Source: IOS Press
A new study shows for the first time that low and high exercise intensities differentially influence brain function. Using resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (Rs-fMRI), a noninvasive technique that allows for studies on brain connectivity, researchers discovered that low-intensity exercise triggers brain networks involved in cognition control and attention processing, while high-intensity exercise primarily activates networks involved in affective/emotion processing. The results appear in a special issue of Brain Plasticity devoted to Exercise and Cognition.

“We believe that functional neuroimaging will have a major impact for unraveling body-brain interactions,” said lead investigators Angelika Schmitt, MSc, and Henning Boecker, MD, Functional Neuroimaging Group, Department of Radiology, University Hospital Bonn, Bonn, Germany. “These novel methods allow us to ‘look’ directly into the brains of a group of athletes, and, maybe even more importantly, understand the dynamic changes in brain structure and function associated with the transition from a sedentary to a healthy lifestyle.
Twenty-five male athletes underwent individual assessments using an incremental treadmill test. On separate days they performed low- and high-intensity exercise bouts for 30 minutes. Before and after exercising, Rs-fMRI was used to examine functional connectivity of different brain regions that are linked to specific behavioral processes. Participants also completed a questionnaire to measure positive and negative mood before and after the exercise.

 After low-intensity exercise, Rs-MRI showed that networks in the brain associated with cognitive control/attention were stimulated, while after high-intensity exercise, networks associated with emotions were more active, and those related to fatigue/motor function, decreased. Image is credited to Department of Radiology, University Hospital Bonn, Bonn, Germany.
The behavioral data showed a significant increase in positive mood after both exercise intensities and no significant change in negative mood. The results of the Rs-fMRI tests showed that low-intensity exercise led to increased functional connectivity in networks associated with cognitive processing and attention. High-intensity exercise, on the other hand, led to increased functional connectivity in networks related to affective, emotional processes. High-intensity exercise also led to a decreased functional connectivity in networks associated with motor function.
The investigators note that this is the first study to report distinct effects of exercise intensity on specific functional networks within the brain at rest. Future research in this area will help provide neurobiological evidence about what type of exercise intensity is best suited for certain neurological or behavioral modulations and may pave the way for supportive clinical applications in patients or for enhancing brain functional plasticity. 

By ERIC W. DOLAN  August 18, 2019
Photo credit: Life Science Databases

Meditation and yoga practice is associated with smaller right amygdala volume, a brain region involved in emotional processing, according to research published in Brain Imaging and Behavior.
For their study, the researchers analyzed data that had been collected during the Rotterdam Study, an ongoing population-based study that has been conducted in The Netherlands since 1990. The study has recruited more than 15,000 subjects aged 45 years or over.
The researchers were particularly interested in a subgroup of 3,742 participants who had responded to a meditation and yoga practice questionnaire and had undergone an MRI of the brain. Many of the participants underwent multiple brain scans, allowing the researchers to examine structural change over time.

The researchers found that meditation and yoga was positively related both to stress and coping with stress. Participants who reported practicing meditation and yoga tended to also report experiencing more stress. But 90.7% of practitioners also reported that meditation and yoga helped them cope with stress.
Participants who reported practicing meditation and yoga also tended to have smaller right amygdala and left hippocampal volume compared to those not practicing — and right amygdala volume tended to decrease over time among practitioners. Research suggests the right amygdala controls fear and aversion to unpleasant stimuli.
“Volumetric differences were only found in the right amygdala, not in the left. This is in line with previous smaller studies and is explained by the fact that the right amygdala, as opposed to the left amygdala, is associated with negative emotions and immediate action taking, whereas the left is associated with positive emotions and memory,” the researchers wrote in their study.

The findings could indicate that “that meditation and yoga practitioners have become more aware of their stress, but are at the same time more able to deal with it hence the smaller amygdala volume,” the researchers explained.
The results are in line with previous research that found meditation training could produce a generalized reduction in right amygdala activity in response to emotional stimuli, as measured by brain scans.
But the new study — like all research — includes some limitations.
“Although performed in a very large population-based sample, this is still a selection of participants that are generally healthy and motivated to join research,” the researchers noted. “Furthermore, this study contains mainly elderly individuals, who may not be as actively involved in meditation and yoga practices as younger people might, and who also might show a different structural response than younger participants due to decreased brain plasticity.”

​The study, “Meditation and yoga practice are associated with smaller right amygdala volume: the Rotterdam study“, was authored by Rinske A. Gotink, Meike W. Vernooij, M. Arfan Ikram, Wiro J. Niessen, Gabriel P. Krestin, Albert Hofman, Henning Tiemeier, and M. G. Myriam Hunink.

What is a Life Coach?
Life coaching is a synergistic relationship between a Life coach and a client seeking help to tap into their full potential. Just as Olympic athletes wouldn’t think of training without the support of an athletic coach, many successful people use the services of a life coach to take their relationships, lives, careers, or businesses to the next level. 
Coaches have an objective point of view and help to shed new light on difficult situations. They can act as a sounding board through tough decisions, help you clarify your intentions and goals,and motivate you through changes.  
Part consultant, part motivational speaker, part expert in change and part substitute friend, coaches work with entrepreneurs, parents, students, or those in between helping them define and achieve their goals in career life, personal life, or both. The life coach is the only professional trained to work with all aspects of your life. This is handy because very often, if something is bothering you at work, it is affecting your personal life as well and vice versa. Some clients prefer to spend more time focusing on their business goals, while others may want to focus on personal goals. How you use your coaching call is up to you!


Life coaching works for several reasons:
Your life coach is an objective, positive supporter that helps you to break through limiting blocks soyou can accomplished more with less struggle and less effort.
Coaching creates momentum and enthusiasm and provides structure and support while moving through growth changes. Together clearer goals are set that naturally motivate the client to develop the skills necessary to succeed. If you’ve been doing it solo, try seeing how much more you can accomplish with a life coach!


Here are some solid ways a Life Coach can help you:
1) Accountability. Most life coaches have three calls a month with their clients. This regularly scheduled call prompts clients to get more done than they would if left to their own devices. Think about it, if you work out with a personal trainer at the gym, you work much harder than on your own. Clients take bigger actions, set bigger goals and think bigger when they work with a professional coach.
2) Expertise. The trained life coach knows how to help you set the right goals and structure your personal and professional life to achieve greater productivity with less effort. You’ll achieve more in less time with the input of an accredited Life Coach on your side.
3) Delivery. A well-trained coach knows how to motivate and inspire you to move toward achieving your goals. Typically a weekly call is most effective and gives you time to integrate new ways of thinking and take action each week toward their goals. Most life coaching is done by phone, Facetime or face-to-face and delivered in half hour to one hour coaching sessions. The experience is challenging and uplifting and you’ll look forward to your weekly meetings with your life coach.
4) Speed. Most people find that things start to happen very quickly after hiring a life coach.


Who works with a Life Coach?
Entrepreneurs, executives, professionals, actors, musicians, creative people, small business owners, start-ups, and home-makers all reach their goals with the help of a life coach. Is there is a gap between where you are now and where you want to be? 
Your life coach will help you break through your limited beliefs, challenge you to think bigger and help you get to where you want to be, faster.The International Coaching Federation (ICF) puts it nicely: “People hire a life coach because they want to grow, they want it easier and they want more. Life coaches help a client get all three. Quickly.”

Areas worked on with a Life Coach

• Setting and achieving goals and objectives
• Planning — business, career and life
• Blasting through blocks and fears
• Clearing clutter
• Financial security and independence
• Balancing business and personal life
• Making key decisions and designing strategies for success
• Communicating clearly and powerfully 
• Building trusting relationships
• Finding the ideal career/work or business
• Finding the ideal partner/love/relationship
• Getting out of a rut
• Making an important life transition
• Starting a business
• Growing a business
• Living an ideal life
• Identifying core values and passions
• Fulfilling personal and emotional needs
• Getting organized
• Making more money
• Having loads more time to enjoy life
• Playing, having adventures, and a lot more fun!
• And much, much more…

I should be able to reach my goals on my own? Right?
Some people sacrifice their health, their time to enjoy life, or their relationships to reach their goals. Not necessary. You can have it all, but maybe not all right this minute! You may need to change a few things, true, but clients find they have more time with their families and friends, more money, more opportunity, and are more successful at work when they work with an accredited life coach.
Athletes, performers, CEOs and presidents know they need a trained professional or even a team of experts to help them succeed. Without objective feedback, it is hard to achieve excellence. Why shouldn’t you have this same advantage?

How long must I commit to working with a life coach?
One month on average, but most people find life coaching more beneficial than they realized and stay on longer than they initially anticipated. Many life coaches ask for a three to six month commitment but usually let you stop immediately if the coaching is not working for you right now. You may need to sign a contract or an agreement but you can go on a month-by-month basis for as long as it is working for you.

How much does life coaching usually cost?
Most life coaches working with individuals charge about $100-$150 per hour session but it can also be set up monthly and have access to your coach by phone 3-4 times a month for $300 to $700 per month.

Contact me for a 15 minute complimentary consultation.
norabenian@mail.com 

Lisa Rapaport  4 MIN READ

People who get to do yoga at work may be less stressed out than their peers who don’t, a research review suggests. 
People practice Yoga on International Yoga Day in a port of Tel Aviv, Israel, June 21, 2018. REUTERS/Corinna KernAt any given time, as many as one in six working people suffer from stress and other symptoms related to mental illness, researchers note in Occupational Medicine. Yoga is one of many approaches a growing number of employers are using to combat stress and improve workers’ mental health, but research to date has offered a mixed picture of how well these efforts are working. 
For the current study, researchers examined data from 13 trials with about 1,300 participants. Some workers in these trials were randomly assigned to participate in workplace yoga programs while others were not. 
Yoga didn’t appear to influence heart health, but workplace yoga did have a positive effect on mental health and in stress reduction in particular. 
“Yoga at work could be one of the chosen programs to reduce stress levels, and usually requires low investment, with minimal equipment,” said lead study author Laura Maria Puerto Valencia of the Bavarian Health and Food and Safety Authority in Munich, Germany. 
It’s hard to say, however, how much the yoga itself is responsible rather than the workplace culture at companies that were willing to give workplace yoga a try, said Puerto Valencia said by email. 

“Usually a company that allowed or planned a randomized controlled trial of yoga at work is interested in reducing stress levels, increasing job satisfaction and productivity; in consequence, it could be a place with a lower stress environment (compared to) other companies in general,” Puerto Valencia said. 
Still, more companies are expanding their approach to occupational health to include not just efforts to avoid accidents and injuries but also services to promote mental health as well as good eating and exercise habits. And the results should encourage companies to include yoga as part of their approach to workplace wellness, the study team concludes. 
Mind-body medicine can include a range of health practices that combine efforts to focus the mind, control breathing and move the body in ways that promote relaxation. Yoga is often a component of this approach to wellness. Regular yoga practice has long been linked to better sleep, lower blood pressure, and improvements in mobility and flexibility. 
However, the study wasn’t a controlled experiment designed to prove how yoga might directly alter stress levels. Researchers also didn’t calculate the magnitude of stress reduction caused by yoga across all of the smaller studies included in the analysis. 
“The take-home message seems to be that yoga is a good practice in the workplace as a means of reducing stress,” said Stacy Hunter, a researcher at Texas State University in San Marcos who wasn’t involved in the study. 
Workers who don’t get yoga on the job can still find a way to practice, Hunter said by email. 

“Even if yoga classes aren’t provided in the workplace, simple pranayama (yogic breathing) techniques can be practiced at a desk in a cubicle or an office,” Hunter advised. “While most studies in this review included yoga postures, slow, deep, yogic breathing has also shown to elicit a relaxation response which could contribute to a reduction in stress in the workplace.” 
SOURCE: bit.ly/2VrU8RQ Occupational Medicine, online March 14, 2019.
Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

By Sonali Bansal
“So, spine is one dimension of you, which determines which direction you go. How your spine is functioning; how the energies in your spine are functioning right now determines almost everything about where you go.” ~ Sadhguru
The seat of major energy meridians, chakras and neurons, the Spinal cord defines the quality of our lives. In a mother’s womb, the spine is the first thing that is formed and then the body, limbs etc takes root.
From a physical point of view the spinal column is an important channel for all the bodily stimuli that are transferred via the nerves to the brain. It is part of our central nervous system along with the brain. But also on a spiritual level, the spine is the source of all our energy. It is where the three major energy channels or nadis in our body lie.
Starting from the base of the spine, the Ida and Pingala nadis move in spirals like the DNA helix, crossing at each chakra or energy portal. The third nadi, Sushumna is the central channel of energy in the human body that runs from the base of the spine to the crown of the head and carries Kundalini energy, the primal evolutionary force within.
The seven major chakras, on the other hand, are located at the intersection of the Ida, Pingala and Sushumna. These chakras are further responsible for our relationship to ourselves, others, defines our spiritual growth, our nature, thoughts and so on.
Spine is referred to as Meru Danda in Sanskrit, where Meru also means the sacred mountain Meru from the Hindu Mythology, which was considered to be the axis of the Earth having an entire solar system revolving around it. In other words, spine is the axis for the human body, which acts as a connecting link between Earth and the heaven.
According to Hindu mythology once gods and demon wanted to extract nectar of immortality or ‘amrita’ and so they gathered near Mount Meru and started pulling the serpent coiled around Mount Meru back and forth. Thus churning the ocean of life to bring out the nectar of immortality. According to the Vedas our spine is like Mount Meru and when churned, the nectar of immortality and bliss, in terms of a disease free & a blissful life can be extracted.

The Sacrum – The center of gravity
The spine has five different parts, cervical, thoracic, lumbar, sacrum and coccyx, out of this the most significant one is the sacrum. It lies at the base of the spine and joins the upper and lower halves of the body. Judith Harris in her book, ‘Jung and yoga: The psyche body connection’ said, “The center of gravity is located at the top of the sacrum, which thus makes sacrum the focal point of our relationship to the ground, to the body, and to our human reality. “
As the gravity passes through our body from the head to the knees and the feet, sacrum acts as a pivotal center for the flow of energy in opposite directions. Harris added, “Gravity will draw feet into the floor, giving us the anchor that we need to live in the world” yet it is “counteracted by the tendency of living things to expand and grow upward toward the sun.”
In Hatha yoga, sacrum is considered a sacred bone, because it literally connects the lower half of our body to the upper half. It is seen as a place of transformation, where the union of upper and lower, of above and below, of the divine and the human occurs.
The fact that most of us are suffering from lower back pain is because of neglecting this area and being disconnected with the center of ourselves. Here is a simple spinal meditation to keep your spine healthy and free of blockages with healthy wiring and firing of neuron transmissions.
Meditation also requires us to keep our spine straight and in line with the head and neck, to experience the goals, set at the start of a meditation. Therefore, ensuring a proper posture for uninterrupted flow of the Prana in our body is a must.

Activating the Spine with Meditation
You’re only as old as your spine is flexible.” ~ Joseph Pilates. This holds true in its entirety, as our age is not defined by the number of years we have spent on the material plane, but it is based on the wear and tear of the various organs of the body, the ability of our cell to regenerate and keep us supple and flexible.
With the help of yoga and meditation, the age process can be reversed. Like the five Tibetan rites result in youthfulness and longevity, spine meditation can lead to a healthy and a balanced life with an unrestricted flow of Prana in our system.

Here’s a step-by-step procedure to start Spine meditation

Step 1: Sit comfortably on a chair or on the floor in an easy pose, with your back erect and preferably away from the wall. Bring your hands in Meru Mudra, fold all your fingers towards your palm, while keeping just your thumb straight, pointing towards the sky in a thumb’s up position. Now, rest the hands on your thigh and stay here for a while.

Step 2: Close your eyes and bring your awareness to your breath. Feel the breath touching the tips of your nostrils, passing through the nasal passages to the lungs, diaphragm, abdomen and all the way out.

Step 3: Gradually move your awareness to the spine and visualize it. The long structure with curves and vertebrae, the spine will be easily visible in its perfect form. Look at your spine as an observer and gently move your awareness up and down, analyzing the curves of the spinal column.

Step 4: As you move your awareness in the spine, acknowledge a thread or the silver cord in the center of the spine, running from the base of the spine to its tip. This cord is the sutratma or the thread of life, which connects us to our higher self, reaching us in our physical body. Also, it connects all our bodies together, starting from the physical body to the ethereal body to the astral body, so on and so forth.

​Step 5: Keep visualizing this silver thread and feel it lighting, which further fills your entire body with a new upsurge of energy. The silver cord removes any blockages in your spine from the light emitting from it as it heals all obstructions in the free flow of the prana or the life force, leaving you energized and recharged.
Keep at the meditation for as long as you want and recharge yourself completely. With regular practice, visualizing the spine, the silver cord and the light would become easier and quicker.
The spine is the axis on which the human body revolves. Keeping your axis supple, healthy, flexible and hydrated will reap long-term benefits both materially and metaphysically. But its important to keep a good posture and practice this meditation as and when you can.

So, what are the benefits of practicing yoga in the workplace?
10 Benefits of Yoga in the Workplace

1. Reduce Stress: It’s no secret that work can be stressful, and yoga is the perfect antidote. Stress alone leads to changes in mood, poor performance, and anxiety. Looking for ways to reduce employee stress so they can be more productive, have more positive interactions with coworkers, and stay focused pays off for organizations.
2. Increase Focus: By combining movement and breath, your yoga practice does not allow for a wandering mind. By being present “in the moment” you’ll learn to control your mind so you can focus on the task at hand. A vitally useful skill to have in a fast-paced workplace where multitasking is a way of life.
3. Boost Immunity: Yoga activates your immune system, gets your blood flowing and stimulates your lymphatic system. Yoga also supports healthy bones through weight-bearing exercises. That’s a lot of health benefits that lead to less sick days and higher performance amongst employees.
4. Improve Posture: Sitting all day wreaks havoc on your posture and the natural curves of the spine slowly start to reverse as you hunch over your computer desk (lucky for us we all have standing desks). A huge benefit of yoga is finding the natural curves of the spine by lengthening the sides of the waist, tilting the pelvis and broadening the back body. Yoga also stretches major muscles groups and increases joint mobility to prevent joint aches and stiffness.
5. Increase Confidence: When you are confident in your body, it bleeds over to other areas of your life. Yoga increases body confidence by showing you just how strong and nimble you can be. The poses are designed to increase flexibility while building muscle strength and oftentimes cardiovascular health. Small changes lead to major results and soon your confidence in your body’s ability is skyrocketing.
6. Boost Morale: Who doesn’t love having fun activities offered at work? Getting to try a yoga class for free, while bonding with your co-workers is a benefit that far exceeds the hour spent in the room together.
7. Improve Digestion: Stress and anxiety, sitting all day and not moving around enough, mindlessly eating at your desk or on the fly, all cause digestive distress but many yoga postures aid in digestion. Stress reduction can decrease acidity, heartburn, and indigestion. Deep leg folds and twists can turn on your digestive fire, aid in detoxification, and wring out any toxins stored in the intestines. Once your digestion is back on track, you’ll be able to tune into those gut feelings in your second brain (the gut) to help aid you in making important decisions at work and in life.
8. Increase Energy: Exercise has been proven to increase your energy. It’s easy to become sedentary when trying to balance out the demands of work and family life but it’s actually counter-productive. The less active you are, the quicker you fatigue and the less energy you’ll have to tackle everything. Taking the time to focus on yourself, even for a short period of time, is just the boost you need to tackle the rest of your day with vigor.
9. Improve Breathing: Yoga supports you to bring awareness to your breathing. When you are not breathing fully, and shortening your breath, it depletes your energy and can make you feel light-headed and sluggish because your vital organs (think brain) are not getting the oxygen they need. Yoga teaches you how to breathe deeply and use your breath to relax or energize your system, as needed.
10. Increase Flexibility: By increasing flexibility in your body, you also learn how to increase flexibility in other key areas of your life. Suddenly the things that you were feeling rigid about, are not as important anymore. Learning how to go with the flow helps to decrease stress and anxiety and helps you roll with the punches in an ever-changing work environment.

Learn about even more benefits of workplace yoga in this Gaia post.

​

Tony Crisp, Prevent Disease | Are you the same person now that you were fifteen years ago? In fact, are you the same person you were just seven years ago? Most of us have heard the old saying that every cell in the body is changed over a period of seven years; but recent investigation has uncovered facts of far more significance to us as human beings. This concerns the emotional, physical and mental changes that seem to occur in approximate seven-year intervals. Of course there are no fixed boundaries and so one may achieve these levels of maturity at any period of our life. so what follows are simply the general changes you may find.

Rudolph Steiner, the great teacher of Anthroposophy said that the seven-year cycles continue throughout life, and are of the utmost importance to doctors, teachers, psychiatrists and the social sciences. Without some smattering of these changes it is difficult for anyone to understand the relationship of any given individual with his or her environment. So I have tried to summarise what Steiner and others have said about the cycles.
Before the definition is started, I feel it is important to say that as humans, in fact as any life form, we are creatures of great polarities. Or as the philosopher Erwin Goodenough said, “A book on love, loyalty or justice would gain little but pedantry by starting out with a concise definition of the term. Only as we describe the various conflicting elements associated with such words can we finally arrive at a meaning that includes these complexities; for important matters we understand, not as we simplify, but as we tolerate the paradoxical.”
One of the great paradoxes of our lives are that we constantly go through such enormous such massive changes every day. Daily we pass through an extraordinary change that we often take so much for granted we miss the wonder of it. The change occurs between sleeping and waking. For most of us being awake is when we most fully feel ourselves. Compared with this sleeping is a period during which we lose any focused awareness of being an individual, and we sink into what is generally called unconsciousness — the lack of personal awareness.
This swing between waking and sleeping can be seen as the extremes within the possibilities of our experience. Sleeping and waking are the polarities, the North and South Poles of what we can confront. In quite a real sense we can say there is nothing beyond what is included in those polarities. But there is an enormous difference between waking experience and the experience of dreamless sleep. Yes, one can have an experience of what is considered deep unconsciousness. In waking we have a sensation of time, of being in a locality, of separateness and even isolation. But at the other end of that polarity we have a sense of timelessness and non-locality. What was a sense of self merges into an ocean of awareness. 

0-7 years; One of the most important of these cycles is the first, from birth to seven years of age. Its importance lies in the fact that it is the beginning of everything, the foundation upon which the later structure will be built. Birth gives individual life to an infant body. Even at birth, this small being already has its given potential of intelligence, creativity and personality. But this potential has to come to terms with its environment, which includes its own body. In a human being we cannot have awareness without consciousness; we cannot have thinking without the tools of thought such as language, concepts or ideas. So during our early years we are largely moved by the instincts of hunger, need for love, protection and support, along with pain and the impact of our environment. All this while we build up the inner, mental structures that in later years will allow us to think, to feel, and to be aware of ourselves as an individual.
One of the most important of these inputs is that of the unconscious behavioural responses we learn. From the moment you are born, perhaps even prior to that, you are learning, or there are pressed upon you, responses to what you are experiencing. The culture you are born into is a huge ready-made set of behavioural responses. For instance, an Australian aborigine would easily respond to a huge living grub/caterpillar by eating it. This would be a very difficult behavioural response for most Northern Europeans or Americans. As babies we learnt everything from whether you respond to opportunity with fear or eagerness; to love with fear of warmth; to food as a glutton or with healthy appetite.

At birth there is a very different physical and glandular system than in later years. For a start the sexual organs have not developed, meaning responses to sex and sensation are very global. Also the thymus is very large and in later years becomes smaller. It has been said this, in these early years, gives the child a very primitive response to truth, right and wrong, and what later become moral codes. So the child only slowly develops any real sense of social morality.
But something so mysterious happens to us during this first seven years that once done it can never be undone. The Roman Catholic Church recognizes this by saying that if they can have the first seven years of a child’s life, that is all they need to insure a lifelong influence. Napoleon also observed that as the twig is bent, so the tree will grow. This is borne out by seeing the cases of children who have been lost and brought up by animals during these formative years. Even with the best tuition they never learn to become a self aware personality as we know it. Time is a mystery to them, and even though their brain size and function is normal, they never approach the usual capabilities that education gives to modern women and men.
So, in the first cycle we pass through an incredible process of learning. This includes motor movements, speech, relationship to ourselves and to our environment. And that means learning a vast amount about what is useful, entertaining or harmful; about what responses we get from others, and developing habits of response that may be difficult to change in later years. We learn a sense of personal awareness and move toward becoming an individual. In other words, we learn to say “I” and know what we mean.
The learning of language is like a powerful computer program that gives us the ability to develop an identity and self awareness. This is shown again by children reared by animals. Language also adds limitations which we can overcome if we recognise them.
Steiner also says that during this first stage of development the developing inner forces are working to transform the body of the child from one that was inherited from the parents, to one that represents the full personality of the child. 
Something often overlooked about the stages of growth are ones emotional age.
From age zero we are completely dependent upon the loved person for our needs, physical, emotional and social. Great anger, jealousy or pain are felt if the loved one relates to anyone else, is lost, or threatens to leave. If we do not mature beyond this emotional age, in adulthood this enormous feeling reaction may also be felt at a time of emotional withdrawal of the partner, even if there is no sign of them withdrawing physically. In the infant and toddler there is a desire for unconditional love and a need to be always with the loved one. In an adult with this level of love, sex may be a part of the relationship, but the main need is a bonded connection. This is sometimes felt as a need to have the loved person want you as much, or as desperately, as you want/need them. Possibly the greatest fear, one that can trigger great anger or an enormous desire to placate or earn love, is the threat or fear of being abandoned. 

7-14 years; The second cycle, from seven to fourteen, continues this growth. The concepts and association of ideas and emotions that began in the first cycle begin to be discovered by the child. The physical changes also prepare the growing personality for the next stage. The thymus gland decreases rapidly in size, allowing the development of a sense of right and wrong, and social responsibility. A sign of this physical and psychological growth is the losing of the milk teeth and the emergence of our adult teeth. This marks an entrance into a new maturity.
The child has learned, with the advent of its concepts and developing emotions, to create an inner world of its own. It is a world of heroes, danger and vivid imagination. As the thymus fades, and the sexual organs develop, the personality glides into the turbulent world of puberty and adolescence.
Sometimes it is already evident, even from the preceding cycle, the direction of interest and activity the child will take in maturity. Although for the very observant this might be seen in very early years, it becomes more evident as one approaches puberty.
In all a time of inner expansion. You begin to experience and test abilities in the broader sense of the outside world. You may learn to share and interact, controlling earlier instincts in favour of group dynamics. The habits learned in the first period are now part of the character of the growing child.

14-21 years; This is the third cycle, from fourteen to twenty-one. During it we become conscious of ourselves in a new way, and with a different relationship to life. One might say we become “self conscious.” The emotional range expands in all directions, and with this a new appreciation of music, art, literature and people begins. It is found for instance that at puberty the ability to distinguish subtler tones of colour and sound develops. Besides this the person might go through the difficult struggle of breaking away from home life and/or parental influence. It naturally produces conflict as the person learns some degree of independence. Also, the opposite sex, or sex as a urgent impulse, usually becomes all important as the new emotions pour in upon our personality. 
Because of the new range of feelings, many youths experience a different relationship to religion and life’s mysteries. All this, as one approaches twenty-one, produces an individual with some sense of social and individual responsibility, or if not that the beginning or a sense of a direction or life purpose. This might not be recognised as such at the time. But it is a time of searching for life purpose, independence, a realization of choices plus a testing of social and personal limitations as well as an awareness of a burgeoning sexuality. As this is a traumatic period of life for most of us, it is also likely to be a time of many unforgettable dreams.
The period is a time of adding maturity, dignity and poise to the person. If these changes have not occurred by twenty-one, then the person has in some way not covered necessary aspects of development, and both psychology and the law recognises that they are lacking maturity.
This period is one of great and sweeping changes, physically, emotionally, morally and mentally. Such enormous changes often do not occur without an experience of loss. In this case the world of childhood is fading, or it might even be torn away, leaving scars.
It is also a time when many new features of the personality have their beginning, i.e. the religious sense, appreciation of the beautiful, etc. Although such things have their beginnings here, they sometimes remain undeveloped until later years. Because of these changes, and because such a lot is being revealed in these years, it is obvious why so much thought should be given to early marriage. Because of one’s changing viewpoint, the particular partner one would choose at seventeen or eighteen, is likely to be different to the partner chosen at twenty-one and beyond.
The emotional development at this age is possibly seen as initial uncertainty or clumsiness concerning emotional and sexual contact. It often involves desire to explore many relationships, unless there are forces of introversion or personal and social uncertainty at work. We are still finding out what our boundaries and needs are, and the sexual drive as at full flood.. Any partner we have at this time may be loved for ones own needs – rather than out of recognition of who the other person is. Great romantic feelings and spontaneous love which are often difficult to maintain in face of difficulties. 

21-28 years; The cycle that follows from twenty-one to twenty-eight, can more or less be called a process of enlargement and refinement. It is the period that we mentally and emotionally enter into adulthood. We start to build the foundations of our careers and intimate relationships with a driving energy that we hope will gain us entry and respect in the larger world.
One of the most marked features is the developing sense of discrimination. The faculties of insight, intuition, judgement and understanding begin to come to the fore. The personality softens and begins to mellow. The sparks of interest that were awakened in the previous cycles begin to be developed along more definite lines. The abilities of the last cycle also flourish. The adult emotional age may begin to emerges if one has successfully grown through the previous levels. This shows as a growing sense of recognizing needs of one's partner yet not denying ones own. It is followed by an ability to be something for the partners sake without losing ones own independence or will. One becomes more aware of the issues that colour or influence relationship, and meeting them in cooperation with others. Independence and connection can appear together instead of opposite ends of a spectrum. You move toward becoming caring sexual partners through discovering each others needs and vulnerability.
In this period you will begin to confront the issue that you were either born with, or arose through the challenges and pains of your infancy and childhood. These usually show as the way you handle intimate relationships, whether you can really meet in partnership with the opposite sex, and how you respond to the external world, its challenges and opportunities.
At this time what is revealed may not be addressed as a personal problem or issues to be healed or re-evaluated. They will be faced more directly later if they are not dealt with now.

28-35 years; The changes become more subtle as the years pass. The next cycle from twenty eight to thirty-five, for instance, is one where the creative process of mind becomes most active. Researchers and inventors seem to make their greatest advances during these years. It is interesting to note that physical science finds evidence of the reason for this in the fact that the association centres of the brain come to their peak efficiency at about thirty-five years of age.
This is even more interesting when we see that most of the great religious teachers and philosophers came to some vital experience at thirty-five. Jesus, Buddha, Paul, Dante and Jacob Behmen were all in the region of thirty-five at the point of their greatest insights. It would seem then, that if there is an inspirational influence at work in the life, it would possibly reach its peak during these years in and around thirty-five.
Here we take stock of ourselves and the emotional influences that have shaped our personality. We begin to determine what is us and what traits we have been pressured by family, peers or society to adopt.

35-42 years; From the thirty-fifth to the forty-second year, depending upon one’s personality and what one’s circumstances allow, one begins to feel a new restlessness. In some degree a desire to share whatever one has gained through life with others comes to the surface. Thus we find many successful business men building libraries, or aiding colleges and the arts at this period in their life. What has been developed or realized can be taken to greater subtlety during this period. This is almost like unfolding something, perhaps similar to the way a flower unfolds a bud that has been developing in earlier phases of its growth.
This is when we reassess the results of what we are doing externally in our life. Our relationships, careers, habits and the ways we interact are all put under scrutiny and modified or changed. It’s a time of facing up to what does and what doesn’t satisfy us.You may reach heights or realization and creativity not touched previously. The profound breakthrough of ones innate genius that emerges around this time will no doubt be expressed in some degree. However, whatever is attained or realized will be enlarged and synthesized in later periods.

42-49 years; In the next cycle from forty-two until forty-nine a major change usually takes place. It is as if one takes all of one’s life experience up till this age and begins to digest it, and extract from it new ideals and a new direction in life. There is often tremendous unrest in this period and that following it. The un-lived aspects of life cry out to be recognized and allowed. The desire to make a mark in life if it has not already been achieved presses for action here.
At this point it appears to many of us that we have reached the mid point of our life and from here on there will be a decline. Even if this is not so it is often felt very strongly and acted upon in one way of another. People change partners, life directions, and even attempt major personal changes, although these latter may have begun in the last cycle.
Also, the emotional age and the maturing of love may at last show signs of an unconditional love. If this is not appearing in small degree, it might be one is still locked in earlier ages. Strangely, many of us maintain the emotional age of a child right into mature years, feeling all the fear of abandonment, jealousy and possessiveness of our childhood. Many divorces and new directions appear around this period.
In these years we move from old stereotypical roles with a new found confidence in our individuality. We are prepared to please our self, rather than society and gain a real understanding of our uniqueness, accompanied by a sense of urgency to express our true self before it gets too late.

I put the following dreams in to illustrate some of what is met in this and perhaps the next period.
“Last night I had a dream which shook me somewhat, and I wonder what you make of it. I am a mature 40 year -old, don’t normally dream, and am not unduly fanciful, but this dream has really shaken me. It felt like death. In the dream, my husband and I are at some sort of social club. The people there are ex-workmates of mine and I am having a wonderful time and am very popular. My husband is enjoying my enjoyment. Then he and I are traveling down a country lane in an open horse-drawn carriage. It is very dark and is in the area we used to live in. We come to a bridge, and as we arrive at the brow of the bridge a voice says, ‘Fair lady, come to me.’ My body is suddenly lying flat and starts to rise. I float and everything is black, warm and peaceful. Then great fear comes over me and I cry out my husband’s name over and over. I get colder and slip in and out of the blackness. Then I start to wake up. It takes a tremendous effort, as my body is very heavy. I am extremely cold and absolutely terrified, with a feeling of horror. There seems to be something evil here. I force myself to get up in the dark and go downstairs. Even with the light on I feel the presence of great evil.”
The first part of this woman’s dream and what she says of herself shows her as an outgoing person, with a happy disposition. She likes people, and they like her; she is probably good looking, and healthy. She feels herself successful at what she has worked, and has left having acquired friends. The relationship she has with her husband is also depicted as one in which pleasure can be allowed within caring independence. Her dream image of herself is therefore created out of her own confidence. Dreams frequently summarise the quality of ones life and the ‘story so far’ in their first scene.
The second scene is made up of several parts – the journey, the woman’s relationship with her husband, the force of nature symbolised by the horses and the countryside, and the unknown seen as the bridge and the voice. To understand what this reveals of the dreamer, look at the vital clues: what she has said about herself and what she felt in the dream. If you strip away images to see what attitudes or emotions are exposed, you can see the forces behind the dream plot. The most poignant statement she makes is in saying, “It felt like death.”
If we consider the central image of the dream, the hump-backed bridge, in relation to what she says about her age, the feelings of death’s approach make sense. When you approach a hump-backed bridge you climb, but at the very brow, the descent begins. Isn’t that a powerful symbol of life? In our younger years our strength, sexuality and ability to meet life with resourcefulness and independence increase, until middle age, when the decline sets in. You cross over – as this woman crosses the bridge – from one type of experience or view of life to another. The passage of time is seen here as the horses pulling her carriage inexorably towards the change.
But the dream’s beauty, its depth and drama, are in the voice, and in the discovery of how death ‘feels’. They tell us something about women’s inner lives, PLURAL. They reveal how, in her prime, a woman confronts change and the view of death in a way few men do. “Fair lady” the voice of change calls, “come to me.” And it beckons the dreamer towards a hefty mid-life crisis, asking her to exchange her sexual peak, her firm body, her fertility, for the different perspective of post-menopause.
Many women – men too of course – gain their sense of value as a person from their ‘attractiveness’. Losing whatever it is that makes them sexually desirable and socially popular – or fearing that they are losing it – will lead to a significant change in their way of life and their feelings about themselves. This is what makes the dreamer call for her husband. This is what produces the feeling of isolation and terror. A woman needs reassurance and love at this point in her life. She may behave indecisively and deflect the advances of her man through a lack of self-esteem.
Fortunately the human personality is resilient. Even though we are reared to identify ourselves with what our body looks like, what it can do, what sex it is, what age it is, and how others react to it, we CAN grow to mature independence without constant reassurance.
Some people create these nocturnal horror movies when leaving school or sitting exams. But middle age is just another phase of life, with as much potential for growth and love as any other phase – and as much room for failure. This woman fears what she imagines middle age will do to her. The dream isn’t an intuition of her future.

Here is a dream from a man in the same age period.
I recently reached my fortieth birthday and dreamt I was walking uphill. It was quite tough going. When I got to the top I saw the road on the other side was very steep. I felt frightened of going down it. I looked around and saw that the top of the hill stretched away on each side, so there was plenty of space, like a plateau. I realise that I can walk around and there is no hurry to go down the hill. – John H. London.
I commented on this dream by saying that before you actually got to middle age you obviously had the idea that it leads directly to a fast decline – going down hill. Your dream corrects this by showing that in fact you have worked hard to climb to a plateau of ability and possibilities that you can now explore. Each portion of life has its rewards, and in fact you depict this period of your life as more relaxed than the first half.
To balance this view a little, if there are still past difficulties to be faced, these will certainly present themselves. But a drive in many people is in some way to actualise themselves, to express themselves in a satisfying way. If we use the analogy of a plant, it is as if they have grown and reached full stature, but for some reason have not flowered and spread seeds. They have not produced fruit.
There is no one way in which people feel or seek this fruition prior to death. But it does become an imperative for many. It may involve receiving or giving love. It might be a need for expressing in one of the arts, or simply in breaking away from habits and roaming the world. The next dream illustrates this theme.
I flew over a farmyard and a large pig saw me and began to chase me as a dog might, but with the sense that he/she wanted to eat me. She chased me snapping and leaping into the air trying to ‘get’ me. I felt a bit apprehensive at times that she would get my leg. This lowered my confidence in flying and I began to worry about altitude, and flew over a barbed wire fence and the pig and her young could not follow. I flew low over small trees that were just coming into leaf. They were beautiful soft green leaves. I knew it was autumn and the leaves were only just coming out because it had been a cloudy, overcast summer. I felt the leaves would have time to mature because the sun would be out in the autumn, and the trees would not die.
The dreamer was in his fifties at the time of the dream, and had distinct feelings of something missing from his life. He felt very clearly that the late autumn expressed how he felt, that the best of his life, his fruition had not yet occurred. This was because ‘it had been a cloudy, overcast summer.’ By this he meant his life had so many difficulties, he had not had a chance to ‘flower’. But the dream promised there was still time. In fact ‘he actualised’ so much from there on.

And here is another dream example showing the same thing.
I am in a bicycle race with many other people. I came to a very long hill. It is difficult and I have to push my bicycle. It takes me until midday. When at the top I meet a lot of family. Then I cycle on, realising that because the road is flat, I can go much further before nightfall than I covered in the morning.
The man was in his late forties at the time of the dream. It shows him feeling as if the first half of his life has been a long difficult climb. His assessment or intuition of the second half of his life is that it will achieve much more, or cover more ground and he will have more human and warm relationships, represented by his family. The bicycle represents his personal efforts to deal with life and his place in the human race; and as it suggests, he can go much further before nightfall – death – than he achieved in the morning of his life.

49-56 years; In this, and the next cycle from forty-nine to fifty-six, and the periods that follow, the physical changes bring about a mental or spiritual climax. The decline of physical prowess and vitality, forces the person to direct their attention inwards more frequently. Any problems of our personality, such as maladjustment and our repressions, will undoubtedly become more urgent in these years. This reacts upon one’s marriage and professional life alike. The problem is that we have to learn to live with ourselves in a new way. We slowly have to adapt to our new-old body, and habits of long-standing do not die easily.
This is when we take an inventory of our life. It’s a time of spiritual questioning and review of our life purpose. If we haven’t successfully understood who we are by this stage and achieved our goals, then depression, moodiness and turmoil will plague both our waking life and our dreams.

56-63 years; This period is often a time of inner tranquility and acceptance. At peace with oneself and more accepting of where we are and what we have achieved marks this period. But many things that were lying un-lived within you might arise at this time, either as a form of unrest, or as directly living out those things that duty or work – or even self restraints – kept you from doing or being.
Usually your life situation begins to change in this stage. There is the start of a great shift and adjustment, both in terms of external activities, but also in how you deal with and feel about relationships. Part of the difficulty is that you have lived a long life as a younger person, and the old ways of dealing with things is often difficult to let go of as things change. The opportunity to experiment more fully in life helps you to reassess yourself and what new way of relating and being suits you or is satisfying.
The psychiatrist Carl Jung and others such as Nietzsche developed a whole theory about this period of life that he called Individuation. Perhaps the influence of this began in the last periods during the forties, but becomes more marked now. As an individual we may come to recognise that our make-up is formed out of the collective experience of our family and the culture we have been exposed to. The question, “Who am I,” leads us to look more fully into what makes us who we are. This awareness and the insight gained from it transforms us. The change is that of becoming more fully independent of the forces that formed us. This means we create something new of who we are, and perhaps leave something of this new self in the world by what we do, create or live. Not every one undertakes this diving into the depths of self to discover ones core being.
To quote from the website Soul-Guidance, “Individuation means that one becomes a person, an individual, a totally integrated personality. It is a process of self realization during which one integrates those contents of the psyche that have the ability to become conscious. It is a search for totality. It is an experience that could be formulated as the discovery of the divine in yourself, or the discovery of the totality of your Self. This does not always happen without pain, but it is necessary to accept many things that normally we would shy away from. Once a person has accepted the contents of his unconsciousness and has reached the goal of the individuation process, he is conscious of his relationships with everything that lives, with the entire cosmos.”

63-70 years; Now we have deeper acceptance and understanding of the people in our life. We appreciate the differences between us and our friends and look to the good rather than the bad in people. This is a period where our accumulated experience seeks new creative outlets.
A particularly noticeable process that occurs here is a conscious or unconscious sifting of life experience and moving toward what is the essence and best of what one has been and learned from the years and experiences. Sometimes, if you can actually be aware of and work with this process, it leads to a sense of being lost or uncertain. By this is meant that for most of us external needs have dictated the direction of much that we have done or was needed of us. Now a great deal of this external pressure is removed. With its loss you realize that a great many choices or directions are open to you. It is like standing at cross roads with many directions. Which one do you want to take? Often it needs you to stand and observe before any direction from your own core wishes emerges. If during your life you have never worked at dealing with the difficulties and weaknesses or pains innate in you, then this period can lead to great confusion and the meeting of many shadows that you may not yet have developed the skills to deal with previously.
This is also a time in life when natural inner processes can lead you to a greater awareness of what lies beyond death. Things fall away naturally if you let them. A greater detachment from things of the world arises and this in itself is a foretaste of death in which you can let go of all that you have held on to.

70-77 years; Of course there are no fixed boundaries and so one may achieve this level of maturity at another period. But if the issues met in the previous cycle have been dealt with, then there is a new awareness of the subtle sides of life, and a changed relationship with those you love or come in contact with. There is a greater unconditional love and acceptance. By this is meant that awareness of the depths and subtleties of ones own self are known more fully. If you are a person who has an active inner life, it can happen that the huge harvest of gathered life experience that was sifted and synthesized into clearer and more streamlined, or simpler concepts and meanings, is now expressed in your life and dealings with others. You may not be as powerful and active in the outer world, but you are gaining strength and effectiveness on people’s inner life if you are still healthy.
But such changes, as always, depend upon how well you have dealt with the problems, trauma as ability to grow during your life. If these are met, then this letter is an excellent example.

77-84 years onwards; During the three preceding periods a new self was developed. This emerged out of a summary and synthesis or all that you had lived. Perhaps, if you gave attention to your inner life, doorways of perception were opened through which you saw how your present life is a continuum of the long past, of ancestors and other influences. From this new self and widened perceptions you are acting and living in the world in a different way. The essence of the purpose, love and ideas you lived by is given new expression.
As we have seen, the various physical changes have interacted with the spark of awareness lit at birth, causing changes in consciousness and attitude. Might we not speculate then, by saying that the biggest physical change of all-death – may be but a pre-requisite for yet another cycle of life; an initiation into an entirely new type of awareness? In fact it can happen that from the last cycle onwards, if you dare to experience your inner life reasonably fully, you will already have experienced what naked awareness is like, or have penetrated what is called death in some way.
Sources: dreamhawk.com


​

By: 
B Grace Bullock, PhD, E-RYT 500
 
Prolonged stress can have a deleterious effect on the brain, reducing your ability to think, plan and reason effectively. This is particularly true for the elderly. Now, a new study published in Biological Psychology finds that yoga may moderate the stress response and improve executive function in older adults, building on prior research that finds that yoga is good for your brain.
Neuroendocrine research finds that brain exposure to higher concentrations of cortisol – a key marker of stress – increases the risk for cognitive deficits as we age. Chronic stress magnifies this effect, placing undue wear and tear on the brain and the autonomic nervous system, and increasing the risk for disease.
Yoga, which emphasizes mind-body integration, is theorized to attenuate these effects by increasing the relaxation response through activation of the parasympathetic nervous system. This, in turn, decreases cortisol levels and inflammation, and returns the mind, body and brain to a state of balance, which can enhance cognitive functioning.
New Study Explores the Effect of Yoga on Memory and Cognitive FunctionTo test this theory, researchers randomly assigned 118, sedentary, community dwelling older adults (mean age = 62.02 years) to either an 8-week Hatha yoga intervention (n=61) or a stretching control group (n=57). The majority of study adults were female, married, working full-time, well educated and moderately affluent. Ethnic minorities comprised 20% of the overall sample. A proportion of the full sample had prior experience with yoga, however none of the participants currently maintained a regular yoga practice.
Each adult in the study completed an assessment before and after the intervention consisting of self-report questionnaires measuring stress and anxiety. They were then given tests of executive function and asked to provide samples of salivary cortisol. 
Members of both groups attended hour-long classes 3 times per week for 8-weeks. Yoga classes were designed for beginners, and led by a certified yoga instructor. Classes included “new postures, breathing and meditative exercises”. Postures included “warrior pose, easy lotus pose and sun salutations”, whereas breathing exercises included alternate nostril breathing. Meditative components involved focusing on “thoughts, breath and mantra repetitions”. No mention was made of the yoga tradition informing these practices.
The stretching group attended hour-long sessions, 3 times per week for 8-weeks that excluded any form of yoga postures, breathing exercises or meditative practices. Movements included stretching and strengthening maneuvers that met the Center for Disease Control anaerobic recommendations. Classes included warm-up and cool-down periods, and repetition of 8-10 different exercises taught by a certified personal trainer.
 A total of 108 adults completed the study (attrition rate of 8.47%) suggesting that both the yoga and stretching programs were feasible. There were no differences between those who completed the intervention and those who dropped out on any of the baseline demographic or cognitive measures. Participation in the groups was relatively equivalent.
Yoga Reduces Stress and Improves Executive FunctionAt the conclusion of the 8-week intervention, yoga participants demonstrated less physiological stress (as indicated by lower concentrations of salivary cortisol) than the stretching control group whose salivary cortisol actually increased. The yoga group also reported feeling less stress and anxiety at the end of 8 weeks.
Greater improvements in cognitive functioning at the end of training were also indicated for the yoga group compared to stretching controls. Specifically, yoga participants demonstrated significantly improved working memory capacity and cognitive flexibility relative to the control group. This is particularly encouraging news for older adults, and those experiencing high levels of persistent stress, both of which are at risk for declining cognitive function.
How Yoga Benefits Mental FunctioningYoga involves the integration of physical movement with breath awareness and focused attention. Unlike most other disciplines, yoga facilitates neural communication between the brain and body, and the integration of both top-down and bottom-up cognitive processing.
Top-down processing refers to conceptually driven mental events that are influenced by thoughts, expectations, values, and beliefs. When engaging in top down processing you use existing knowledge and seek out information and experiences that “fill in the blanks”. This allows you to use accumulated knowledge as a frame of reference, rather than figuring out each situation from scratch.  It also means that you are better able to regulate emotions such as fear and anxiety.
In bottom-up processing, information from the external environment is filtered through the brain’s emotional circuitry prior to being projected to higher order “thinking” centers for interpretation. For example, when a pedestrian steps in the path of your car, you slam on the brakes to avert an accident. It isn’t until after an accident has been averted that you interpret the details of the event. Top-down processing allows you to maintain composure while tackling complex problems. Bottom-up processing aids in your immediate survival. Both systems are necessary to maintain a healthy emotional balance.
Yoga is proposed to engage both the top-down and bottom-up systems. By coordinating breath with movement, you become increasingly more aware of the physical and mental events that shape your experience, and are better able to focus and sustain attention. Try standing on one foot while solving a complex problem, and you will notice that it is very difficult to do both well. Yoga enables you to train and refine your mental energy and harness it in appropriate ways when you need to.
This ability to integrate mind and body in the service of sustained focus, self-awareness, and mental regulation may be why studies consistently find that practices such as yoga and meditation enhance cognitive capacities and impact the brain networks that enhance our capacity for mindful awareness, self-reflection, emotion regulation, working memory, cognitive flexibility, and other competencies that are key to successful living and healthy aging.  In the years to come we will undoubtedly continue to learn how and why yoga can enable us to thrive throughout the lifespan.
Another article from YogaUOnline and B Grace Bullock, PhD - Yoga and Meditation Boost Brain Function in Aging Adults New Study Shows.Study with B Grace Bullock, PhD and YogaUOnline - Breathe: Yogic Tools for Happy, Healthy & Fulfilling Relationships.

B Grace Bullock, PhD, E-RYT 500 is a psychologist, research scientist, educator, yoga and mindfulness expert and author of Mindful Relationships: Seven Skills for Success - Integrating the Science of Mind, Body and Brain. Her mission is to reduce stress, increase health and well-being and improve the quality of relationships. She offers classes, workshops, writing and research that combine the wisdom of applied neuroscience, psychophysiology, psychology and contemplative science and practice. Her goal is to empower individuals, groups, leaders and organizations to reduce chronic stress and increase awareness, attention, compassion, mindfulness and effective communication to strengthen relationships, release dysfunctional patterns and unlock new and healthy ways of being. Dr. Bullock is also the Founding Director and Principal Consultant of the International Science & Education Alliance, an organization devoted to exceptional research, program evaluation, assessment design, strategic planning and capacity building to support equity, programmatic diversity and scientific integrity, and promote effective leadership, decision-making and social change. Bullock is a Certified Viniyoga Therapist and Faculty at the Integrated Health Yoga Therapy (IHYT) Training program. She is the former Senior Research Scientist at the Mind & Life Institute and former Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Yoga Therapy. For more information see www.bgracebullock.com.
SourcesGothe, N.P., Kramer, A.F. & McAuley, E. (2014). The effects of an 8-week Hatha Yoga intervention on executive function on older adults. Journals of Gerontology A Biol Sci Med Sci, 69(9), 1109-1116.
Gothe, N., Keswani, R.K. & McAuley, E. (2016). Yoga practice improves executive function by attenuating stress levels. Biol Psychol. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2016.10.010

Paths to Surrender
​How many items in your wardrobe do you never wear? Is there pointless paperwork lurking beneath your desk? Do you have social media “friends” who no longer bring you joy?
Humans have a tendency to hoard surrounding ourselves with things. Consider the bulging handbag the average woman takes every time she leaves the house. When we outgrow things we often find it hard to let them go. I’m talking about the shoes that are so painful they are worn once and never again or the toiletries too fancy to finish, sitting half empty on a bathroom shelf. All these items are symbols of our inability to let go.
And let’s not kid ourselves we do not only hoard possessions. What about the toxic friendship we just can’t give up? Or that unhealthy habit we can’t seem to kick?

It is natural to struggle with this kind of mental OCD; repeating thought patterns about ourselves and our lives. And to let that clutter go, it can be scary. This is the material we have built our lives around, giving us security, identity and power, or so we think. We fear letting go because without all of it…who the hell am I?  
The question we have to ask ourselves is…what are we afraid of? What story about ourselves are we unwilling to let go?
Try to recall how good it felt the last time spring cleaning was finished. Maybe you got rid of an old habit or cleared out your fridge. How light did you feel without that old baggage? And the new stuff that came in, wasn’t it much better than what you had before? So there’s the truth; we must clear out to make space for the new. Having a practice of surrender in your life will make space for your growth and personal truth.

This is when Yin Yoga can make a big difference in the process of surrender. When we practice Yin Yoga, we actually practice the art of letting go. Yin is to enjoy a shape that is authentic, without forcing your body to change. It is to relax into the bones; to be still and kind. To give up holding on.
A regular practice of Yin Yoga will certainly release muscular pain. But it accesses a deeper level than the more dynamic, “Yang” styles of yoga. Yin Yoga works the connective tissues of our ligaments, joints, and bones. It accesses the deep fascial networks that run through every element of our body. This is a continuous connective tissue that exists from head to toe, so that a restriction in one part will affect every other part, and fascia is where our trauma is stored. Physical tension is the manifestation of emotional trauma.  Our biography is our biology and fascia stores all pain from the landscape of our lives. Just as a broken bone creates scar tissue, emotional trauma is also ingrained in the history of our body. This is why emotions like anxiety, anger or grief are felt at specific physical locations. And even after the situation has passed our bodies hold onto the memories, until we let them go.

In this way Yin Yoga creates a space to surrender inhibiting mind patterns.  As the fascia is released so are the psychological traumas it contains. This is why certain poses can bring a surge of emotion as stored energies are unblocked and let go. And without those thought patterns, we can discover the core of who we are. Not who we were, not who we will be but the ever changing kaleidoscope of your present and beautiful self, right now. And then we will no longer need to cling to the out-dated possessions, people, or mind. Because right there on that mat, in the stillness and peace, we will remember that we are enough. We will always be enough. Trust yourself. You are more complete than you know. Within you is a power beyond your wildest dreams. And your true nature is unconditionally happy and at peace. Perhaps you forgot this. But don’t worry, Yin Yoga will help you to recall.


Resources : 
www.howng.com/