A Simple Qigong Technique to Repair the Body

Yogic breathing helps fight major depression, study shows

Controlled breathing practices show promise in patients who don’t fully respond to antidepressants –

A breathing-based meditation practice known as Sudarshan Kriya yoga helped alleviate severe depression in people who did not fully respond to antidepressant treatments, reports a new study published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry from researchers in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn). The study bolsters the science behind the use of controlled yogic breathing to help battle depression.

Dan Harris: Hack Your Brain’s Default Mode with Meditation

Dan Harris explains the neuroscience behind meditation, but reminds us that the ancient practice isn’t magic and likely won’t send one floating into the cosmic ooze.

Take a deep breath — no really, it will calm your brain

 

When you’re stressed, people often advise you to take a deep breath — and for good reason, a new study shows. Slowing your breathing calms you, and now scientists may have figured out how you can relax your brain through your breath. It has to do with your brain’s pacemaker for breath.

8 Powerful Ancient Qigong Exercises for Cultivating Healing Energy in the Body

 

regularly practicing qigong exercises is a remarkably powerful way to accumulate healing energy in the body. photo: lerina winter

What is Qigong and Why is it Essential?

Qigong (pronounced: chee-gun), which combines meditative and physically active elements, is the basic exercise system within Chinese medicine. Qigong exercises are designed to help you preserve your

Jing, strengthen and balance the flow of Qi energy, and enlighten your Shen. Its dynamic exercises and meditations have Yin and Yang aspects: The Yin is being it; the Yang is doing it. Yin qigong exercises are expressed through relaxed stretching, visualization, and breathing.

Anti-depressants and other psychiatric drugs do more harm than good, says expert

The negative effects of psychiatric drugs, including those used to treat depression and dementia, outweigh the positives, an expert on clinical trials has suggested.

How to Befriend a Tree

Beginning practitioners of Chinese internal organ massage (Chi Nei Tsang) are taught how to commune with trees. Shouldn’t this be part of everyone’s education?

Forever young: Meditation might slow the age-related loss of gray matter in the brain

Areas of the brain affected by aging (in red) are fewer and less widespread in people who meditate, bottom row, than in people who don’t meditate.

Credit: Courtesy of Dr. Eileen Luders

Since 1970, life expectancy around the world has risen dramatically, with people living more than 10 years longer. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that starting when people are in their mid-to-late-20s, the brain begins to wither — its volume and weight begin to decrease. As this occurs, the brain can begin to lose some of its functional abilities.

The Scientific Power of Meditation

How exactly does meditation affect your body?

Meditation Curbs Violence at San Francisco Schools

Students at four schools in a poor San Francisco neighborhood meditate twice a day during “quiet time,” and the results have been remarkable.