Intimidating someone bigger than you

His weekly e-newsletter – Just One Thing – has over 40,000 subscribers, and also appears on Huffington Post, Psychology Today, and other major websites.For more information, please see his full profile at This is a great way to pass on gene copies, but a lousy way to promote quality of life.So for starters, be mindful of the degree to which your brain is wired to make you afraid, wired so that you walk around with an ongoing trickle of anxiety (a flood for some) to keep you on alert.Founder of the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom and Affiliate of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, he’s been an invited speaker at Oxford, Stanford, and Harvard, and taught in meditation centers worldwide.

This vulnerability to feeling threatened has effects at many levels, ranging from individuals, couples, and families to schoolyards, organizations, and nations.

Then, by bringing mindful awareness to how your brain reacts to feeling threatened, you can stimulate and therefore build up the neural substrates of a mind that has more calm, wisdom, and sense of inner strength - a mind that sees real threats more clearly, acts more effectively in dealing with them, and is less rattled or distracted by exaggerated, manageable, or false alarms.

(The "hows" in this JOT are mainly about understanding.)The nervous system has been evolving for 600 million years, from ancient jellyfish to modern humans.

When boxing out, jockeying for position in the paint, always establish your athletic stance.

Keep them further away from the basket than they want.

Most of your strength will come from your lower body.