MOVE: June 28, 2013

You know you're staring into the eyes of a zombie when.......

Sometimes we call it the "ah-ha moment," that instant when a look of joy, mixed with a little relief comes over the face of a person who just figured "it" out (whatever "it" is).....that brief second when it all makes sense and the person has clarity.  When you spend your life nudging and prodding people to learn as much as possible about their health and filter through all of the garbage information out there in hopes of finding the little details that matter, you live for that moment.....resolution.  It's like watching someone's spirit exhale......but actually, it's really all in the eyes.....the pupils to be exact.  Did you know that there is a measurable and predictable pattern of the pupils opening (dilating) when a person is working hard on a problem and then an almost immediate shrinking (constriction) when a person gets to resolution?  "Pupillometry" as the technique for measuring this change is called, has been studied for more than 50 years and unlike other wacky measurements people have taken (phrenology for example measures the bumps on your head), there is fairly remarkable evidence that pupil size is an indicator of how emotionally engaged or intensely focused a person is, in real-time, automatically and uncontrollably. Fascinating stuff for sure......but that's not all.  Pupil diameter also relates to how much of a person's mental reserves are being used to solve a particular problem......like a gauge or dial.....and maybe the most interesting thing of all is that this gauge changes BEFORE the person even becomes aware (conscious) that their attention has shifted......said a different way - the pupil knows to react to something different before the person realizes it. 

What does this have to do with prevention and wellness? Actually a bunch.  It is a (pretty darn cool) example of how we constantly scan and react to the world and cues around us in an automatic way.  It may seem like we first notice something, then make sense of it and then start to act, but more often we actually notice something, start to react and THEN (sometimes) make sense of it.  I'll never forget the first time I saw this on a job site.  I was observing a small crew doing some fairly routine work.  One person started to move a piece of aerial equipment downward toward the ground but didn't at first realize there was someone standing almost directly below.  It only took a split second to see the person and pull back up on the lever, but with the weight and force of this piece of equipment even the slightest contact would have severely injured the person below.  Before I could even get a word out of my mouth it was over.....only just a moment.  But it seemed miraculous to me, no one got hurt that day.  At almost the exact same moment that the aerial equipment started to lurch downward, the guy below lowered his head an inch or two narrowly avoiding a catastrophe.  When I asked him how he knew to do that (he wasn't looking up at the time), he responded "do what?"......he hadn't even realized what just occurred.   

In this case, reacting automatically to some set of cues probably saved an injury (and maybe more)......but there are just as many occasions that we react automatically that don't lead to fortunate circumstances.  The World Health Organization recently urged for tighter guidelines on food marketing (especially to children) for just this reason.  They feel that they have strong enough evidence that marketing cues designed to automatically drive zombie-like kids toward high sugar, high fat and high salt foods have been so "disastrously effective" that something must be done.  Need an example?  Well did you know that Mike & Ike broke up? That's right, google it, there is an entire ad-campaign trying to pull people into the relationship-drama of two make-believe candy "people" hurling emotionally-charged cues that get us to relate to the characters (even if we don't ever "think" about them)......talk about pupil-popping cues.......and there are tons more where that came from. 

Did you ever stop to think about what your habit cues are? Oh yes, you have them.  Think about almost any habit you have (good or bad) and dissect it. You'll pretty quickly realize there's something that kicks your routine into gear.  Maybe a specific place or a person or a sound or smell (or maybe a combination).....but there's something.  And although it's probably not practical to have someone follow you around measuring the diameter of your pupil to know when you're about to start your routine, if you can figure out what makes you go all wide-eyed it'd be far easier to consciously point yourself in the direction you want to go.  Most of us have at least one health-habit we want to change.  Perhaps you want to MOVE more or FUEL better?  Maybe you desperately need to RECOVER from a prolonged stress-burst?  Maybe you want to learn about resiliency to improve your ability to ENDURE on the long-term?  Or maybe you just need to CONNECT with those around you again. 

Whatever it is, if you know your cues, you can change your habits.....and if you can change your habits, you can achieve.......automatically. 

"And I would've gotten away with it too if it weren't for you meddling kids and your dumb dog!" 

Now go do something extraordinary, 

Mike E.