Brain scans show why meditation works

(LiveScience.com)

Meditation and other “mindfulness” techniques are designed to help people pay more attention to their present emotions, thought and sensations without reacting strongly to them. Meditators often acknowledge and name their negative emotions in order to “let them go.”

When the team compared brain scans from subjects who had more mindful dispositions to those from subjects who were less mindful, they found a stark difference—the mindful subjects experienced greater activation in the right ventrolateral prefrontral cortex and a greater calming effect in the amygdala after labeling their emotions.

“These findings may help explain the beneficial health effects of mindfulness meditation, and suggest, for the first time, an underlying reason why mindfulness meditation programs improve mood and health,” said David Creswell, a UCLA psychologist who led the second part of the study, which will be detailed in Psychosomatic Medicine.

www.livescience.com/health/070629_naming_emotions.html

Healing yoga helps cancer patients

Yakima Valley Memorial Hospital's North Star Lodge started Healing Yoga classes about two years ago. That was around the time research published in the journal Cancer showed that Tibetan yoga led to significant improvements in the sleep of patients with lymphoma.

This month, the famed MD Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas announced expanded research into the benefits of Tibetan yoga in relieving the side effects of cancer treatments.

http://www.yakima-herald.com/page/dis/289225752475770

Yogi Ramsuratkumar

"I am infinite and so are you and so is everyone, my friend. But there is a veil, there is a veil. Do you follow me? You can see only a infinitesimal part of me. Just like when a man stands on the seashore and looks out over the great ocean, he sees only a fraction of that vast ocean. Similarly, everyone can see only a small part of me. The whole cosmos is but an infinitesimal part of the real man, but how can a man see the whole cosmos?" (Yogi Ramsuratkumar 1918-2001)

Nicole Kidman trains her brain with Nintendo

By Craig Zammit

Nintendo has announced actress Nicole Kidman as the new face of its forthcoming Nintendo DS handheld gaming title More Brain Training from Dr Kawashima: How Old Is Your Brain?

The new game, which is the sequel to Nintendo’s runaway success DS title Brain Training, tests user’s intelligence and aptitude through a range of puzzles, questions and challenges in an attempt to improve the user’s ‘brain age’ – essentially a reflection of the user’s intellect.

. . .

“I love the concept that Nintendo is reaching out to new audiences with their self improvement products like Brain Training,” said Kidman. “Most importantly, I’ve quickly found that training my brain is a great way to keep my mind young,” she said.

http://www.current.com.au/2007/06/26/article/BENAVZKHTL.html

have you checked out www.ifacedforeclosure.com?

That's our samsara blog, this is our nirvana blog.

When you're done with that one you're ready for this one.

If you're not ready for this one you may have some fun with that one.


http://www.ifacedforeclosure.com

aka

http://ifacedforeclozure.blogspot.com


notice that the "s" has become a "z." That's "hip."

Brain-activated remote control?

A new technology in Japan could let people control electronic devices without lifting a finger simply by reading brain activity. The "brain-machine interface" developed by Hitachi analyzes miniscule changes in the brain's blood flow and translates brain motion into electric signals.

The technology could one day replace remote controls and keyboards and perhaps help disabled people operate electric wheelchairs, beds and artificial limbs.

Initial uses would be helping people with paralyzing diseases communicate even after they have lost all control of their muscles.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/worldbiz/archives/2007/06/23/2003366525

Repair your brain . . . with gene therapy!

Researchers inject viruses into brains of Parkinsons' sufferers to retrain neurons

A major worldwide breakthrough in gene therapy was signalled last night after injections into the brain were used for the first time to successfully treat a degenerative brain disease.

In a pioneering study, researchers used the treatment to bring about significant improvements in the mobility of Parkinson's sufferers. They said it could also herald a breakthrough in the treatment of other neurological disorders, such as Alzheimer's or epilepsy.

The study, begun in 2003, was carried out on 11 men and one woman with an average age of 58, who had all had severe Parkinson's for at least five years and for whom current therapies were no longer effective.

They were given injections of billions of copies of a genetically altered virus into part of the brain called the subthalamic nucleus.

The altered virus carried the human gene for an enzyme, called GAD, which helps to make GABA. Once implanted, brain cells of the patients started to make the GABA chemical.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/06/22/nbrain122.xml

Hero's Journey goes hi-tech with "God of War II"

Official description:

God of War® saw Kratos, a mortal warrior, set upon an epic quest to dethrone a God. But his journey did not end there. In God of War II, Kratos sits atop his Olympus throne, as the new God of War – far more ruthless than Ares ever was. To end his continued torment, Kratos must journey to the far reaches of the earth and defeat untold horrors and alter that which no mortal, or god has ever changed, his fate. God of War II sets an epic stage for a devastating mythological war to end all wars.

(us.playstation.com)

From the Paste Magazine review:

. . . But the game’s foundation is based on something stronger than soil and rock: the idea that one man can defy the gods. www.pastemagazine.com/action/article/4316/god_of_war_ii

Milkshake energy-drug boosts brain power

Drinking a milkshake-style medicine at breakfast seems to feed brain cells starved from Alzheimer's damage, researchers reported Monday. It's one of four promising experimental drugs poised for large-scale testing against the brain-destroying disease.

The milkshake drug, called Ketasyn, is a dramatically different way to approach dementia. It hinges on recent research suggesting diabetic-like changes in brain cells' ability to use sugar for energy play a role in at least some forms of Alzheimer's.

Special fatty acids in Ketasyn offer an alternate food source to rev up those hungry neurons, say researchers.

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/06/17/health/17_38_306_14_07.txt

Paris: "God has released me!"

Imprisoned heiress Paris Hilton says "I have become much more spiritual"

Complains of dry skin due to rules against moisturizers, plans to build "Paris Hilton Playhouse" upon release

By: Michelle Nichols Tues Jun 12, 2007

New York (Reuters) - Imprisoned hotel heiress Paris Hilton has said she believes God has given her a new chance and she plans to stop acting dumb and put her influence to good use.

Hilton called Barbara Walters on Sunday from the medical wing of a Los Angeles jail, where she is being held for violating probation in a drunken-driving case, and Walters.

"I'm not the same person I was," Hilton told Walters.

"I know now that I can make a difference, that I have the power to do that. I have been thinking that I want to do different things when I am out of here. I have become much more spiritual. God has given me this new chance."

Hilton was ordered back to jail on Friday after a judge overruled a sheriff's decision to place her under house arrest on Thursday because of psychological problems. She had spent three days of an expected three-week term behind bars.

"I feel as if I'm a different person," said Hilton, known for her party-going lifestyle.

She was sentenced last month to 45 days in jail, but with good behavior, Walters said, Hilton was due to be released on June 25 after serving a total 23 days.

"I feel that the purpose of my life is to be where I am," Hilton told Walters. "My spirit or soul did not like the way I was being seen and that is why I was sent to jail. God has released me."

When she is released, Hilton said, she might like to help in the fields of breast cancer or multiple sclerosis, diseases that her grandmothers suffered, or build a "Paris Hilton Playhouse" for sick children.

Hilton, who said other inmates had been friendly, added that her skin was very dry because she was not allowed any moisturizer.

Evolve.org and "Conscious Evolution"

Neale Donald Walsch turned me on to the following website, which I find to be intriguing and I think you will too if you're seriously into the sort of things we discuss here and at the main eWakening site. The site below, evolve.org, is run by a friend of Neale's, metaphysical writer Barbara Marx Hubbard.


Conscious Evolution is a new social/scientific/spiritual meta-discipline. This worldview has progressed from Einstein's early admonitions that humankind cannot solve our problems from the same place of consciousness in which we created them, through noted scientists and philosophers such as Julian Huxley, Teilhard de Chardin, Sri Aurobindo, Abraham H. Maslow, Jonas Salk, to today's social scientists such as Bela H. Banathy, Hazel Henderson, Riane Eisler, Ervin Laszlo, Jean Houston, Duane Elgin, Edgar Mitchell, Ken Wilber, Peter Russell, Elisabet Sahtouris, Don Beck and many others who are building frameworks for practical application in health, governance, education, management, environment, science, the arts and media.

In simple terms, Conscious Evolution means that we must improve our ability to use our powers ethically and effectively (consciously) to achieve a positive future (evolve).

www.evolve.org

Tibet tourism to double by 2010

It was once a mystical mountain enclave closed to outsiders and ruled by red-robed Buddhist monks, but the number of tourists visiting Tibet is set to double to six million between now and 2010.

The introduction of regular flights as well as a high-tech rail link to the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, that started a year ago, has seen tourists arrive in droves to the city where historically neither foreigners or Chinese dare enter.

The opening up of Tibet is a contentious issue. Beijing says it is bringing prosperity to a traditionally impoverished area, and has engaged in a huge building programme. According to a regional government document, tourism could bring at least six billion yuan ($800m) or about 12 per cent of the region's gross domestic product.

Tibetan activists fear that local people will receive less than their share of new jobs and income, and that tourism and migration by Han Chinese could swamp the area's distinctive culture.

http://travel.independent.co.uk/news_and_advice/article2636172.ece

Jeremy Irons connects with Prison Yoga program

Actor Jeremy Irons says his work as an actor has enabled him to connect with the prisoners he wants to help as part of a program that encourages inmates to meditate and practice yoga.
The actor is involved in Freeing the Human Spirit, a program that helps prisoners deal with their anger and stay out of jail through the practice of yoga and meditation.

"When you're banged up in prison, as Paris Hilton will find out, I suppose, you're stuck in a cell on your own, a very negative experience," Irons says. "But if you can turn that cell into an ashram, if you can learn to meditate and do yoga, exercise your mind and exercise your body -- then it becomes a positive experience."

http://tinyurl.com/3bvu8f

Osho!

"As far as I am concerned, once and for all, let me declare to the world: I am neither illuminated nor enlightened. I am just a very ordinary, very simple man, with no adjectives and no degrees. I have burned all my certificates. Enlightened or unenlightened? I don't know what the difference is. I am neither. I am light itself, neither enlightened nor illuminated; I have left those words far far behind. I can see them like dust, still stirring, far away on the path that I will never travel again, just footprints in the sand."

-- Osho Rajneesh

A Man of Knowledge (Castaneda)

"A man of knowledge chooses a path with heart and follows it; and then he looks and rejoices and laughs; and then he sees and knows. He knows that his life will be over altogether too soon; he knows that he, as well as everybody else, is not going anywhere; he knows, because he sees, that nothing is more important than anything else. In other words, a man of knowledge has no honor, no dignity, no family, no name, no country, but only life to be lived, and under these circumstances his only tie to his fellow men is his controlled folly." (Casteneda, from A Separate Reality)