Get the many health benefits of playing the piano—by learning to play online
Regardless of your age, incorporate the piano into your life for better health.
- Playing the piano has been shown to relieve stress and stimulate brain functions.
- Piano lessons are a common form of therapy for those suffering from ADHD.
- Intellectual development is strong in children who play the piano.
The development of eye-hand coordination is one of the most intriguing benefits of playing the piano. Interestingly, as you learn to perform, you become better at split concentration as well. The ability to play with both of your hands has profound cognitive benefits.
And physical benefits: Piano performance strengthens your hand muscles. The list doesn't stop there: improved language skills, better memory, stimulation of growth hormones, and improved neuroplasticity are just some of the benefits of learning to play the piano.
While the benefits are extensive for children—learning how to accept criticism, for example, is an important life skill—the list remains long for adults as well. Just like learning a language, picking up a musical instrument has important mental and emotional health benefits that last for a lifetime.
Pianu is an expert interactive piano course that teaches you how to play along with your favorite songs. Right now, a lifetime subscription is on sale for only $159.99.
By enrolling in Pianu, you'll gain access to 20 interactive lessons that help you read music and chords. The six finger-strengthening tutorials teach you proper form from the beginning. Within days, you'll feel confident in playing along with tunes you love and cherish.
As Time writes about Pianu, "A new way to learn piano online, interactively." LifeHacker chimes in, writing, "Pianu teaches you to play the piano, right in your web browser."
Pianu Pro: Lifetime Subscription is on sale now for just $159.99, a 41% discount from the original price.
Price subject to change.
When you buy something through a link in this article or from our shop, Big Think earns a small commission. Thank you for supporting our team's work.
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Finally, a podcast that addresses our crisis of meaning
How can we learn from the lessons of the past and build a better future?
October 29, 2020
Credit: Courtesy of Neurohacker
Culture & Religion
- Jamie Wheal's new podcast, Home Grown Humans, combines neuroanthropology and culture architecture to help us create a better future.
- The author of Stealing Fire has invited forward-thinking experts on to launch this podcast series, which is produced by Neurohacker Collective and is hosted on the Collective Insights podcast.
- Through these discussions, Wheal hopes to catalyze inspiration, healing, and connection towards better understanding who we are, why we are here, and where we are going
<p>Language evolves to reflect our understanding of existence. Before Hippocrates, healing was a system of theurgy—divine influence on human events—and religious philosophy. The Greek physician is credited with separating medicine from those previous beliefs. As our understanding of science evolved, new fields emerged: astronomy, biology, physics, sociology, psychology, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0079612309178044?via%3Dihub" target="_blank">neuroanthropology</a>.</p><p>That last one is still so relatively new that spell checkers don't recognize it. During a 2008 conference, the University of South Florida anthropology professor Daniel Lende revived the notion that anthropologists benefit when studying neuroscience. He argued that knowledge of the evolution of the brain offers insights into intentions, helping anthropologists better understand the motivations of past cultures. </p><p>Whereas neuroanthropology looks backward, culture architecture takes that same lens and looks forward, according to bestselling author Jamie Wheal. Wheal co-wrote the Pulitzer Prize-nominated book, <em>Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, Navy SEALs and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work</em>. Founder of the Flow Genome Project, he's the new host of the new Collective Insights podcast series <a href="https://neurohacker.com/homegrownhumans" target="_blank">Home Grown Humans</a>, which focuses on the intersection of neuroanthropology and culture architecture. </p><p>Like Hippocrates building on past knowledge to create new systems, Wheal wants to learn from the lessons of the past and build a better future. Summating the objective of the podcast in a single question, he frames it this way:</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"How do we stop seeking and stop searching and stop thrashing around, making a mess behind us, and come to fully embrace the human experience?" </p><p>The essence of the human condition, he says, lies in simplicity, reminiscent of the Golden Rule from the Talmud. A gentile asked <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillel_the_Elder" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Rabbi Hillel</a> to explain the entirety of the Torah while standing on one foot, to which Hillel replied, "That which is despicable to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary." </p><p>Wheal recognizes that humans love commentary as well. Storytelling is the foundation of culture. He invokes Dorothy, who went on an epic heroine's journey only to discover that there's no place like home. As with any Campbellian character, she had to leave Kansas in order to love Kansas. </p>
<blockquote>How do we stop seeking and stop searching and stop thrashing around, making a mess behind us, and come to fully embrace the human experience?</blockquote>
<p>When contemplating Home Grown Humans, Wheal wanted to foster conversations that include critical thought<em> and</em> mystical inclinations. He was inspired by a debate between Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson, in which neither thinker would concede an inch to find common ground. Instead, he wants to find such ground—less New Atheist and more New Platonist. As he puts it:</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"What is it like to tap people that are well-versed in reason, logic, and evidence, but also have their eye on the mystery? They've had in their own lives, or in their career or readings, some glimpse of <em>more</em>. Hopefully, that's come around to inform their perspective on their field of expertise and what they hold as both the liabilities and possibilities of us going forward."</p><p>To better understand the implications of neuroanthropology, Wheal recommends Jared Diamond's Pulitzer-winning <em>Guns, Germs, and Steel</em> and Yuval Noah Harari's <em>Sapiens</em> and <em>Homo Deus</em>, books that reveal how we arrived here. For the culture architecture piece, he cites Daniel Kahnemann's <em>Thinking, Fast and Slow</em> and Richard Thaler's <em>Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness</em>. You have all this knowledge, now what are you going to do with it? </p><p>This synthesis of ideologies creates the central thesis of Home Grown Humans. </p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"It's taking optimal psychology, neuroscience, and historical analysis and really using it to get under the hood of culture and use all of the tools we have from the hard sciences and social sciences to get a better understanding of what makes us tick." </p><p>To help him answer such questions, Wheal has invited a range of experts to appear on <a href="https://neurohacker.com/homegrownhumans" target="_blank">Home Grown Humans</a>, including Sue Phillips, an instructor at Harvard Divinity School and co-founder of Sacred Design Lab; Erik Davis, author of TechGnosis and <em>High Weirdness</em>; Adam Gazzaley, the founder and executive director of Neuroscape; and Dennis McKenna, an ethnopharmacologist who's been leading the way in the psychedelic renaissance for decades. </p>With each conversation, Wheal hopes to address our crisis in meaning by provoking inspiration, healing, and connection. The distance between the past and future is this moment we're collectively experiencing right now. Through our ingenuity and determination, Wheal believes we can construct a better world. Home Grown Humans is his contribution to the conversation.
<p><em>The first episode of </em><a href="https://neurohacker.com/homegrownhumans" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><em>Home Grown Humans</em></a><em>, 'Care for Your Soul: Designing Sacred Practices That Work', with Harvard's Sue Phillips, is out today. </em><a href="https://neurohacker.com/faqs/how-can-i-listen-to-or-watch-the-collective-insights-podcast" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><em>Subscribe here</em></a><em>.</em></p><img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDYyOTM5My9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0OTQ1NTQ2Mn0.8sdLCSnb4TaHgBFRrP_H0zpsWQ2XOpdKAXRiUXxVk34/img.jpg?width=980" id="6d354" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="dac92da643517897556b2d11fde81d72" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
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Psychogenic shivers: Why we get the chills when we aren’t cold
Humans are particularly prone to shiver when a group does or thinks the same thing at the same time.
October 29, 2020
Paramount/Getty Images
Mind & Brain
A few years ago, I proposed that the feeling of cold in one's spine, while for example watching a film or listening to music, corresponds to an event when our vital need for cognition is satisfied.
<p> Similarly, I have shown that chills are not solely related to music or film but also to the practice of science (mainly physics and mathematics) and to the social logic of religious rituals. I believe that chills and aesthetic emotions in general can teach us something that we do not know yet. They can help us to understand what truly matters to the mind and to the society of minds.</p><p>When cold or sick, humans shiver. Shivering is a muscle tremor that produces heat which allows the body to maintain its core temperature in a changing world. Human core temperature can vary temporarily between about 28 to 42 degrees Celsius. Outside these thresholds, death occurs. Humans also shiver in the case of a fever, as heat slows down the rate of pathogen growth and improves the immune response of a living body. Goosebumps or piloerection (the bristling of hairs) can be side effects, as the muscle tremor causes hair to become erect which creates a thin layer of air, thus minimising heat loss. Strangely enough, humans also shiver independently of any such events. For instance, certain <em>social</em> <em>situations</em> seem to provoke the shivers.</p><p>Humans are particularly prone to shiver when a group does or thinks the same thing at the same time. When a crowd is sharing a common goal. When they listen to a national anthem or witness self-sacrifice. When they die for their ideas. When collective thought becomes more important than individual life. But humans also shiver from situations that are not social in nature. Some shiver when they manage to find a solution to certain mathematical problems for example, and so shivering cannot be reduced to a social mechanism.</p>
<p>Why does a psychological event trigger a physiological response related to the regulation of temperature? At a fundamental level, cognition requires change. If you stabilise a retina using adequate instruments, the organ ceases to transmit signals to the primary visual cortex, and one gradually becomes blind. From the standpoint of the sense organ, the same object never appears similar to itself twice. Two chairs are never exactly the same. In other words, one is constantly <em>discovering</em> a visual field. Everything you feel, you feel for the first time. Perception is really exploration and, if we can perceive anything at all, it is because we are constantly matching incoming sensory signals to available mental models. You rarely fail to recognise objects in your surroundings. The world is always already meaningful, and it is sometimes beautiful.</p><p>The process by which a mind adapts to its world is so effective that people constantly mistake one for the other. When a large part of thought matches a large part of world, one might consciously feel what we call <em>aesthetic emotions</em>. Historically, aesthetics is the science of how perception meets cognition, the science of how you know what you see. The majority of aesthetic emotions are unconscious. They occur every time you see something. When you see something important enough, you might experience these emotions consciously. This happens through bodily changes such as tears, heartbeat increase, sweat – or shivers. The strange thing with shivering is that humans seem to shiver both when they are perfectly capable of predicting the behaviour of external objects in real time, when it all fits together so well, and, surprisingly, when nothing at all can be predicted, when the situation goes out of control.</p><p>I <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322960506_Physics_of_mind_Experimental_confirmations_of_theoretical_predictions" target="_blank">propose</a> that psychogenic shivers correspond to an event where the measure of the total similarity between all sensory signals and available mental models reaches a local peak value. This can be expressed mathematically in terms of the rate of change of a function of conditional similarity. In this context, any change in learning corresponds to an aesthetic emotion. When the function reaches a local maximum, its derivative tends toward zero, and learning slows down. This corresponds to a 'turning' point in your total knowledge. Ten years ago, Perlovsky <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/222526625_Toward_Physics_of_the_Mind_Concepts_Emotions_Consciousness_and_Symbols" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">predicted</a> that such an event should involve knowledge about other minds and about the meaning of life.</p><p>We know that psychogenic shivers can be inhibited by an excitant, the opioid-antagonist naloxone. Naloxone is what you would inject in a clinical setting to a patient who is victim of an overdose; it is the antagonist of morphine. It does not come as a surprise that most of my subjects state that they relax after they experience an aesthetic shiver. Besides a clear analogy with the sexual drive, what does this tell us about the exploratory drive?</p>
<p>I <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319081452_Dynamics_of_the_knowledge_instinct_Effects_of_incoherence_on_the_cognitive_system" target="_blank">argue</a> that stories that provoke the shivers might bring about this relief of tension by allowing humans to overcome conflicts among fundamental parts of the mind. Such stories might help us to deal with internal contradictions, where both elements are equally resistant to change. Leon Festinger, who in 1957 invented the theory of cognitive dissonance, named this a dissonance of maximum amplitude. The mind creates stories to overcome its own contradictions. Anthropologists call this a myth, and we know from a wealth of work in anthropology that rituals are likely to provoke shivers down the spine.</p><p>We give two examples for such fundamental conflicts; one is biological and the other cultural. The biological conflict derives from the fact that, while we survive as a species by sharing goals, we might never access the goal of other minds directly. We thus shiver in cases of seemingly total communication – theoretical synchrony. Another example derives from the fundamental discordance between the altruistic nature of the human animal on the one hand, and the logic of the currently dominant social system on the other. These hypotheses would explain why you might shiver in the course of a film when empathy becomes a necessary condition to reduce narrative tension to its minimum. When the bad guy ends up saving the good guy.</p><p>There are three plausible explanations for the fundamental relation between cognition and temperature. One is physiological, the other is physical, and the third is biological. The physiological explanation simply consists of describing psychogenic shivers as a case of fever. The relation between emotion and temperature is in fact very ancient, and even reptiles display evidence of stress-induced hyperthermia.</p><p>The physical explanation relates the dissipation of heat at the shiver to the processing of information in the brain. In 1961 the physicist Rolf Landauer at IBM proposed the principle that any erasure of information should be accompanied by the dissipation of heat. This was verified experimentally a few years ago in Lyon. If this hypothesis is not entirely false, then we should eventually be able to predict the amount of heat produced, given accurate knowledge of the information process. Until then, I do not see any good reason to quantify the shiver.</p><p>Finally, the biological explanation relates the origins of human thought to the tremendous changes in temperature at its <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-1-4615-1221-9_1" target="_blank">birth</a>. It might be that we can observe this relation between the mechanisms that regulate cognition and the mechanisms that regulate temperature because of the particular context in which thought saw the light of day. In other words, a shiver might have very well accompanied the first human idea. Since then, every time we grasp something important, perhaps we repeat the gesture.<img src="https://metrics.aeon.co/count/5ecd542b-78b8-4a38-9fb8-ad74d95c1d64.gif" alt="Aeon counter – do not remove"></p><p>Félix Schoeller</p><p>This article was originally published at <a href="https://aeon.co/?utm_campaign=republished-article" target="_blank">Aeon</a> and has been republished under Creative Commons.</p>
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Colors evoke similar emotions around the world, survey finds
Certain colors are globally linked to certain emotions, the study reveals.
October 29, 2020
Image by Fida Olga on Shutterstock
Mind & Brain
- Color psychology is often used in marketing and can even alter your perception of products and services.
- Various studies and experiments across multiple years (2010, 2014, 2015, and more recently in 2019) have given us more insight into the link between your personality and your favorite color.
- The results of a study spanning 6 continents (30 nations) shows a definite correlations between colors and emotions throughout the globe.
<p>People associate colors with emotions (green for envy, blue for sadness, etc) - we see this portrayed in the media, in marketing, even in the clothes we choose to wear. A detailed survey of over 4,500 participants from 30 nations (spanning over 6 continents) explains that people from all over the world often associate the same feelings with the same colors.</p>"No similar study of this scope has ever been carried out," <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/09/200910150247.htm" target="_blank">said Dr. Daniel Oberfeld-Twistel</a>, member of the participating team at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU). "It allowed us to obtain a comprehensive overview and establish that color-emotion associations are surprisingly similar around the world."<ul class="ee-ul"></ul>
The root of color psychology
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9e40cf62fa8922fcca6c57e2fcb215b6"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/OM4fXB23pCQ?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span><p><strong>Color psychology is often used in marketing and can even alter your perception of products and services.</strong><br></p><p>There is a very likely chance you've even been "fooled" by color marketing in the past, or chosen one product over another subconsciously due to colors that are targeted to influence your emotions towards the product or service.</p> <p>Companies that want to be known for being dependable often use blue in their logos, for example - we see this in technology companies such as Dell, HP, IBM). Companies who want to be perceived as fun and exciting go for a splash of orange (Fanta, Nickelodeon, even Amazon). Green is, of course, associated with natural, peaceful emotions and is often used by companies like Whole Foods and Tropicana. </p> <p><strong>Your favorite color says a lot about your personality. </strong></p><p>Various studies and experiments across multiple years (<a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/49595886_Personality_Traits_and_Colour_Preferences" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">2010</a>, <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jopy.12087" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">2014</a>, <a href="http://oaji.net/articles/2015/1170-1448038739.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">2015</a>, and more recently in <a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/color-psychology-2795824#modern-research-on-color-psychology" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">2019</a>) have given us more insight into the link between your personality and your favorite color.</p><p>Red, for example, is considered a bold color that's been associated with feelings such as excitement, passion, anger, danger, energy, and love. The personality traits of this color might be someone who is bold, a little impulsive, and who loves adventure. </p> <p>Orange, on the other hand, is considered representative of creativity, happiness, and freedom. The personality traits of this color can be fun, playful, cheerful, nurturing, and productive. Read more about color psychology and personalities <a href="https://bigthink.com/mind-brain/color-personality-psychology?rebelltitem=2#rebelltitem2" target="_self">here</a>.</p>Study reveals which colors best suit which emotions around the globe
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDYzMTk5OS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyODc4OTg5OH0.bY-pu-MFNivdJLDJuBp9TBKrhwuy7hngUa1aIWxQMVw/img.jpg?width=1245&coordinates=0%2C93%2C0%2C94&height=700" id="33fff" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="1a5d7bb00dac94bd6201616789fb4882" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="concept of color psychology how colors make us feel color emotions" />Certain colors are globally ties to certain emotions, the study reveals.
Image by agsandrew on Shutterstock
<p>In this particular survey, participants were asked to fill out an online questionnaire which involved assigning 20 emotions to twelve different color terms. They were also asked to specify the intensity with which they associated the color term with the emotion.</p><p><strong>Certain colors are globally linked to certain emotions, the study reveals.</strong></p><p>The results of this study showed a few definite correlations between colors and emotions throughout the globe. Red, for example, is the only color that is strongly associated with both negative (anger) and positive (love) feelings. Brown, on the other end of the spectrum, is the color that triggers the fewest emotions globally.<br></p><p>The color white is closely associated with sadness in China, however, the color purple is what is closely associated with sadness in Greece. This can be traced back to the roots of each culture, with white being worn at funerals in China and dark purple being the Greek Orthodox Church's color of mourning. </p><p>Yellow tends to be a color that is more associated with joy, specifically in countries that see less sunshine. Meanwhile, its association with joy is weaker in areas that have greater exposure to sunshine. </p><p><a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/09/200910150247.htm" target="_blank">According to Dr. Daniel Oberfeld-Twistel</a>, it is currently difficult to say exactly what the causes for global similarities and differences are. "There is a range of possible influencing factors: language, culture, religion, climate, the history of human development, the human perceptual system."</p>
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