Adventure is worthwhile in itself

Adventure is worthwhile in itself. - Amelia Earhart

Life can get monotonous with the daily grind. But it doesn’t have to be that way. There are easy, simple ways that you can make life fun everyday. Before I give you the 5 tips to bring more adventure and joy into your life, I’ll share with you how I realized how important it is to integrate these tips into your life.

Over a decade ago I was enamored with the Jack Kerouac road-trippin’ adventurous lifestyle. I got on a plane to Costa Rica with only a small backpack and a guide book. No plans, no reservations and barely a word of Spanish on my tongue. That same year I traveled across Canada with a friend and spent my summer picking cherries in British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley. These adventures sparked freedom and joy into my life. I knew I had to maintain this feeling.

When I moved to Vancouver to pursue my studies in nutrition, I knew I had to bring that quality of adventure into my everyday life. I thought about how when you are traveling, or on the road, every new landscape is breathtaking. Every moment is a joyous surprise. I received pleasure from walks through unknown streets and forests on my many travels, and realized how simple it could be to bring this joy and adventure into my every day.

That was 8 years ago now, and to this day I still look for the adventure and joy in the everyday. Here are 5 of my favorite ways to keep life exciting:

5 Ways to Create Adventure and Joy Every Day

Brian is a Lifehacker who covers all sorts of tips for life. He is also fascinated with new technology. Contact him at brian@lifehack.org

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The New York Times wees itself in public

The New York Times has just pissed its neuroscientific pants in public and is now running round the streets announcing the fact in an op-ed that could as easily been titled ‘Smell my wee!’

The piece is written by Martin Lindström, famous for writing the ‘neuromarketing’ best-seller Buyology, but infamous for not making any of his data or studies public.

In fact, despite constantly mentioning the astounding conclusions from numerous brain imaging studies he was run, not one has appeared in the scientific literature.

But even without knowing about the reliability data or the quality of the analysis, it’s easy to see that he’s talking through his hat because the interpretations are so over-the-top that they are actually beyond what is possible with brain imaging science.

The piece is full of nonsense of various sorts.

I carried out an fMRI experiment to find out whether iPhones were really, truly addictive…

In each instance, the results showed activation in both the audio and visual cortices of the subjects’ brains. In other words, when they were exposed to the video, our subjects’ brains didn’t just see the vibrating iPhone, they “heard” it, too; and when they were exposed to the audio, they also “saw” it. This powerful cross-sensory phenomenon is known as synesthesia.

Actually, this is known as bullshit because synesthesia is where a conscious sensory experience in one sensory domain produces a conscious experience in another.

In other words, synesthesia is defined by the experiences that someone has, not where brain activity shows up.

The fact that brain activity occurs in an area previously linked to a different function does not mean it is being used for that function or that the person is having a related conscious experience.

If this is not entirely clear, think of it like this. Imagine, for the first time in your life, you just heard the sound of a guitar being played as part of a pop song. You’d be a bit daft if every time you heard guitar chords you told people that the music must be a pop song. After all, there’s a guitar in it, right?

Clearly, this is ridiculous because the guitar is an instrument that appears in lots of musical styles but Lindström is doing the neuroscience equivalent of over-interpreting guitar sounds throughout his terrible article.

He starts going on about how activation in the insula, detected in his privately conducted otherwise unknown study, means the person is experiencing love for their iPhone because insula activity has previously been linked to love.

The trouble is, as neuroimaging researcher Russ Poldrack just pointed out, it is one of the most common brain areas that turns up in fMRI studies and appears in about a third of imaging studies no matter what is being studied. In other words, it’s linked to just about every experience and behaviour you can think of.

In fact, it is probably most famous, not for its association with love, but for its association with digust, but Lindstrom apparently decided to avoid this particular interpretation.

This is just one example among many and if you want a breakdown of why the article really is full of crap, I recommend neuroscientist Tal Yarkoni’s point-by-point analysis and facepalm jamboree.

In fact, the op-ed has annoyed so many people there is now a letter to the editor signed by just about every big name in fMRI research on its way to the New York Times in an attempt to open the windows and get rid of that uncomfortable smell.

Link to NYT pissing itself in public.
Link to Tal Yarkoni’s excellent mopping up exercise.

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The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science (James H. Silberman Books)

An astonishing new science called neuroplasticity is overthrowing the centuries-old notion that the human brain is immutable.Psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, Norman Doidge, M.D., traveled the country to meet both the brilliant scientists championing neuroplasticity and the people whose lives theyve transformedpeople whose mental limitations or brain damage were seen as unalterable. We see a woman born with half a brain that rewired itself to work as a whole, blind people who learn to see, learning disorders cured, IQs raised, aging brains rejuvenated, stroke patients learning to speak, children with cerebral palsy learning to move with more grace, depression and anxiety disorders successfully treated, and lifelong character traits changed.Using these marvelous stories to probe mysteries of the body, emotion, love, sex, culture, and education, Dr. Doidge has written an immensely moving, inspiring book that will permanently alter the way we look at our brains, human nature, and human potential.Hardcover, 448 pages. Published March, 2007

Price: $17.00

Click here to buy from Amazon