Prana Journal
Sunday, April 13, 2008
  A week of yoga, health and science on NIH campus

My friend and infrequent yoga teacher, Rachel Permuth-Levine, is one of the organizers behind 2008 NIH Yoga Week: Exploring the Science and Practice of Yoga. NIH is the National Institutes of Health, for those not up on Washington acronyms. From May 19 to May 23, there will be guest speakers, reports on NIH's own research on yoga and meditation and yoga practice on the NIH campus lawn (weather permitting). Most events are to take place from 11:00 am to 3:00 pm so I will probably not be able to attend.

Among the speakers are Timothy McCall, M.D., Medical Editor of Yoga Journal Magazine and author of Yoga as Medicine: The Yogic Prescription for Health and Healing; John Schumacher, Founder and Director of Unity Woods Yoga Center; Yogiraj Alan Finger, founder of ISHTA Yoga; Sat Bir S. Khalsa, Ph.D., Director of Research, Kundalini Research Institute Research Director. Sponsors include the International Association of Yoga Therapists (IAYT), Weight Watchers International, Burts Bees and Thrive Yoga.

Thrive Yoga will be holding an event outside the NIH daytime schedule. Sat Bir S. Khalsa, will speak on " Yoga and Meditation in the Management of Stress" on Thursday, May 22, 6:00 - 8:00 pm. There is limited space so you will have to register Sign up online..

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Friday, March 14, 2008
  Stop what you're doing and sample a unique vision

I just got through watching this video from the TED conference in Monterey, California, February 28. Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, a neuroanatomist, recently gave an chat about her life-altering experience of a brain stroke. This emotionally charged story is going to spread like wildfire because it captures a vital life story and marries it to both science and spiritual insight. I'm still reeling from my first viewing so just don't mind me and set aside 18 minutes to be astounded.

Her website also contains a link to her self-published book, My Stroke of Insight through lulu.com. I got on to this because the New York Times featured it on the Well blog.

TED is heavy-weight conference that deals in thinkers of great ideas and doers of impressive deeds — and good story tellers. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It's worth exploring.

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Friday, January 18, 2008
  The body shapes the mind

Boston Globe Don't just stand there, think - Embodied cognition means that motor experience can influence intelligence, and that idea resonates with a yoga practice and the mind-body connection:

"It's a revolutionary idea," says Shaun Gallagher, the director of the cognitive science program at the University of Central Florida. "In the embodied view, if you're going to explain cognition it's not enough just to look inside the brain. In any particular instance, what's going on inside the brain in large part may depend on what's going on in the body as a whole, and how that body is situated in its environment."

My own efforts with yoga are to explore the full range of my physical body and its dynamic relationship with space, movement and gravity, something that I never attempted when I was younger. Intellectual knowledge was cut off from the body, isolated in the head, confined to a book. There was also a divorce between thought and action.

Via Mind Hack who also points to here for a more complete academic explanation.

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Friday, November 16, 2007
  TED conference - How the mind works

TED stands for "Technology, Entertainment, Design" and it's a long-running annual conference featuring brilliant people -- "Inspired talks by the world's greatest thinkers and doers." They have a theme on How the Mind Works. I watched Vilayanur Ramachandran, director of the Center for Brain and Cognition at the University of California, San Diego, explore how brain damage can reveal the connection between the internal structures of the brain and the corresponding functions of the mind. You can also explore the other themes, 20 minute jewels, which are equally fascinating. Via Retrospectacle

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Monday, November 12, 2007
  The pop version of "Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain"

I finished reading Sharon Begley's book, but I could have put off buying the book all together because Washington Post put out a story GET SMART(ER): You're No Genius? Don't Worry. You Can Still Beef Up Your Brain With a Little Effort. It is a breezing feature article that skims off the cream of neuroscience, types of intelligence, nutrition, health science, meditation and curiosity (and lots of name-dropping of scholars and researchers at big name universities) to let you know that you can improve your mental powers:

The idea that there are multiple intelligences -- that people can be intelligent visually, musically, mathematically, athletically, interpersonally and intrapersonally -- was introduced by Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner. (He later added naturalistic intelligence.) Still, whatever the type of intelligence, most people judge brainpower on practical factors, including how much you know, how well you can access what you know and what you do with it.

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Name: Michael Smith
Location: Rockville, Maryland, United States

I thrive when exploring new realms of knowledge and experience.

"The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God's eye are one eye. One seeing, one knowing, one love."
         — Meister Eckhart

"Life is like a ten-speed bicycle. Most of us have gears we never use."
         — Charles Schultz

"You become a writer by writing. It is a yoga."
         — R.K. Narayan, Indian writer

Men cannot see their reflection in running water, but only in still water.
        — Chuang Tzu, philosopher (c. 4th century BCE)

Many people hear voices when no-one is there. Some of them are called mad and are shut up in rooms where they stare at the walls all day. Others are called writers and they do pretty much the same thing.
         —Margaret Chittenden

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