New on the blogroll is The “Does it Work?” Diary from my friend Clare Walker.
She’s taken on the challenge of documenting “Which personal development techniques actually work”, and amongst other things is documenting a self-experiment on the positive affect on mood obtained by abstaining from watching television news.
She says:
I’m not certain why this may work, but suspect that:
1) The bias of most news is depressing (eg an emphasis on crime, disaster, problems, etc)….(And yes, I know that the media can do tremendous good by highlighting poverty, disasters and destruction, but if in the end we’re all too depressed to respond, that isn’t, in fact very useful).
2) Most of this is illustrated with pictures (which people’s unconscious minds just lap up).
3) Watching television is known to induce an alpha-brain-wave, trance-like state
(the very same state in which it’s also easiest to create positive emotional change too).
4) I watch most TV news at night…which is also the time I think of for both myself and my students as being the most powerful for personal development and changework. (Something to do perhaps with tiredness after the day inducing that all-important alpha brain-wave state again.
Try it for yourself!
Updated link to Clare’s new location at https://www.selfworks.net/blog/doesitworkdiary/
