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How Meditation Can Keep Your Brain Young
Fun Fact: the human brain shrinks as we get older. Well, I have to admit that fact isn’t all too fun, but definitely interesting. Some brain regions shrink at a rate of up to 1% per year, whereas others remain relatively stable until the end of the life-span [source]. When it comes to the piece…
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Neuroscience of Mindfulness: Default Mode Network, Meditation, & Mindfulness
This post was originally published on Matthew Williams’ blog, and has been reposted here with his permission. “Ipsa scientia potestas est.” ~ Sir Francis Bacon Translated as, “Knowledge itself is power,” this quote by Sir Francis Bacon appeared in his 1597 essay, Meditationes Sacrae (“Sacred Meditations”). Bacon has been credited as the father of the scientific…
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Meditation Hack’s Your Brain’s Default Mode
Ever wanted to switch off the part of your brain which generates all the annoying thoughts? Then I’ve got good news for you… …you CAN! Yale researchers published a study back in 2011 which showed that experienced meditators had decreased activity in the default mode network of the brain. Let’s hear more about it from Bill Hathaway at…
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The Neuroscience of Mindfulness & Anxiety
This post was originally published on Matthew Williams’ blog, and has been reposted here with his permission. “The human brain has 100 billion neurons, each neuron connected to 10 thousand other neurons. Sitting on your shoulders is the most complicated object in the known universe.” ~ Michio Kaku When we were young, our parents made us…
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Mindfulness Featured On 60 Minutes
60 Minutes recently did a 5 minute segment on mindfulness. Wanna see it? You’ll be able to see it, and read the full transcript, down below. But first, let’s take a moment to cherish the fact that mindfulness and meditation has become so mainstream that the 60 minutes correspondent, Anderson Cooper, admits that doing this…
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School Kids Transformed By The Power Of Meditation
Do you remember school being a quite place for inner peace? Me neither. But that is changing, at least for these school kids in San Fransisco. 8 years ago, in the heart of one of the city’s poorest and most violent neighborhoods, the school was spiraling out of control. Desperate, the district tried a pioneering…
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Taco Breath Is Good For Arthritis And Stomach
Have you ever heard about the “Taco Breath”? Neither had I, until I yesterday saw it featured in a blog post on Huffington Post. Here is the full blog post (minus the video): Most meditation practices encourage us to find our center by connecting with our breath, but one technique recently highlighted on HuffPost Live takes that mindful…
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How Zen Mediation Changed Steve Jobs
“When Steve Jobs showed up at the San Francisco airport at the age of 19, his parents didn’t recognize him. Jobs, a Reed College dropout, had just spent a few months in India. He had gone to meet the region’s contemplative traditions — Hinduism, Buddhism — and the Indian sun had darkened his skin a…
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Meditation Goes Mainstream
Yahoo News did an article, just 3 days ago, about how meditation has become mainstream. Along with the article, there is also a 4 minutes video with some interviews and a positive narrative about the benefits and popularity of meditation and mindfulness. They interview meditation author Dan Harris about his panic attack on live television, and how…
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3 Fun Ways To Stress Less
I bet you sometimes feel like a zen master of busy-ness, or a black belt in stress. I sure can relate to that at times. The days easily zoom by without our to do list getting any smaller, and the demands of the world can be daunting even to the strongest of us. Which is…