DISCLAIMER: THE AUTHOR OF THIS BOOK TAKES ABSOLUTELY NO

RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE RESULTS ACHIEVED BY FOLLOWING THESE

GUIDELINES. THE AMOUNT OF STRESS AND UNHAPPINESS FELT IS PURELY

COINCIDENTAL. YOU ONLY GET OUT WHAT YOU PUT IN, SO RESULTS MAY

VARY.

‘Happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one principle:

some things are within your control, and some things are not.’ - Epictetus

1. Worry more

Create more stress and anxiety in your life by worrying about everything and

anything, especially the things you can do absolutely nothing about. Things to

worry about include:

What other people think

The state of the world in general

Being pregnant

Not being pregnant

Past mistakes

The past in general

Getting old

Not being old enough

Money

Taking risks

Life passing you by

Finding a job

Losing your job

The ‘what if..’ syndrome

The ‘if only…’ syndrome

Being alone

Getting cancer

This is not an exhaustive list by any means, so feel free to use your imagination

and challenge yourself to see how creative you can be. If you can’t think of

anything to worry about at the moment, then why not worry about the fact

you’re not worrying. All this effort will pay off in the end, so it’s worthwhile

sticking at it.

As you can see, the previous list refers mainly to things you can do nothing

about. But remember, by worrying about the things you can control you also

give up the energy necessary to actually tackle the problem, so well done!

You’re well on your way to enjoying that heart-attack you’ve always promised

yourself, not forgetting the attention you’re likely to receive! By doing nothing,

you also convince your self-image that you’re absolutely helpless in tackling

problems, therefore giving you the freedom to dwell on them for as long as

you want.

Also, by worrying more and placing your body and mind under increasing

pressure, you can actually induce many of the symptoms outlined, proving to

yourself you were right to worry in the first place - a win, win there!

In fact, all of the items on the list not only initiate worry, but also use the fact

you worry about them, taking up time that could otherwise have been used to

solve them. This is an in-genius way of creating what I like to call ‘the circle of

despair,’ which automates the whole process, removing any conscious effort at

all. Having mastered this first step, you’re well on your way to rapid stress

enhancement. However, mastery of any one of the following steps could

stand-alone in helping you with your mission to increase stress and get ill.

Also, by mastering the art of worrying, you could very well find yourself

naturally progressing to a more advanced stage in this process involving

alcohol and drug abuse, in order to treat the symptom of worry - it’s a very

organic progression. However this is the only time you should ever use the

word ‘organic’ when referring to anything other than your natural desire to

achieve rapid aging and premature death.

2. Get really angry all the time

Getting really angry about stuff is another great way to increase levels of

stress, and bring on an onslaught of health problems. As you can see from the

previous list, it’s very easy to get angry about all the points listed, as well as

worrying about them. So by combining worry with anger, you can achieve

accelerated results . Also, allow others around you, particularly friends and

family, to drive you mad. Allow their judgments about you, their opinions and

your desire to please them, contribute to your one way ticket to the mad

house.

However, total strangers can also provide you with a limitless supply of

reasons to get angry, which include:

Walking straight towards you while messaging on their phone.

Standing in front of you waiting to pay for things.

Being old and taking so long to walk.

Driving on the road.

Being bankers.

Being politicians.

Having beards.

Being babies.

But you don’t have to stop at getting angry with people. You can get angry with

things as well! Here are just a few things to get you started:

The television.

The weather.

The economy.

The government.

You can also get angry with yourself if you run out of people and things to get

angry at. Why not lament over a past mistake you’ve made; something you did

which you now regret or over something you should have done, but didn’t.

Getting angry with yourself means that you are completely internalising the

process, with nothing and no-body to take it out on. But by internalising, you’ll

find that you inadvertently take it out on other people anyway, helping you to

fulfil another of the steps – driving people away and spending all your time in

splendid isolation.

The misconception of anger is that it’s there to give us the necessary energy to

resolve a conflict or problem. Now that we don’t live in caves anymore, it’s

much more appropriate to keep it building up inside, or to express it in

inappropriate ways, driving away people and giving us more time alone,

allowing it to continue its consummation.

By following these simple guidelines, you’re sure to have an aneurism at some

point, or at the very least a heart-attack, so keep at it! Now that you’re

sufficiently worried and angry, you’re ready to move onto the next stage…

3. Do more of the things you hate

When it comes to this step, I’m not talking about the things you dislike, I’m

talking about all the stuff you really hate. Anything that makes you twist and

squirm inside, that you know has absolutely no benefit to you in any way, are

excellent examples of how to master this method. These could include:

Staying in the same job you’ve hated for years.

Being around people you have an extreme dislike for.

Continuing the same course at college or university you hate.

Studying any subjects you hate.

Watching films you hate.

Situations in general that you despise.

You want to do a lot more of these things, especially being around the people

you hate the most and getting really angry about it, then worrying about what

they think about you.

Doing things we hate, at times, is unavoidable – which is great because the last

thing we want to do is avoid them! In order to please everyone, we’ve got to

do the things we hate, but makes their life easier, just to keep them happy. The

last thing we want to do is do anything that makes us happy, because we then

run the risk of them not liking us and we don’t want that!

You’re now starting to piece things together effortlessly, and you’re not even

half way through!

4. Take extremely poor care of your health

Ensure your way to an early exit by taking extremely poor care of your health.

If you haven’t already, I’d suggest taking up smoking, or at the very least being

around people who smoke, as much as possible. After you’ve done that, I’d

suggest eating as much fast-food as you can, followed by lying on the couch

watching endless amounts of T.V.

Please avoid, as much as you possible, anything resembling exercise, together

with all fresh fruit and veg. This method also includes drinking as much alcohol

as you can, and/or taking copious amounts of drugs at the same time.

5. Take yourself, and life, as seriously as possible

A more subtle, but equally effective way to increase stress is to take yourself as

seriously as possible and never, ever see the funny side of life! Having a sense

of humour delivers a killer blow to stress, which is why we want to avoid

laughing, joking and having fun, as much as possible – if not entirely!

This relates to the first method, as it’s important that you worry about the

state of the world and how bad things are, as much as possible. Never look at

the possibility of things getting better, and always err on the side of pessimism

whenever possible.

Also, care intensely about what other people think about you and at all times

make sure you adjust your behaviour to keep everybody happy – including,

and especially, complete strangers.

6. Never aspire to be, or do, anything

Never aspire to do, or be anything. Never set meaningful goals, or believe in

the possibility of achieving them anyway. The best way to tackle this method is

to sit mindlessly on your couch watching endless amounts of television, or

engaging in any activity that prevents you from thinking about how life could

really be if only you applied yourself.

It’s particularly helpful if you become obsessed by the lives of others, who at

first glance appear to have the life you want, through reality T.V, magazines

and newspapers. Then compare your life to theirs, decreasing your self-esteem

and increasing feelings of worthlessness.

7. Become extremely self-centred

Another one of the more subtle approaches is to become extremely self-

centred and self-pitying. The trick to this is to feel as sorry for yourself as

possible about the way life has treated you, and for all the bad breaks you’ve

had.

At all times, it’s important to feel as much of a victim as possible, to the extent

that no-one, in your mind, has had it quite so bad in all of human history. This

is a sure fire way of getting rid of all those friends you never really liked in the

first place, giving you as much time as you need to continue this self-induced

journey into hell. Thinking about the past constantly also helps.

8. Get into as much debt as you can

Spend as much money as you can on as many useless and irrelevant things,

that make you feel momentarily better from this self-imposed nightmare.

Make sure you do things like vote on reality T.V shows, and do all your

shopping on QVC. Together with your heavy smoking, drinking and drug abuse,

you’re sure to be on the fast track to losing everything, and racking up

insurmountable debt in the process. In fact, why not get out a quick loan from

one of the loan providers you see advertised on T.V all day? That way you can

buy more stuff, and owe much more than you initially borrowed for things that

lose their appeal after a couple of days or weeks.

But, it is important to keep up with your friends and family, or even those

famous people whose lives you’ve become obsessed with. I’m sure they’ve all

gotten themselves into just as much debt to buy that new car they can’t really

afford anyway, so you can easily justify any purchases in this way.

9. Never get too attached to anyone

Now, this one can take some doing. But if you’ve carefully followed and

mastered the previous steps, then all your worry, anger, narcissism, drug and

alcohol abuse, together with your blatant disregard for others, your low self-

esteem and chronic lack of a sense of humour should sort this step out all by

itself.

You need to become extremely proficient in all the previous steps before you

can claim mastery of this one. However, once you have done so, you’ll find no

problem with having as much time as you need to focus all your efforts on

feeling dreadful about yourself and your life.

10. Consistently put yourself in life threatening situations

The final stage, once all the previous steps have been mastered, is to put

yourself in as many precarious and potentially life threatening situations as you

can, as often as you can. This is a particular favourite of mine because you can

really use your imagination here, and put yourself in situations that others

could only dream of. Here, you have complete control over the choices you

make, therefore opening up a world of possibility.

Why not move half-way round the world and buy a bar on some dodgy south-

east Asian island, where the rule of law is governed by the contents of your

wallet, and hormonally challenged transsexuals go hand-in-hand with drugs

and guns

Now that you’re well on your way to achieving your goal of early death, please

bear in mind that this is not a definitive guide to ways of effectively increasing

your levels of stress. But if you closely follow these ten steps, and take

absolutely no heed of any warnings, you’re sure to significantly increase stress,

age rapidly and ruin your life significantly. Remember, you only get out what

you put in, so…

Good Luck!

Excerpt taken from ‘Sleights of Mind’ (Stephen Macknik and Susana Martinez-

Conde with Sandra Blakeslee, 2011, www.sleightsofmind.com)

Neuroscientists have begun to dissect the nature of attention and identify its

neural correlates. The initial brain areas that process a visual scene use circuits

that lay out a visual space like a map. These first few stages of visual processing

(the retina, the visual thalamus, and the primary visual cortex discussed in

chapter 1) are organised so that the neurons that process one part of the visual

field are positioned directly next to the neurons that process the adjacent

parts of the visual field. As your eyes move around, your retinas and the visual

input move around too. But no matter where you look, some neurons are

assigned to your central vision, and the other neurons are assigned to specific

peripheral positions of input from your retinas. The retinal positions of these

visual neurons never change.

When you decide consciously to pay attention to a specific location of this

‘retinotopic’ space, neurons from higher levels of your visual system increase

the activation of the low-level circuits and enhance their sensitivity to sensory

input. At the same time, neurons in the surrounding regions of visual space are

actively inhibited. We recently worked with a group of colleagues led by

neuroscientist Jose-Manuel Alonso at the State University of New York and

showed that the neurons in the primary visual cortex not only enhanced

attention in the center of the spotlight and suppressed attention in the

surrounding regions, but their degree of activation was modulated by the

amount of effort used to accomplish a given task. In other words, the harder

the task, the more the central region of attention was activated and the more

the surrounding region was suppressed.

In a magic show, you face an incredibly difficult task: to peel away all the

layers of misdirection and figure out the secret method underlying each magic

effect. But the harder you try, the harder it gets: the more your attention is

enhanced on the centre of the attentional focus, the more your attention is

suppressed in all other locations. Of course, the centre of the attentional

focus is right where the magician wants it – where nothing of particular

interest is going on. The locations surrounding your spotlight of attention –

where the real action is happening – are now conveniently suppressed by your

brain. The armies of neurons that suppress perception in those regions are the

magician’s allies.

Visual perception

When you vividly imagine – for example in a vivid dream – your body responds

as though you were actually experiencing it for real. How many times have you

woken up in a cold sweat, or having had to take a few moments to adjust to

your actual reality, after waking up? Such is the power of the creative

imagination, it doesn’t discriminate between what’s real or vividly imagined.

That is why visualisation and mental rehearsal have been utilised by sports

performers, and generally anyone who has to perform, for the several decades

now.

When we imagine, our mind uses the same visual sensory area to process the

images as it does when we actually see something. In other words, the images

you see in your imagination activate your attention centre. When you focus,

you direct your neurons to your attention centre, therefore preventing them

from reaching other areas of your brain. This enables you to become extremely

efficient at concentrating on things that demand your attention. The more

immediate the problem, the more concentrated the neurons become in order

to help you find a solution.

As you focus your attention, you supress other parts of your mind, some of

which could help you resolve the problem. So the mere act of intense focus

can actually work against you at times. Hence the reason that you can come up

with more creative and lateral solutions once you’ve taken your attention

away from the problem itself, for a while. How many times have you found the

solution to a problem when you’ve moved your attention away from the task,

or after taking a nap? Your mind will continue searching for solutions until it

finds the most satisfactory one, which leads to the discussion about the

conscious and unconscious mind.

Your conscious mind comprises between five and ten percent of your mind’s

total capacity, the rest of which is known as the subconscious, or unconscious,

mind. Your conscious mind is capable of working on about seven bits (+2 or –

2) of information at any one time, allowing you to solve problems in real-time.

Your unconscious mind controls everything else like your heart-beat and

breathing. It controls your healing process and stores all your habits and

beliefs. Habits are, in and of themselves, part of our survival mechanism and

are created as a result of repeatedly taking action on our conscious thoughts.

We develop habits like eating, walking and talking to ensure our survival.

They’re a highly sophisticated way of giving us mental space, allowing us to do

things without having to consciously think about them. With this

understanding, you can see not only how we create habits of action, but habits

of thought as well. Both reflect on each other, and you can see how actions

create thoughts and thoughts create actions.

When you have habits you would like to change, you can interrupt the thought

patterns that created them by looking at the mental processes going on. What

images or movies do you play in your mind? Are they a true reflection of who

you are and what you want to be? If not, then it is possible to take control of

those images and change them; it’s only by changing our inner thoughts that

we can change our behaviour. There obviously has to be some reference to

reality when making these changes. You can’t, for example, fly simply because

you imagine yourself to, and you also have to be aware of the process involved

with change. But by recognising the want to change, and by applying

continuous effort, you’re well on your way to achieving the results you desire.

Continued thoughts and actions create habits, and continued habits help form

beliefs. For example, you might have the belief that you are a smoker, and

whenever you think of yourself, you associate smoking as part of that self-

image. However, this was not always the case. There was a point in time when

you weren’t a smoker (unless you started really young) therefore, it was the

act of smoking repeatedly that formed the habit, therefore creating the belief.

The thing is, when we start to challenge beliefs in this way, we can start

forming new, more appropriate ones and we can look at other beliefs that

surround them. In the smoking example, you might have held the belief that it

was a cool thing to do, or that it connected you with others in some way.

Recognising old, outdated beliefs is also the cornerstone to change.

Beliefs are at the core of everyone; people live and die by them every day.

Beliefs are there to help us make sense of the world and help us create a ‘map’

to navigate through life. However, as Korsybski said ‘the map is not the

territory,’ therefore it’s appropriate at times to challenge our ‘map’ to see if it

really is guiding through the ‘territory’ in the best possible way.

With all this information in mind, you can now use it to your advantage and

start thinking about the things you want – not the things you don’t. When you

start to see, in your mind’s eye, the desired outcome to a problem or situation,

you start the process of your mind working towards a solution. Paradoxically,

this system can work either for you or against you, depending on the images

you allow yourself to create, and the frequency with which you create them.

However, it’s enormously beneficial to know how this process works. Start

taking control of it and get the results you want.

So, prioritise what it is you want, and allow your creative imagination to get to

work. Whenever you get those flashes of inspiration, learn to trust and put

them into action. You could start with something fairly small, in order to build

up your confidence and faith. But now that you have this knowledge and

understanding, use it wisely. With patience and persistence, you will see

results!

Enjoy!