Small Changes, Big Results - Part II

Pick Your Beat


Tempo can be a powerful motivator, according to Costas Karageorghis, PhD, associate professor of sport psychology at Brunel University in England, who studies how music affects people. Recently he reported in the International Journal of Sports Medicine that when musical beats per minute (bpm) roughly correspond to a person's heart rate during exercise, motivation dramatically improves.
Costas suggests experimenting with music of different tempos to see what coaxes you into a more positive frame of mind.
To get you started, he's created playlists for different activities with bpm guidelines. (You can determine a song's beats per minute by Googling the title with "bpm," or try sites like EZ-Tracks.com and JamGlue.com.)




Meditation and yoga (50 to 76 bpm):

"Albatross ," Fleetwood Mac (66 bpm); "Evenstar," London Philharmonic (50 bpm); "Terrapin," Bonobo (76 bpm).



Walking (95 to 120 bpm):



"Let's Get It Started," Black Eyed Peas (105 bpm); "Pon

De Replay," Rihanna (100 bpm); "This Is How We Do It," Montell Jordan (104 bpm).



Running; elliptical machine (125 to 160 bpm): "Push It," Salt-N-Pepa (124 bpm); "Put Your Hands Up for Detroit," Fedde Le Grand (129 bpm); "Run to You," Bryan Adams (135 bpm).

Time Major Decisions


During the week before ovulation, both estrogen and testosterone increase in order to help prepare the egg," says Rebecca Booth, MD, author of The Venus Week: Discover the Powerful Secret of Your Cycle...at Any Age .
. "Estrogen is going to make you more creative and emotional, while testosterone will raise your assertiveness and your self-confidence." So the week and a half after your period is the ideal time to work on projects that require insight and out-of-the-box thinking, or to tackle something you need courage for, like asking for a promotion. However, she cautions against making relationship decisions during this time. "The estrogen will make you sappy, and the testosterone can make you rash," says Booth. "So if you feel like doing something big and sweeping, give yourself a few days to think it over."



When You Learn Something, Say It Out Loud


The more actively you engage your brain in the process of learning, the more likely you are to retain knowledge, says Janet Sherman, PhD, assistant professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School. In fact, researchers have found that repeating information—the name of a person, a phone number, anything you're trying to absorb—in different ways increases retention. You might try phrases like "So you're saying…" as an opportunity to go over the fresh information and build on it. Or when you hear a story, tell it to someone new; just thinking about it in a different situation will help your mind store the details.