In 2008, researchers at Oxford University found that subjects could reduce pain and swelling in an injured hand by viewing it through reversed binoculars.

Conversely, a magnified injury was more painful. “If it looks bigger, it looks sorer,” said physiologist G. Lorimer Moseley. “Therefore the brain acts to protect it.”

A judicious Googling led me to the pertinent issue of Current Biology online. On the right-hand side of that page, there are links to PDF and HTML versions of the article.

Shrinking Pain originally appeared on NLPhilia Blog on 2010-07-10 (Saturday).

I had to admit that I took a shortcut and made them from Bisquick. She was a bit annoyed. See, she made them from Bisquick, too, but, she said, hers were always flat and tough and tasteless. Mine were light and fluffy and delicious.

She and I used the same recipe — followed the same prescribed steps in the same order — but my results were good, and hers weren’t. What’s the deal?

It turns out that there are a great many things they don’t write into a recipe. Things that a cookbook author, who is adept at cooking, assumes one knows. So people buy cookbooks, or trade recipes online or with friends, and complain that theirs doesn’t “turn out” and they don’t know why.

I taught myself to cook. I love to eat, and I enjoy good food, and I absolutely enjoy trying new things, so learning to cook was a must. I can read a recipe and hallucinate how it’ll taste, at least most of the time. It took me a long time to get where I am, and if I’d gone to culinary school I’d have cut that time way down. I’d be a lot better at cooking, too. But I’m still pretty good. I can follow a recipe and it’ll “turn out”.

Anyway, here’s what pancake recipes don’t tell you:

• Don’t beat the batter. Stir it. It’s OK if there are some lumps. If the lumps bother you, break them up with a whisk. Just don’t beat the batter. It develops the gluten in the wheat flour, which will make your pancakes flat and tough and bland.
• Let the batter sit for a while. Ten or fifteen minutes at the very least. Overnight in the refrigerator is great. This lets the milk and eggs soak into every bit of the flour, which helps the flavor a lot.
• The griddle or skillet has to be hot. Toss a drop of water on it, and it doesn’t sit there and sizzle; it jumps around and tries to get away. Pancakes cook quickly to trap air bubbles in the batter. Cook them too slowly and the bubbles can all break up and get away, making things flatten out.
• Flip the pancakes once and only once. Flipping is another thing that can develop gluten.
• Most important: use real maple syrup, not that godawful fake maple flavored stuff. It matters. Try it once and you’ll see. Just don’t use too much, because real maple syrup has a rich flavor you won’t find in those chemical compounds that pretend to by syrup.

Enjoy your breakfast.

(Jeez… why is he writing about pancakes on an NLP blog?)

The recipe isn’t what matters originally appeared on NLPhilia Blog on 2009-03-21 (Saturday).

To get NLP to help you achieve the changes you desire, you have to make a choice. There’s no avoiding it. You have a choice of 3 optimal or primary options:

1. Take a lot of expensive training over time, and get extraordinarily good at knowing & using NLP, which might help you to become good enough at it, that you can create the changes you want in your life. The benefit of this route is, you might also get good enough to help others. That may be a career choice that would excite you.
2. Hire an NLP-trained coach or Practitioner to do their magic on/with you, which may vaguely resemble therapy depending on how badly trained the NLP practitioner or coach is. Done right, you should get some of the changes you want, but you’ll be paying premium rates by the hour for such 1-on-1 work.
3. Attend one or several short, applied courses or seminars like this one, which instead of training you in NLP, the seminar leaders use NLP while they lead you through exercises or experiences that get you to think differently about your situation. Then you sometimes get the change you want, but you won’t have actually learned a lot of NLP consciously. If you want the results without a new career in NLP, this is the way to go.

Go learn more about the Mental Renovation Workshops in Chambersburg, PA and sign up!

Jonathan Altfeld’s new trainings originally appeared on NLPhilia Blog on 2008-11-9 (Sunday).

1. January 17-18
2. January 31-Feb 1
3. February 14-15
4. March 14-15
5. March 28-29
6. April 25-26
7. May 16-17

Register before October 15th for early-bird discounts. The venue is TRS Professional Suites at 44 East 32nd Street in New York City.

NLP Prac and Master Prac in New York City originally appeared on NLPhilia Blog on 2008-09-27 (Saturday).

1. Jumping to Conclusions
2. Projection
3. Lacking Ownership
4. Poor “Brain Juice”
5. Lack of a Well-Formed Outcome
6. Lacking Belief in Their Ability
7. Not Defining the Problem in Solvable Terms
8. Incongruence
9. Not Paying Attention (Helping Clients to Follow Instructions)
10. Not Testing

Tom outlines each issue and offers a simple solution to each. Definitely worth reading.

Here’s the Link to Part One, and here’s the Link to Part Two.

Client Work: Ten Common Traps to Overcome originally appeared on NLPhilia Blog on 2008-01-5 (Saturday).

If you want to change your life forever, or make it even better, take advantage of this great value! Learn at Excellence Quest with Barbara Stepp, Certified Licensed Master Trainer of NLP™ and DHE™, corporate trainer and premier coach. John LaValle, MBA, President of the Society of NLP™ says, “Barb is a true professional, an asset to NLP™ and one of the few trainers we can refer people to.” She is highly recommended by Dr. Richard Bandler, co-creator and developer of Neuro Linguistic Programming™ and creator of Design Human Engineering™. Dr. Bandler says,” Barb is one of the best. There is none better.” Many say, “Barb teaches NLP™ with a heart.”

Link to get more information
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Simply NLP and Simply Hypnosis, November 2007 originally appeared on NLPhilia Blog on 2007-11-10 (Saturday).