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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Rewiring through Compassion

In the foreword to New Beliefs, New Brain, Dr. David Perlmutter notes “When His Holiness the Dalai Lama counseled that ‘The brain we develop reflects the life we lead,’ it is important to understand that his statement reflects not only a call for us to live a life of compassion based on his spiritual pursuits, […]

Is Turmeric the Door to Enlightenment?

Neuroscience and fMRI’s now tell us that insight and higher-order thought processes such as empathy, unity consciousness, and a sense of one-ness all occur in the prefrontal cortex of the brain.  We also know that stress and fear strengthen the mid-portion of the brain called the limbic system.  A stressful life causes the mid portion […]