I teach a daily motivational routine that shows individuals how to deliberately evoke frissons (chills), (which have been shown to elevate endogenous dopamine at McGill University earlier this year), thereby resulting in an immediate elevation of positive emotion and mood.
I've read about chills evoked from listening to musical passages, but never a motivational routine. I would be interested in hearing about your research. I am psychologist/methodologist working at the Center on Brain Injury Research and Training at Western Oregon University. I am interested in the intersection of emotion regulation, mindfulness, and music. please advise.
Deb, you hit the nail on the head when you spoke of "the intersection of emotion regulation, mindfulness, and music". When you combine the amazing variability of tonal freqencies with the rhythmic nature of music in general, activity occurs in mental and emotional pathways simultaneously. I would liken it to the so-called "aha" moment where a resonance of qualitative and quanitative thought produces a hyper state of awareness that influences and is influenced by the limbic system. Dopamine would seem to be part of this cascade, but the synthesis of mentation and emotion might just be one more example of the total being more than the sum of the parts!
Please tell more about how you are able to induce frissons. Is everybody susceptible, or are there indications, as in hypnosis?
My apologies for overlooking your question Antonio.
Up until 1976 I had rarely, if ever, experienced frisson (chills, shudders, gooseflesh, rush, etc.). My first experience with frisson came while practicing a sales pitch out loud for about an hour while smiling and looking into a mirror.
I quickly realized that if I could create frisson “at will” I would have an effective tool for lifting my spirits, mood, motivation, etc. quickly and dramatically.
Fortunately, quite by accident, I eventually discovered that I could deliberately induce frisson by repeating positive words and phrases out loud, while smiling and looking into a mirror and then simultaneously trying to remember what frisson felt like. Eventually I was able to creat a classical conditioned response linking the repetition of positive words with the memory of frisson which in turn induced additional frisson response.
Later, I made the additional discovery that whenI repeated positive words or sentences immediately after experiencing frisson (while trying to recall a memory of the experience and how it felt) it further reinforced this conditioned response. this time, I can induce frisson multiple episodes of frisson in under one minute (the mirror is no longer a necessity).
This skill has led to my writing a book titled Accelerated-State Conditioning: A 5-Minute Daily Motivational Routine Designed to Elevate Mood and Permanently Change Behavior.If interested you can find some excerpts from the book at www.AcceleratedStateConditioning.com
With regards to your inquiry about others being susceptible; yes I have talked with others who can create frisson at will using a variety of triggers. Also, years ago a psychologist (formerly married to the deceased comedian Phil Silvers, I can't remember her name) taught this skill to her clients. You can read more about her in psychiatrist Daniel Amen's book Magnificent Mind at Any Age.
With regards to hypnosis, a sub-routine of Accelerated-State Conditioning is called SuprAffs (SuprAffirmations) and is essentially an autosuggestion (self-hypnosis) routine.
Thanks for the inquiry Antonio, again my apologies for the tardiness.
Neal
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