The best way to train a puppy is to endlessly repeat the same action, the same cues and the same movements, praising them with love and treats when they get it right, until the puppy gets it right every time without needing the treat.  The point that Eric was demonstrating in his post was that in the same way that puppies learn by the consistency, repetition and persistence, resistance training will also improve (especially in beginners) by consistency.  Turn up like clockwork, do your workout, maintain a consistent diet and things will improve.

Of course, once you get past a certain point then there will be times when you need to make some tweaks.  For example, my squats weren’t going to get better again until I sorted out my thoracic spine mobility, but I was consistent with the exercises I did to improve my thoracic spine mobility and, sure enough, I’m starting to see the results.  Even there, consistency and persistence was the key.

Another vital lesson that I think we can learn from training animals but which Eric didn’t delve into is that of positive feedback and praise.  It was this lesson which caught my imagination so I’m going to take the space of a brief post to explore it a bit.

Positive reinforcement – another lesson we can learn from puppies?

Back in late 2006 I remember reading a feature article in The Guardian newspaper.  The columnist had experimented with positive reinforcement to train her husband.

Rather than complaining when he got things wrong she started to completely ignore when he did things.  Instead she praised him and thanked him every time he did something right.  An example might be if he never did the washing up and instead left everything piled up on the side.  She would stop complaining about the tower of dishes but may also stop obligingly washing them.  After a while he might do some.  At that point she would thank him and provide some sort of subtle praise or treat.

The psychology it is that humans thrive on praise.  We lap it up.  Her husband might like the feeling he gets from the praise or treat and do the washing up again.  And again.

The company I work for are very good at personal development.  As a result I regularly attend courses for things like identifying and adapting my personality type, how to motivate other people and how to provide constructive feedback.

Something which I’ve learned is that a majority of people thrive on receiving positive feedback.  Tell them that you really like the way they do something or thank them for something they’ve done well and they will do it that way again in an effort to continue to please.  A few people are much more strongly motivated by other things, but even they will still be motivated in some small way by a bit of positive recognition or thanks.

Where I am on the spectrum

I confess that I am right at the top of the spectrum.  I’ll do anything for a bit of praise and I know that this is the reason that I sometimes wear myself out.  Like an over-eager puppy I’ll try to do absolutely everything for everyone so that I can bask in the praise.

I’ve learned to get a bit of control over myself in the last few years.  Having identified that I have this trait I’ve learned to assess which things will also give personal satisfaction.  I’ve also learned to identify which things I would do where there is nobody to lavish that praise.  Let’s face it, if society “says” I should do the ironing every week but Chris has enough shirts to get through 3 weeks then why not leave it for a week?  Especially if that gives me the time to do something else which is more important to me as an individual?

Unfortunately what I haven’t learned to do so well is to praise myself.

Self-praise – how it impacts on training and diet

I don’t think I am alone in saying that self-praise and positive reinforcement is a difficult thing to do.  Especially for a woman.  Every woman I’ve spoken to about this sort of thing has admitted that they are too hard on themselves, always setting the bar too high, berating themselves when they don’t achieve but rarely acknowledging the successes. 

For me this means that when things start to go wrong I get frustrated and uptight which makes things worse, rather than just having a minor hiccup.  A good example would be the recent hiatus with my squats.  I lose my ability to keep things in perspective, I pick up on every error, I don’t notice when form or quality are good and often change the way I’m doing things in a negative way to fix a tiny “problem”.  With my diet and figure I might suddenly become fixated by a tiny lump of fat, ignoring the excellent progress I’ve made so far with fat loss.

Tricks to help with positive reinforcement

At times I’ve used the following ways to help me reach my goals without hitting the wall:

• keeping detailed training records to remind myself of how much I’ve improved;
• weekly records of fat loss measurements with comparison to previous cycles to keep it in perspective;
• videos and photos of exercise form – even now I get a kick from my earliest photos of squat depth which are more of a half-squat; and
• bouncing ideas and concerns off Chris who has the benefit of not being emotionally attached to the issue.

Before and after photos, like this old picture of squat depth, act as positive reinforcement for me

Relying on other people for positive reinforcement

Just a final point on that last one.  We can control ourselves, but not other people. 

Not everyone is aware of positive reinforcement.  A good trainer should be praising you for the good achievements in the gym as well as commenting on and correcting poor performance.  If they aren’t, try saying something to them to make them aware of your needs.  If they adapt their coaching style to include some positive reinforcement then you may well find your performance improves faster.

Are you motivated by positive reinforcement?  Do you think it would help you with fitness and diet progress?  I’d love to know if you also struggle with praising yourself and if you have any other tricks to help.

Related posts:

1. Lessons learned: the benefits of variety
2. Lessons learned this week: stress and lifting
3. Lessons learned: mental strength

Our bedroom is on the back of the house overlooking some fields so, with the addition of some very thick curtains, the only light we tend to see is natural light as it filters between cracks in the curtains in the morning.  Unfortunately for anyone who comes to stay with us, there is a street light just outside the front of our house which shines through the thin curtains of our two front bedrooms.

Why I’ve done this research

I’ve done posts about sleep before.  Sleep is hugely important to our general health and, specifically, to our mental and physical recovery.  Good sleep can make the difference between good and poor gym performance.

Posts I’ve done so far have been about ways to improve sleep, briefly touching on things like the disruption of sleep patterns by too much artificial light late into the night.  However, on a recent Robb Wolf podcast he mentioned that humans are sensitive to light even if their eyes are covered, so a room with light sources can still impact on your sleep, even if you are wearing a sleep mask.

This piqued my interest, so I’ve decided to learn more about artificial light and sleep.

How can we improve our sleep?

Circadian rhythms

Most people think of our reaction to the daylight phase as the circadian rhythm, however this isn’t strictly correct.  Circadian rhythms are actually a much broader category covering any roughly 24-hour cycle in the biochemical, physiological, or behavioural processes of living entities which, according to wikipedia, meet three criteria:

1. the rhythm persists in constant conditions (eg. constant dark);
2. the rhythm maintains the same period over a range of temperatures; and
3. the rhythm can be reset by exposure to external stimulus.

The most relevant impact on the last of those conditions is the way light can affect the sleep circadian rhythm.  The different pattern of light and dark when moving to a different time-zone will eventually trigger us to change our sleep pattern, but we suffer from jet-lag until all the circadian rhythms have adjusted.

Humans contain a “master clock”, the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), a group of cells found near the hypothalmus.  Light received by the eyes directly affects the SCN and as a result it is the visual cycle of light and dark which primarily drives our systems.  However, we also contain numerous other peripheral oscillators found in places like the oesophagus, lungs, liver and skin which react to other forces, including food consumption, and send their messages back to the SCN.

Light sensitivity without your eyes

So why doesn’t covering your eyes stop your sleep being disrupted?  Despite significant amounts of searching, I’ve not found the answer to this.

However, in a study in which they exposed the skin behind the knee to light pulses (Campbell SS, Murphy PJ. January 1998. “Extraocular circadian phototransduction in humans”. Science 279 (5349): 396–9) they found that there was a systematic relation between the timing of the light pulse and the magnitude and direction of shifts in the human circadian clock responses, measured through body temperature and melatonin concentrations. 

This certainly provides some evidence that we are capable of “extraretinal circadian phototransduction” (reaction to light presented to something other than the eye) through the skin, even if not explaining how this happens.

Why is artificial light particularly problematic?

Search on the internet for artificial lighting and health and you open a world of horror.

Ultraviolet light emitted by fluorescent lamps seems to be the worst offender with a terrifying list of carcinogenic effects being noted as well as being associated with a long list of health problems that are exacerbated by exposure to these sorts of lights (including dyslexia and chronic fatigue symptom). 

Should we be surprised at the health problems of anyone with a job in this modern age then, when so many offices, hospitals and other buildings are constantly light, day and night, by fluorescent lighting?

In addition to the health issues from the UV-B, the wavelength of the light seems to be an important factor in health effects.  A study which looked at the melatonin production in humans exposed to light with different amounts of the shorter wavelength blocked out revealed a strong link in this area (Kayumov et al.  Aug 2007.  “Prevention of melatonin suppression by nocturnal lighting: relevance to cancer”.  European journal of cancer prevention : the official journal of the European Cancer Prevention Organisation (ECP).  16(4):357-62).

Relevant to both me and many readers of this blog was also an observation by a Commander Russell M. Jaffe, M.D., Ph.D, U.S.P.H.S., Senior Staff Physician at the U.S. National Institutes of Health in 1978, which seemed to suggest that frequencies in the 0.1-100 MHz range appeared to weaken muscle strength and proper shielding restored both tone and strength.  Unfortunately I can’t find any detailed reference to this research.

Street lighting is usually achieved with low-pressure sodium lamps in the UK and this has a wavelength of about 600nm which I understand is a pretty low wavelength, although I’d appreciate it if anyone reading this can confirm that.  So it seems that the pervasive light pollution could be slowly causing health problems not solely related to circadian rhythm disturbance.

Disrupted circadian rhythms

In addition to all the general health risks of artificial light, disruption of our circadian rhythm and environmental lighting can have a host of other health problems which, in 2007, were still largely unexplored and were certainly not fully understood.  Instead there was growing awareness of altered sleep or light affecting breast cancer, prostate cancer, obesity, depression and type 2 diabetes amongst other things.

A fantastic paper summarises a workshop of scientists, held at that time to consider how best to conduct research on possible connections between lighting and health.  It is well worth reading since it gives a lot of background as well as summarising the position as it was understood in 2007 and the areas of research that were identified for future study.

So where does this leave me?

Well, I’ve learned a lot.  I’m now a bit wary about all artificial light, but especially of things like sitting in my kitchen, lit with a fluorescent tube, for long periods of time.  I’m also now even more appreciative of the benefits of sleeping out in the wilderness on holidays in the National Parks, away from areas of significant light pollution.

More importantly, I’m going to sort out those front bedrooms and put some wood-slat blinds, or something similar, in them to block out all of the light at night.

Related posts:

1. Lessons learned: sleep
2. Blog-watch: latest sleep round-up
3. Blog-watch: the impact of stress

Since my life goal is to live a long and active life, this could be hindered if I struggle with remembering things or recognising people as I get older.  Especially since I have already had moments in my late teens and early twenties when I struggled to remember things with my short-term memory.

I have therefore been pleased to see a selection of articles over the last month suggesting that exercise can improve the mind, including developing brain cells, improving mental health and happiness and that there are ways to prevent neurodegeneration.

I’ve linked to these articles below as a respository of information to remind me on the days when it all goes wrong in the gym of yet another reason why I should keep exercising.

• A good starting point to mental prowess is to start with good mental health and that is helped by happiness.  Krista at Stumptuous reported on an observational study that showed that physical exercise reduced psychological distress.
• Chris at Conditioning Research highlighted a study into the way our brain develops when we learn new physical skills.  New exercises with new movements would be included in this.
• Precision Nutrition published a really useful article about the brain and actions we can take to prevent neurodegeneration.  Most of their solutions revolve around nutritional changes, such as increasing certain foods in your diet, but the message is clear – you can take control of how your brain ages.
• Conditioning Research has also highlighted “Spark!” a new book that covers the subject of how exercise improves mental performance.  In particular, Chris pulls out the way we would originally have been moving about while learning things.
• Following on from his “Spark!” posts, Chris also found a study showing that endurance training improves the release of brain-derived neurotrophic factor from the human brain.
• The Guardian recently ran an article in which they covered a study recently carried out at Cambridge University.  The study showed that aerobic exercise stimulated growth of brain cells.
• Not on an exercise front, but this article looks at the possible reasons why low fat diets and statins may cause Alzheimers.  The conclusion is well worth reading, even if you don’t have time to read the whole article.
• Finally, here are some handy tips on how to remember things that you learn.

I hope you find these of interest.  I’ve certainly noticed that my short-term memory has improved a little in the last year or two since I started working out in a more dedicated way.  I’d be interested to hear if other people have had similar experiences.

Related posts:

1. Blog-watch: glute development
2. Blog-watch: pregnancy diet and exercise
3. Blog-watch: foot health