Hacking your brain

I attended an interesting lecture today as part of Universal's Women's Network. The Guest speaker was a very interesting woman who works as a sign language interpreter, yoga instructor, mom, singer, etc. named Babetta Popoff. Basically anything that is super cool. Her parents are deaf and she studied psychology to better understand the brain and such. Here's what I learned:

-There are two types of brain: The Reptilian - which controls all the instinctual functions; and Grey stuff that handles all other human stuff like emotions, thinking, memory, etc.
-Simple tasks like yawning, or balancing help activate different parts of the brain.
-It is important to try new things and do thing differently to keep the mind flexible. i.e. Lumosity.com

Another interesting conclusion was the power of positive thought. Recently Mike Costello informed me of the principals as described in The Secret by Rhonda Bryne. Apparently having a positive attitude attracts positive things and conversely negative things attracts negative things. Being positive, envisioning things, and being thankful for things, increases this power.

I've always felt negativity, in fact, I'm a junkie for it. My job is a very negative place (people bitch to me for 9 hours a day). To try these techniques and reverse the way of thinking that I've been doing for so long is a personal challenge. I have a great support team and I know that admitting it is half the battle. Part of me knows that there is a psychological effect to feeling better, but then there are strange things that happen too.

I figure that being more positive can't hurt, so we'll see.