Living Skillfully: Your Mind and Health

This entry is part 5 of 10 in the series Mind-Body HealingAs I mentioned in my last post, I’m reading Candace Pert’s fascinating book Molecules of Emotion at the moment, and her theory of the “bodymind” as one integrated, dynamic network is seizing my imagination. She’s a prominent scientist who has worked mostly on peptides, [...]

[Read more →]

Euclid is said to have told a king looking for a quicker way to learn mathematics, “There is no royal road to geometry.”

photo credit: POSITiv
Part of the challenge of practicing hypnotherapy is to balance two truths: Hypnotherapy can bring about rapid and significant change, but only regular practice brings about the deepest change.
And regular [...]

[Read more →]

This entry is part 10 of 10 in the series Mind-Body HealingEarlier this week, a few things weren’t going too well for me – nothing too tragic, in the scheme of things, but enough that I felt mildly depressed.
I decided to try a technique that I’d stumbled upon with the help of a colleague. I [...]

[Read more →]

Part of what I do with smokers who want to stop is teach them emotional management and stress management techniques, and the reason that I do it is to improve their chances of remaining smokefree. I’ve been basing this on anecdotal evidence – that is, most people who come to me to stop smoking have [...]

[Read more →]

I’m a science fiction fan from way back, and have always been interested in the idea of brain-computer interfaces. So when the BBC reports that a musical piece has been performed in part controlled by brain waves, I sit up and take notice.
The Multimodal Orchestra included several performers fitted with EEG caps and leads. “There [...]

[Read more →]

I’ve just come across the website CALM, which stands for Computer Assisted Learning for the Mind. It’s been created by Auckland University’s School of Medical and Health Sciences, initially as a resource to help their students manage stress. As if teaching doctors to manage stress wasn’t laudable enough, they’ve now thrown it open to the [...]

[Read more →]

This entry is part 4 of 10 in the series Mind-Body HealingWouldn’t it be great to have a second brain to take care of some routine tasks?
photo credit: *madalena-pestana*
Well, actually, we already do. I’m studying anatomy and physiology as part of my Health Science course, and I’ve just been learning about the “enteric nervous [...]

[Read more →]

This entry is part 3 of 3 in the series Building Self-EfficacySharpBrains have an interesting interview with neuroscientist Michael Posner, in which he talks about attention and how a new neuroimaging technique called diffusion tensor is helping to reveal the brain’s networks.
Posner’s research suggests that what we call “attention” has three elements:

Alerting – you might [...]

[Read more →]

This entry is part 2 of 3 in the series Building Self-EfficacyIt’s an old joke. A man hurrying along a New York street asks a passing musician, “How do I get to Carnegie Hall?”
The musician replies, “Practice, man. Practice.”
photo credit: t_a_i_s
But Carnegie Hall isn’t the only destination that can be reached by practice. Regular [...]

[Read more →]

The blog Improved Lives consistently features things I am interested in, and this article in The Atlantic on “multiple selves” is no exception.
Psychologist Paul Bloom writes there about his view on a significant debate in neuroscience: given that our brains have multiple subsystems, is there a “self” that’s in charge of all the other [...]

[Read more →]