Word: nervously
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...might be eavesdropping on Thailand's leaders through its ownership of Shin Corp., which runs a Thai mobile-phone operator. (Formerly controlled by Thaksin's family, Shin was sold last year to Temasek Holdings, the investment arm of the Singaporean government, for $1.9 billion.) "Thaksin makes the CNS very nervous," says Ukrist Pathmanand, associate director of the Institute of Asian Studies at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University, who has co-written a book about the ousted leader. "I don't believe he will stay out of politics. I could see him returning when people begin to think that the leaders...
...gain citizenship. INS officials have been known to ask applicants about tattoos and which side of the bed someone sleeps on, then double-check the answers with their spouses. "We married for love," said Bernard. "But we had heard stories about the interview, and, well, we were still nervous." Nonetheless, he easily passed the interview and was awarded residency...
...THAT INFORMATION MAY BE SEALED OFF FROM consciousness is strategic. Evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers has noted that people have a motive to sell themselves as beneficent, rational, competent agents. The best propagandist is the one who believes his own lies, ensuring that he can't leak his deceit through nervous twitches or self-contradictions. So the brain might have been shaped to keep compromising data away from the conscious processes that govern our interaction with other people. At the same time, it keeps the data around in unconscious processes to prevent the person from getting too far out of touch...
THIS IS PROBABLY THE TOUGHEST LESSON TO INTERNALIZE BECAUSE when stress overwhelms the system, your choices often seem more limited than they are. Behavioral scientists have a name for this psychological reaction. They call it learned helplessness, and they have studied the phenomenon closely in laboratory rodents, whose nervous system bears striking similarities to that of humans...
Obviously, humans have more intellectual resources at their disposal than mice do, but the underlying principle remains. When too many of the rules change, when what used to work doesn't anymore, your ability to reason takes a hit. Just being aware of your nervous system's built-in bias toward learned helplessness in the face of unrelieved stress can help you identify and develop healthy habits that will buffer at least some of the load...