This is my third post in this series and I thought it would be useful to hear from some people who really are succeeding with their online digital products. Now the Grant’s sent me these stories but two of these people are actually friends of mine so I can vouch for their stories personally. In fact, I know that they are doing even better than than these short stories indicate. Enjoy!

Annette Welsford from Brisbane has done an awesome job with her book on how to grow juicy, tasty tomatoes. It’s worked so well she now provides it in hard copy as well as downloadable, and offers her readers other products too, such as a tomato recipe book. She’s gotten loads of free publicity on TV, radio and newspapers, and has built an effective (and automated)way to get wonderful testimonials from her readers. Annette made $50,000 from her tomato book last year, and is on track to make $75,000 this year. And she spends just 4 hours a week on it!

Andrej and Karen Brummer first met us at a seminar. They’d been trying lots of other investment strategies with no luck. In fact when we met, they’d just lost everything doing some share trading. But they knew they wanted financial freedom. So they applied everything they learned in our ebook pack, and after running a few survey sites, settled on the topic of “salt water aquariums”. They launched it about 2 years ago, and it’s made between US$300 and US$850 a week every week since, on autopilot. They’ve now grown it into an even bigger business, supplying aquarium products -which they get drop-shipped so it also happens on autopilot. And they’ve set up a membership site to get continuity income as well.

Duncan Capicchiano, a naturopath from Melbourne, was flat broke when he started the ebook process. He spent his last few dollars on promoting his ebook, which he developed using our system. According to Duncan, he tested a few topics with survey sites-which helped hugely, as some of the topics he thought would be winners weren’t. So focusing on the ones that the research showed would work, he followed the system and put together his first ebook. The first one took him about 3 months. These days he says it takes him about 6 weeks to get a new book up from idea to cash. He’s currently making a monthly profit of $10,000, and with the new books he has in the pipeline he’s planning to double that shortly.

Liz Raad (who’s recently moved up to Queensland)is making over $5,000 a month from her ebook, despite a rocky start. Liz launched her “knitting for profit” site in January 09 -only to find there were NO sales. But to her credit, instead of giving up Liz followed the process, doing the monitoring and fine-tuning. She got her first Clickbank cheque on 1 March for $1,402.47. (Yay!!)After some coaching as part of our program, she’s increased her sales to over $5,000 a month. She’s branched out and is now using other traffic driving methods, including Web 2.0 and teleseminars, based on what she’s learned from us. Liz says her keys to success are “keeping going and staying focused despite the distractions of a young family, BSOs (bright shiny objects!), and the site not converting initially”.

Jody Anderson (who also has a craft business but in a different market to Liz’s)came to our 4 day Sydney workshop 2 years ago.  She was totally blown away by our session on Membership sites and completely reshaped the direction her business was heading.  Says Jody, “It was at that event that I had my big ‘a-ha’ moment”.  My business has now grown into a very exciting craft-based global membership site with over 300 members, turning over nearly $10,000 per month.  It has taken a bit of work to grow it -we launched just over 1 year ago, but we have grown each month (even when we lost a few with the ‘global financial crisis’)”. Jody now works from home part-time, and the business allows her to spend quality time with her two small children.Â

Anyway, if you want to find out more about how these people actually did this, then I’d suggest you attend the Grant’s 4 day workshop on the Gold Coast. Just go to http://www.ourinternetsecrets.com/aff/?p=jspain&w=4dayws197

Until next time

Julie

PS. If you do go to the workshop, drop me a line and let me know what you thought.

Last post I told you about the upcoming 4 day workshop that the Grant’s are holding. Now you may be asking why I am writing about this? Well, simply because I have been and I honestly found it one of the most informative workshops I have ever been to. In fact I was so impressed that I went on to be personally mentored by Andrew and Daryl.

Today, I thought I’d give you some basic information about getting started with ebooks. Again, if you want to have a look at one that we did just go to:
www.thrivingalifecrisis.com

And, yes it does make money while we sleep.  Still not as much as we would like but this is where the final step outlined below of “test and measure” is so important.

Step One: Pick Your Topic

If you expect people to buy the information you sell, you need to select topics that people are hungry and passionate to learn about.  Think about it – people who are passionate about something are much more willing to spend money on it.  Finding out what people are passionate about is a matter of looking around – what magazines are people buying? What television shows are people watching?  What hobbies do you or your friends or family have?  These are all potentially good topic areas that may make for information products people want to buy.

Step Two: Create Your Information Product

Once a topic has been selected, it’s time to create the product!  Information products are downloadable, and are text, audio or video – or some combination of these things.  There are a number of options for creating information products, including:

• Record yourself talking about the topic and then sell the mp3 audio file
• Have the audio file transcribed into text to include with the audio, or to turn into an ebook
• Get someone else to write your ebook or report
• Interview an expert on your subject matter and record the conversation with audio and/or video

Step Three: Create Your Sales Page

The sales page is the website that asks visitors to take action (and buy the information product).  Sales pages typically follow a formula that you can duplicate.  Visit www.clickbank.com (the largest supplier of downloadable products) and view sales pages for popular products.   You’ll see that each site follows the same basic structure:

Headline:  you have about 5 or 10 seconds to grab a visitor’s attention with your headline, so make it a good one!

Hook:  you need a good story so people are emotionally involved with your product.  A hook sets you apart from others and makes people realize you are an expert on the topic matter and someone they can relate to.

Proof:  you’ll need to prove your product is what you say it is through testimonials, research, before and after pictures or statistics.

Product Description:  people won’t buy anything if they don’t know what they’re going to get.  Describe what the product offers in terms of benefits, not just the features.  Use bullet points to list the benefits of the product.

Offer: make a no-brainer offer that people can’t refuse through bonuses and extras.

Guarantee:  people only buy from companies or people they trust.  Since they don’t know who you are, you’ll need to provide a guarantee that makes them feel secure in providing their payment details online.

Step Four: Create the Website

Selling information products requires a website with a process to collect payment from the buyers.  Use simple graphics, a professional banner across the top, and your sales page content.  Having a 3D graphic of the ebook cover, or other product image to represent the information product you’re selling will improve your sales.

Collecting payment is easy when you use Clickbank to sell the product.  They handle all of the payment transactions, and each month you’ll receive payment from Clickbank for your sales

Step Five: Get Visitors to Your Website

If you want people to buy from your website, you need to get visitors to the site.  At first, using Google Adwords is an effective way to bring targeted visitors to your website within 30 minutes of setting it up.  When someone clicks on your advertisement in Google, you’ll pay Google a few cents and the visitor is taken to your website to read your sales page.

Step Six: Test and Measure

Once your website is set up and receiving visitors, you can start to test and measure your sales conversions.  If you notice you are getting a lot of visitors but not many sales, you can probably make small adjustments to the content on the sales page to improve the number of visitors who buy your product.  There is split testing software available to help you tweak the content and measure the results of each change.

Areas to test include the headline, customer testimonials, the wording of your offer and the price.

These are the six steps that Andrew and Daryl Grant and myself use to create money-making websites that run on auto-pilot

If you’d like step by step training from Andrew and Daryl in how to do this yourself, book in to their next workshop – here’s the link.
http://www.ourinternetsecrets.com/aff/?p=jspain&w=4dayws197

Here’s an overview that Andrew and Daryl sent me of what the 4 day workshop entails:

DAY 1 -Friday 4 June.  Today you’ll be learning all about making passive income on the internet.  We show you step-by-step exactly how to find a lucrative niche, as well as some quick, clever ways to research that niche so that you can beat your competition. We’ll also show you how to write a winning sales letter. You know we have one sales letter that’s made us over a million dollars? We’ll show you how.

DAY 2 – Saturday 5 June.  We continue with the steps to creating a passive online income. You’ll learn how to quickly, easily and cheaply build downloadable products. We then show you the ways we drive loads of eager-to-buy people to our websites. We’ll show you how we use Google Adwords, email marketing, teleseminars, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and loads more to quickly find hungry customers.

DAY 3 – Sunday 6 June.  Today we finish off the process of building a passive online business by showing you how to build a website that sells, and how to tweak it to get the most income out of it. That website that’s made us over a million dollars -would you believe we nearly canned it in the first few weeks? It wasn’t until we tweaked it (and we’ll show you how) that the money started flowing. Then we show you something REALLY exciting -how you can supercharge the process, and create a 6 or 7 figure business in as little as 90 days. Over the last 2 years we’ve been involved in 9 of these businesses -at the workshop you’ll see why we think they’re the best thing since sliced bread!

DAY 4 -Monday 7 June. We know that none of this works without a success mindset, and a plan to make it all a reality. On this last day we show you the “secret sauce” that we add to all our internet businesses that makes them so successful. We first show you the techniques we use to identify and eliminate our subconscious blockages to being successful (yes, we’re still weeding them out!). Then we show you how we plan any new internet business so that we get the outcome (and the income!) we want from it. You’ll walk out at 5pm with a mini business plan, ready to start on Tuesday!

Just click here if you want to know more about the workshop and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did
http://www.ourinternetsecrets.com/aff/?p=jspain&w=4dayws197

Until next time

Julie

Imagine waking up every morning, turning on your computer, checking your bank account and experiencing that thrill when the balance has increased by another few hundred dollars. Sounds like a dream? Not for one Queensland couple. It’s a daily reality.
You may remember some months ago spoke about Andrew and Daryl Grant who made US$250,000 in the first year of their online business a couple of years ago. (Yes, Daryl is a woman – Andrew’s wife!) They’d literally wake up every morning and log into their bank account to view the hundreds of dollars which had arrived overnight. Every night, every week, every month. And they’re still doing it. Only now it’s as much as a few thousand dollars a night, and climbing every week.
I’m now being trained by Andrew and Daryl to create my own money making internet business. Some time ago I attended one of their 4 day workshops and I must say it was mind blowing. They literally showed us behind the scenes of several of their businesses and told us exactly what to do to set up a similar business. The research, the technical stuff, the marketing – everything you could possible want to know.
Now I’ve got some great news for you. They’re running more 4-day workshops this year, 4-7th June  where they’re going to share the same information.
I’m telling you about the workshops because I think you would find them as fascinating as I did.
Here’s the link to find out more and to register if you decide to go:
http://www.ourinternetsecrets.com/aff/?p=jspain&w=4dayws197

Now here’s two really great bits of news.
Firstly, the tickets sell for $1997 each, however as I’m now a client, they’ve offered me limited seats at special price of $197, and all the proceeds of these limited ticket sales are being donated to their favourite charity – www.kiva.org. This wonderful charity provides micro-loans to budding entrepreneurs in developing countries.
Secondly, the discount ticket also entitles you to bring a friend along – so why not find someone to take and share the price of the ticket! You just need to register them when you purchase your ticket. They don’t let anyone in who hasn’t registered online.

So, now that the admin stuff is out of the way, here’s what they’ll be covering.
Over the last four years or so that they’ve had their internet business they’ve learned loads of different ways to make money online. They believe that it’s really important to have MULTIPLE STREAMS OF INCOME, so they’ll be showing you all the ways they use to make money.
They’ll show you everything, from powerful little money-earners that are so simple you can set them up on a Saturday afternoon, to a massive business that makes millions of dollars a year.
They provide practical, in-depth, how-to’s. What’s really nice is they deliver all this information without any hype and teasers that leave you wanting more.

Anyway, no need to take me word for it, just check out this link for a number of other people, just like you and me who have gained so much out of the workshop:
http://www.ourinternetsecrets.com/4dayworkshopfeedback2009/index.html

Over the next few weeks I’ll keep you updated on the workshop and maybe some more tips about building an online business.
You may like to have a look at one of my ebook websites that is chugging along nicely and this is using the Grant’s teachings. www.thrivingalifecrisis.com

Until next time
Julie
PS – Last time I checked there were already quite a number of bookings for the next workshop, so if I was you I wouldn’t hesitate to register. It’s one of the best workshops I’ve ever been to. Here’s the registration link again:
http://www.ourinternetsecrets.com/aff/?p=jspain&w=4dayws197

In marketing, emotional engagement is all about connecting with the client. In fact, connecting with them to such a point that you:

• Have a strong emotional connection
• Understand what the client’s problems are
• Offer to solve that problem for them

People buy on the emotional benefits of the product but they also buy based on the relationship that is formed with the seller – how connected they feel towards you the seller. Now the seller can be you personally or it can be your staff and if it is your staff then you need to be conscious of the emotional engagement that your staff have to you and your organisation.

I’ve seen studies showing real estate people increased sales by 250 – 300% while insurance sales people doubled their productivity – this at least makes you stand up and take notice.

Here are a few factors that when applied have the potential to skyrocket your sales:

1. Establish rapport. It is possible to form the beginnings of a positive relationship within the first few moments of contact. Issues of safety and trust are paramount
2. Approach with a position of genuineness. Can you smell a fake a mile off? Well guess what? So can most of the world’s population. Whatever you do, do it with congruence
3. Understand the importance of women in sales. Women are responsible for 70 – 80% of the decisions about purchasing. Studies show that in marriage the most important component for happiness is emotional connection with their spouse. Do you think this emotional need could cross over into their purchasing relationships?
4. Convey enthusiasm and if possible, passion, for your product
5. People buy on benefits, not features. That is, “what is in it for me?” If you understand this then you will be looking to solve the customer’s problem
6. Listen. Sounds simple? Yes and no. You are on a mission to listen to the deepest needs of your client and there are skills involved.  Listen with an attitude of care and empathy and you cannot go wrong
7. If you have staff that sell for you then you need to cultivate emotional engagement between your organisation and your staff. It really is unrealistic to expect your staff to conduct themselves with emotional connection to their customers, if you yourself do not foster that within the place they work.

Obviously, there are skills involved in achieving these factors and I will be sharing these in another post so keep tuned.

In the mean time, let me know what you think of this approach to selling. Would you like to hear more about how to follow through with emotional engagement and online marketing?

I conduct training in the area of “Increasing Sales Through Emotional Engagement” so if you have any questions for me just use the “contact us” tab above.

Until next time – happy connecting

Julie

“Most organisations spend their time marketing to the crowd. Smart organisations assemble the tribe” (p. 30) Seth speaks of how we need to belong to something or some sort of cause that inspires us. As humans we are social animals and actually need to connect with other human beings. So much so that we are waiting for someone to lead us. To show us the way. We are looking for innovation and initiative.

Now to achieve all of this we need leaders. People who want to inspire, influence and encourage. I have always maintained that we all have within us the potential to influence, inspire and encourage. It’s just that some of us do not want to take the time and make the effort to do this.

But what if you do? Then this is your key for growing a successful organisation either online or offline. Now this made me think about my career to date and I realized something profound (at least for me), that I had already been doing this very successfully offline and that really it was a small jump to do this online. Same principles really:

- have a cause that you believe in and want to share with others. For me I have spent a lifetime working with people in the worst possible situations. I often thought that it would be great to get the message out to 1000’s of people that there are a few principles in life that if you follow, life will be more successful and not so tough.

- have a vehicle to spread the word. Today we have the perfect vehicle with our communications revolution.

- believe in yourself. Have the convictions that you can lead, inspire and influence.

- live the life you are preaching – be congruent between your speech and your actions because if you are not people will see it.

- genuinely care about your tribe. In fact, leaders truly care more about their tribe than they do about their own gain and people will respond to that genuineness.

I hope these thoughts inspire you as they have inspired me.

Until the next time
Julie
PS. I really would love to hear your thoughts about this idea of tribes. Send me a line or two!
PPS. If you would like to know a little bit more about what I do have a look at a couple of my websites:
www.secretstoemotionalhealth.com
www.thrivingalifecrisis.com

I thought alot about this conversation that afternoon and decided that I actually liked this description of myself. But at this point you may be wondering what it has to do with online business success?

I have heard of some people who have made it big online quickly. They were in the right spot at the right time with the right product. I have met many more who are more like me – hard working, making lots of mistakes and passionate about what they do.

Some of these people have given up. Unlike the bulldog, they decided that it was just too hard. You know what, sometimes, that is exactly as I have felt but there is a difference between feeling a certain way and giving in to those feelings.

So what exactly, is tenacity and why is this quality so important to the success of an online business? One online dictionary describes it as – “persistent determination – the quality of being determined to do or achieve something”. Other words used by the Thesaurus are: doggedness, perseverance, determination, purpose and persistence.

Yes, you need:  technical knowledge (if not your own then at least someone else’s), a good product, customers, marketing but if you do not have tenacity you simply won’t kick the ball through the goal posts. You will become fatigued long before that and simply give in.

Someone challenged me last week to get off the comfy couch and get doing – learning, working, connecting, experimenting.

I’d like to pass this same challenge on to you. If you are serious about an online business, then you will have to keep at it. You will have to learn and grow from your mistakes and failures. You will have to be the bulldog hanging on for your strength and one day you will start to see the trickles and then the floodgates coming rushing in.

If this post encouraged you then send the link to others who you think may benefit: www.diaryofanonlinebusiness.com

Until next time

Julie

Now if I was you, the first question I would be asking is why? Well that’s exactly what I also asked Google and to date (10 days later) I have not had any sort of answer.

Google Adwords have told me that I have broken some unforgivable rule but I really do not know what.  Since learning of this we have:

• audited all our websites

• talked with Hostgater to see if any nasties had been put on there that we weren’t aware of

• talked with our email service to make sure we are receiving all messages
• contacted a number of people in the business including the adwords expert Mike Rhodes
• read other people’s stories who have had the same thing happen to them -and there seems to be a few
• reread Googles rules and regulations to see if we could identify any rule we may have unknowingly broken – and couldn’t identify anything

And at the moment we are no further advanced on why this has happened to us and how to fix it.

As you can imagine this is time costly.

The thing that I am really having trouble with is that Google Adwords is telling me that I have not acted ethically (my interpretation).  My whole professional life has been governed by the ethics of caring for others so I not only see this banning by Google as a very large threat to my business but also to my reputation.

I am an optimist and definitely believe that when one door closes another opens. We’ll just have to work out other ways of driving traffic and certainly people are telling me not to worry about this as there are other ways to do it.

I think though I’ll give it a few more tries appealing to Google as I really want to believe in the good Corporate culture and spirit that we hear so much about today. I will choose to believe it is alive and well

I’m really needing some support, advice and information with regards to this one so please leave your comments about anything you feel would be helpful to me and others like me in this difficult situation.

My advice for my readers – check your websites against the Google Adwords regulations. Obviously, this has not been enough to save me a lot of confusion and distress but I really hope that it will be for you

Until next time

Julie

I’d like to give you the first instalment in “The 6 Vital Steps to Emotional Health” Hope you enjoy.

How To Be Free Of Emotional Baggage and Finally Live a Life of Health, Vitality and Abundance

Did you know that research shows that 90% of all illnesses are stress related?

Did you know that stress is caused by negative emotions such as fear, worry, frustration, powerlessness, resentment, bitterness, sadness and many other feelings?

If you control your emotional health, you control your overall health and well being!

Here are Six vital steps that if you take action with, will help you get started on a more energetic, healthy, happy, content and fulfilled life.

Let’s get healthy:

Step One – Establishing Self Care as an Integral Part of Emotional, Mental and Physical Health

“What you are is God’s gift to you. What

you do with yourself is your gift to God.”

Danish Proverb

Human beings are a complete system made up of the physical, emotional, mental, spiritual and social. Each part of our system impacts on the other. To have good emotional health we must have good physical health. To have good physical health, we must have good emotional health. So let’s start at the being with how to care for our body and reap the rewards of strong emotional health.

On any given day, we have a certain amount of energy to spend to accomplish the necessary tasks for the day. If life is going well and we are fit, healthy and happy, then we will have a larger amount of energy to spend than if we are going through some form of life crisis. When faced with life’s problems, our precious resource of energy can be very quickly used up.

Digestion uses more energy than any other activity we engage in. However, negative painful emotions are the second greatest user of our finite stores of energy. In other words, personal disaster will cause us to feel many painful emotions such as, fear, hurt, frustration, confusion and powerlessness and these emotions will use up a very large proportion of our daily energy allowance.

Without an adequate source of energy, we will find it very difficult to successfully navigate the challenges we may face as we move forward to a healthier life. Not only will our body feel exhausted but our brain function will also be diminished and we may find it difficult to make decisions and remember things.

Just like a car requires not only petrol to run, but the right sort of petrol – our bodies also require the correct fuel and proper care to perform at a time when we are most challenged.

Below, is a simple but effective prescription for self care that if followed, will help you perform at your optimum:

· Be careful about the types of food you eat. When under pressure, we often turn to the fast foods that are easy to reach for and give us a quick burst of sugar. In very simple terms:

o The best food to eat is unprocessed. Try to stay away from processed foods such as, fast food, cakes, chocolates, sugar drink.

o Replace these with vegetables, fruits, nuts and protein such as meat and fish. Complex carbohydrates such as fruits, vegetables and whole grains help increase our levels of serotonin. Serotonin is a brain chemical or neurotransmitter that helps us feel calm. Of course, this is very important in times of crisis.

o Protein taken three times a day, at about the size of the palm of your hand, will help you to not feel as tired.

o Try to eat something no more than one to two hours after waking as this will help keep your blood sugar levels up for the day

o Eat frequently, that is every three to four hours, the types of foods I have mentioned, as this also will help keep your blood sugar levels up, thereby helping you to not feel tired and confused.

· What you drink is also important. Remember to drink a minimum of two litres of water per day. Reduce or cut out alcohol as it acts as both a stimulate and depressant. During times of stress our adrenals are working overtime and it is a good idea to avoid anything that will further stimulate them. Caffeine and sugar also stimulate the adrenals so it is important to reduce or cut out drinks such as cola, coffee and soft drinks.

· Try to get some form of cardiovascular exercise 4 – 5 times a week for between 30 – 45 minutes each session. This form of exercise includes walking, swimming, cycling, running and dancing. Cardiovascular exercise helps us produce many good chemicals such as, serotonin, already mentioned and endorphins which are a natural opiate or feel good chemical. This form of exercise also helps us get rid of the stress chemicals such as, cortisol and adrenaline that are produced in times of adversity and stress.

· Try to get adequate rest, sleep and relaxation. During periods of stress, the body produces high levels of toxins. It is when we relax and sleep that the body has an opportunity to repair and restore itself. Denying yourself rest will affect your ability to continue to reach your full potential.

· Tap into every form of support possible.

Although this information may be a bit technical I have found that if people understand why they need to keep up these basic self care practices they are more motivated. Keeping your body in good shape, will be one of the most powerful things you do to help keep your mind and emotions in peek condition to help you bring about the changes needed to live your best life.

I’ll send part two very soon but to learn more why not come to one of my seminars:

Talk soon

Julie

PS the website again is www.secretstoemotionalhealth.com and I’ll be sending out lots of free products to change your life

Seeing I’ve been working on my membership site, I thought it a good time to discuss the benefits and points of  such a product on the internet.

1. A membership site provides recurring income. With the model I am using, people pay for a month and receive weekly eclasses. They can continue with this for as long as the work is valuable. This obviously, is a better deal for you than a one off ebook .
2. It is best to initially choose a topic that you know something about so you can write the weekly eclasses. Of course another option is to simply pay someone to write all the material for you and you can find ghost writers on such sites as www.elance.com and www.rentacoder.com
3. There are a number of models for memberships sites but the one I have chosen to go with is that used by Andrew and Daryl Grant. The best way to learn all that they have to offer is to book into one of their workshops (which I did). You can just follow this link to find out about the workshop. http://www.ourinternetsecrets.com/2009/lookinside/opt2.html
4. A membership site allows you to dominate your field or to be seen as an expert in your chosen area. This is particularly important on the internet. In my line of work I am regarded as an expert but on the internet it is now about getting my name and my products out there for people to trust me. By the way, if you are wondering what my line of work has been for the last twenty five years, I am an expert in emotional and mental health. I have worked on the full continum scale from personal growth and self development to the other extreme of trauma, critical incidents and disaster management. I am now bringing this expertise to the internet and my membership site is the perfect vehicle to do this. So if you are an expert in a field this may be your vehicle of choice
5. The three main areas of development for your membership site are
   • Writing the sales page and developing the web page – this is your store
   • Writing the material you are going to market – this is the product or eclasses
   • Marketing your product online and offline – this is what makes you money
6. Remember that you can always outsource a good deal of this work but of course it will cost money
7. My husband and I have worked at learning the business from the bottom up and now we are tending to pay the experts more and do what we believe we do best – run the business rather than work in it

I hope this has encouraged you to at least look into this further. Please leave any comments and questions you have. I’d like to know others experiences with this sort of product.

Don’t forget if you want help with the real nitty gritty of the development go to:

http://www.ourinternetsecrets.com/2009/lookinside/opt2.html or just simply click on the banner on the right hand side.

By the way if you are looking for help set up your blog I cannot recommend highly enough Yaro Starak. What Yaro gives away is phenomenal and really worth a fortune. I’ve met him and he really is a nice guy. Just click his banner on the right hand side.

Until next time

Julie

How to Improve Memory

Use It or Lose It:  Dancing Makes You Smarter

Musings by Richard Powers

For hundreds of years dance manuals and other writings have lauded the health benefits of dancing, usually as physical exercise.  More recently we’ve seen research on further health benefits of dancing, such as stress reduction and increased serotonin level, with its sense of well-being.

Then most recently we’ve heard of another benefit:  Frequent dancing apparently makes us smarter.  A major study added to the growing evidence that stimulating one’s mind can ward off Alzheimer’s disease and other dementia, much as physical exercise can keep the body fit.

You’ve probably heard about the New England Journal of Medicine <http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/abstract/348/25/2508>  report on

the effects of recreational activities on mental acuity in aging.   Here

it is in a nutshell.

The 21-year study of senior citizens, 75 and older, was led by the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, funded by the National Institute on Aging, and published in the New England Journal of Medicine.  Their method for objectively measuring mental acuity in aging was to monitor rates of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease.

The study wanted to see if any physical or cognitive recreational activities influenced mental acuity.  They discovered that some activities had a significant beneficial effect.  Other activities had none.

They studied cognitive activities such as reading books, writing for pleasure, doing crossword puzzles, playing cards and playing musical instruments.  And they studied physical activities like playing tennis or golf, swimming, bicycling, dancing, walking for exercise and doing housework.

One of the surprises of the study was that almost none of the physical activities appeared to offer any protection against dementia.  There can be cardiovascular benefits of course, but the focus of this study was the mind.  There was one important exception:  the only physical activity to offer protection against dementia was frequent dancing.

            Reading – 35% reduced risk of dementia

            Bicycling and swimming – 0%

People who played the hardest gained the most:  For example, seniors who did crossword puzzles four days a week had a 47% lower risk of dementia than those who did the puzzles once a week.

            Playing golf – 0%

            Dancing frequently – 76%.

That was the greatest risk reduction of any activity studied, cognitive or physical.

Quoting Dr. Joseph Coyle, a Harvard Medical School psychiatrist who wrote an accompanying commentary:

“The cerebral cortex and hippocampus, which are critical to these activities, are remarkably plastic, and they rewire themselves based upon their use.”

And from from the study itself, Dr. Katzman proposed these persons are more resistant to the effects of dementia as a result of having greater cognitive reserve and increased complexity of neuronal synapses.  Like education, participation in some leisure activities lowers the risk of dementia by improving cognitive reserve.

Our brain constantly rewires its neural pathways, as needed.  If it doesn’t need to, then it won’t.

            Aging and memory

When brain cells die and synapses weaken with aging, our nouns go first, like names of people, because there’s only one neural pathway connecting to that stored information.  If the single neural connection to that name fades, we lose access to it.  So as we age, we learn to parallel process, to come up with synonyms to go around these roadblocks.  (Or maybe we don’t learn to do this, and just become a dimmer bulb.)

The key here is Dr. Katzman’s emphasis on the complexity of our neuronal synapses.  More is better.  Do whatever you can to create new neural paths.  The opposite of this is taking the same old well-worn path over and over again, with habitual patterns of thinking and living our lives.

When I was studying the creative process as a grad student at Stanford, I came across the perfect analogy to this:

            The more stepping stones there are across the creek,

            the easier it is to cross in your own style.

The focus of that aphorism was creative thinking, to find as many alternative paths as possible to a creative solution.  But as we age, parallel processing becomes more critical.  Now it’s no longer a matter of style, it’s a matter of survival — getting across the creek at all.

Randomly dying brain cells are like stepping stones being removed one by one.  Those who had only one well-worn path of stones are completely blocked when some are removed.  But those who spent their lives trying different mental routes each time, creating a myriad of possible paths, still have several paths left.

The Albert Einstein College of Medicine study shows that we need to keep as many of those paths active as we can, while also generating new paths, to maintain the complexity of our neuronal synapses.

            Why dancing?

We immediately ask two questions:

*  Why is dancing better than other activities for improving mental capabilities?

*  Does this mean all kinds of dancing, or is one kind of dancing better than another?

That’s where this particular study falls short.  It doesn’t answer these questions as a stand-alone study.  Fortunately, it isn’t a stand-alone study.  It’s one of many studies, over decades, which have shown that we increase our mental capacity by exercising our cognitive processes.

Intelligence: Use it or lose it.  And it’s the other studies which fill in the gaps in this one.  Looking at all of these studies together lets us understand the bigger picture.

Some of this is discussed here

<http://socialdance.stanford.edu/syllabi/intelligent.htm>  (the page you probably just came from) which looks at intelligence in greater depth.

The essence of intelligence is making decisions.  And the concluding advice, when it comes to improving your mental acuity, is to involve yourself in activities which require split-second rapid-fire decision making, as opposed to rote memory (retracing the same well-worn paths), or just working on your physical style.

One way to do that is to learn something new.  Not just dancing, but anything new.  Don’t worry about the probability that you’ll never use it in the future.  Take a class to challenge your mind.  It will stimulate the connectivity of your brain by generating the need for new pathways.  Difficult and even frustrating classes are better for you, as they will create a greater need for new neural pathways.

Then take a dance class, which can be even better.  Dancing integrates several brain functions at once, increasing connectivity.  Dancing simultaneously involves kinesthetic, rational, musical and emotional processes.

            What kind of dancing?

Let’s go back to the study:

            Bicycling, swimming or playing golf – 0% reduced risk of dementia

But doesn’t golf require rapid-fire decision-making?  No, not if you’re a long-time player.  You made most of the decisions when you first started playing, years ago.  Now the game is mostly refining your technique.  It can be good physical exercise, but the study showed it led to no improvement in mental acuity.

Therefore take the kinds of dance classes where you must make as many split-second decisions as possible.  That’s key to maintaining true intelligence.

Does any kind of dancing lead to increased mental acuity?  No, not all forms of dancing will produce this benefit.  Not dancing which, like golf or swimming, mostly works on style or retracing the same memorized paths.  The key is the decision-making.  Remember, Jean Piaget suggested that intelligence is what we use when we don’t already know what to do.

We wish that 25 years ago the Albert Einstein College of Medicine thought of doing side-by-side comparisons of different kinds of dancing, to find out which was better.  But we can figure it out by looking at who they studied: senior citizens 75 and older, beginning in 1980.

Those who danced in that particular population were former Roaring Twenties dancers (back in 1980) and then former Swing Era dancers (today), so the kind of dancing most of them continued to do in retirement was what they began when they were young: freestyle social dancing — basic foxtrot, swing, waltz and maybe some Latin.

I’ve been watching senior citizens dance all of my life, from my parents (who met at a Tommy Dorsey dance), to retirement communities, to the Roseland Ballroom in New York.  I almost never see memorized sequences or patterns on the dance floor.  I mostly see easygoing, fairly simple

social dancing — freestyle lead and follow.   But freestyle social

dancing isn’t that simple!  It requires a lot of split-second decision-making, in both the lead and follow roles.

      I need to digress here:

I want to point out that I’m not demonizing memorized sequence dancing or style-focused pattern-based ballroom dancing.  I sometimes enjoy sequence dances for several good reasons <http://socialdance.stanford.edu/syllabi/sequences.htm> .  Plus there are stress-reduction benefits of any kind of dancing, cardiovascular benefits of physical exercise, and even further benefits of feeling connected to a community of dancers.  So all dancing is good.

But when it comes to preserving mental acuity, then some forms are better than others.  When we talk of intelligence (use it or lose it) then the more decision-making we can bring into our dancing, the better.

Challenge yourself to try new things.  Make more decisions more often.

Intelligence: use it or lose it.

Hope this article encourages you to get out there, have some fun and make yourself smarter

Until next time

Julie