If so, did you wonder how that book could end up on the NY Times Bestseller list for three years!

WHY did this happen? Dr Jill Ammon-Wexler here. I have spent years  teaching mind power and personal growth to people from around the world — and before that I did the same in a clinical environment in California’s Silicon Valley.

And although I have developed many of the best personal development tools on the web, there is something I must still admin: WE LEARN MORE, AND LEARN MORE DEEPLY, FROM STORIES.

Here is a ell-written adventure fable that, Like Celestine Prophesy, will drop personal transformation right into the back of your mind:

Go read a sample from BOOK 1 of the
Dragon’s Gate transformational; trilogy here!

Do Plants Really Think?

There’s new research indicating that smart plants really are intelligent. They can communicate with  each other, and even call in reinforcements when the going gets tough.

Who says so? Australian gardener Don Burke and Australian National University chemistry Professor Ben Selinger, in reviewing research on smart plants over the past 10 years, have come to the conclusion that many plants are actually very smart, and have qualities that can only be called “intelligent.”

Smart plants communicate with each other using a range of chemical signals. “If a plant muncher such as a caterpillar … starts chewing on a plant, the plant will start sending chemicals to its leaves in an effort to repel the chewer,” Burke said. “(And) nearby plants will also start emitting these same chemicals, anticipating that they’ll also be attacked.”

Burke also said plants are also smart in another way — they’re capable of releasing specific chemicals that attract certain protective insects.  “So …  they call in good insects to fight the insects that are attacking them,” he added.

Scientists have identified the plant genes responsible for these “smart plant” actions, and are trying to combine it with other plants, Burke said. The breakthrough, recently published in the journal Science, suggested that its possible gardeners and farmers may not have to use pesticides any more.

“It has huge implications for the world,” Burke said. “In years ahead, instead of pouring vast amounts of toxic chemicals all over the world and therefore ourselves in one form or another, we should be able to add these genes, which are naturally occurring genes in plants, to other plants, so that they can also repel insects.”

Burke said plants also used a lot of other smart qualities. “Venus Fly Traps or sensitive plants can move, pitchers plants can eat animals, peaches and cherry trees can count the number of cold days each year before they produce their leaves in spring,” he explained.

Australian National University chemistry Professor Ben Selinger described the smart plant research as astounding. “Plants have always been sort of relegated as primitive compared to animals and it’s just not true,” he said. But there’s still room for a lot more research in the smart plants area.

Posted by Jill Ammon-Wexler
Amazing Solutions

Increase Your Creativity

There is strong evidence that certain strategies definitely increase creative output. These strategies include…

Strategy 1. Embrace Your Problems
One of the most fundamental skills of creativity is the ability to recognize an opportunity and seize it. You have countless opportunities to expand your creative thinking skills. Such opportunities present themselves daily at home, while driving to work, during meetings or lunch – or while just hanging out with friends. There’s really no shortage of opportunities to refine and develop your creativity. The most basic approach is to recognize that a problem  may actually be a golden opportunity for a creative explosion – and seize the moment.

Strategy 2. Challenge Your Creativity Assumptions
It’s natural and necessary to make assumptions about the reality of our everyday world. We would otherwise spend all of our waking hours performing unnecessary mental analyzes of ordinary things. As a result, many times we see only what we expect to see. Our analysis of a situation or a problem is based entirely on assumptions based on our past experience or accepted knowledge. Plus assumptions can become so entrenched it doesn’t cross our mind to challenge them.

A problem may arise simply because we perceive a situation or condition through a set of false assumptions preventing clear thinking. Challenging your assumptions is an important component of creativity. This allows you to look beyond what is obvious or already accepted. And it leads straight to the creative breakthroughs you’re looking for.

Truly creative people in all fields of interest tend to automatically challenge both their own assumptions, and the commonly accepted knowledge about a problem. This mental attitude is the true source of all of the world’s great inventions and businesses. The moment you choose to challenge one of your assumptions as possibly untrue or incomplete,” you are on the way to discovering something new and different.

Strategy 3. Take Some Creativity Risks
A willingness to take risks is at the very heart of creativity. No creative person succeeds without first failing – as failures are part of the process of testing one’s assumptions. There is simply no creativity without failure.

To experience major creative breakthroughs, it’s important to become comfortable taking risks. Each failure you encounter will actually supercharge your creativity by generating new information. If you’re unwilling to take risks and deal with what ordinary people call failure, then you cannot expect to become a great creative thinker.

Modern neuroscience has shown that our brains are literally rewired each time we learn something new by making a mistake. The brain is designed to learn through the trial and error process. 

Strategy 4. Use Alternative Thinking
To come up with a creative idea, you will often need a new vantage point. Creating a new solution to an existing problem, for example, may require looking at the problem from a fresh perspective.

There are many tools used by creative thinkers to create such a fresh perspective, including: Brainstorming, MESV creative visualization, and various other means of considering the problem from a fresh vantage point.

Additionally, a great way to kick start your creativity is to look at your problem from the vantage point of another profession. If you are a mechanical engineer, for example, how would an architect view your problem? Or if you are a product designer, how would an interior decorator approach your problem? This approach can lead to some remarkable creative breakthroughs.

Strategy 5. Accept Ambiguity
Many people prefer that everything be clear and unambiguous. They are uncomfortable with anything that seems vague, or could have more than one meaning or application. As a result they tend to be rigid, highly predictable thinkers.

A touch of ambiguous thinking during the idea generation stage of the creative process has the power to bring out genius-level ideas. People who can think ambiguously are fluid and flexible thinkers. The ability to think ambiguously can yield amazing creative insights. This is ability is experienced (and built) when you indulge in wordplay or humour.

Strategy 6. Expand Your Vision
An excellent way to build your creative muscles is to read and explore outside your normal area of interest. This can be especially useful when you are struggling to solve a creative problem. 

Strategy 7. Massage your brainwaves
Creative thinking best occurs when your brain is in certain states called alpha and theta. You are in an alpha/theta state when your brain is producing a predominance of slower brain-waves, as opposed to the faster beta brain-waves associated with normal waking consciousness.

Alpha /theta brain-waves are the reason many people have creative ah-ha experiences during a nap, a stroll, or some other mentally-relaxing activity. But consciously entering into an alpha/theta state can be a challenge. Meditators spend years learning to initiate this state on will, but modern technology has introduced a much faster method of building alpha/theta expertise – brainwave training. Be sure to check it out – your creativity will never be the same. Incidentally, a great side benefit of entering into the alpha/theta brain-wave state is virtually instant stress reduction.

Supercharge Your Brain
The one thing that robs you of creative energy more than anything else is stress. Bust your stress and you will raise your IQ, develop clear mental focus, study and learn better, and increase your creative output.  Get Creative

Posted by Jill Ammon-Wexler
Amazing Solutions

The study found that activity in numerous brain regions increases when our minds wander. It also found that brain areas associated with complex problem-solving – previously thought to be dormant when we – are in fact highly active during daydreaming episodes.

“Mind wandering (and daydreaming) is typically associated with negative things like laziness or inattentiveness,” says lead author, Professor Kalina Christoff, UBC Dept. of Psychology. “But this study shows our brains are very active when we daydream – much more active than when we focus on routine tasks.”

Subjects were placed inside an fMRI scanner, where they performed a simple routine task of pushing a button when numbers appeared on a screen. The researchers tracked subjects’ attentiveness moment-to-moment through brain scans, subjective reports from subjects, and by tracking their performance on the task.

The findings suggest that daydreaming – which can occupy as much as one third of our waking lives – is an important cognitive state where we may unconsciously turn our attention from immediate tasks to sort through important problems in our lives.

Until now, the brain’s “default network” – which is linked to easy, routine mental activity and includes the medial prefrontal cortex (PFC), the posterior cingulate cortex and the temporoparietal junction – was the only part of the brain thought to be active when our minds wander.

However, the study finds that the brain’s “executive network” – associated with high-level, complex problem-solving and including the lateral PFC and the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex – also becomes activated when we daydream.

“This is a surprising finding, that these two brain networks are activated in parallel,” says Christoff. “Until now, scientists have thought they operated on an either-or basis – when one was activated, the other was thought to be dormant.” The less subjects were aware that their mind was wandering, the more both networks were activated.

The quantity and quality of brain activity suggests that people struggling to solve complicated problems might be better off switching to a simpler task and letting their mind wander.

“When you daydream, you may not be achieving your immediate goal – say reading a book or paying attention in class – but your mind may be taking that time to address more important questions in your life, such as advancing your career or personal relationships,” says Christoff.

The ultimate mind power builder is as close as your desktop => Click Here

Source: ScienceDaily

Dr. Mednickat found that for creative problems you’ve already been working on, the passage of time is often enough to find solutions. But for new problems, only REM sleep seems to enhance your creativity. Mednick feels REM sleep does this by stimulating the creation of the associative networks that allow your brain to make new and useful associations between unrelated ideas.

The study participants were shown several groups of three words (for example: cookie, heart, sixteen) and asked to find a fourth word that could be associated to all three words (sweet, in this instance). 

Participants were tested in the morning, and again in the afternoon after either a nap with REM sleep, one without REM sleep, or a quiet rest period. The importance of REM sleep to creative problem solving was obvious: Unlike the non-REM and quiet rest groups, the REM sleep group improved by almost 40 percent over their morning performances.

And REM sleep is apparently also connected to memory. Dr. Dennis McGinty of the Greater Los Angeles Veterans Administration Healthcare System has conducted research that has clearly established that REM sleep deprivation reduces cell proliferation in the part of the forebrain that contributes to long-term memory.

According to avid dream researcher Bradley Thompson, perhaps the most remarkable problem solving comes from what is called lucid dreaming – actually seeming to wake up during your REM sleep. During a lucid dream you can actually direct your dream experience, and recall it all when you awaken. The creative problem-solving results can be remarkable.

Did you know that habits are incredibly powerful tools for personal growth and success?

Think about the habits you have now and how they affect virtually every aspect of your life. Your weight and health are determined by your eating habits. Your relationships with people are determined by your social habits. Your success at work is determined by your work habits. You have sleeping habits that dictate how well you sleep. You have sexual habits. You even have buying habits; just take a look around your house and you will quickly see them. Our character, health and virtually every aspect of our lives are indeed determined by our habits.

If you ask ten people on the street what the word habit means, nine out of ten will tell you that a habit is a negative action that people do over and over again, like smoking, or procrastinating, or eating too much. Bad habits get all the press. Let’s look at the results of just one bad habit: smoking. Every year, over 400,000 people lose their lives to smoking-related illnesses in the United States. Imagine then, the negative power that exists in just that one bad habit. It is staggering.

Now I want you think about an even greater power, a power that can bring you success, health and happiness; a power for positive, permanent, and automatic personal growth: the power of positive habits. Let’s look a little closer at the meaning of the word habit. Random House dictionary defines habit in this way:

Habit: An acquired behavior pattern regularly followed until it has become almost involuntary.

The important words in this definition are acquired and almost involuntary. Let me ask you a question. When is the last time you sat down and said to yourself, Today I am going to add a new habit to my life? I would venture to guess that you have probably never said those words. As you read this article, you will see how easy it is to add positive habits to your life and the great power they have to change it. Think about the words almost involuntary. This means the habit is so powerful in your mind that it is almost unstoppable! With respect to bad habits like smoking, procrastination, and overeating, this is very bad. But with positive habits, this is very, very good.

What is a positive habit? A positive habit is simply a habit that produces positive benefits, actions and attitudes you want to acquire and make a part of your life. Why is there such great power in positive habits to effect change? Because habits, by their very nature, are automatic. After a period of time they can become permanent.

So how do we go about adding new positive habits to our life?
It’s really quite easy. You simply begin repeating an action, attitude or thought process every day for at least 21 days. Research has shown that an action that is repeated for a minimum of 21 days is likely to become a permanent habit. Remember that positive habits have positive benefits and you will reap those benefits for as long as you maintain that habit. So now that we know what positive habits are, and how to acquire them, let’s look at some simple positive habits from the book that will help you reach your goals and have a healthier body.

Positive Habit #53 – Make it a habit to set goals

Since we are talking about goals, what better habit could you have then the habit of setting goals? Did you know that the most successful people all share the common positive habit of goal setting? A study was done to determine the importance of goal setting. College students who had gone on to achieve great success in business were asked to list their habits. The students who had made a habit of setting goals were in the top 3% of earnings in the population. It is almost impossible to overestimate the value of goal-setting as a positive habit. Goal setting is simple, yet 97% of the population never do it. By making goal setting a positive habit, you can start placing yourself in the top 3% of the population of successful people.

Here are some simple steps to help you start making goal setting a positive habit:

Step 1 – Define your goals, write them down, and be very specific; capture your goals on paper. It is amazing how many people never take the time to write down exactly what it is they want in life. Remember, you can’t hit a target if you don’t have one.

Step 2 – Determine what the time line is for reaching your goals; set specific deadlines for each goal.

Step 3 – Identify any obstacles that may stand in your way, list them, and state how you plan to overcome them.

Step 4 – Make a list of the people and or organizations who will help you reach your goals.

Positive Habit #3 – Take Flax Every Day for a Healthy, Trim Body and Lower Cholesterol.

What is flax?

Flax is a blue-flowering plant known for its oil-rich seed. People have been eating flaxseed since ancient times, it has a pleasant, nutty flavor. The health benefits of flaxseed and flaxseed oil are significant and for that reason this habit is recommended as a primary habit for health and a trim and fit body. Here are some of the benefits of flaxseed and flaxseed oil:

Flaxseed contains both soluble and insoluble fiber. Several studies have shown that flaxseed can help to lower cholesterol in the same way that other soluble fiber foods like oat bran and fruit pectin do. A study at the University of Toronto showed that total cholesterol levels dropped 9% and LDL (the “bad” cholesterol) decreased 18% among a group of women who ate milled flaxseed cooked into bread every day for a period of 4 weeks.

Flaxseed is one of the richest sources of lignans and alpha-linolenic acid. Studies suggest that lignans may help to prevent certain cancers. Flaxseed is one of the few plants in the plant kingdom that provide a high ratio of alpha-linolenic acid (an omega-3 fatty acid) to linoleic (omega-6 fatty acids), it is an excellent source of healthy polyunsaturated fat.

A new study has confirmed that the positive habit of taking flax seed daily can help you get a trim and fit body. I interviewed Dr. Sam Bhathena, a researcher at the Phytonutrients Laboratory of the US department of Agriculture, he said, we have observed that flax seed meal is much more effective in lowering cholesterol then soy. Several other studies have shown that in general, omega-3 fatty acids, lower lipid deposition, and help in reducing body weight.

Omega-3 fatty acids – More than half the fat contained in flaxseed is omega-3 fatty acid type, an essential fatty acid. There have been numerous studies reporting the health benefits of consuming omega-3 fats. Recent studies suggest that omega-3 fatty acids which are abundant in flax seed can help protect you from coronary artery disease, stroke, high blood pressure, autoimmune and inflammatory disorders. Studies on the effects of flax seed on breast cancer are now under way. Omega-3s can also help boost your metabolism, helping your body to burn calories faster.

Flax is available as raw seed, ground seed and also as an oil which is made by cold pressing flax seeds. You can purchase raw flax seed, ground flax seed and flax seed oil at most health food stores. The easiest way to incorporate flax seed into your diet is to buy ground flax seed meal and add it to your food.

· Substitute for cooking oil or shortening in baked goods.
· Add ground flax seed to pancakes, waffles and cereals.
· Put ground flax seed on salads.

Here is a great recipe for a super health shake. Make a protein shake with 8 ounces of your favorite juice such as apple or orange, add 2 tablespoons of flax seed oil, 2 tablespoons of soy powder, 1 tablespoon of lecithin, fresh fruit such as bananas, papayas or blueberries. Blend with a hand blender or an electric blender. This power shake will provide you with the health benefits of soy; omega-3′s, fiber, antioxidants, and enzymes from the fruit, and the fat loss benefits of lecithin.

Imagine how your life would change if you could put it on AUTOPILOT and reach all of your goals automatically!Now you can with The Power of Positive Habits, the new book that #1 NY Times best-selling authors Jack Canfield, Brian Tracy, John Gray Ph.D. are all raving about.

As you read this book you will discover:

. How you can Reach Your Goals Automatically
. How you can Achieve Greater Success Automatically
. How you can Lower your Cholesterol Automatically
. How you can Reduce Cancer Risks Automatically
. How you can Improve your Health Automatically and more

The Power of Positive Habits e-book is filled with dozens of positive habits based on the latest scientific and medical research. Order your copy today and get over $450 worth of Fr*ee “Life Changing” bonus gifts. Click on the link below to see a complete list of all of these incredible bonus products.

Your Life is about to Change. Click here to put your Mind and Body on Autopilot for success today.

Meditating does more than just feel good and calm you down, it makes you perform better and alters the structure of your brain, researchers have found.

People who meditate say the practice restores their energy, and some claim they need less sleep as a result. Many studies have reported that the brain works differently during meditation – brainwave patterns change and neuronal firing patterns synchronise. But whether meditation actually brings any of the restorative benefits of sleep has remained largely unexplored.

So Bruce O’Hara and colleagues at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, US, decided to investigate. They used a well-established psychomotor vigilance task, which has long been used to quantify the effects of sleepiness on mental acuity.

Ten volunteers were tested before and after 40 minutes of either sleep, meditation, reading or light conversation, with all subjects trying all conditions.

What astonished the researchers was that meditation was the only intervention that immediately led to superior performance, despite none of the volunteers being experienced at meditation.

Every single subject showed improvement, says O’Hara. The improvement was even more dramatic after a night without sleep. But, he admits: Why it improves performance, we do not know. The team is now studying experienced meditators, who spend several hours each day in practice.

Brain builder
What effect meditating has on the structure of the brain has also been a matter of some debate. Now Sara Lazar at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, US, and colleagues have used MRI to compare 15 meditators, with experience ranging from 1 to 30 years, and 15 non-meditators.

They found that meditating actually increases the thickness of the cortex in areas involved in attention and sensory processing, such as the prefrontal cortex and the right anterior insula.

You are exercising it while you meditate, and it gets bigger, she says. The finding is in line with studies showing that accomplished musicians, athletes and linguists all have thickening in relevant areas of the cortex. It is further evidence, says Lazar, that yogis aren’t just sitting there doing nothing.

The growth of the cortex is not due to the growth of new neurons, she points out, but results from wider blood vessels, more supporting structures such as glia and astrocytes, and increased branching and connections.

NewScientist.com news service, By Alison Motluk

Zoning, spacing out, building castles in the air… How many critical terms do we attach to the idea that daydreaming is a waste of time? And how many school kids have been warned by a teacher to wake up and focus…. and even been threatened with medication.

Until recently daydreaming was considered not merely a waste of time but almost pathological: Old psychology textbooks warn that excessive daydreaming can propel one into insanity. And during WWI a United States army questionnaire included the statement *I daydream frequently* to screen out assumed neurotic recruits. Even today well-meaning doctors medicate kids who are prone to daydreaming.

But psychologists and neuroscientists claim that most of us we spend from 15 to 50 percent of our waking hours daydreaming — straying away from tasks or external stimuli to instead focus on our inner thoughts, fantasies, and feelings. And there’s also research evidence that when our brains have nothing else to do, they switch to a special neural network dedicated to reviewing what we already know. In other words, we daydream.

Daydreaming appears to be a vital function of our psyche — a resource of creativity, and an arena for rehearsing social skills. And judging from the amount of time we spend doing it, perhaps daydreaming could even be the backbone of our consciousness. So should we really medicate daydreamers? Humm. Maybe what we all need is MORE time to let our minds wander and dream.

Want to make more sense of your dreams and daydreams?  Click here.

Lipnicki tested 20 people who were asked to solve 32 five-letter anagrams while standing, and while lying down. He found that the anagrams were solved more quickly lying down than standing up. The researcher said his subjects reported that while lying down, the solution just *popped into their minds* similar to the aha or Eureka experience associated with major innovative creative breakthroughs.

Lipnicki feels the results are due to the difference in brain chemistry when lying down vs standing up, and specifically to the release of the neurotransmitter noradrenaline. While noradrenaline is normally associated with cognitive ability and focused attention, it is also believed to impair creative thinking. And significantly less noradrenaline is released while lying down.

Archimedes and the ancient reclining poets
Lipnicki concluded that creative thinking might also be facilitated when lying down. He says there is historical evidence for this in the case of the Greek mathematician Archimedes, who concluded while lying in his bath that the amount of water that overflowed his tub was proportional to the amount of his body that was submerged.

The observation became known as Archimedes’ principle — the principle that an object immersed in a fluid experiences a buoyant force equal in magnitude to the force of gravity on the displaced fluid.

Professor of medieval history Donnchadh O’Corrain of University College Cork says medieval Irish poets also composed their complicated court poetry while lying flat on a couch in a darkened room. And there are descriptions dating back to 1571 of how law students studied by lying on flat straw pallets, he says.

Truthfully — creativity goes far beyond the ability to paint, write, create a new business,  invent a new product, or having a high IQ.  When stripped down to its bare essentials, creativity is actually a fundamental survival skill.

Experience Genius Creativity 
On an artistic level … creativity is the search for the elusive Ah ha — a brief moment of insight when we suddenly see a problem, or an idea, in an entirely new and fresh way.

It’s true that not everyone can be Beethoven or Picasso or Einstein. But the impulse to breakthrough to a new idea is not limited to artists and geniuses. We each have our own natural creative genius.

But on the everyday level … creativity is actually at the heart of any action that somehow transforms your inner or outer reality. You are actually being creative when you open the refrigerator door and search for the makings of a sandwich.

Why So Few People Feel Creative
Why do so few people manage to consider themselves creative? It’s because most of us were taught to repress our natural desire to challenge the reality of things as they are. You can increase  your creativity by simply adjusting how you think about creativity.

Professor Mark Runco, founder of the Creativity Research Journal explains it like this: We put children in groups and make them sit in desks and raise their hands before they talk. We put all the emphasis on conformity and order, then we wonder why they aren’t being spontaneous and creative.

Sound painfully familiar?

Overturning the Genius Myth
Another reason many do not consider themselves creative is the *I’m not a genius* syndrome — the sad assumption that genius level creativity requires a high IQ..

Actually your IQ has little to do with your creativity. David Perkins, co-director of Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education agrees. Perkins believes we don’t believe ourselves to be creative because we’re often intimidated by the genius myth.

This old myth claims creativity is restricted to high IQ geniuses. But this was actually debunked years ago in a study begun by Stanford psychologist Lewis Terman — the man who adapted the original French IQ test for the USA.

In the early 1920s Terman had California school-teachers select 1,528 “genius” schoolchildren with an IQ above 135. These children’s lives were then followed by a research team for 60 years. After six decades they found that these geniuses had done fairly well. Many were professionals and had stable, prosperous lives. But interestingly… very few had made notable creative contributions to society, and literally none had completed any extraordinary creative work.

According to Dr. Dean Simonton, author of Genius, Creativity and Leadership and Scientific Genius: There just isn’t any correlation between creativity and IQ.

Unleash Your Creative Impulses
To free your natural creative impulses it’s often necessary to resist the pressure to march in step with the rest of the world.

This can be admittedly tough. One place to start is by trying an original way of doing some habitual task. Virtually everything you do can be done in a slightly different, slightly better way … from organizing your paperwork, to washing the dishes. Remember, the essence of creativity is NOT necessarily getting things right. At it’s heart, creativity is based on risk taking. On being willing to make some mistakes.

And here’s a point about mistakes and failure: Many who claim they aren’t creative say this simply because they tried once, and failed. But interestingly, genius level creativity may actually go hand-in-hand with failure. Consider the great creative genius Edison. He held over 1,000 patents. But most of them are forgotten, because they weren’t worth much to begin with.

So don’t let fear of failure stop you from exercising and building your creative muscles.

Want to increase your creativity to genius level? Click here.