Imagine 200 Billion Dollars - or 200 Billion Stars

In another post I stated that our own galaxy, which we humans have named the Milky Way galaxy, consists of over 200 billion stars. That's a very large number, so large that it's hard to comprehend. The other day, as I tried to fall asleep, instead of counting sheep I tried to visualize 200 billion stars. I wasn't getting anywhere. The exercise was keeping me awake, not putting me to sleep.

NASA photo, M81 spiral galaxy, similar to our Milky Way galaxy

So instead I tried visualizing money. After all, $200 billion is only a fraction of the annual budget for the U.S. military. Here's what I came up with...

Start with something relatively easy. Imagine a stack of dollar bills - 1,000 of them. I'll make it easy for you. The stack will be between four and five inches high. No problem.

Now imagine that this stack of bills is on a large table with 99 other identical stacks. Visualize that and that's what $100,000 looks like.

Now say this table is in a tent with nine other tables, each holding 100 stacks of dollar bills. That would be $1 million cash. So far, so good? You got the one tent with ten tables?

Now, imagine that this tent is one of 1,000 tents in a massive open field, each tent protecting a million dollars cash. Try to imagine walking around the field, peaking into each of the tents and seeing the ten tables and all that cash. That's a billion dollars worth of one-dollar bills. Wow, huh?

Now, it's time to stretch your mind. Imagine that there is more than one field with 1,000 tents. Imagine that there are 200 fields where 1,000 tents are pitched, each tent holding ten tables of money. Imagine that you're in a hot air balloon and you can see these 200 fields stretching in all directions, each one covered with 1,000 tents. 200,000 tents. And don't forget that there's $1 million in each tent.

If each of the dollars on the tables in the tents in all those fields represents a star, that's how many stars there are in the Milky Way galaxy. And our sun is only one of them.

These very large numbers are hard to comprehend, but maybe the money image helps. It's the best I can do. It helps make something mind-boggling seem a little less abstract, a little more real, which helps make all those stars out there seem more real and more awe-inspiring.

By the way, scientists estimate there are about 200 billion other galaxies in our universe. Now that IS mind-boggling!

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2012. Building Personal Strength .

The Blazing Miracle of Sunlight on My Sklin

2011 photo by Blaine

We live in the Texas Hill Country, and as we descended out of the hills on our way to the gym one winter morning, I noticed our sun - an astounding blazing star - coming  into view above the eastern horizon.

I know what the sun is. It is one of over 200 billion stars in our own Milky Way galaxy. Relative to these other stars, our sun is considered a "medium-sized" star, which means it's diameter is over 100 times that of Earth. It consists of extremely hot plasma, interlaced with electromagnetic fields. The heat is the thermonuclear energy that is released when hydrogen atoms in the sun's core are forced by it's massive gravity to fuse into helium atoms. Every second the sun creates the equivalent of millions of hydrogen bombs of energy every. The sun's gravity contains most of this energy, keeping it from blowing itself apart.

This process has been going on for more than four billion years and has used up half of the sun's original stores of hydrogen. The same violent process powers all stars. It is what our sun is.

Some of this energy escapes the sun's gravity and radiates into space and about eight minutes later the photons reach our planet. The solar radiation is diffused by our atmosphere, and the effect is what we call daylight.

Standing in the parking lot outside my gym, I felt the left side of my face warming. The sun's radiation was colliding with my skin, stirring up the molecules creating the sensation of heat. The other side of my face remained cool. I turned around and I felt the other side of my face warming.

I gave our star another quick sideways glance. I don't actually look at it because the solar radiation is so intense it would damage my eyes. I did't see a cartoon image. I didn't see a two-dimensional orb as in a photograph. I saw what it is, a mind-boggling massive spherical ball only 93 million miles away, alive with millions of fusion reaction explosions that continuously project unimaginable energy into space. This is the energy that warms us, so that the water on our planet is liquid, and our climates are compatible to life. And which enables photosynthesis on the surface of the planet, which is the process that creates plants, which are eaten by animals - both of which we humans use as food.

Knowing all this lets me perceive the sun for what it is and makes it impossible for me to take it for granted. It enables me to to appreciate it with awe and wonder.

Further thoughts about our sun...

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2012. Building Personal Strength .

I Rewire My Brain - I Replace Another Bad Habit with a Good Habit

From Brook Farm...

I was enjoying my shower this morning, when it dawned on me. I was busy scrubbing my back with a long-handled brush, and I wasn't even thinking about it. I hadn't decided to do that. I had just done it. Out of habit.

Hoo!

Six years ago, I arrived in the Texas Hill Country. Practically the first thing I did was to go to the doctor to get a boil on my back treated. He quickly took care of it, and I asked him how these things happen. I wanted to avoid getting another one, if possible. "Hygiene," he said. "Just keep your back clean."

"But I shower every day," I said, somewhat embarrassed.

"Well the boil was in a hard-to-reach place. You may be missing a spot."

My wife suggested that I get a special back brush.

But my back quickly healed and I forgot about it. After all, I shower every day...

Then, two years ago I went to the doctor with another sore on my back. This time it was a cyst. I needed a surgical procedure to remove it. I asked him, "What's the difference between a boil and cyst?" After he explained it, I asked him if there's a way to avoid getting another one.

"Hygiene," he said.

Well, I hated being put under for the procedure, I hated wondering if the cyst would come back, and I hated the medical bills.

So I bought a long-handled back brush. And I used it. For a while, anyway. But it was kind of a hassle, and it didn't feel good on my back. So I stopped using it.

Then one day my wife noticed a zit on my back, in the hard-to-reach area. Took care of that, but it was kind of a last-straw, "scared straight" moment. This little detail of personal hygiene was for real. I had to start using that back brush.

I was motivated. I decided on an effective way to use it and a place for it in my regular shower routine. Every time I stepped into the shower, the first thing I did was reach for the back brush.

There were times I forgot. But I kept after it. I didn't want to have another nasty medical procedure. I consciously reminded myself to start my shower with a thorough scrubbing of my back.

And today I realized that I've rewired my brain. I don't have to think about it anymore. I just do it, automatically.

It feels great to consciously do the work to create an unconscious habit...and succeed.

And I've experienced another related phenomenon - each time you successfully replace a bad habit with a good one, the process gets easier. It's as if you're creating a habit of changing a habit. I've known about this for some time, but it's great to validate it with my own experience.

How cool is that?

I rewire my brain to buckle my seat belt...

I rewire my brain to lose weight...

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2012. Building Personal Strength .

How to Break a Bad Habit - My Story

There's no mystery to breaking a bad habit. What you do is replace it with a good one.

That, as you know, is much easier said than done.

During the past several months, several factors conspired to cause me to gain weight. I'm not obese. But I'm usually in fairly decent physical condition, and I had gained more weight than I've ever gained in my life. The culprit - the onset of football and basketball seasons, along with the temptation to really enjoy the games by snacking and drinking beer or wine. Then I got an ankle injury, which made it hard to exercise. And finally, the holiday season. Big holiday dinners, sweets and alcoholic drinks being shoved in my face. I got on the scales, sucked in most of the air in the bathroom, and resolved to lose weight.

That meant breaking some bad habits.

I know how this works. I know what to do. It has to do with performing the right action enough times that my brain is reprogrammed to do the right thing automatically. Habit, pattern, routine, skill. The brain doesn't care what you call it. Do it enough times, and the brain cells are stimulated to wire together.

There are two kinds of decisions.

• A-type. The kind you make automatically, without having to think about it, because your brain cells are physically connected to make you respond that way. This is called a habit.
• B-type. The kind you make by consciously thinking about what to do - the alternatives, the consequences and the payoffs.

The way you establish an A-type decision pattern is to make a B-type decision often enough to stimulate your neurons to wire together. By the way, the brain doesn't care if the pattern is a good one or a bad one. Either way, do it enough times and the brain cells involved in the pattern will physically connect. Do anything more than once and you're on your way. Keep on doing it that way, and it will become a habit.

Something else is a key part of the process. In the beginning of establishing a new habit, you'll hit a wall of discouragement. Because it's not an ingrained habit yet, you may forget to do it. Or you may not do it very well. And progress is slow. This is frustrating. But it takes time to rewire the brain cells. I call this the "crunch point," because a lot of people quit at this point. They say screw it and go back to an their old, well-established habit.

The key is to keep trying. Try again in spite of failure and frustration - try again and again - to do it right. It helps to have a powerful motivator, a strong reason to persist. And help from others - in the form of feedback, coaching, encouragement and accountability.

My motivators - I didn't like the way I looked. And Type II diabetes - brought on by obesity - killed my overweight mother.

Charles Barkley is right about Weight Watchers. Their support system includes all of the above elements. But I've licked this problem on my own before, and I know I can do it again.

A crisis point came when my wife left to visit her aging parents. My support system was gone for a spell. If I gave in to temptation, I'd be reinforcing the old pattern instead of the new one.

I was left to rely on my own personal strengths - focus, commitment, perseverance, self-awareness, and yes - integrity. Put all that together and you can call it will power.

So what happened? I'll tell you what happened. When my wife returned, I had to get on the scales. I was held accountable. You know, the numbers don't lie.

Thank goodness I weighed one pound less than the week before.

I'm still working on it. I haven't reached my goal, my ideal weight. But it's getting easier to say no to the bad things and yes to the good things. My brain really is reprogramming itself.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2012. Building Personal Strength . (Permission to use image purchased from fotolia.com)

Why Parents Avoid 'The Talk' with Their Teens

I've written two books, Conversations with the Wise Uncle and Conversations with the Wise Aunt - one for boys and one for girls. Both are fictional accounts about an older relative mentoring a young person during the teen years to give the child a "heads up" about important issues.

The inspiration for these books came when one of my best friends told me about his teen years. When he was 12, his uncle took him out for breakfast. In addition to potatoes and eggs, they shared a long talk. His uncle was relaxed and fun to be with, not at all like his dad, who was stern, demanding and hard to talk to.

In a friendly, casual way, his uncle talked about what the boy could expect during his teen years. He described the physical changes that were about to happen to him as he matured into an adult. He talked about peer pressure, risk-taking behavior and the consequences of sex, drugs and alcohol.

At the end of the talk my friend's uncle said, “Now I want you to promise me something. When your friends want you to go along with them and something inside you doesn’t feel right, I want you to stop and think about what could happen. I want you to remember the things we talked about. Will you do that?”

My friend told me this talk with his uncle was the most important conversation of his life, that it helped him steer clear of all kinds of trouble during his teen years. Not that he was a perfect kid, whatever that is. But most of the time when he was tempted to do something he knew he shouldn’t, and usually it was something fun or exciting, he remembered what his uncle told him. He said having an uncle who leveled with him about the consequences of bad decisions was the luckiest thing that ever happened to him.

Many adults don’t feel comfortable talking to kids about these things. I know this because I've been engaged in a long-term anecdotal research effort, in which I ask adults about their teen years. I have yet to find another person who had anything like this "heads-up" talk when they were young. I know I didn't. How about you? Were you one of the lucky ones?

Hence the inspiration to write this book - to suggest to parents what to talk about and how to talk about it. And if desired, to give the book to the teen to read as a supplement to these conversations.

But why is it that parents fail to talk to their kids about these things? Why are they reluctant to coach them about things like sex, peer pressure, and addictive substances? Here's what I've come up with so far...

• Their own parents didn't talk with them, so they don't have that model to work from.
• Their memories of their own teen years are mixed and muddled.
• They aren't sure what needs to be covered, or how to go about it.
• They're afraid they'll get it wrong, give bad advice.
• Times have changed. Teens today face some new issues.
• It may be hard to get their their teen to listen to what they have to say - the old "generation gap."

These concerns are well-founded. Here are some issues today's parents may not realize that teens need coaching and encouragement about...

• Teen brain development - awareness of the sensitive period for developing critical thinking skills.
• How alcohol and drugs can permanently limit building the foundation for this area of intelligence.
• How skills and habits are formed.
• Why character strength and other personal strengths are crucial to success and how to develop them.
• Why communication skills are crucial to success and how to develop them.
• Why working on personal development as a teen will give them a huge edge later in life.

You can see why I wrote the Wise Aunt and Wise Uncle books. Even parents who would do anything to give their kids an edge to grow into happy, successful adults could feel inadequate to the challenge of coaching them in these areas.

Sneak preview...

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2012. Building Personal Strength . (Permission to use image purchased from istockphoto.com)