Post #3: Hypnosis and Alien Abductees

     In class, we have learned about how clinicians would use hypnosis to help people recall past events as well as projective tests which help the clinician examine a person’s personality and gather information about their client. Hypnosis has been commonly used for UFO abductees and while the individual is under hypnosis they are able to describe being abducted and what they witnessed. However, we learned that this method can usually be ineffective and does not improve one’s ability to recall events. When the client is hypnotized, they are in a highly suggestive state and clinicians can have a strong influence on their clients so this can cause them to have false memories since the clinician can use suggestive cues and their client will believe that they experienced something that never actually occurred as a result. I personally don’t believe in aliens and UFO’s but I found a video of a hypnotherapist who specializes in alien abductions and UFO’s and she talks about her sessions with clients and what they have experienced. She describes a little bit of what her clients remember and she even talks about how some of them have claimed to have had sexual experiences with extraterrestrials. I find it shocking that people have claimed to have that type of experience with extraterrestrials and I find her opinion on this topic very interesting overall.

Here's the video I found:

Post #3- Isochronic Tones and Binaural Beats: Are They For Real?

As a person who has ADHD that sometimes makes it hard to sleep, I ended up resorting to YouTube for help keeping my mind calm. The results for sleep music frequently lead to isochronic tones or binaural beats, two things that I had never heard of, but it spiked my curiosity, possibly because they used such scientific names. For about two months (before this class occurred, evidently), I listened to these beats, and in fact, it did help me sleep. Many nights I would turn on the music, put my phone under my pillow, and be asleep within minutes. 

But was this because of the music itself, or just a simple placebo effect? According to an article I read by Healthline, these tones supposedly work because they make your brain align with certain wavelengths that make you feel calmer, or make your sleep deeper. The studies conducted seem to use heuristic thought to come to a conclusion, using groups of less than thirty people and making broad statements about the findings of the research. The Law of Small Numbers takes a hold here for sure. It seemed to have worked for me, but perhaps that was because the music was calming to begin with. 

Post #3 (Styles of Learning)

There are many different styles of learning. The main ones include: visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. To learn visually is by looking at pictures, videos, or maps. To learn auditory is by learning through hearing sounds, lectures, and to read aloud and to learn kinesthetically involves hands on experiences, like touching or making things. Everyone has their own preferences on how they decide to learn, some students enjoy studying in the quiet scene of a library compared to other individuals who would rather have some background sound or music playing. It all depends on what helps you as a person learn better. As for myself I am definitely a visual learner, I like to be able to see the task I am trying to complete or learn through some type of picture, video, or slides. I was unaware that most learners are visual rather than auditory or kinesthetic. 

Turkey Makes You Sleepy?

I always wondered if eating turkey made you sleepy because I get sleepy even after eating dinner not just turkey dinner. I’m always hearing that it’s the tryptophan in turkey that makes you sleepy. Well what exactly is tryptophan? According to an article on WebMd, L-tryptophan is an essential amino acid that the body cannot manufacture on it’s own so it has to get it from foods. Amino acids are building blocks of proteins. Tryptophan is in turkey but also in other poultry, meat, cheese, yogurt, fish, and eggs. It is used to make niacin, a B vitamin which is needed for digestion, skin and nerves, and serotonin. The body needs Tryptophan to produce serotonin which is needed to make melatonin, a hormone that controls sleep and wake cycles. Actually turkey has less tryptophan than chicken. So why is it we feel so sleepy at Thanksgiving than when we eat the other foods the rest of the year? According to Dawn Jackson Blatner, RD, LDN, (author of The Flexitarian Diet) "if we're sleepy on Thanksgiving as a direct result of eating turkey, then eating other foods rich in tryptophan should have the same effect".

Even though turkey has tryptophan, according to Elizabeth Somer, MA, RD (author of "Eat Your Way to Happiness) "it's a myth that eating foods high in tryptophan boosts brain levels of tryptophan and therefore brain levels of serotonin." She also said that along with proteins like turkey, chicken, and fish, which are high sources of tryptophan, a person needs foods high in carbohydrates to affect serotonin levels. "Tryptophan is quite high in milk and turkey, but that's not the food that will give you the serotonin boost," she says. "It's a small, all-carbohydrate snack -- no more than 30 grams of carbohydrates -- in combination with the tryptophan stored in your body from food you've already eaten that will give you the biggest boost of serotonin." According to Ms. Somer, the research shows that a light, 30 gram carbohydrate snack just before bed will help you sleep better. So, people who are sleepy at Thanksgiving feel that way not just because of the turkey but probably the stuffing, mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie.


Website Source: <http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/features/the-truth-about-tryptophan>