How the Brain Creates Beauty: this is NOT about Renee Zellweger’s Face

They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, yet so many of us are concerned about social standards of beauty and body image. If it’s truly in the beholder’s eye, then perhaps we should remind ourselves that we behold our own image each time we look in the mirror. What if my beauty […]

Couch Potato Syndrome

When we’re doing “nothing” fMRIs show the brain is active in the Medial Prefrontal Cortex (MPFC), Dorsal Medial PFC, and Lateral Temporal lobe — these are the areas correlated to thinking about oneself, and analyzing others’ intentions and actions. Our mind wanders easily to these thoughts, and concerns of the past and future. Simple tasks, […]

Emotional and Physical Pain – Do our Brains Distinguish?

We tend to give attention and treatment to physical pain in our world.  When we’re pained we treat ourselves gently, see a doctor, or rest and slow down.  Often when we experience emotional pain we suck it up, ignore it, minimize it, call ourselves drama queens, and move on.  But fMRI studies show that when […]

Cultivating Compassion, Navigating Crisis

Professor Kristin Neff of the University of Texas is considered a leading researcher in the field of self-compassion.  Her research is showing that those who cultivate self-compassion by exercising gentle and non-judgmental self-talk bounce back more quickly during crisis.  The growing evidence is indicating that you can “you can cultivate your self-compassion through meditation and […]

Does Fear Define YOUR Comfort Zone?

In studies of the brain’s neurology, fMRIs show that when faced with uncertainty our brains decrease the blood flow to the reward center while increasing blood flow to our emotional circuitry — the limbic brain, priming us for fight-or-flight response.  Conversely, in studies of those with lesions in their orbito prefrontal cortex who couldn’t feel […]