How Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Helps Us Relate to Others in the Moment
In the space between 2018 and 2020, I’ve had the privilege of being interviewed by Shelly Davis of the Piano Parent Podcast twice. I love how inviting she is and how she encourages us all to bring music into our lives.
In the 2018 interview, I get to share my journey of starting as a young piano student having to learn on my own, to working in business and marketing, and then eventually to teaching homeschool and teaching piano. Then we discuss how small things get in the way of practicing, to keep the bigger perspective on what might be going on, and what parents can do at home to remove those road blocks.
In the 2020 interview, Shelly and I go into more depth about how we can use Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to help us interact with students or parents who are struggling.
As I wrote for the show notes:
Generally speaking, we can assume students want to do well. Behavior is often not conscious and not a reflection of how people feel about us. Trying to ask a student to learn something when their brain is not in optimal shape means some of our efforts will fall by the wayside. This helps me not take others’ behaviors personally and also motivates me to look at underlying causes to try to solve the issue rather than just put a bandaid on it for the moment. It’s in my best interest to maximize my teaching time, which means it’s in my best interest to address the root causes. This isn’t meant to be selfish at all–it’s more like if I want to help the most people in the least amount of time so I can help more people, then it helps to make the learning environment as effective and efficient as I can.
After finishing the Graduate Certificate Program in Injury-Prevention Keyboard Technique at Salem College, I started the process of completing a full music degree, so I’m back in school yet again. I’ll finish up my AFA in Music in May 2021. And I’ve still kept my record of never attending any one school for more than two years! Maybe that doesn’t sound like something to celebrate and makes me sound like I can’t commit, but hear me out.
We moved a lot when I was growing up. New York, Massachusetts, Tokyo, Michigan, Oregon. Even when we moved to Oregon, each school was a 2-year school (5-6 was in one school, 7-8 in another). Then I ‘graduated’ from high school in 2 years (well, I got my GED) and started attending community college. Then I attended a 2-year college away from home. Then I finished at a 4-year college. Then Salem College was 2 years. And this AFA will be 2 years. What am I continuing to discover? I love starting new classes. I love learning from new teachers. I love interacting with fellow students, even if they are half my age. They probably think I’m weird. But I love learning.
I think changing schools so often has furthered my curiosity for learning. There is a balance between continuity and keeping things fresh. Sometimes students need to work with a new teacher, try a lesson in a new environment, or even take up an additional, completely new hobby just to be able to make comparisons between what they have already learned. It’s hard to see the connections between disciplines and concepts unless you try new things. Without that connection happening in the brain, your brain will decide new information isn’t relevant and it will be forgotten. So keep making connections.
Despite 2020 being such a tough year for us all, it might just be what our brains needed to try new things in new ways, jumpstarting those neuronal connections. Hang in there! Road construction signs say “Work in Progress”--we need a “Learning in Progress” sign!
I have neglected writing much over the past year because I went back to school, and without meaning to, had to turn my attention away from blogging and toward my homework. I prefer to use this blog for learning-related issues, but I feel explaining my recent journey will set the stage for where this blog is headed.
Here is the story of how one talk, one hour long, at a hotel one day, changed the course of my life.
The hour was 8pm on July 29, 2015. As I happen to live only one hour away from where the National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy holds its biennial meetings, I was fortunate to be asked to work with Becki Laurent to help run the JoyTunes booth in the exhibit hall. By chance, I ended up on my off time in a presentation by Dr. Barbara Lister-Sink entitled, “The Essentials of Healthy Biomechanics for the Pianist.” I had been experiencing some non-playing-related injuries that severely limited my ability to play the piano, so I was intrigued by the session’s description of minimizing risk of injury. I had spent the last six months to a year researching other techniques meant to reduce pain and injury, and had decided on a specific teacher I was going to contact soon about lessons. But what I learned in Dr. Lister-Sink’s presentation blew me away.
She had recently completed her doctorate just months earlier, and as part of her studies, had taken courses on anatomy, biomechanics, exercise science, and neuropedagogy, among other subjects. As one who LOVES connecting knowledge across disciplines (if you didn’t catch that already from the blog title!), I was fascinated that I had never thought to combine such deep science with the study of the piano and piano technique. I was floored to see the research that pianists are becoming injured at an alarming rate, and that that rate has not decreased in the last 30 years, despite all the technology and knowledge we have amassed. It just made so much sense that if athletes can use technology and science to hone their technique and prevent injury, musicians ought to be able to do the same. I felt stirrings in my soul that if there was anything I could do to get this knowledge out there to the rest of the world, I wanted to do it. In fact, when the presentation was over, I even left a voicemail on my husband’s phone (as he was putting our kids to bed) with the exact words, “I found out what I want to do with the rest of my life!”
After the presentation, Dr. Lister-Sink was so gracious to talk with me for a long time about my injuries and my situation. She recommended that I come down to her program at Salem College in North Carolina and study with her. The hybrid option to live anywhere and attend classes via Skype, with one trip per semester to campus, seemed like a good compromise, as I could not uproot my family. It took me a year to decide that I could make it work, but in January of 2017 I began my studies at Salem.
You might think, “Well, that doesn’t sound like it changed your life that much. You are still studying piano.” As I went through the huge stack of books I have added to my library this past year (plus a couple months), I was reminded just how interdisciplinary this program is. (I am putting this list here so I can refer those who ask me for book recommendations to this post. Note: Some of these books were my selection and not for the program.)
Books Read Since January 2017
Somatics: Reawakening the Mind’s Control of Movement, Flexibility, and Health by Thomas Hanna (founder of the Novato Institute for Somatic Research and Training)
The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science by Norman Doidge, M.D.
The Brain’s Way of Healing: Remarkable Discoveries and Recoveries from the Frontiers of Neuroplasticity by Norman Doidge, M.D.
Neurosciences in Music Pedagogy edited by Wilfried Gruhn and Frances H. Rauscher*
What Every Pianist Needs to Know about the Body by Thomas Mark
Awareness Through Movement: Easy-to-Do Health Exercises to Improve Your Posture, Vision, Imagination, and Personal Awareness by Moshe Feldenkrais*
Body, Breath, & Being: A New Approach to the Alexander Technique by Carolyn Nicholls*
Anatomy of the Moving Body: A Basic Course in Bones, Muscles, and Joints by Theodore Dimon, Jr.*
The Student’s Anatomy of Stretching Manual published by Barron’s*
How Doctors Think by Jerome Groopman, M.D.
Dr. Pascarelli’s Complete Guide to Repetitive Strain Injury: What You Need to Know about RSI & Carpal Tunnel Syndrome by Emil Pascarelli, M.D.
Zen in the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel*
Body Mind Mastery: Creating Success in Sport and Life by Dan Millman*
The Elements of Skill: A Conscious Approach to Learning by Theodore Dimon, Jr.*
Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences by Howard Gardner*
The Element: Finding Your Passion Changes Everything by Ken Robinson, Ph.D.
Intelligent Music Teaching: Essays on the Core Principles of Effective Instruction by Robert A. Duke*
Tone Deaf & All Thumbs?: An Invitation to Music-Making by Frank R. Wilson*
Famous Pianists & Their Technique by Reginald R. Gerig*
The Musician’s Survival Manual: A Guide to Preventing and Treating Injuries in Instrumentalists by Richard Norris, M.D.
The Musician’s Way: A Guide to Practice, Performance, and Wellness by Gerald Klickstein
Professional Piano Teaching, Vol 1: A Comprehensive Piano Pedagogy Textbook for Teaching Elementary-Level Students by Jeanine M. Jacobson*
The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life by Parker Palmer*
A Symposium for Pianists and Teachers: Strategies to Develop the Mind and Body for Optimal Performance edited by Kris Kropff*
Crucial Confrontations: Tools for Resolving Broken Promises, Violated Expectations, and Bad Behavior by Kerry Patterson, et al.
The Power of Vulnerability: Teachings of Authenticity, Connection, and Courage by Brene Brown, Ph.D.*
Redefining Reality: The Intellectual Implications of Modern Science by Steven Gimbel (Great Courses)
How to Listen to and Understand Great Music, 3rd Edition by Robert Greenberg, Ph.D. (Great Courses)
The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo
Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives by Gretchen Rubin
The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business by Josh Kaufman
Sleep Smarter: 21 Essential Strategies to Sleep Your Way to a Better Body, Better Health, and Bigger Success by Shawn Stevenson
How Music Works: The Science and Psychology of Beautiful Sounds, from Beethoven to the Beatles and Beyond by John Powell
Getting Past Your Past: Take Control of Your Life with Self-Help Techniques from EMDR Therapy by Francine Shapiro, Ph.D.
Many articles from medical and trade journals, such as Medical Problems of Performing Artists and American Music Teacher
Various dissertations and white papers
(*Books I am still in the process of finishing.)
Needless to say, I don’t think I have ever read this much in a year, even when I was taking a full load in college. In May, I will graduate with the Graduate Certificate in Injury-Preventive Keyboard Technique. I will be sad I have finished, but so grateful for what I have gained. My final class is a pedagogy course (the method and practice of teaching) in which I will do six weeks of student teaching in a private lesson setting, giving me the opportunity to implement this technique I have learned with my students. I can successfully say my lessons with Dr. Lister-Sink have removed the pain I used to have while playing thus far. I now have a greater appreciation of the human body, and how to use it in every day activities, not just at the piano. I am humbled by the capacity of the mind and brain to direct and heal the body.
I know what I want to do with the rest of my life. This isn’t about just teaching piano--it’s about teaching biomechanics, neuroscience, educational psychology, physics, psychology, and somatics, all in relation to music...
connecting everything we learn to everything we want to learn.
When you listen to music, multiple areas of your brain are lighting up at once as they process sound, take it apart to understand elements like melody and rhythm, and then put it all back together into unified musical experience. And our brains do all this work in the split second between when we first hear the music and when our foot starts to tap along.
From the TED-Ed lesson How playing an instrument benefits your brain - Anita Collins
My piano student had a melt-down: it was a good lesson.
To any parents who are reading this: It is NEVER going to bother me when your little kid has a tantrum. That’s what little kids do. It’s obviously not how I prefer to spend every lesson: but tantrums and meltdowns are excellent teaching opportunities.
As a teacher, we can use these opportunities to teach about BIG FEELINGS and how to handle them, which is a really important skill. It’s important to help young students put words to what they’re feeling, and state what they need from the people around them with clarity and respect. Discipline doesn’t have to mean yelling. It can mean calm, patience, and curiosity.
I hate seeing panic in a parent’s eyes when they bring their kid in for piano and they start having a meltdown. They try bribing, begging, literally holding their kids hands to the keys, picking them up and sitting them on the bench and trying to keep them there while they’re howling and crawling away. And they keep looking up at me with these wide, deer-in-headlights looks, like “I’MSORRYI’MSORRYI’MSORRY PLEASE DON’T HATE ME, PLEASE DON’T HATE MY KID.”
Take a deeeeeeeep, cleansing breath. Really. Right now.
Innnnn…………..and Out. Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Please don’t panic. Please don’t worry. I’m a teacher. I’m literally a trained professional. This is part of what we do.
And this is now part of today’s lesson, too. It’s more important today that they learn about feelings. The piano isn’t going anywhere. The world won’t cease to spin if they don’t play Twinkle Twinkle today. Let’s have a teachable moment about feelings, and communicating, and responsibilities, and the difference between work and play time, and how you can make your work feel more like play time. Because if we’re being perfectly honestly, playing Twinkle Twinkle isn’t an important survival skill, but all that other stuff really, really is.
“Teaching music is not my main purpose. I want to make good citizens. If children hear fine music from the day of their birth and learn to play it, they develop sensitivity, discipline and endurance. They get a beautiful heart.” - Shinichi Suzuki
Eventually, I suggested a change of scenery, so we went outside. Mom said “let’s do ten jumping jacks” so we did that, and that got a little smile. Then we went back inside. She was still hanging on to the tears and whining, but I kept encouraging her to put words to what she was feeling, and tell us what was happening so we could help. Finally she choked out “I - DON’T - WANNA - PRACTICE!”
“Does practicing not feel like fun for you?”
She shook her head no.
“Well, maybe we can think of a way to make practice more fun.”
Her eyes got really wide, like that thought had literally never occurred to her before.
Eventually we figured out that we could try doing a time trade - that ten minutes of practicing means ten extra minutes to play with toys. Or to try reward stickers (she’s super into stickers). So that ten minutes of practice gets a practice sticker for the day.
But the really important thing wasn’t about piano, it was about:
1) Calming yourself down when you have BIG FEELINGS.
2) Putting words to what you’re feeling so people can help you.
3) Thinking creatively to solve problems
4) How to make something you HAVE to do feel more pleasant.
Those are really valuable life skills that will serve her throughout her life, in many different disciplines. Those are skills that go way beyond Twinkle Twinkle. As a music teacher, I’m proud that I helped those ideas form in her young brain today.
So parents, when your kid has a meltdown or a temper tantrum, don’t apologize, or panic, or keep looking at me like I hate you and your kid. I think you and your kid are great. That’s why I’m a teacher.
Ideal trio playing is when everybody plays everybody’s part. It is not good enough to play your part as well as you can.
Menahem Pressler (via clavierissimo)
Another example of how to teach the brain to process what sensory information is coming in--if you process all the parts individually then you can start to put them together in a way that honors all the parts. You can play your part while not letting what you hear from your performing partners distract you because you know what they are doing and where they are going. You can tell your brain, "It's supposed to sound like this right now, so keep playing."
Even more beautiful is when you understand the bigger picture, that the duet or trio is not about you--it's about what you create together and stepping out of the way when you know it's the other person's turn to bring out the melody so everyone listening can experience the beauty.
A Neuroscientist Explores The Illogical Behaviors Of The Mind In ‘Idiot Brain’
Dean Burnett says the human brain is like a computer that files information in a way that defies logic. According to Burnett, brains can alter memory, cause motion sickness and affect intelligence.
Here’s his answer about why we get motion sickness in moving vehicles:
“You’ve got the muscular system doing its thing and relaying all the signals to the brain. And you’ve also got the balance sensors in your ears, like, little tiny little tubes full of fluid. And the motion of that fluid tells us where we’re going. So, if we’re upside down, we can tell. And if we’re going fast, we can tell because this fluid just obeys the laws of physics. And also, you’ve got your eyes, and the world’s going past at a certain rate. All these things are sensory information which is fed into the thalamus area, which integrates all the sensory information together to give us an opinion or give us a view of what’s happening in the world around us. So we think, “Oh, well I’m moving. This is good. That’s what I should be doing. Excellent, all is well.”
When you’re in a vehicle, (and vehicles aren’t something we’ve really evolved to deal with because, obviously, they’re a very, very recent addition to the world, and evolution takes a long time to catch up with anything) so when we’re in a vehicle like a car or a train or a ship especially, you’re not actually physically moving. Your body is still. You’re sat down. Like, say you’ve got no signals from the muscles saying we are moving right now, your muscles are saying we are stationary. And also your eyes – if you are sitting in a ship, you’re looking at a static environment, so there’s no information for the eyes to say we are moving. It’s just, “Oh, everything is still.”
But the fluids in your ears, they obey the laws of physics. And they are sort of rocking and around and sloshing because you are actually moving. So what’s happening there is the brain’s getting mixed messages. It’s getting signals from the muscles and the eyes saying we are still and signals from the balance sensors saying we’re in motion. Both of these cannot be correct. There’s a sensory mismatch there. And in evolutionary terms, the only thing that can cause a sensory mismatch like that is a neurotoxin or poison. So the brain thinks, essentially, it’s being poisoned. When it’s been poisoned, the first thing it does is get rid of the poison, aka throwing up.
And as a result, as soon as the brain gets confused by anything like that, it says, “Oh, I don’t know what to do, so just be sick, just in case.” And as a result, we get motion sickness because of the brain’s constantly worried about being poisoned.”
What a fascinating description of how the brain processes movement. I often talk about the brain's processing power with my students. Sometimes we close our eyes so we can heighten our sense of touch and hearing. This removes some of the sensory information coming in so you can "hear" what's left with more clarity. When we feel overwhelmed, it's really just our brain experiencing too much information coming in too quickly. Therefore, if you remove some of the information coming in, we can start to make sense of what's left. Once we've processed that remaining information, we can slowly add back what we removed. It's like talking down that anxious response that is activated from not knowing what is going on, calming us down so logic can kick back in.
I wonder if you are feeling motion sickness, if you could concentrate enough to send enough messages to your brain that the body is not being poisoned--I wonder if you could talk your body down from feeling threatened. Fascinating.
A few months ago I submitted a proposal for a lightning TED talk for the Practical Piano Pedagogy Workshop at Heidelberg University in Ohio. When I found out it was accepted, I was so excited! Having presented just last month, I now know what they meant by “lightning”--I ended up having to rush through the last half of my presentation. When I speak or teach in other venues, I am used to doing the pleasantries to win over your audience. Looking back, I should have skipped all that and cut right to the chase. Hindsight is 20/20.
Many in attendance requested copies of my slides. I can’t attach a document, but I can attach a video. Anyone who would like the PDF version, I’d love to hear from you at [email protected]. Thanks again to Irina Gorin and Dr. Margarita Denenburg for giving me this opportunity!
(FYI: Part 2 of this post will include each slide accompanied by the teaching concept in writing.)
REMIND YOURSELF of your general intentions for practicing.
Here are some thoughts to get your mind ready for work. Be sure to maintain a cheerful curiosity toward the whole experiment.
I’m a detective: what new evidence will there be today?
All bets are off!
I assume I know nothing and have retained nothing from yesterday.
I’m not going to be clever in a superficial way; I’ve done that before and I know it usually backfires.
I gladly relinquish control, and the practice room gives me a golden opportunity to do so.
I willingly give up the tension of manipulating or supervising everything I do.
Accuracy, control, refinement: these will be the destination, not the starting place of my practicing.
I know that unexpected events–like mistakes–are full of priceless information that I can’t get any other way. So I hope to flush out some juicy, honest mistakes.
When I overdo things and take chances, I learn faster.
By the time I leave this instrument (even if it’s only ten minutes from now), I’ll know that I did some honest work and made a tangible improvement in at least one identified challenge. And that will be a satisfying feeling that no one can take away from me.
Absolutely love this statement:
"I know that unexpected events–like mistakes–are full of priceless information that I can’t get any other way. So I hope to flush out some juicy, honest mistakes."
For most of history, interpretation was mainly done consecutively, with speakers and interpreters making pauses to allow each other to speak. But after the advent of radio technology, a new simultaneous interpretation system was developed in the wake of World War II. In the simultaneous mode, interpreters instantaneously translate a speaker’s words into a microphone while he speaks, without pauses. Those in the audience can choose the language in which they want to follow.
On the surface it all looks seamless, but behind the scenes, human interpreters work incessantly to ensure every idea gets across as intended. And that is no easy task.
It takes about two years of training for already fluent bilingual professionals to expand their vocabulary and master the skills necessary to become a conference interpreter. To get used to the unnatural task of speaking while they listen, students shadow speakers and repeat their every word exactly as heard, in the same language. In time, they begin to paraphrase what is said, making stylistic adjustments as they go. At some point a second language is introduced. Practicing in this way creates new neural pathways in the interpreter’s brain and the constant effort of reformulation gradually becomes second nature.
Over time, and through much hard work, the interpreter masters a vast array of tricks to keep up with speed, deal with challenging terminology and handle a multitude of foreign accents. They may resort to acronyms to shorten long names, choose generic terms over specific, or refer to slides and other visual aids. They can even leave a term in the original language while they search for the most accurate equivalent.
Interpreters are also skilled at keeping aplomb in the face of chaos. Remember: they have no control over who is going to say what or how articulate the speaker will sound. A curve ball can be thrown at any time. Also, they often perform to thousands of people and in very intimidating settings, like the UN General Assembly. To keep their emotions in check, they carefully prepare for an assignment, building glossaries in advance, reading voraciously about the subject matter, and reviewing previous talks on the topic.
Finally, interpreters work in pairs. While one colleague is busy translating incoming speeches in real time, the other gives support by locating documents, looking up words and tracking down pertinent information. Because simultaneous interpretation requires intense concentration, every 30 minutes the pair switches roles. Success is heavily dependent on skillful collaboration.
From the TED-Ed Lesson How interpreters juggle two languages at once - Ewandro Magalhaes
This made me think of having to interpret measures of music coming ahead while still executing current measures. Requires intense listening to process inflection and expression simultaneously preparing for what is to come. The amount of preparation and training techniques, coupled with the support of a colleague, impressed me as being relevant to piano studies.
This is a neat graphic that I’m sure has lots of applications to piano, but the first one I thought of was the energy it takes to play fortissimo is not dependent on the size of the pianist. =)
When an object’s mass doubles, its kinetic energy also doubles, but when an object’s SPEED doubles, its kinetic energy quadruples.
Melancholy allows us to more deeply understand other profound emotions, like beauty and joy. To understand the sadness of the trees losing their leaves in the fall, is to more fully understand the cycle of life that brings flowers in the spring.
From the TED-Ed Lesson A brief history of melancholy - Courtney Stephens
This is a fantastic resource I just discovered for teaching students how to create sound that is realistic instead of robotic.
Favorite quote by Norman McLaren:
“Animation is not the art of drawings that move, but the art of movements that are drawn. What happens between each frame is more important than what exists on each frame.”
The minute I heard this I wanted to adopt it. I’m almost sure I’ve read some version of this before:
“What happens between each note is more important than what each note actually is.”
4:00 min:
Great visual of how changing direction is the slowest action when we let gravity play it’s part. This is desirable because when we work with gravity instead of against it, we use the least amount of muscle resistance, therefore creating a beautiful balance between natural forces and the natural use of the body. This results in less tension and less injury. What does this mean for changing direction when playing a passage? Anything we can do to adjust or prepare for those changes, makes the change easier. Leading with the wrist before changing direction is a great example.
4:30-5:00 min:
Wonderful illustration of how spacing gives us realistic motion. Notice how points A and B hit at the same time (think of time signature or pulse), but it’s what we do within those points that makes it sound musical. Do we want robotic playing that gets from point A to point B over and over right on time? Or do we want to experience a swelling and a quickening over that same A to B timeframe to give it life? Of course, it depends on the piece and it’s historical time period.
5:30 min:
Loved this graphic. Still processing it, but it makes it easier to think about the relationship between time and space.
In the 3rd millennium BCE, Mesopotamian kings recorded and interpreted their dreams on wax tablets. In the years since, we haven’t paused in our quest to understand why we dream. And while we still don’t have any definitive answers, we have some theories. Here are seven reasons we might dream.
1. In the early 1900’s, Sigmund Freud proposed that while all of our dreams, including our nightmares, are a collection of images from our daily conscious lives, they also have symbolic meanings which relate to the fulfillment of our subconscious wishes. Freud theorized that everything we remember when we wake up from a dream is a symbolic representation of our unconscious, primitive thoughts, urges and desires. Freud believed that by analyzing those remembered elements, the unconscious content would be revealed to our conscious mind, and psychological issues stemming from its repression could be addressed and resolved.
2. To increase performance on certain mental tasks, sleep is good, but dreaming while sleeping is better. In 2010, researchers found that subjects were much better at getting through a complex 3D maze if they had napped and dreamed of the maze prior to their second attempt. In fact, they were up to ten times better at it than those who only thought of the maze while awake between attempts, and those who napped but did not dream about the maze. Researchers theorize that certain memory processes can happen only when we are asleep, and our dreams are a signal that these processes are taking place.
3. There are about ten thousand trillion neural connections within the architecture of your brain. They are created by everything you think, and everything you do. A 1983 neurobiological theory of dreaming, called “reverse learning,” holds that while sleeping, and mainly during REM sleep cycles, your neocortex reviews these neural connections and dumps the unnecessary ones. Without this unlearning process, which results in your dreams, your brain could be overrun by useless connections, and parasitic thoughts could disrupt the necessary thinking you need to do while you’re awake.
4. The “Continual Activation Theory” proposes that your dreams result from your brain’s need to constantly consolidate and create long term memories in order to function properly. So when external input falls below a certain level, like when you’re asleep, your brain automatically triggers the generation of data from its memory storages, which appear to you in the form of the thoughts and feelings you experience in your dreams. In other words, your dreams might be a random screensaver your brain turns on so it doesn’t completely shut down.
5. Dreams involving dangerous and threatening situations are very common, and the Primitive Instinct Rehearsal Theory holds that the content of a dream is significant to its purpose. Whether it’s an anxiety filled night of being chased through the woods by a bear, or fighting off a ninja in a dark alley, these dreams allow you to practice your fight or flight instincts and keep them sharp and dependable, in case you’ll need them in real life. But it doesn’t always have to be unpleasant; for instance, dreams about your attractive neighbor could actually give your reproductive instinct some practice too.
6. Stress neurotransmitters in the brain are much less active during the REM stage of sleep, even during dreams of traumatic experiences, leading some researchers to theorize that one purpose of dreaming is to take the edge off painful experiences to allow for psychological healing. Reviewing traumatic events in your dreams with less mental stress may grant you a clearer perspective and an enhanced ability to process them in psychologically healthy ways. People with certain mood disorders and PTSD often have difficulty sleeping, leading some scientists to believe that lack of dreaming may be a contributing factor to their illnesses.
7. Unconstrained by reality and the rules of conventional logic, in your dreams your mind can create limitless scenarios to help you grasp problems and formulate solutions that you may not consider while awake. John Steinbeck called it “the Committee of Sleep” and research has demonstrated the effectiveness of dreaming on problem solving. It’s also how renowned chemist August Kekule discovered the structure of the benzene molecule, and it’s the reason that sometimes the best solution for a problem is to “sleep on it”.
And those are just a few of the more prominent theories. As technology increases our capability for understanding the brain, it’s possible that one day we will discover the definitive reason for them; but until that time arrives, we’ll just have to keep on dreaming.
From the TED-Ed Lesson Why do we dream? - Amy Adkins
Vitamins are the building blocks that keep our bodies running; they help build muscle and bone, capture energy, heal wounds and more. Today, TED-Ed wants to bring you your daily value and introduce you to the members of the team!
Vitamin A helps make white blood cells, shape bones, and improves vision.
The B Vitamins are a complex bunch - some of them make up co-enzymes, who help enzymes release energy from food. Others help the body to use that energy.
From Vitamin C, we get the ability to fight infection and make collagen, a kind of tissue that forms bones and teeth, and heals wounds.
Vitamin D gathers calcium and phosphorous so we can make bones.
Vitamin E works as an antioxidant, getting rid of elements in the body that can damage cells.
Finally, Vitamin K helps us make the proteins that clot blood.
Without this Vitamin Variety, humans face deficiencies that cause a range of problems. On the other hand, too much of any vitamin can cause toxicity in the body. In reality, it’s all about getting the balance right, and hitting that vitamin jackpot! Thanks, Team Vitamin!
From the TED-Ed Lesson How do vitamins work? - Ginnie Trinh Nguyen
I think it might be interesting to go vitamin by vitamin and see how they impact us as pianists and musicians, especially when paired with these cute little characters to use as visuals with our students 😃
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