Link video saya: Click sini
My video: Heart & Brain – A Miracle Discovered
My video: What Makes You & I Click?
My Video: Senyum Pensel
Covid19: What 12 Minutes Can Do To Your Brain
Is the current pandemic helping, distracting or making things worse for you?
This depends on how your brain cells reorganise themselves (you have atleast 100 billion of them in your 1.1 kilogram brain – as many as the stars in the entire universe).
Can one change the way of thinking?
Can one change the way they perceive matters – especially in these turbulent times?
The 12 Minute Tip
Contemplating God will change your brain, but let me also point out that meditating on other grand themes will also change your brain.
If you contemplate the Big Bang, or immerse yourself in the study of evolution – or choose to play a musical instrument, for that matter – you’ll change the neural circuitry in ways that enhance your cognitive health.
But religious and spiritual contemplation changes your brain in a profoundly different way because it strengthens a unique neural circuit that specifically enhance social awareness and empathy while subduing destructive feelings and emotions.
This is precisely the kind of neural change we need to make if we want to solve the conflicts and matters that are currently afflicting our world.
More importantly, during the Covid 19 pandemic that all of us are facing.
The underlying mechanism that allows these changes to occur relates to a unique quality known as neuroplasticity: the ability of your brain to structurally rearrange itself in response to a wide variety of positive and negative events.
One of the many ways our brain cells (neurons) are trained to reorganise themselves is through meditation (prayers, reflection, etc, yoga & other meditative states).
It has been proven that with just 12 minutes of prayers / meditation / remembering God a day, amazing changes happen in one’s brain.
But these changes will highly depend on what YOU want, so when you think of God with a positive mind (and a highly hopeful one – not blaming, cursing or denying etc.), your brain cells will rewire themselves into more meaningful connections (brain cells need to connect with others to “perform” thoughts and actions, mind you).
The key to thinking, perceiving, believing is these connections.
How your brain cells connect the dots.
This explains why, especially in turbulent situations, some people still manage to think positively, while the rest (many others), keep playing the blame-game and fall into depression mode.
Some people are trained to think “critically” – avoiding what’s unimportant and irrelevant – and making the best of what they have instead of lamenting on what they don’t.
Perhaps this is the best time for all of us to do so;
Meditate, reflect,…act.
After all, don’t things happen for a reason?
“When will you begin that long journey into yourself?” – (Rumi)
#MyBrainInPinkFlippers
#JomZoomOtak
#neurobizmalaysia
PART 1 Covid19: Muhasabah Industri Pelancongan Negara
Sebagai salah seorang yang aktif didalam industri pelancongan negara dan sentiasa menyokong penuh rakan-rakan industri tersebut, saya terpanggil untuk menulis tentang betapa hebatNya dugaan rakan-rakan industri pelancongan ketika ini.
Ramai rakan-rakan industri yang saya kenal rapat sudah mula “terduduk” dan amat terkesan dengan pandemik ini sehinggakan ada yang “terpaksa” memberhentikan para pekerja bermula April ini.
Sudah tentu ini sama sekali bukan kehendak mereka, tetapi jika anda seorang usahawan (yang bukan usahawan tak perlulah sibuk-sibuk komen yang bukan-bukan ya), anda akan amat memahami situasi ini.
Jika anda seorang usahawan, anda tahu bahawa hanya ada 2 cara sahaja sesebuah perniagaan mampu maju dan berdaya saing (ini nasihat pertama saya kepada semua pelajar saya dalam kelas);
You either;
-
Increase revenue, or / and (tingkatkan hasilan/jualan), atau/ dan;
-
Decrease costs (turunkan kos)
Dalam situasi sangat mencabar ketika ini, yang mana satu akan menjadi pilihan terpantas?
Sudah tentulah yang kedua. Pilihan pertama tinggal harapan sahaja.
Apakah cara termudah untuk turunkan kos operasi (terutamanya kos tetap)?
Paling “cepat” (walaupun ianya paling SUKAR untuk dilakukan) adalah dengan memberhentikan pekerja sama ada untuk suatu tempoh, ataupun terus “tamatkan perkhidmatan”.
Anda mungkin sudahpun tahu bahawa industri pelancongan merupakan salah sebuah industri yang memberi impak tertinggi kepada sesebuah negara (purata 10% GDP dunia), khususnya di negara-negara Asia Tenggara.
Tahun 2019 sahaja hampir 26 juta pelancong antarabangsa mendarat di Malaysia, menyumbang sebanyak RM84 billion kepada ekonomi negara.
Walaupun angka ini telah menurun untuk beberapa tahun kebelakangannya, namun Visit Malaysia 2020 telah diharapkan memberi suntikan bermakna kepada angka ini…sehinggalah pandemik Covid-19 bermula.
Namun begitu, perlu juga sentiasa diingat dan percaya (having faith and belief) bahawasanya tiap apa yang Tuhan jadikan merupakan hikmahNya kepada setiap diri kita, dan disebabkan inilah rakan-rakan industri pelancongan tempatan juga perlu bermuhasabah diri dan sentiasa memperbaiki diri dan perniagaan masing-masing.
Pihak World Travel and Tourism Council telah memberi amaran bahawa pandemik ini mampu mengakibatkan pemberhentian 50 juta pekerjaan berkaitan industri pelancongan diserata dunia;
-
Asia akan terjejas paling teruk
-
Jika pendemik ini berakhir, diramal bahawa pemulihan industri ini akan memakan masa sekurang-kurangnya 10 bulan.
-
Paling terjejas secara langsung adalah subsektor penerbangan, kapal cruise dan logistik yang lain, diikuti dengan industri penginapan jangka pendek (hotel, dll.).
“Muhasabah” Industri
Apa kita semua alami ketika ini perlu diberi perhatian yang sangat serius – bukan sahaja pencegahan dan penularan virus ini, tetapi yang lebih utama juga adalah berbalik semula kepada puncanya.
Tuhan tidak bersifat zalim keatas semua ciptaanNya, dan dengan ini perlulah setiap pemain industri berfikir panjang mengapa pandemik ini diturunkan, dan mengapa tamparan hebatNya dan secara langsung kepada industri ini?
Selama penglibatan saya secara langsung di dalam industri ini, banyak yang boleh saya katakan / komen, tetapi terpulanglah kepada setiap pemain itu sendiri untuk memikirkan adakah mereka telah patuh kepada tuntutan-tuntutan yang perlu diikuti dan dilandaskan menurut ajaran masing-masing?
Pemain industri hotel, sebagai contoh, mungkin inilah masanya untuk mereka membuat refleksi bagaimana operasi hotel selama ini telah dijalankan?
Sebagai contoh paling ketara, arak, shisha, masih dijual secara terbuka, dan ada juga beberapa pusat penginapan yang masih “tutup sebelah mata” membenarkan kegiatan-kegiatan yang langsung tidak menghormati “kesopanan dan kesusilaan” negara (nude beach, drink-all-you-can, gamble-till-you-drop, party-till-you-drop, dll.)
Banyak lagi sebenarnya, tapi cukuplah setakat yang “major” ini – nanti ramai pula rakan-rakan industri saya yang merajuk, unfriend pula saya. 🙂
Bab zakat juga saya rasa perlu disentuh…sebab sedihnya ada dikalangan yang saya kenal sendiri tidak mengambil serius tentang pembayaran zakat perniagaan.
Ada juga pemain industri (khususnya yang kecil dan sederhana) saya perhatikan tidak mempunyai business model yang efisien dan inovatif; tidak mempunyai pengurusan risiko (risk/safety management) – jika yang melibatkan sukan/aktiviti luar/extreme – memasarkan apa yang lain dari realiti perkhidmatan yang diberikan (“cakap lain, buat lain?”) dan sebagainya.
Saya mengenali seorang usahawan muda makanan “gourmet” di Johor Bahru yang berjaya. Beliau mengatakan didalam model perniagaannya (business model) disentuh tentang “kepentingan solat diawal waktu – dan jika berpeluang, berjamaah, walaupun semasa perniagaan sedang berjalan”.
Pada awalnya, kebanyakan pelanggan memberi reaksi sangat negatif (ramai yang memaki hamun pun) kepada penekanan ini kerana mereka sanggup beratur selama lebih sejam (sehingga dua jam!) untuk menunggu giliran diwaktu peak hours, tetapi terpaksa tambah masa beratur kerana staf perlu “tunaikan kewajipan solat”.
Beliau tetap dengan pendirian (keyakinan, kepercayaan) bahawa tiang agama perlu tetap teguh dan ini akan membina sebuah “tiang” kukuh untuk perniagaannya.
Dengan pendekatan ini, pelanggan (dari setiap bangsa dan agama) mula memberikan “respect” dan memahami (dan ada yang menjadikan perniagaan beliau sebagai role model usahawan muda F&B) dan menyokong penuh usahanya.
“Moving On”
Saya gemar menyelami puisi-puisi bermakna Rumi dan dikala menulis artikel ini, beberapa puisi beliau terngiang-ngiang diminda:
Moving on,
Bagaimana strategi terbaik pemain industri untuk tetap “survive” dalam keadaan genting ini?
InshaAllah jika berpeluang akan bersambung ditulisan akan datang.
Dalam pada menunggu, jom sama-sama bermuhasabah (refleksi diri) – bukan sahaja ditujukan kepada anda sipemilik perniagaan, tetapi juga semua kakitangan perniagaan pelancongan – receptionist di kaunter dan menjawab panggilan, waiter dan waitress di cafe-cafe, team housekeeping, cabin crew, cruise ship managers, semuanya.
Jika diizinkanNya pandemik ini berakhir, jom hidupkan kembali secara lebih efisien dan lebih professional industri pelancongan negara.
May we be strong through these hard times, for we have no choice but to remain strong.
#myBrainInPinkFlippers #neurobizmalaysia #jomzoomotak
God: A Human History of Religion
Revisiting one of the (good) books I’ve read last year;
On pages 38 & 39;
Imagine Eve and her children begin to scout for food into the woods in the early morning darkness, she suddenly sees, out of her eye, a face staring back at her through the trees. She freezes. Her muscles stiffen. Her blood vessels consrict. Her heart rate accelerates. Adrenaline floods her body. She is ready to pounce or flee.
Then she looks again and realizes that what she thought was a face was actually knots of a trunk of a tree. Her muscles relax. Her heart rate drops. She lets out her breath and continues on her journey through the woods.
Cognitive theorists have a term for what Eve has just experienced. They call it Hypersensitive Agency Detection Device (HADD). This is a biological process that arose deep in our evolutionary past, all the way back in the days when hominids were still stooped and hairy. In its simplest terms, HADD leads us to detect human ‘agency’, and hence a human ’cause’, behind any unexplained event: a distant sound in the woods, a flash of light in the sky, a tendril of fog slithering along the ground. HADD explains why we assume every bump in the night is caused by someone doing the bumping.
Our innate willingness to attribute human agency to natural phenomena can have clear evolutionary advantages. What if it hadn’t been a tree that Eve saw? What if it had been a bear? Isn’t it better to err on the side on caution? There is no harm in mistaking a tree for a predator, but there certainly would be in mistaking a predator for a tree. Better to guess wrong than to be eaten.
It is obvious in the above example, how HADD could promote Eve’s survival. Yet according to a group of cognitive scientists, who study religion, what Eve experienced in those dark woods is more than just an involuntary reaction to a potential threat. It is the basis for our belief in God: the true evolutionary origin of the religious impulse.
The cognitive science of religion begins with a simple premise: Religion is first and foremost a neurological phenomenon. The religious impulse, in other words is ultimately a function of complex electrochemical reactions in the brain. Ofcourse this fact on its own is not a compelling observation, and it certainly does not diminish or delegitimise the religious impulse. Every impulse – every impulse without exception – is generated by complex electrochemical reactions in the brain. Why would the religious impulse be any different?
Knowing the neural mechanics of the religious impulse does not undermine the legitimacy of religious belief any more than knowing the chemical process of romantic attraction makes the feeling any less real or the object of our affection less worthy.
The mere fact that we have beliefs that spring from mental tools selected for by natural selection is, all by itself, totally irrelevant to the justification of the beliefs that spring from them.
Nevertheless, if it is true that religion is a neurological phenomenon, then perhaps we should be searching for the origins of the religious impulse where that impulse actually resides: in the brain.
(God: A Human History of Religion)
Reza Aslan 2018
#myBrainInPinkFlippers #neurobizmalaysia #jomzoomotak
Laughing = Business?
It was last week that I heard a podcaster interviewing a prominent researcher’s findings on laughing (she spends a portion of the United States of America’s taxpayers money brilliantly on special research projects on LAUGHTER).
What I learnt from her sharing:
Businesses hire her to look into how laugher turns into profit. For instance, the entertainment business (obviously!) makes the most out of her research findings and ‘experiments’.
To illustrate, the ever popular series hit FRIENDS learnt lessons from her findings – what makes people laugh? Is laughter really contagious? Do different types of laughs mean DIFFERENTLY? How to structure jokes meaningfully so that laugher triggers thinking? And the list goes on.
FRIENDS used ‘laugh sound recordings’ (many live series do!) and they researched robustly on the best mechanics of this – when best to play the recordings? What sound level is best? Is there a difference when people notice these are laughter recordings? etc.
Movie makers too (ofcourse!) benefit from her researches.
Then other businesses came into the picture.
Giant corporations too came to her to see how laughter yoga, for instance, or group laughter gatherings (or FORCED laugher), effects performance. Clearly, teams who laugh more together often perform better.
Laughter research’s certainly a no-joker, okay?
#neurobizmalaysia
#myBrainInPinkFlippers
#jomZoomOtak
2020 & 12 Minute Magic
おはようございます Ohaiyo gozaimasu, Assalamualaikum guys,
Enter any new year and we hear people around us sharing about their new year’s resolutions. While a few boasts about how they beat the odds throughout the year empowering themselves to work for their goals, most find it entertaining by making fun of how they failed to achieve theirs in the past year.
Do you know that there are already proven lab experiments stating that there are ways to “reconfigure” and “fine tune” your mind, to make you work on NEW habits and actions?
Just like your car. It needs fuel to move. But it also, once in a while, needs a major overhaul by making major changes.
The Al-Mighty God only helps people who helps themselves, thus change will only happen if YOU trigger and work on it YOURSELF. That said, transformation only happens when YOU make it happen.
You can’t hope for your spouse, colleagues, boss, teacher, …or even the government (strangely, you can never hope for the “pihak-pihak berwajib” to change YOU or your surroundings!). Worse, some even put hopes on “mother nature”, when WE should be the ones taking care of her; the other way around.
There are proven ways to enforce a major change in thinking and action.
Nuroscientists have found evidence that if we focus on meditating to change ourselves, a mere 12 minutes a day, the billions of neuron cells in our brain rearranges and reorganises themselves into NEW configurations, to allow for changes to happen in your mind.
What kind of meditation do they mean?
Thinking of God.
In this simple sense, saying prayers. Or performing chants (zikr’) with minimal movements of the lips (uttering in a very low voice), and light gestures of the fingers (holding prayer beads, etc.)
Neuroscientists have done experiments on people who meditate in this form and found that the climax happens when the hundred of billions of neuron cells in their brain begin to reorganise and reconfigure themselves. This is magical.
When this happens, meditators are “lost” in their own world, they no longer can hear what’s happening around them, they only hear their own soft chants, and their minds are so focused on God that they in the end feel at “one with God”.
It only takes 12 minutes of this to happen for our neuron cells to rewire and reorganise themselves, neuroscientists say.
Why rewire and reorganise?
If you still don’t know, neuron cells will only be of value in your brain ONLY if they CONNECT to other neuron cells. They’re pretty useless when they’re alone.
And if you still don’t know, how we actually THINK (and act, ofcourse) depends on these CONNECTIONS. The video below shows how neurons connect to each other. Click to view.
That said, different levels of thinking means a major difference in how your neurons connect to each other e.g. with which neuron cell(s)? Of which brain area(s)? How fast? How powerful? etc.
Meditation changes this configuration magically.
It rewires and reconnects your neurons to where it’s SUPPOSED to connect to.
So back to your new year goals? …
Meditate on your goals! Tie them up with your existence in this world. With your work, your life, your family, with the surroundings around you. And ultimately, with God.
After all, aren’t we all the humble creations of God?
All the best in 2020!
Nobody can help you. It has always been your call.
And will always be.
#MyBrainInPinkFlippers. #jomZoomOtak #neurobizmalaysia
Ting! Bila Nama Anda Disebut
おはようございます Assalamualaikum semua!
Tahukah anda bahawa manusia sangat teruja apabila mendengar / melihat nama mereka disebut?
Konsep yang telah dibuktikan didalam makmal neurosains ini telahpun lama digunapakai oleh beberapa perniagaan yang berjaya.
Jom ambil contoh Starbucks:
Dengan hanya ucapan (dengan nada ceria): “Hi there, welcome to Starbucks! What can I get for you today?”
….”What shall your name be on your coffee today, Maam?”
… secara automatik mengujakan neuron-neuron ‘special’ didalam otak kita, iaitu Von Economo Neurons (VENs) yang walaupun hanya sedikit bilangannya tetapi sangat ‘powerful’ pengaruhnya kepada neuron-neuron bahagian lain didalam otak anda dan saya.
VENs ini berkait rapat dengan “ego” anda dan saya.
Ia juga berkait rapat dengan perasaan belas kasihan (compassion) dan empathy – konsep yang amat bertentangan, dengan ego, kan?
VENs akan mengaktifkan bahagian Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC) yang berperanan mengawal emosi kita.
