Based on his childhood, Nikola had energy on his mind from an early age.Young Nikola dreamed of harnessing the power of Niagara Falls.By 1887, he had developed the alternating current as a way to transmit power over long distances.But the concept wasn’t immediately accepted.It wasn’t until the 1893 World Fair in ChicagoTesla was able to demonstrate the effectiveness of his idea and when he did,It was glorious by any measure.

Trust in your Life Long Goal

Many CEOs have unusual preferences and personal habits.Whether they’re motivated by wellbeing or organization, these quirks seem integral to their success.Nikola Tesla was eccentric and had a strong aesthetic sensibility.He teaches us to embrace our presence on the earth.No matter what you look, where you are from, it doesn’t matter.The only thing matters are what you can do for the future.

Embrace your You-ness

Though he took cat naps throughout the day.Tesla also claimed he never slept more than 2 hours.Once he stopped eating solid foods, opting instead for liquid sustenance like warm milk and juices.Tesla strongly believedThe ability to focus on something is directly proportional to the food he consumed.Tesla also smoked excessively for a short period,which he claimed threatened to ruin his health and he wasn’t able to focus.

Habits for being Productive

Nikola Tesla believed deeply in the power of solitude.“Be alone is the secret of invention; be alone, that is when ideas are born”.We can reflect and think creatively, rather than diluting our attention with endless distractions.

Learn to love your own company

He regularly collaborated and socialized with some of the greatest minds of his time:Fellow scientists Politicians, Business people• Rudyard Kipling• John Muir• Henry Clay Frick• Albert EinsteinTesla Even received a celebratory letter from Albert Einstein himself on his 75th birthday.Surround yourself with people whom you respect and admire,from a variety of backgrounds and industries.

Surround yourself with interesting people

<ul><li>Be Fearless</li><li>Trust in your Life Long Goal</li><li>Embrace your You-ness</li><li>Habits for being Productive</li><li>Learn to love your own company</li><li>Surround yourself with interesting</li></ul>

TL;DR


If you love to read Similar Stories, from some of the greatest minds. I decode some of the valuable lessons from some of the Grittiest people each week.A perseverance lesson that you can learn to grow your personal life and business.Subscribe to the newsletter.<a href="https://infinitehorizon.substack.com/subscribe">https://infinitehorizon.substack.com/subscribe</a>

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He lived his whole life with Humility and Solitude, tinkering with his imaginations. Here are 6 lessons from him to improve ourselves. Tesla was the poster child for divergent thinking and refused to…

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Philosophy

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Personal Development

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Communication

6 Lessons to learn from the Life of Nikola Tesla

Milo of Croton was a 6th-century BC wrestler from the Magna Graecian city of Croton, who enjoyed a brilliant wrestling career and won many victories in the most important athletic festivals of ancient Greece. He decided to carry a newborn calf on his shoulders to strengthen himself day by day, for more than four years. While people were laughing at him, the small calf slowly grew into an adult ox and Milo got stronger and stronger along the way.Now let’s look at the main lessons of his training and improvements.

Who was Milo and why was he carrying a calf?

Milo didn’t start by lifting a big heavy ox. He started with a calf. That gave him the chance to master the fundamentals.He went with a smart approach to take on a manageable challenge and slowly develop strength and self-confidence, even though people were judging him. Deep down he had a long term vision that was much bigger than the short-term pain of being laughed at.“In five years, you can dramatically improve your health, wealth, relationships, competences, happiness or whatever your goals is. Read one page per day and then add an additional one everyday.”

Acquiring any new skill starts with very small steps

Hard work beats talent every time. But hard work is hard, since it demands almost bulletproof consistency and focus.You have to persistently follow a carefully orchestrated process that leads you to your big vision. Consistency and never giving up, while staying flexible, are the key to everything. Milo knew that and thus wherever he went, he never left the growing calf behind.Here is what consistency means in very practical terms:<ul><li>It’s better to exercise five times per week for an hour than one time for five hours.</li><li>It’s better to learn skill for an hour everyday than 5 hours in a day.</li></ul>

Milo knew that consistency is key

“I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times”

Consistency is only part of the equation. Lift, Carry, Put down, Rest, Pick up. Practice Lay Down. Rest Day after day. Week after week. Year after year.The right kind of consistency helps you focus, lay strong foundations and master the basics. The second part of the equation is progressive overload in combination with interleaved practice.Practicing something with the same amount of effort and in pretty much the same way sooner or later becomes easy. Your comfort zone stretches and when that happens it’s time put more effort on your shoulders.

Make sure you combine consistency with progressive overload and interleaved practice

“If you only do what you can do, you’ll never be more than you are now.”

There is one thing that the Milo’s story doesn’t tell. Progress is rarely linear. Usually it happens with “one step back, two steps forward” or even in “a few steps back, one quantum leap forward” way.Ups and downs. You practice, you work hard, but the progress is really slow. Or maybe you get sick, or a little bit fed up with everything and you simply must take a break. Those kinds of situations can make you extremely frustrated.But if you keep persisting (maybe by adding one more pause or two), one day you wake up, go to your practice, and suddenly see a big improvement.

As Good as the Story might sound, progress is never linear

If consistency, progression and interleaved practice are the key to success, that means the most important thing is to never give up.You should never be afraid of slow progress, the only thing you should be afraid of is to stop trying. There’s a simple secret how to make sure you never give up.The secret is to start with why. You need a strong emotional reason why you want to achieve something. You must empower your doing with a mission, which is greater than any setback on the road. When you find your why, you don’t have a problem with motivation anymore.

In the end, make sure you never give up

<ul><li>Start with 1 and be consistent.</li><li>Make sure you don't do 1 push up everyday, increase your rate everday to increase your potential.</li></ul>Thanks for reading this further. If you love this type of conent. I share some of the meaningful insights from books, articles, vidoes or podcasts every Friday. Sign up to get it in your mailbox.<a href="https://emojipedia.org/link/">🔗</a> <a class="idea-content-link" href="https://infinitemiles.substack.com">https://infinitemiles.substack.com</a>

Summary:

Milo from Croton small town in Southern Italy, in 6th century BC was an Olympic winner six times in a row. He had also won prestigious athletic titles, including 32 wrestling competitions and…

productivity

Productivity

habits

Habits

Do you know the Milo of Croton and his extraordinary story? He decided to carry a calf each day.

It takes time to undo a lifetime of bad choices, but you’d be surprised how much you can accomplish in six months if you’re committed and take consistent action. You can make a huge change in your life in just half a year.

What does it takes?

Set a goal in each of the following areas: Financial, Health, Career and Other.<ul><li>Financial: You might want to set a goal for your bank account balance, earnings, or to pay off your debt.</li><li>Health : Need to lose a few pounds ? Want to bench press 250 pounds? Follow a healthy diet for six months?</li><li>Career: Perhaps you want a promotion, to change companies.</li><li>Miscellaneous: You could set a goal to travel somewhere, master a song on the piano, get a jump on learning a language, or buy a new car.</li></ul>

"A good goal is something that you believe is possible but would be challenging. It should also be something that makes you excited when you think about achieving it."

Understand where you’re starting. If you want to increase your savings account to $10,000, you’d best known your current balance. The same goes for your weight if you’re trying to lose weight.

2. Measure your current situation

Based on where you are and where you want to go, what is a logical plan to get there? Remember that you have six months and plan accordingly.

3. Create a plan

<h2>If you want to lose weight, you exercise and diet habits are important. Your habits have a tremendous impact on the results you achieve in life. Good habits yield good results.</h2>

4. Determine the habits you need to ensure success.

<h2>It’s hard to stay focused on a goal for six months, and it’s easy to procrastinate. Set short-term goals that lead to your long-term goals.</h2>

5. Set short-term goals

<h2>Even with the best plans in the world, nothing happens until you take action to reach your goals.</h2>

6. Take action

<h2>Record your feelings, plans, ideas, results, and observations. You’ll get a kick out of looking back on your journal someday.</h2>

7. Keep a journal.

<h2>Regularly measure your progress. It’s important to know how you’re doing so you can make any adjustments. How will you know if your diet and exercise plans are working if you never get on the scale?</h2>

8. Measure your progress.

<h2>You’re probably not going to create the perfect plan right out of the gate. There will be a lot of fine tuning along the way. Stick to your goals but be willing to change how you accomplish them.</h2>

9. Be flexible in your approach.

Thank you for reading this further, I hope you got a valuable insights from this. If you're busy scrolling these then let me deliver valuable insights that can add value to your life every Friday. Signup my newsletter: <a class="idea-content-link" href="https://infinitemiles.substack.com/">https://infinitemiles.substack.com/</a> And if you read book everyday, I have a recommendations for you. <a class="idea-content-link" href="https://bit.ly/3lYhzlO">Books Recommendation for August.</a>

Bonus

It takes time to undo a lifetime of bad choices, but you’d be surprised how much you can accomplish in six months if you’re committed and take consistent action. You can make a huge change in your…

How to Improve yourself in 6 Months

There are so many things that are out of our control. Trying to gain control over them is only going to make us miserable. Focus on only the things that are in our control and let the rest be. It will all work out in the end!

Change what you can and forget the rest

<h2>Seneca wrote to his friend Lucilius, “In all things we should try to make ourselves be as grateful as possible.” No matter what happens in life, there is always plenty to be grateful for. Make it a point to write down things that you are grateful for.</h2>

Be grateful at all times :

Epictetus said, “You can bind up my leg, but not even Zeus has the power to break my freedom of choice.” The human spirit knows no bounds. No matter what life throws at you, you have it within you to fight it and emerge the victor.

Nothing can break you

“Dig deep within yourself, for there is a fountain of goodness ever ready to flow if you will keep digging.” Marcus Aurelius. Everything is inside us. Instead of looking outside and walking the path of someone else, look within and forge you own path.

Go within yourself :

<h2>Marcus Aurelius has said “For what can even the most malicious person do if you keep showing kindness and, if given the chance, you gently point out where they went wrong — right as they are trying to harm you?”</h2>Being unkind and cruel as the masks that people wear hiding their own inner conflicts and pain. Anger is way to dissipate pain. Instead of taking it out on someone else, go within and work on it.

Be Kind always :

<h2>It is important for one to know their mortality. The fact that they will not live forever. Sounds grim but in fact it is the most beautiful and liberating thought since it will force you to take action now!</h2>

Be aware of your Mortality :

<h2>Marcus Aurelius has written, “Often injustice lies in what you aren’t doing, not only in what you are doing.”. We humans believe that as long as we are not doing evil, we are considered to be a good human.</h2>

Proactively do good deeds :

<h2>“Don’t seek for everything to happen as you wish it would, but rather wish that everything happens as it actually will — then your life will flow well, ” Epictetus.</h2>We often try out best to change the flow of how things are doing to meet our expectations and when things don’t go our way we are stuck in the vicious cycle of depression and anxiety. Let go of trying to control what you can’t and accept the things just the way they are.

Accept your fate :

<h2>Seneca has said “As each day arises, welcome it as the very best day of all, and make it your own possession. We must seize what flees.”.</h2>

Seize the day :

<h2>We have a huge list of goals that we would like to accomplish but often times we put way too much on our plate at once which leads to burn out and overwhelm.</h2>“Don’t set your heart on so many things,” says Epictetus. There is nothing wrong in wanting things. Just remember that you can have it all just not at the same time!

Don’t set out to accomplish everything at the same time :

<h2>Life is the ultimate endurance sport. It will throw curve balls at you at the most unexpected times. It would be wise to train and prepare mentally, physically and spiritually for whatever life throws at you.</h2>Most people go through life unprepared and when life knocks them down they shatter like a deck of cards. “The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing, because an artful life requires being prepared to meet and withstand sudden and unexpected attacks.” Marcus Aurelius.

Always be prepared :

<h2>The stoics teach us to share the happiness and sadness that comes with the success and failures of others. Seneca said “rejoice in all their successes and be moved by their every failure.”</h2>

Be empathetic and selfless :

<h2>Through the inner reflection and introspection the stoics ultimately inspire us to believe in ourselves. Once you find your path, trust that it is the right path and keep walking on it.</h2>Along the way you will get distracted by opinions and doubts, keep believing and walking the path. Thanks for reading this futher, I this post was able give a meaningful insights follow for more post.  If you want to get a (free) insightful lessons from a book, podcast or videos each week. Join the newsletter.  <a class="idea-content-link" href="https://infinitemiles.substack.com/">https://infinitemiles.substack.com/</a>

Believe in yourself :

There are so many things that are out of our control. Trying to gain control over them is only going to make us miserable. Focus on only the things that are in our control and let the rest be. It…

What lessons can we learn from Stoicism?

It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested… So it is: we are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied but wasteful of it… Life is long if you know how to use it.

1. Time is only short if you waste it.

Whenever you create goals and envision a better future, you’re actually planning for your future self, who values discipline and long term rewards.But when it comes time to take action, your present self—who values short term gratification—fights with your future self. And more times than not, it wins.One of the best ways to counter this problem is to make the rewards from your long-term goals immediate.Example: if you’d like to exercise more regularly, but you also enjoy socializing, you could sign up for gym classes or participate in team sports to immediately benefit from social rewards.

2. Create immediate rewards for long-term goals.

Contrary to popular opinion, Seneca argues that busyness is an illusion of productivity that actually steals our valuable time:“No activity can be successfully pursued by an individual who is preoccupied …Living is the least important activity of the preoccupied man; yet there is nothing which is harder to learn.”We often blame external triggers—people, social media, emails—for our inability to stay focused and avoid distractions.But in reality, <a href="https://mayooshin.com/amygdala-hijack/">it’s our internal state of emotions that influences our productivity</a>.

3. Recognize that busyness is the ultimate distraction.

Most time management experts recommend that we focus on the present and plan for the future. But Seneca takes a different approach. He recommends that we focus on the past:“But life is very short and anxious for those who forget the past, neglect the present, and fear the future.”

4. Reflect on the past

Whilst sharing his thoughts on the vice of procrastination, Seneca writes:“While wasting our time hesitating and procrastinating, life goes on…”Seneca suggests that one of the best ways to overcome procrastination is to practice what Stoics refer to as Premaditatio Malorum.In layman’s terms, it’s simply visualizing what could go wrong in the future.

5. Prepare for the worst case scenario.

“You live as if you were destined to live forever, no thought of your frailty ever enters your head, of how much time has already gone by you take no heed. You squander time as if you drew from a full and abundant supply, though all the while that day which you bestow on some person or thing is perhaps your last.”Seneca argues that our perception of death affects how we live our lives.

7. Contemplate Death.

Everyone hustles his life along, and is troubled by a longing for the future and weariness of the present. But the man who … organizes every day as though it were his last, neither longs for nor fears the next day.Often we postpone our happiness until the future, but Seneca argues that ironically this “future” we obsess about doesn’t exist—only the present does.If instead, we plan and live each day as if it were our last, we can better enjoy today and prepare for tomorrow.

8. Avoid wasting time planning for the future.

It is inevitable that life will be not just very short but very miserable for those who acquire by great toil what they must keep by greater toil. They achieve what they want laboriously; they possess what they have achieved anxiously; and meanwhile they take no account of time that will never more return. New preoccupations take the place of the old, hope excites more hope and ambition more ambition. They do not look for an end to their misery, but simply change the reason for it.

9. Don’t be overambitious.

In his book, On the shortness of life, Seneca shares crucial life lessons on how to stop procrastinating and make the most out of our limited time alive.

timemanagement

Time Management

9 Life Lessons from Seneca on How to Manage Your Time Effectively.

A good book or post can be hugely satisfying or even can change the world in you, can teach you about things beyond your daily horizons and can create characters so vivid you feel as if your really known them. Reading is highly enjoyable, you have a good resources.

Intro

You should have a few set times during every day when you’ll read for at least 10–20 minutes. These are time that you’ll read no matter what triggers that happen each day

Set Time

Wherever you go, take a book or resources with you. If there is a time when you have to wait (like at a doctor’s office or a the DMV), whip your book and read.

Always carry a reading resources

Keep a list of all the great books you want to read. You can keep this in your journal, in a pocket notebook, on your personal homepage, or on your browser’s bookmark. Be sure to add the list whenever you hear about a good book, online or in person.

Make a list

It’s not right to finish a book or a chapter and be lost with your life. If you can’t focus on book, start small with 5 pages or 10 pages a day, and be consistent. Track your habit of reading a book until you make it a habit.

Start slow and be consistent

If you’re not able to manage any time, try to start early in the morning. You’re fully energized and not busy at the morning.

Start early in the morning

It’s not alright to be in distracted place, a sudden buzz or a call from your friend or even phone can make you distracted. While reading a sentence when we’re distracted we loose the visualization with the text, switching context we have reread again.

Setup your environment

Reading requires a lot of attention and focus which is hard to build. We don’t want to get a random meme or movie clips while we’re engaging with the book, we’ll loose our attention on the book.

Reduce Television/Internet

It’s okay to take your time to read a book, don’t set yourself a goal to finish a book in a short period, which can cause you to skim the book without gaining any knowledge just to finish the book on time.

Don’t try to finish a book in short time

Plan ahead, which books to read. And what to read next, before buying or planning check the reviews or summary of the book (unheard ones). Ending up with bad book can decrease your dopamine level.

Plan ahead

A good book or post can be hugely satisfying or even can change the world in you, can teach you about things beyond your daily horizons and can create characters so vivid you feel as if your really…

9 ways to Cultivate a Lifetime Reading Habit

The majority of readers study by re-reading notes and textbooks - but the psychologists research, both in lab experiments and of actual students in classes, shows this is a terrible way to learn materical. Using active learning strategies - like flashcards, diagramming, and quizzing yourself is much more effective as is spacing out studying over time and mixing different topics together.

Using active learning strategies is most effective

On your first reading of something, you extract a lot of unerstanding. But when you do the second reading, you read with a sense of "I know this, I know this". So basically, you're not processing it deeply, or picking more out of it. Often the re-reading is cursory- and it's insidious, because this gives you the illusion that you know the material very well, when in fact there are gaps"

Don't just re-read your notes with a illusion of "I know this"

Retreiving information is what produces more robust learning and memory. And even when you can't retreive it - when you get the question wrong , it gives you an accurate diagnostic on what you don't know, and this tells you what you should go back and study. This helps guide your studying more effectively.

Ask yourself a lot of questions

Another strategy is, during a second reading, to try relating the principles in the text to something you already know about. Relate new information to prior information for better learning.

Connect new information to something you already know

A great strategy is making diagrams, or visual models or flowcharts. Anything that creates active learning generating understanding on your won - is very effective in retention. It basically means the learner needs to become more involved and more engaged and less passive.

Draw out information in a visual form

Keeping a correct card in the deck and encountering it again is more useful.Repeating the act of memory retreival is important. Studies show that keeping the correct item in the deck and encountering it again is useful. You might want to practice the incorrect items a little more, but repeated exposure to the onces you get right is important too.

Use flashcards

A lot of students cram - they wait until the last minute, them in one evening they repeat the information again and again. But research show this itsn't good for long tem memory. Practice a little bit one day, then two days later.The btter idea is to space repetition. Practice a little bit one day, then put your flashcards away, then take them out the next day, then two days later. Study after study shows that spacing is really important.

Don't cram - space out your studying

It turns out that mindsets perdict how well students end up doing.One is a fixed learning model. It says, " I have a certain amount of talent for this topic - say chemistry or physics and I'll do well until I hit that limit. Past that, it's too hard for me, and I'm not going to do well. The other mindset is a growth mindset. It says that learning involves using effective strategies, putting aside time to do the work, and engaging in the process, all of which help you gradually increase your capacity for a topic.

Growth mindset vs Fixed Mindset: Part I

It turns out that the mindsets predict how well students end up doing. Students with growth mindsets tend to stick with it, tend to preserve in the face of difficulty, and tend to be successful in challenging class. Students with fixed mindset tend not to.

Growth mindset vs Fixed Mindset: Part II

Re-reading is inefficient. Here are 8 tips for studying smarter.

Leonardo only finished 15 artworks in his lifetime. He had so many interests and often lost interest once he solved a problem. He was terrible at following through with commissioned work and there is a lot of historical evidence of patrons pursuing Leonardo to finish a work. Some of his contracts even had finish clauses that if he didn’t finish by a certain date he had to return any money earned up to that point!

It's Ok, to procrastinate sometimes.

Often involved in pagentry and event planning for city activities and royal or ducal families. Some of his drawings people assume are for war are actually contraptions to help create special effects during those events. In this multidisciplinary activity he could make art, costumes, use science to create special effects and bedazzle the crowd and his clients. This fostered his imagination and helped him develop ideas beyond his time in science and art.

It’s OK to have multiple interests

he was interested in EVERYTHING. Curious about all kinds of topics, he continued to ask questions like children of today do (why is the sky blue for example, one he answered in his journals) until his death. He even had long to-do lists filled with odd questions.He dissected animals and people to study and draw them and fully understand things like how our eyes work as well as how many muscles are involved in creating a smile.He also regularly drew & dreamed fantastic ideas that were impossible during his time. He had some of the first ideas for scuba diving gear, how to get men to fly, & more

Embrace your childlike wonder

he uncovered how part of the heart works that no one could figure out until the 1970s!He did city planning, imagined war weapons, studied how water moved, made musical instruments, studied light and how it reflects, and much much more.He was master on geometry and optics, his paintings aren't just imaginary form of ordinary lines but the combinations of shadows, colors and reflections.

Use the power of your imagination

Thanks for reading, if you liked the content please share this post to your friends who loves reading and upgrading their knowledge, since Deepstash is a great platform for this.Let's connect each other on @ Twitter: https://twitter.com/devnson

End Note

I recently finished reading the biography out on Leonard da Vinci by Walter Isaacson and discovered some new things about this artist legend I couldn’t wait to share with you. Hi my name is Carrie Brummer and here on Artist Strong I help artists like you build your skill and develop your unique artist […]

4 Lessons from Leonardo da Vinci

Our universe is all of space and time and their contents, including planets, stars, galaxies and all other forms of matter and energy including us. A large body, such as the earth or the sun contains nearly equal numbers of positive and negative charges. There is brightest matter as well as dark matter, some of stars gets created while others gets destroyed. We estimate at about 100 billion the number of galaxies in the Universe, therefore there are about 100 billion stars being born and dying each year. Law of the Universe, everything created has some timeline and thus has be destroyed.

How's Everything is Balanced in this Universe?

Like the universe the earth is perfectly balanced on the solar system everything in the solar system is balanced due to the gravitational force of Sun in the space. That’s the outer earth, and peeking inside the earth we see the water, air mixed with a lot of different gases and the creatures on earth formed by evolution and the mixture of different chemicals and the physics of the universe. Not only us but the whole cycle of nature is dependent on each other, balancing the laws of the Nature.

Everything balanced on the Earth

In 1958, when Mao Zedong the leader of China, decreed that all the sparrows in the country were to be killed, thinking that sparrows ate too much grain and it seemed rational to him for all sparrows to be killed.People were mobilized to eradicate the birds. They used beating drums to scare the birds from landing, forcing them to fly unitl they died of exhaustion. Poeple killed their shelters, and nests. However, when you try to break the law of nature, the nature hits you back. Locsut populations boomed and they ate everything, they ran out of things to eat and millions of starved and died.

China trying to mess with Nature

Living creatures can be found of every aspects, types and species, it's our intellgence which allowed us to dominate our world. Even in human beings we are equally distributed and evolved everywhere, ranging from black to white, small foot to big foot.When a living being cannot fit in this world or if biology stops them to upgrage according to modern nature they will likely go extinct. Perhaps, every beings born in this word has to meet the end, some gets their end early while some may get late. To balance the world we have meet the end.

Balance on our World

Our body is also mixed up of different chemical particles mixed and balanced perfectly to sustain our life. Reverse engineering our body leads us to atoms and quarks inside. Looking from the surface our body is balanced with water, fat, protein, minerals, carbohydrates, etc. Even going further these can be broken down to more elements, but that’s more Science research than a simple blog.

Balance on our Body

Our mind is equally divided with biological systems, each part has their own role. Perhaps, what's running inside our brain is our perception, thoughts, imagination, consciousness, memory or intelligence. Perhaps our modern mind is hungry of pleasure, the tendency to fulfil our pleasure beyond the limit thus creating unbalance may lead to self destruction, whether it's the hunger for food, money or fame.

Balance on our Mind

Our universe is all of space and time and their contents, including planets, stars, galaxies, and all other forms of matter and energy including us. A large body, such as the earth or the sun contains nearly equal numbers of positive and negative charges.

space

Space

Everything should be balanced in this Universe

Sadness is a primary emotion that is expressed and perceived equally across cultures. Basic emotions such as anger, happiness and sadness are innate and universal. Understanding basic emotions in music is very quick and does not require musical training. For instance, hearing a sad cello performance may induce a genuine state of sadness in a listener. Sadness is generally seen as a negative emotion. But we tend to find it pleasurable in an aesthetic context, which is known as the paradox of enjoying sad music.

What is it?

Sad music is a powerful trigger for nostalgic memories of foregone times. Such reflective revisiting of nostalgic memories may enhance mood, especially if the memories are related to pivotal and meaningful moments in life (i.e., high school, college). We enjoy the sweetness of these memories through vivid imaginations. There is some felt in recollecting the good times, as well as sadness from missing them.

Nostalgia

Music generates vicarious emotions in listeners without real-life implications. Music helps to channel one’s frustration or purge negative emotions like anger and sadness. It's cathartic. When we listen to sad music (or watch a sad film), we are disconnected from any real threat or danger that the music (or movie) represents. When we cry at the beauty of sad music, we experience a profound aspect of our emotional selves (Kawakami, et al., 2013).

Vicarious emotion

At the biological level, sad music is linked to the <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/hormones">hormone</a> prolactin. which is associated with crying and helps to curb <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/grief">grief</a> (Huron, 2011). Sad music tricks the brain into engaging a normal, compensatory response by releasing prolactin. In the absence of a <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/trauma">traumatic</a> event, the body is left with a pleasurable mix of opiates with nowhere else to go. Prolactin produces feelings of calmness to counteract mental pain.

Prolactin

Empathy plays a significant role in the enjoyment of sad music. Empathy can be broadly defined as a process by which we can come to understand and feel what another person is experiencing. Expressions of sadness and grief are likely to rouse support and help in others. Similarly, listening to sad music may evoke an <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/empathy">empathic</a> concern in those with a strong disposition to empathy.

Empathy

Sad music produces psychological benefits via mood regulation. Sad music enables the listener to disengage from distressing situations (breakup, death, etc.) and focus instead on the beauty of the music. Further, lyrics that resonate with the listener’s personal experience can give voice to feelings or experiences that one might not be able to express oneself.

Mood regulation

Music has the ability to provide company and comfort. People tend to listen to sad music more often when they are in emotional distress or feeling <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/loneliness">lonely</a>, or when they are in introspective moods. Sad music can be experienced as an imaginary friend who provides support and empathy after the experience of a social loss. The listener enjoys the mere presence of a virtual person, represented by the music, who is in the same mood and can help cope with sad feelings.

An imaginary friend

Informing music therapy practices for mood disorders.

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