How to Become Smarter (37 page)

Dinner:
a vegetable salad; 200-250 grams (7-9 ounces) of boiled or steamed ground mutton (at least 15% fat); 200-250 grams (7-9 ounces) of boiled or steamed whole grains (shredded wheat, steal-cut oats, buckwheat, brown rice, and others).

• Based on my personal observations, pungent vegetables such as garlic, onion, and horseradish may contribute to feelings of anger and hostility, and the mechanism is unknown.
  
• Some Eastern belief systems prohibit consumption of garlic and onion because it is thought that these vegetables provoke anger.
  
• My theory is that fits of anger happen when these two conditions are true: a) interaction of psychologically incompatible people; b) consumption of pungent vegetables.
  
• A high-protein, high-fat diet that excludes all pungent vegetables, spices, and nuts can serve as an anger management protocol.
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A popular definition of emotional intelligence is the ability to carry out accurate reasoning about emotions and the ability to use emotions and emotional knowledge to enhance thought. One influential model of emotional intelligence combines abilities in four areas: (a) accurately perceiving emotion, (b) using emotions to facilitate thought, (c) understanding emotion, and (d) managing emotion. This chapter describes techniques that improve mental abilities in areas (b) and (d).

My personal experience suggests that a low-protein diet, such as the fruit-and-vegetable diet, improves attentiveness to others’ feelings but also reduces stress-resistance. Conversely, certain high-protein diets increase stress tolerance but reduce sensitivity to other people’s emotions. The biological mechanism underlying these effects is unknown.

The ability to regulate one’s emotional state is a component of emotional intelligence. This chapter describes lifestyle changes that can either lift or lower internal mood when needed. My personal experience (a healthy subject) suggests that a “depressant diet” can serve as an experimental model of mild depression. This diet contains large amounts of cooked red meat, cooked grains, and nuts and excludes dairy. This diet reproduces such symptoms as apathy, pessimism, the feeling of being stressed, slowing, and fatigue within one or two weeks. The effects of the depressant diet may be due to the chemicals formed in meat and grains during cooking. The depressant diet improves sleep and is useful in some situations that require lowered mood.

One of the implications of an accepted theory of clinical depression is that a shortage of protein in the diet may cause depression. Traditional high-protein diets do not have antidepressant properties, possibly because of the presence of chemicals formed by cooking of meat and grains. These chemicals can have depressant effects. The antidepressant diet (low-fat milk, unsalted unprocessed cheese, raw water extract of wheat, fruits, and vegetables) is free of this shortcoming. This diet seems to have a rapid antidepressant effect. This diet is a raw high-protein diet because chemical differences between raw and pasteurized dairy are negligible. If you combine the antidepressant diet with twice-daily adapted cold showers, this regimen can reproduce symptoms of hypomania within 2-4 days (for example, overactivity, flood of ideas, and elevated internal mood). The latter approach improves creativity. Elevated mood is desirable in some situations, but it reduces motivation for work and worsens some mental abilities.

Pungent vegetables may contribute to feelings of anger and hostility, and the mechanism is unknown. A high-protein, high-fat diet that excludes all pungent vegetables and spices can be beneficial as an anger management protocol.
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CHAPTER 5: Reading and writing performance

People who studied in college must be familiar with procrastination, which often takes the form of chronic postponement of important reading or writing tasks until the last day. The more formal definition of procrastination is “a tendency to delay an intended action or decision.” Academic procrastination leads students to do nothing until the last day and it then forces them to cram all night before an exam. Research shows that 50-75% of college students procrastinate on a regular basis [
484
]. Many academic scientists who have to submit research grant proposals before a deadline also engage in procrastination. This results in overstressed and hectic writing during the last few days before the deadline.

Academic procrastination correlates with low self-control and high impulsivity [
485
,
486
]. (Self-control is the ability to regulate one’s thoughts, emotions, and impulses.) Procrastination also correlates with task aversiveness, also known as “laziness” [
487
]. Academic procrastination is more likely for tasks whose completion is more distant in the future and for tasks that are more difficult [
488
]. Studies show that there may be three different types of procrastination [
489
]. One type is called “decisional procrastination” and it results from an inability to make a decision within a given timeframe. The second type is called “arousal procrastination.” It results from the desire to feel a thrill of hectic work before a deadline as well as a pleasure from completing a lot of work within a short period. The third type is “avoidant procrastination,” which has to do with the fear of evaluation by others and the fear of “screwing up.” Academic procrastination is unpleasant and undesirable for most people who have dealt with it. Researchers are looking for ways of reducing this unproductive behavior.

Several studies have shown that learning the techniques of effective time management can reduce procrastination [
490
-
492
]. Another approach, which teachers can employ, involves increasing the threat of evaluation: making exams more frequent [
493
]. The latter approach seems logical because students will learn more by cramming before several smaller exams than by cramming for a single big exam.

Although procrastination involves negative connotations in most studies in the field, some authors have identified a type of procrastination that may have beneficial or at least neutral effects. The so-called “active procrastination” is the deliberate postponing of a difficult mental task until there is strong enough “pressure” or emotional tension [
494
]. This allows certain people to work more productively. Some studies show that these “active procrastinators,” who prefer to work under pressure, are as productive in academic settings as people who do not procrastinate [
494
]. This concept is similar to the above-mentioned “arousal procrastination.”

Research shows that mood and self-control are linked with academic procrastination. People with low self-control are more likely to procrastinate. To be more specific, people with elevated impulsivity, including ADHD patients, are more likely to be procrastinators [
495
]. Research also shows that people who are clinically depressed have a tendency to procrastinate [
496
], but people who are very happy are also not very productive in academic settings [
476
]. Several studies have shown that people with elevated mood and students with huge ratings of life satisfaction are less productive than students with normal mood or a moderate-to-average level of life satisfaction [
476
]. One report shows that among students an inverse correlation exists between procrastination and anxiety about homework (more anxiety equals less procrastination) [
497
]. In other words, students who are more fearful of not doing homework are more likely to do it on time, compared to students who have little or no anxiety about homework.

We can conclude from the studies above that you will achieve the lowest level of academic procrastination when:

1. self-control is strong;
   
2. mood is neither clinically depressed nor elevated;
   
3. emotional tension is substantial.
   

The next section describes some techniques that will allow a person to build up emotional tension well before a deadline as well as techniques that can improve some components of self-control.

• People with either elevated mood or clinically depressed mood and people with low self-control are more likely to procrastinate or postpone difficult tasks until the last moment.
  
• Emotional tension or mild anxiety can reduce procrastination.
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We discussed the depressant diet in detail in Chapter Four. In my experience, it can lower mood and slow down mental processes. Just to remind you, the composition of this diet is as follows (proportions by weight):

• boiled or steamed whole-grain cereals (25-35%),
  
• boiled or steamed meat, such as ground beef and chicken 1:1 (40-50%),
  
• nuts (2-5%),
  
• raw fruits and vegetables (20-23%).
  

Healthy people can stay on the depressant diet for extended periods. You shouldn’t use this diet if you have a diagnosis of depression or if you suspect that you are having a major depressive episode.

This diet reduces procrastination. I can get started on any kind of reading task well before a deadline if I use this approach. In my opinion, this procrastination-reducing effect is the result of the emotional tension and lowered mood. This is in agreement with some studies which showed that anxiety or a threatening environment can reduce procrastination. As we saw earlier, people with sky-high life satisfaction are less productive than people with average or moderate life satisfaction. Therefore, a regimen that makes you slightly “unhappy” will increase motivation for work and reduce procrastination. High-protein diets that do not lower mood, such as the modified high-protein diet (Chapter Three), can reduce procrastination too, but they are less effective than the depressant diet.

Often the depressant diet is not enough to combat procrastination related to
writing
tasks. As you will see in a later section that discusses writer’s block, a “nasty” version of the depressant diet is more effective in this case. This diet is based mostly on fried meat, bread, and junk food.

As you will see in subsequent sections of this chapter, the depressant diet is not the best diet for effective performance of reading tasks. Therefore, my advice is to use the depressant diet to “force yourself” to start a difficult mental task. Once you get started, you can discontinue the depressant diet. The mild lowering of mood and a slight increase in emotional tension are sufficient for reducing procrastination. You do not need to become clinically depressed or anxious, and you need to abort the depressant diet if your mood becomes significantly depressed. Simple discontinuation of the depressant diet and switching to a conventional balanced diet (for example, Harvard’s Healthy Eating Plate), in my experience, can restore mood back to normal. Another approach involves replacing some of your meals with the mixture of unprocessed unsalted cheese with cultured milk. You can read more about custom regulation of mood in the last sections of Chapter Four.