What a year. Being in the middle of a global economic meltdown has been quite an experience for us all. I spoke to a group of financial advisers recently and I think they were much more interested in hearing about how to handle stress than ever before!

It's times like these that give you pause and in that time of pause we can take a bit of extra notice. What we do and do not notice in life is very telling and full of messages about who we are and what we are about at that time. Our fast moving world can seem to drag us by the nose at times. A little slowing down is not necessarily a bad thing.

So the theme of this newsletter is noticing. The images will give you a chuckle and the article will definitely surprise you - especially the card tricks. You'll have to check it out. I'm off to speak at the Erickson Foundation Conference in San Diego next week. Just a bit nervous, but very eager. We're taking a little drive down from San Francisco before the conference. I wonder what we will notice?

Cut things up the way you like, but small enough so that 2 or 3 things will fit on a forkfull. You want a variety of taste as you eat. Mix some virgin olive oil and balsamic as the dressing and let each person sprinkle it on their own salad. Use whatever dressing you like, but watch the sugar content. Keep the sugar down to single digit grams.

Just have the salad as is or add some smoked salmon or a little dry grilled chicken pieces. So easy and so yummy.

Mind: We can process about 120 bits of information per second. Listening to someone talk requires is about 60 bits. Try focussing on different things - something you can see, something you can hear, something you can smell - and try to get as much as you can from it. Listen for all the subtleties, look for the smaller things etc. After about 20-30 seconds stop what you are doing and return your attention to other things around you. What has disappeard from your awareness as your concentration deepened?

Soul: Of the things that you notice had fallen awy, which did you re-notice first. I wonder what that is telling you. Was it because it was something big or noisy or was it something that has importance for you? Is it something that you have not been noticing for a while? I wonder if there is something more happening here?

What do We Notice?

We are only designed to notice about 120 bits of information per second. That's all our nervous systems are designed to manage. Listening to someone talk is about 60 bits, so you can only just manage to listen to 2 people at once - assuming nothing else is being noticed. In order to cope with the mass of bits of information that bombard us every moment, we simply become blind to those things outside of the 120 bits that we can manage.

Not me! I hear some of you say. It is well proven that we generally overestimate our abilities. Just have a look at this little video of the great colour changing card.

Now that's just downright spooky - or at least a little humbling. There is another experiment where people are watching a basketball game and most of them fail to see a man in a gorilla suit run across the court. I guess streakers figure that a nude body might grab some attention!

Still, what we do notice can be very helpful in helping us understand what is happening in our brain and more importantly, our mind. We can track back from whether we are noticing positive things or negative things as to whether we are feeling unsafe and/or stressed. We can track back to how we feel about someone or an event as to what we notice about their appearance and behaviour. When we hear or read one of those nasty show business critics we use a marvellous Australian expression - I wonder what crawled up his nose! We get a real sense of what they are like when all they notice are things to be nasty about.

So remember to notice what you notice and then you might take a moment to notice what you don't notice. The magic that happens then is that you will find your mind changing and you may just feel a whole lot better.

To truly prove that TED talks have everything. Feast your eyes on some of the most amazing card magic you'll ever see. And funny too!

Share your thoughts and suggestions? richhill@iinet.net.au

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Looking forward to sharing more thoughts, suggestions, news and making a very Healthy Wednesday connection with you!

Take Care, Richard, Susie and The Healthy Wednesday Team