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Is your heart smarter than your head?

February 6, 2017 by Sara Nolan

hearts see far

I heart not Stressing Most of us are stressed, and it gets old; our heart sags. (Waiting for your college letters much?  That can wreck you-- so don't be wreck-bait.) But somehow you still get cool points for being the most stressed.  Even though, somewhere deep inside, you know it ain't right.  If you really want to stress yourself out, don’t let me stop you. You're still on the Cortisol Cruise. Go do something more stressful, like trying to keep my toddler from licking all the magnets he fished out from under the fridge. But if you're not so sure you want to feel stressed out all the time, and maybe the hamster wheel is giving you vertigo, read on. The key might be connecting with your own intelligent heart. Heart "Facts" I recently heard (in a long scientific-esque lecture on Le Youtube) that the heart shares a majority of its neurotransmitters with the brain--something like 60%. I don't believe everything I hear. And like most things biological, the picture is probably more complex than that fact alone signals. However, I like this one. In this age of loose facts, when the president decides not only who can vote and who can't, but also whether truth has any business in the executive branch-- I'll cherry-pick my facts. I'll critical think later. I invite you to do the same, just for the duration of this blog post. Because your heart, or so this doctor says... ...perceives 5 seconds faster than da' Brain. (Perceives what? Perceives how? Not sure, but I like where this is heading.). It knows some things first.  I've felt this happen.  Have you? So why not get in synch with your smarter organ? A heart coherence meditation Here’s a  meditation geared for teens, for those moments when you are stressed and just want to come back home. My students love it. (Your parents can and should do it too-- here's a meditation for them.) The meditations take just a few minutes. Call a family meeting to try it out. Or do it by yourself in  Continue Reading …

Filed Under: Exercise, Integrity, Practice, Solutions, State of Mind, Uncategorized, Wisdom Tagged With: feel better, focus, heart meditation, parents, stress, stress reduction

Finding the best reader for your college essay

September 1, 2015 by Sara Nolan

You've done the grunt work writing your college application essay draft and you're not sure how you feel about it. Moment of truth: who is the best reader for your essay now, before it's time to submit the application? Who should vet your ideas? It matters who you pick, and here's why. The obvious possible candidates In some cases, the reader is decided for you: you have to turn a draft in to your English teacher, your guidance counselor, your college counselor. In other cases, a family member wants to weigh in as a reader-- your well-intentioned parents, your I've-gotten-you-this-far guardian, your brother who's already in college and should know, and so on. In still other cases, you've hired someone, supposedly for their skill at reading and evaluating your essay: your college coach (if you have one), your essay coach (if you have one). DIY? Whatever your situation looks like, when it comes to writing, it's rarely a good idea to do it all on your own.  You already know what you meant to say in your essay, and it can be hard to have critical distance necessary to see its flaws and omissions.  You're apt to be predisposed to love or to hate it, to cling to your ideas whether successful or not, and to supply background information that a reader ignorant of your life story won't be able to. All of these things cloud your ability to be your own best reader. So while you must reread to revise and edit well (Never submit an essay without doing this, duh!), you should NOT be your only reader. Recruit family, friends, and flatterers? Your parents and guardians, because they have loved you for so long, and probably changed all your poopy diapers for months, might have their own agendas about what they think would be the best topic, given that they know so much of the history of your life, and may also assume (rightly or wrongly) they know you better than anyone.  But they are usually not experts in the requirements of this genre and, beyond that, it's important  Continue Reading …

Filed Under: Feedback, Revising Tagged With: admissions officers, audience, college essay, feedback, getting started, parents, readers

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