Self Help Software by Michael Logan

Even for a veteran self helper, self help software is a curious and wonderful place to explore.

I wonder of Alice felt like this before heading down the rabbit hole?

There is just a huge amount of self-help software out there, which does offer some advantages, and has some disadvantages. Can I use it on my mobile, when I am away from my computer?

Self help by definition is about ending some problem physical, emotional, mental, or behavioral situation.

The one thing that I have never seen in any self help tome, manual, software package, workshop, or pamphlet is information about the rapidity and randomness that the problem has inside my body, more specifically inside my brain.

For example, as a recovering person, can you predict when an urge to use will happen? Of course not. If you are not prepared in that 1/18th second for the change in physiology, you may find yourself using before you know it.

As a domestic violence educator and a licensed one on one heart rate variability provider, with extensive personal and professional experience in the recovery field, I have helped train folks to deal with emotional management heart beat by heart beat using heart rate variability biofeedback, and brain wave by brain wave using EEG Biofeedback.

A heart may beat 60 times per minute, and beta brain waves may cycle 15 to 42 times per second, so self help software needs to be applicable to that rate of speed.

That means I need to be prepared to intervene in my head with my solution fast and frequently for self help software to work.

Mihalyi Csikszintmihalyi, Ph.D., in his book FLOW reports that we process seven bits of sensory data (vision, sound, pressure, smell, taste) every 1/18th second, which is twice as fast as I can blink my eyes.

So I can be doing my self help self talk, and be reminded of that car accident that happened 20 years ago at the intersection I am driving by, find myself in a fight or flight physiology because of the memory, and if I am not paying attention, I may carry that fight or flight home and do something very irrational.

So self help needs to fast and I need to be prepared to handle emergency reappearances of the problem physiology, thought, or behavior, and do it quickly.

That takes attention, and biofeedback is a great way to attend to my body.

I can recommend heart rate variability biofeedback for that. I have been using it and teaching it for nine years with great results because I have anxiety issues from witnessing violence as a kid, and heart rate variability biofeedback helps me calm fast, and actually I practice it when I am not anxious because I feel good when I practice it. Practicing heart rate variability biofeedback has allowed me to learn to recognize subtle changes in my body quickly.

Self Help and Self Talk

Tired of going over the same issues without resolution?

* Do your reactions get in the way of your happiness and success?

* Are you working on your goals without getting results?

Learn to be your own Thought Whisperer!

Like a "horse whisperer" or "dog whisperer" the key to resolving recurring issues is to Listen! You learn to listen to your "self talk," that inner dialogue that goes on in everyone's head. You identify the things you tell yourself over and over again and see how that self talk affects every aspect of your life. Some of that inner dialogue is very irrational and we pay attention to it like it was direct sense impressions.

Did you know that you could challenge irrational and limiting thoughts?

Unless you challenge irrational or limiting thoughts you are doomed to constantly face the same issues.

The key to your success in challenging your own thoughts is inward attention.

Sometimes it is a pain to acknowledge that I am the creator of all my own thoughts, which are based on my interpretation of physical sensations. Don't believe me? Ask yourself right now where you are experiencing vision, where you are reading this material.

Give yourself a hand if you said in your visual cortex which is in the back of your brain.

Minus five is you said on your computer monitor.

All sensory experience is processed internally. You can make the case that there is no external reality, since I process all of it happens inside my brain.

Therefore, you need to be prepared to manage your thinking and physiology constantly, because an automatic negative thought requiring the intervention of the thought whisperer will be required frequently.

Why not practice automatic positive thoughts regularly? One of the nice things about heart rate variability biofeedback is that I can practice it at will, whenever I want to feel good.

So has all this talk about brains made you wonder about self help software for your brain?

I hope so because there are some good programs available for increasing my awareness of my thoughts, even increasing my IQ.

Just remember, a high IQ without a high EQ, or emotional intelligence, is no guarentee of anything besides high IQ scores.