Yoga Improves Asthma

Researchers have found that yoga nearly halves  symptoms of asthma in just 10 weeks. The study was done at the American College of sports medicine.

The group of asthmatics in the study did to yoga classes twice a week  And were asked to do an extra 30 minutes of practice at home during the week. That’s really not so much yoga practice for such good results is it.

In fact the less is more route was a deliberate choice by the researchers as past studies had been of twice daily yoga and studied for fewer days. It was thought this was an impractical ask for most people.

None of the participants aged 20 - 65, had done yoga before. Results were based on a questionnaire that measured frequency and severity of symptoms, activities associated with breathlessness and social and psychological functioning.Overall, scores of individuals participating in the yoga arm of the trial improved an average of almost 43 percent.

Of course an important part of the improvement comes from deeper breathing, but the development of greater breath awareness is just as beneficial to asthmatics. This breath awareness from asana practice allows asthmatics to recognize early on when breathing is becoming impaired

It’s also thought that the deep breathing involved while holding yoga postures causes similar respiratory stress as in an asthma attack - as the subjects became used to this, they were better able to deal with their asthma.

Lead researcher Amy Bidwell, herself a yoga teacher said “There’s not much of a downside to yoga unless you have a major orthopedic problem,” She added "Yoga is an excellent way to relieve symptoms because there are no side-effects, unlike modern medicine such as corticosteroids"

Bidwell worked closely with a physician to design and conduct the study. He had been teaching breathing techniques to his patients. Based on the study results, he now is prescribing yoga practice as well.

This study joins a lengthening list of studies proving numerous health benefits from both yoga and meditation practice.

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How God Changes Your Brain

Mark Robert Waldman is an associate fellow at the Center for Spirituality and the Mind at the University of Pennsylvania. His latest book is called "How God Changes Your Brain: Breakthrough Findings from a Leading Neuroscientist." The book was recently featured in a major "Time" magazine cover story. If his interview on PBS is anything to go by this book is a must buy.

Personally I really love the sciences exploring spirituality. Walderman and his co author on the book Andrew Newberg go deep into the kind of territory that could potentially begin to unify our understanding of some of the aspects of religion and spirituality from a non dogmatic or ideolagized view. That is of course from the perspective of their own scientific ideology. Within it though there is a clear intent to explore and explain within the parameters of psychology and neuroscience.

So how can these scientists help in the ways I’ve suggested?

"What we’re finding is that, if you engage in contemplative spiritual practice or meditation or prayer or even focusing intently on a positive thought and a positive affirmation, you can begin to make permanent changes in both the structure and the function of your brain in ways that enhance memory, cognition, awareness, consciousness, compassion, and it simultaneously suppresses the neuromechanisms in your brain that cause anxiety, depression, fear, anger and rage."

Sounds good doesn’t it, and here’s where the ‘unify our understanding of some of the aspects of religion and spirituality’ part comes in.

"what we’ve done is that we’ve distilled from all of the world’s religious traditions a set of 12 basic exercises that we have in Chapter 9, I believe, that anyone can do. And if you do these exercises for 12 minutes a day for eight weeks and we put you into a brain scan machine, we can show you that changes are being made in your brain that make all of the improvements that I just talked about."

So what he’s saying is that they have identified the aspects of religious and spiritual practices that have the greatest physiological and psychological benefits and….

"Thirty years of research shows that this is the most effective way to eliminate serious forms of depression and anxiety, and when you apply these types of spiritual techniques, you can take the theology out of them and use them in a secular form and, if you want to, you can take the theology from a different religion and put them back in. You still get the same neurological benefits."

Going further Waldman and Newberg asked thousands of people how they would describe God and their spiritual experiences and virtually nothing was held in common. The meaning they came to from this is that "God or spirituality is a profoundly unique experience."

So by distilling what works from the perspective of their own understanding of the human brain/mind/experience they have come up with things like exercises in compassionate communication that will be relevant and acceptable and more importantly effective for people of any religious, non-religious or spiritual persuasion.

Then instead of getting hung up on the differences that divide we can realize our common humanity. How God Changes Your Brain: Breakthrough Findings from a Leading Neuroscientist get yours now.

You can read an interview with the authors here

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Healing With Love

~ 

With you

my heart sings
you are I the beloved
the love that I am
and love no more a beam
to shine on this or that
but the radiance of a star, a sun
that shines on all
that shines within.

Through your reflection
I remember who I am
and two in truth are one.
 
I gather in the wounded
the pained and in fear in me
I gather in the raging
the abuser and abused
feeling, accepting
healing,
with love
ending blame.

~

 

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Crystal Healing

 There are essentially two components in crystal healing. One
is the healer themselves, the second are the crystals.
 
Lets begin by looking first at the crystals. In the most
basic terms crystals are formations of one or more mineral with a
regular atomic structure, in a crystalline pattern. They are also
one of the manifestations of spirit in the physical plane, each
unique as each person, tree, each living thing is unique, and as
manifestations of spirit they are ‘alive’. Each crystal has it’s
own vibratory rate, imbuing it with it’s particular qualities. An
important fact about crystals in our consideration of crystal
healing, is their ability to balance, absorb  and amplify energy.
     
So where does the healer come in, well the healer acts as a
channel for universal healing energies, which they draw down by
attuning themselves to them and opening themselves to enable the
energy’s  passage. This involves the healer raising their energy
vibration to become a compatible ‘conductor’ of the healing
energies. We might liken this to the flow of electricity through
various materials, some materials are highly conducive to
allowing the currents passage, others by degrees less so and some
are unable to act as conductors at all. The healer is attuning
themselves to be as conducive a conductor as possible.
     
Crystal healing is the coupling of these two factors to
bring about the re-balancing of energies within a persons energy
field, or indeed within their physical body. The healer can utilize
the crystals in a multitude of ways for specific tasks, and will
obviously choose crystals most suited to that particular task.
For example the healer may wish to strengthen the energy flow
through the persons vertical, or male channel running the length
of the body. For this they may choose to use two crystal points
e.g. clear quartz, amethyst etc. Because these crystals grow to a
point energy can be clearly directed through the point to connect
with another crystal placed at the other end of the person and
the energy channel. (see diagram) To form a protective envelope
around the person crystal clusters could be used in the same
positions. There are numerous differing energy channels which can
be effected in these ways.

Crystals can also be placed directly upon the body of the person.
It is unlikely for this task that the healer would utilize the
crystal cluster just mentioned. More appropriate for this might
be a tumbled crystal, which has a softer more generalized energy
field. The healer may also use crystals held in their hand(s),
channelling the healing energy through the crystal as an
extension of themselves.  
     
In all these variations the energy channelled through the
crystals by the healer take on the vibratory rate of that
crystal. The healer not only selects the form of crystal for the
specific task, but also the type of crystal for the compatibility
of it’s vibratory rate to the healing required by the person. For
example for somebody in a highly agitated mental state the healer
might choose a stone with a vibration compatible with calming,
they may couple this with a crystal of earthing quality. This
brings those vibratory qualities into the persons energy field
where a form of energy osmosis takes place and the calming
grounding energies assimilate those of distress. This then
relieves the symptoms, but the process of healing goes beyond
into the cause and prevention. Another way of looking at
is,through the belief of man being a microcosm of the macrocosm -
in short all that is outside oneself is inside oneself. From this
perspective the crystals are used to stimulate the equivalent
energy within the person allowing transformation to occur.
      

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