It’s Written All Over Your Face!
In 2001 neurologist Patrik Vuilleumeir found that a person’s amygdala responds in threat mode to the appearance of fearful expressions of others EVEN IF that person is paying attention to something else. The amygdalae’s job is to signal our stress response so that we have valuable stress hormones actively recruiting blood to the large muscle […]
How’s Your Hippocampus?
The hippocampus–and area of the brain instrumental, among other things, in learning and the consolidation of memory–becomes active in its ability to grow new neural pathways during the process of “learning”. Without a healthy hippocampus, we couldn’t learn new things, consolidate or retrieve our memories, or even orient to new perspectives and beliefs. We could […]
Physiological effects of Transcendental Meditation
It seems like it should almost be common knowledge that meditation has direct and beneficial physiological effects and vast health benefits, yet there are still many who either don’t know this, pretend it’s not validated by science, or deny its efficacy in their own lives. This concept is nothing new, nor is the scientific proof […]
Compassion Meditation Rewires Brain’s Emotion Circuitry
What if meditation and thoughts of compassion could rewire our reactions to others? If you could heighten your empathic abilities and connection to others, would you? A recent neuroscience abstract in PlosOne indicates we actually can do this very thing through meditation. “Together these data indicate that the mental expertise to cultivate positive emotion […]
What’s Your Excuse?
Recent research this century has shown that meditation is applicable to, and effective for, depression, anxiety, panic disorder, stress, emotional regulation, addictions, psychosis, neurogenesis, dimentia, memory recall, cognitive acuity, pain management, somatic symptom control, hormonal regulation, genetic functioning, sports performance, medical student training, leadership training, and general well-being. With science backing such a list, what’s […]
Beauty…where does it live?
In studies done at the University College London, it was shown that when people experienced looking at things they rated beautiful, or listened to beautiful music a consistent part of the brain, the orbito medial prefrontal cortex, became very active. If the main activity of experiencing beauty resides in the prefrontal cortex, how are you […]
Ladies, This is your Brain on PMS!
As we know our brains and emotions are intimately linked in a dance facilitated by hormones, neurotransmitters, and a myriad other stimuli. So it stands to reason that if women experience a radical hormonal flux each month, that their brains might respond accordingly. Dr. Mona Lisa Schulz, author of The New Feminine Brain notes that […]
Meditate your Loneliness Away
Loneliness and social isolation can be a major contributor to some common neuro-degenerative diseases like alzheimers. A new study led by Carnegie Mellon University’s J. David Creswell offers the first evidence that mindfulness meditation reduces loneliness in older adults. If meditation has such amazing preventative health benefits, then which five minutes are you setting aside today […]
Minimize Stress, Extend Your Life
Sometimes we search for cures for symptoms and ignore the cause. Stress, even low but chronic levels, is the most important variable factor in determining life-span according to “Wired” (neuroscience magazine). It’s no joke that meditation is at the top of the list for effective treatments for stress, along with lifestyle changes like diet and […]
Anti-depressants vs. Meditation
IF you are on antidepressants…PLEASE understand this post is not meant as a critique of your healing process. Based on many studies, including one published in JAMA in 2010 by Fournier, antidepressants were no more effective in changing serotonin levels than the placebo in mild to moderate depression. HOWEVER, both the placebo and drugs had […]
