it successfully for the most part. So she lost her head a little. Who among us has not lost his head a bit when thwarted repeatedly by frustrating circumstances?"

There is an old Russian saying that before you concern yourself with the dirt on someone else's doorstep, first clean your own. John learned this lesson for himself. And his calm helped Sharon find her calm.

Adam Khan is the author of Principles For Personal Growth, Slotralogy, Antivirus For Your Mind, and co-author with Klassy Evans of How to Change the Way You Look at Things (in Plain English). Follow his podcast, The Adam Bomb.

What Would Happen if You Didn't?

Getting a lot done is something most of us value in this culture at this time in history. But let's look at this value. Is it really the best way to go about life? Sometimes a value evolves and we grow up with it and never question it, like fish in water. We don't even notice it. Never think about it. Even when we aren't trying to get a lot done, we feel like we should be. We take it completely for granted that being as productive as possible is worthwhile and important. But what are the consequences of this value? What would be the consequences of giving it up?

What if you spent more time meditating, thinking, or praying? Would nothing get done? Would better stuff get done? Would it be done better? Would you enjoy your life more? Would your life feel more meaningful? Would you have more satisfying connections with other people?

I'm at this moment sitting and thinking. But I have a strong urge to get to work. To get busy. I feel I need to go-go-go, to achieve the goals I've set as soon as possible, but where will that feeling end? At what point will I achieve peace? And if I don't, would the accomplishment be worth the lack of contentment?

Which would you choose: To fulfill all your goals and never feel serene except once in a great while for fleeting moments, OR, to live at peace and accomplish less?

One of the aims of Buddhism is to cultivate inner peace and contentment. Someone doing that would probably accomplish less with their life. But probably what they did would be more thought-out and higher quality.

Can I trust in tranquility? Can you stop your incessant worry about or pressure to accomplish and succeed? Can you come from bliss?

I wonder if I could get over my compulsion to keep busy. I wonder if I could just hang out and resist all temptation to do-do-do until the desire spasmed one last time and died. Is it like an addiction that you could eventually detox from? I'd like to find out. The practice of Buddhism seems to be a way to do that.

The mind/body seems to have a built-in or maybe trained-in desire to hold, to capture, to seize. It may be this impulse that prevents bliss. It may be an impulse devoid of content. For me, I try to capture ideas and hold them on paper. That's my way to try to seize and hold and cling.

Letting go is bliss. Letting go is freedom — freedom from the torturous compulsion to hold, to capture, to seize. Meditation is a kind of training. You learn to let go.

Adam Khan is the author of Principles For Personal Growth, Slotralogy, Antivirus For Your Mind, and co-author with Klassy Evans of How to Change the Way You Look at Things (in Plain English). Subscribe to his blog here. You can email him here.

How to Have More Time

Time is not the problem. You and I have no more or less than anyone else. Greed is the problem. For any human being (let's take you, for example), whatever you have, no matter how much it is, it quickly becomes the status quo and you want more. It is human nature.

The pursuit of more is what gives us the sense that we're low on time.

Give up trying to acquire or accomplish so many things, and you will feel the time pressure ease. Does that mean becoming a flake? Not at all. You can accomplish anything you want, but not everything you want. The sooner you fully understand that, the sooner your life can become relaxing, enjoyable, and full of achievement.

Do this: Make a list of your top six priorities, your top six purposes, and put them in the order of their importance to you. Now drop off the bottom priority. Let it go. Let that purpose go. If you still don't seem to have enough time in your life, drop the next bottom one. You will have plenty of time to accomplish the most important things without the pressure of trying to accomplish too much, giving you time and the freedom of relaxation. You can accomplish anything you want, but you certainly cannot accomplish everything you want. The sooner you realize that truth in your actions, the sooner your time pressure will go away.

Read more: We've Been Duped

the ancient hindus used the same technique as modern cognitive science to end human misery

There isn't much to it: Just give up desires. Of course, you can't possibly do that permanently, but you can do it right now. Ask yourself What do I want right now? You almost always want something. And the state of wanting is a state of discontent. Whatever you want right now, just give it up. Say to yourself I don't want that. Decide you don't want it.

Don't worry, it'll come back. But for right now, you'll gain yourself a peace-of-mind break. This is not difficult, and you can do it.

Notice what you want right now, and let it go. Give it up. Then notice what else you want and let that one go too. You'll notice a relaxing feeling of contentment come over you.

If you don't notice that contentment, and you want to feel it, give up that desire too.

Read more: The How Of Tao

The How of Tao

The attitude of Taoism and the Buddhist concept of nonattachment and the basic principle of cognitive therapy can be reduced to a single technique that creates calm, contentment, and peace of mind. The technique is to let go of an idea you’re clinging to. Remind yourself it is only an idea and stop clinging to it as if the idea were meaningful and weighty.

For example, Judy is a thirty-eight-year-old woman who lives in the same town as her alcoholic mother. Judy was upset about this. It bothered her that her mother drank so much every day. One day she discovered the prime source of her stress: The idea that it was her duty to save her mom.

So she gave up the idea. It was just an idea, after all, it was not The Law. And the idea caused her needless suffering. So every time she felt upset because of her mother’s drinking, she said to herself: The only one who can stop Mom’s drinking is Mom. She became happier, more relaxed, and probably healthier.

She let go of a fixed notion that she should save her mom. Giving up an attachment to an idea is known by Buddhists and Taoists as nonattachment. It is known by cognitive therapists as arguing against “should” statements. And in Rational-Emotive Therapy, they call it giving up musturbation. Clinging to an idea is the source of the bulk of human suffering.

Here’s the technique:

1. When you notice yourself unhappy about something, ask yourself what idea you are grasping, clinging to, clutching.

2. Say to yourself, “This is just an idea, and ideas are not reality. This idea doesn’t help me, so I’ll no longer use it as a guide. The idea is now dismissed, thank you very much.”

3. When the idea comes back later — as it probably will — dismiss it again. You may be in the habit of thinking the idea, so it’ll come up again after you’ve dismissed it, like an idiot employee who doesn’t understand he has already been fired. Send him home again. And again. And as many times as you must until he eventually stops coming back.

You will relax and feel happier every time you let go of an idea that has been causing you unnecessary stress.

This article was excerpted from the book, Self-Help Stuff That Works: How to Become More Effective with Your Actions and Feel Good More Often.

Your Mouth Can Increase Your Stress or Decrease It

What you consume can have an effect on your stress hormone level, for better or worse. Obvious examples are caffeine and nicotine. Even in moderate doses, either of these can double the amount of adrenaline in your bloodstream.

The stress of something like an exam produces increased cortisol levels (cortisol is a primary stress hormone). Combined with coffee, however, the cortisol levels rise even more.

Coffee all by itself raises your cortisol level, increases your feelings of stress and anxiety, raises your blood pressure — and all this even if you are otherwise relaxed, and even for people who drink it regularly. It also makes hypertension medications less effective.

In a study, a fairly big dose of caffeine was found to mimic the symptoms of anxiety disorders. Withdrawal from caffeine does too.

You may be more sensitive to caffeine than other people. Studies have found that people with panic disorder (one of the five anxiety disorders) react more strongly to the same amount of caffeine than "normal" people. They experienced more fear, heart palpitations, nervousness, restlessness, etc. Caffeine can increase these kinds of symptoms in anybody. But for some people, it is more dramatic.

You may not have panic attacks, but just the fact that you are reading this indicates that your system might be more sensitive and react more strongly to caffeine than the average person. In one experiment, five out of six people were cured of their panic attacks by doing nothing more than giving up coffee. Caffeine apparently blocks the action of a brain chemical called adenosine, a naturally-occurring sedative.

In one study, people with panic disorder could reliably produce panic attacks with only four or five cups of coffee. Coffee can produce panic attacks in even normal people, but with higher amounts of coffee.

In another study, people were tested for anxiety, depression, and caffeine consumption. There was a direct correlation between the level of anxiety and caffeine consumption — but only in those with panic disorder.

In another study, panic disorder patients and normal people were given equal doses of caffeine (ten milligrams per kilogram of body weight). Then they were all tested for anxiety symptoms: fear, nausea, nervousness, pounding heart, tremors, and restlessness. The caffeine had caused a significantly greater intensity of these symptoms in the people with panic disorder than in the normal people.

Given all this, and given the fact that you'd like to reduce your stress, I suggest an experiment. Quit ingesting caffeine for two weeks. It takes about three days for withdrawal symptoms to completely subside (headaches, feelings of lethargy, etc.). After that, pay close attention to the general feeling-tone of your day-to-day experience. Your sense of relative ease, comfort, annoyance, distress, alarm, contentment, etc.

Then start drinking coffee again. The first day it'll feel great (as long as nothing too stressful happens). The next day and the next, pay attention to the general feeling-tone of your experience. If you're like me, you'll notice a more general feeling of alarm. And you'll notice circumstances feel more distressing. Then ask yourself what coffee does for you. You get a great feeling of relief in the morning with your first cup. After going all night without caffeine, your body is in the beginning of withdrawal, so it feels good to get a dose again. That's always the moment coffee advertisers display — that first cup in the morning. Also the general feeling of sharpness and alertness is a plus. But weigh the pluses against the minuses and I think coffee comes out on the short end of the stir stick.


SUGAR

I know there are studies showing sugar doesn't produce hyperactivity in children, but it does something to us all. Eating refined sugar — table sugar and corn syrup in particular — raises your blood sugar level (glucose) very quickly.

In one study, some people had panic attacks merely from an infusion of glucose (blood sugar). In another study, people were given 100 milligrams of glucose as a drink. In anxiety-prone people the lactate level in their blood was considerably higher than in the other participants, and it stayed higher for five hours! (Lactate all by itself can produce feelings of anxiety. Lactate is the byproduct of burning blood sugar.)

In several studies of people with anxiety problems, the simple injection of glucose into the blood stream caused symptoms of anxiety. It does not have that affect on most people. There could be a relationship to lactate, which is a byproduct of burning glucose and produces feelings of anxiety. If lactate produces anxiety, and if lactate is produced by burning glucose, then it makes sense that a rise in blood sugar would tend to produce anxiety.

Around the world, people consume far more carbohydrates than our bodies evolved to deal with. Why? Because it's cheap, it's filling, and it tastes great. But it has side-effects. Especially for people who are prone to stress or anxiety.


ALCOHOL

Even though alcohol is relaxing, it stimulates your body to produce stress hormones. A nasty self-feeding loop can form because of this. What do I mean? One thing that causes people to want to drink is the presence of stress hormones — the feeling of anxiety or tension. Alcohol relieves that feeling. It is relaxing. But the following day, the after-effect of alcohol is a higher level of stress hormones. And if the method you use to relieve that feeling is to drink alcohol, an unending cycle has been created. You're caught in a trap.

Alcohol inhibits the body's ability to make glucose from lactate. Lactate normally flows around in the blood stream and when it reaches the liver, it is resynthesized into glucose. Alcohol slows down your liver's ability to do this, which means that lactate levels rise in the blood, causing more anxiety and feelings of stress.

Lactate has a sister compound called pyruvate. When one goes up, the other generally goes down. Your anxiety level has to do with the ratio of one to the other. Higher lactate equals more anxiety. Higher pyruvate equals more ease.

The lactate to pyruvate ratio can be increased with any of these substances: sugar, caffeine, and alcohol.

So when you know someone who has a cup of coffee in the morning with sugar in it, and then has a few drinks in the evening and complains of anxiety or stress, you might want to enlighten them: These things are probably worsening their feelings of anxiety. Circumstances can cause stress, of course, but your own body's reaction to the circumstances can cause more stress and anxiety than you need to put up with.


OR THE BETTER

Scientists give rats a lot of stress and then see what they can do to reduce stress hormones. Something that successfully lowers stress hormones is vitamin C.

Researcher P. Samuel Campbell and his colleagues found that 200 mg of vitamin C per day reduced the level of stress hormones in the rats' blood. That's a pretty big dose for a little critter. It is the equivalent of several grams of vitamin C per day for you or me, which is actually in the range of what the famous chemist, Linus Pauling recommended. It is also in the range of what chimpanzees — our closest genetic relatives — get in their daily diet in the wild.

Other things that indicated a generally lower stress level for the rats taking the vitamin C were: 1) their adrenal glands didn't enlarge as much as they normally do when rats are constantly stressed, 2) they didn't lose as much weight as the stressed but unmegadosed rats, and 3) their spleens and thymus glands didn't shrink as much.

I'm not a biochemist or a doctor. You can do your own research and draw your own conclusions. I'm noting it here because it is relevant to our topic (reducing stress and anxiety) and can give you an avenue to pursue you might otherwise not have thought about.

 Adam Khan is the author of Principles For Personal Growth, Slotralogy, Antivirus For Your Mind, and co-author with Klassy Evans of How to Change the Way You Look at Things (in Plain English). Follow his podcast, The Adam Bomb.