Is Brain Stimulation the Key to Athletic Performance?

Halo Sport is a brain stimulator that claims to helps you develop muscle memory faster. On their website, they say: 

• You can gain skill, strength, and endurance 45% faster. 
• You can also break through plateaus and set PRs
• Using their product will also increase neuroplasticity and accelerate learning in the motor cortex

And all of this is backed by 4,000+ peer-reviewed studies, trusted by NFL, NBA, MLB, and Olympic athletes. The company has more than 20 patents issued to them. 

Are you intrigued? I was. So, to dig into this device and the science behind it, I invited a Ph.D. biomedical engineer and neuroscientist to the Get-Fit Guy podcast. 

The guest—Dr. Brett Wingeier

Brett: I'm Brett Wingeier. I'm Chief Technical Officer and co-founder of Halo Neuroscience. I started my career in medical devices. I got my Ph.D. in biomedical engineering, electric fields of the brain. I was an athlete in college, which kind of guided part of what we do here at Halo. And then, after spending about 13 years building implantable neurostimulators for epilepsy, my co-founder and I realized that there was a chance to use this amazing type of neurotechnology in a wearable product. We started Halo in the fall of 2013, and we started the company to make Halo Sport, which is a headset that stimulates your brain to help you get better faster when you train.

Yes, you read that right. Brett said that they make a headset which stimulates your brain to help you get better, faster. 

The headset he is talking about looks very much like a normal set of headphones. Big ear muffs cover your ears with a band that goes over the top of your head. And the band, it turns out, is the important part. It's covered in foamy pointed nubs that make contact with your scalp to deliver an electrical current to your cranium. This is not something you'll find on your grandma's headphones. 

Parts of the brain

Let's get back to what Brett meant when he said that the Halo headset stimulates the brain. What part of the brain is actually getting stimulated? Is there a specific part of the brain we use more in sports? 

Brett: What we're stimulating is the primary motor cortex. And fortunately, the part of your brain that controls your body is right under the band of a pair of headphones.

That's convenient!

Brett: Exactly. So, motor neurons go directly from there down to your spinal cord. And, when you learn anything from training, there's a lot of parts of your brain involved—cerebellum, supplementary motor areas—but really that primary motor cortex is...

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Set Boundaries at Work with the Awesome Power of "No"

When my first daughter was born, I considered naming her Nola. But as my sage (and handsome!) husband pointed out, her nickname was going to end up being No. And that seemed like cruel and unusual punishment. No one likes the sound of a “no.”

We all know by now that setting clear boundaries at work—in other words, saying no—is key to our wellness and self-preservation. But still, it’s hard to resist the urge to be a hero. You want to be the one your boss can count on, and that means saying yes to everything.

But what if I told you that saying yes to everything was the lazy person's path and that a regular and strategic “no” is the way to maximize the value you deliver? Would you buy it?

Define your boundaries at work with clarity of purpose

Truth is, your company invested in you. It decided at some point that something important needed to be done. So, it set aside a salary, produced a job description, found, met, and onboarded you. That’s a lot of dollars invested.

Having clarity of purpose and the discipline to stay on track is the hardest work of all.

Your job, in turn, is to maximize their return on that investment. And the way to do this is to stick to your purpose—to focus on what you were uniquely hired to do. Having clarity of purpose and the discipline to stay on track is the hardest work of all.

Now, I live in the real world. Sometimes there’s an emergency—something’s on fire, and you need to jump in to help put it out. Or sometimes, we need to earn a few points with someone who has asked a favor. Or maybe, what’s being asked of us is something we can deliver in literally minutes. Or the request is a challenge we’ve been dying to get our hands on. In these scenarios, use your judgment. Sometimes letting a "yes" take us off-purpose is the right thing to do. But this should be the exception and not the rule.

Today I’m talking about the moments in which we know that saying yes takes us away from the work that should be commanding our focus and attention. And yet saying “no” feels straight-up icky.

How to say "no" without being a jerk

So, how do we manage the “no” without being the workplace jerk? The answer is … with grace. There is a whole spectrum of responses that lie between "yes" and "no." So let’s dive into the subtlety—otherwise known as the art of saying "no" without using the word.

Let’s walk through a few scenarios we’ve likely all encountered. We'll identify a response that both respects your boundaries and keeps you in the zone of heroics.

Scenario 1: It’s not your...

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Get-it-Done Guy is now Modern Mentor!

Living your best life at work isn't always easy. Sometimes, you find yourself overwhelmed, struggling to communicate, and falling short of your goals.

Or you have questions—big ones, small ones, and everything in between. But you want to be independent, to solve your own problems, to own your career path and make … things … happen.

What you need is a mentor—someone who's been there. A person you can trust to point you in the right direction with solid, actionable advice to help you communicate better, ask for what you need, focus your energies, and stay productive in your quest to meet your goals.

That's exactly what Modern Mentor is all about.

I'm Rachel Cooke, and I'm your new host for the Modern Mentor podcast … formerly, Get-It-Done Guy. In January 2020, I stepped in to take the reins for the incomparable Stever Robbins. Stever set off on a new career adventure after dedicating 11 years to helping you "work less, do more, and have a great life."

I've made a career out of helping people perform at their best … always with a dash of fun and humor.

The Quick and Dirty Tips team rebranded Get-It-Done Guy as Modern Mentor to match my fresh voice and perspective. So, here's a little bit about me! I have a background in human resources and organizational psychology, and I've made a career out of helping people perform at their best … always with a dash of fun and humor. I'm also the founder of Lead Above Noise, a leadership and organization development firm with a mission to deliver the insights, tools, and strategies that empower people and teams to achieve their fullest potential. You can visit my website at LeadAboveNoise.com to learn more.

I'm looking forward to walking this career road with you as a trusted friend and advisor. And I'd love to hear from you! What career goals can I help you strive for? Are there any day-to-day work-life challenges we can take on together? Drop me an email at modernmentor@quickanddirtytips.com, or call the Modern Mentor listener line at 201-632-5656.

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What You Need to Know About the Coronavirus

News about the coronavirus is spreading as fast as the disease itself. Here’s what we know so far:

What is the coronavirus?

Coronaviruses are not new. The large group of viruses, collectively called coronaviruses, are to blame for something as simple as the common cold. But the more serious MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) and SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) are also flavors of coronaviruses. What makes the current outbreak different is that it is a new strain of coronavirus—in the medical world, the virus is called “novel”—that we haven’t seen in humans before. This means we have not yet learned how it spreads, how severely it can affect the body, or how to get rid of it. 

The new strain, known as 2019-nCoV, presents with symptoms of fever, coughing, and shortness of breath that crop up within 2-14 days of exposure.

The new strain, known as 2019-nCoV, presents with symptoms of fever, coughing, and shortness of breath that crop up within 2-14 days of exposure. Scientists are not yet sure how the virus is spread, but the most likely scenario is that it is airborne and spread from sick people to healthy people. 

How fast is the coronavirus spreading?

When a new virus like 2019-nCoV is discovered, even if it belongs to a family of well-studied viruses, developing a vaccine can take years. With a fast-spreading virus, a few years is a very long time.  

China first reported several cases of pneumonia in a group of people who all had ties to the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, China, on December 31, 2019. Three days later, a total of 44 cases had been reported in China. Eight days later, the Chinese government identified the cause of these illnesses as the novel coronavirus 2019-nCoV. Twenty-one days later, the first confirmed case appeared in the United States—a 35-year-old man in Snohomish County, Washington, who had just returned from visiting family in Wuhan. Twenty-four days later Wuhan and its surrounding cities were put under strict quarantine. 

Developing a vaccine can take years. With a fast-spreading virus, a few years is a very long time.

Thirty days after the original outbreak report, Chinese health officials had confirmed 7,711 cases from every region in mainland China—including the latest case in Tibet—and across 15 countries. And thirty-one days after the outbreak began...

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9 Creative Ways to Erase the Winter Blahs

Now that the holiday dust has settled, your family calendar might look a bit bleak. Add winter whimsy to your life by planning some unexpected family fun. These cool ideas that will help brighten the rest of Old Man Winter’s stay.

Design a wintry scavenger hunt

A favorite activity for young and old alike is participating in a scavenger hunt. The creative possibilities are endless, and depending on the type of hunt you plan, you’ll have the bonus of eliciting problem-solving and teamwork skills.

You can create individual, family, or even a neighborhood scavenger hunt. Ideally, your adventure will take place outdoors, but for those buried in snow, an indoor hunt is also a blast.

Here are a few scavenger hunt tips.

• First, brainstorm a theme for your scavenger hunt. (Valentine’s Day is coming!)
• Create a list of items or locations your family members must hunt. You can mix practical and imaginative objects and places and even assign a point value—easy items receive a lesser value than those that are more difficult to find. You’ll discover tons of ideas on Pinterest for both your winter-based or indoor scavenger hunt.
• Be mindful of the age of all participants so all clues, locations, and prizes are age-appropriate.
• Do a walkthrough in advance to make sure you have the clues appointed correctly and try to gauge how long the hunt will take.
• If your hunt is outdoors, make sure the kids stay together. Pair younger kids with an older buddy if necessary.
• Have fun bags available to hand out at the beginning of the hunt so participants can collect the goods. 

Two years ago, my family enjoyed the most incredible scavenger hunt ever. After finding a dozen pet-related objects throughout our local discount store, they came home to discover their new Valentine’s Day puppy!

Create a family obstacle course

When freezing temps limit outdoor play, why not build an obstacle course for your kids? They'll love the challenge of having to complete each task, and you'll love how long they'll stay occupied while burning off excess energy. Best of all, you can build the course with things you already have around the house. 

A good friend...

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'Disinterested' Versus 'Uninterested'

 

You want the referee of your game to be disinterested. You don’t want the referee to have a bet on the game. As another example, if you're on trial, you want a disinterested judge. 

Generally, unless you're a lawyer, the word you're looking for is "uninterested," but a quick news search shows that "disinterested" also frequently appears. Here's how to use these words according to the traditional rules:

• Squiggly was uninterested in the Super Bowl. Instead, he was looking forward to the Puppy Bowl.
• The ex-wife can hardly be considered a disinterested party in the estate sale.

Bryan Garner, author of Garner's Modern English Usage, says that many people have given up the fight to preserve the distinction between the two words, but he believes it is worth preserving. 

The Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage editors note that their research shows a long history of overlapping use. “Uninterested” actually originally meant what “disinterested” is supposed to mean today, and the current distinction between the two only emerged with American usage writers in the late 1800s. Today, Merriam-Webster editors find that “disinterested” has taken on the additional meaning of "uninterested," but it doesn’t go the opposite way: “uninterested" is only rarely used to mean “disinterested." 

Garner’s research shows that, today, when people mean someone who has no interest in something — someone who’s just bored, for example — about half the time that person is described as “uninterested,” and about half the time that person is described as “disinterested.”

If you’d like to maintain the traditional distinction, remember that an uninterested person has no interest in something, and a disinterested person has no ethical conflicts in the situation at hand.

Image courtes of Shutterstock.

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Capitalizing Dog Breeds

Although the website for the American Kennel Club and dog-specific publications such as Bark magazine and Dogster seem to capitalize all the words in breed names, the Associated Press’s rule for dog (and cat) breeds is to capitalize the part of the name derived from a proper noun and lowercase the part of the name derived from a common noun.

Consider these names:

• English mastiff
• Yorkshire terrier
• Norwegian elkhound
• Bernese mountain dog

In those examples, according to AP style, “English,” “Yorkshire,” “Norwegian,” and “Bernese”  are all capitalized because they are derived from proper nouns—the names of places. 

On the other hand, "mastiff" is derived from the Latin "mansuétus" for "tame or mild," "terrier" is derived from the Old French "chien terrier" for "dog of the earth, land, or ground,” and “elkhound” is descriptive as is “mountain dog”—so those are all common nouns, which means those parts aren’t capitalized. 

And for some breeds, all the words in the name are lowercase, such as “basset hound.” These hunting dogs were initially bred in France and Belgium, and “basset” means “low” in French, describing their lowness to the ground because of their short little legs. All the better to sniff for prey!

The Chicago Manual of Style doesn’t give instructions that are as specific as those from the Associated Press, but refers writers to Merriam-Webster dictionaries, which appear to generally follow the same guidelines as the AP. 

Since styles seem to vary, if you’re writing about the Puppy Bowl, the best advice I can give you is to check the style guide for your publication, or if you’re writing for yourself, check a dictionary or choose a style you like and simply use it consistently. 

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.

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