Mind-Body Medicine Has Arrived. Our Backwards Culture Just Doesn't Know It Yet

Here is a great overview of the emerging understanding of mind-body connections from a psychological perspective.  Enjoy!

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/26/magazine/what-if-age-is-nothing-but-a-mind-set.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0

Put down your device - and be in the present moment!

This 5 minuted video expresses the value of living in the present moment, undistracted by electronic devices, living in the real world in real relationships, rather than virtual relationships that are even more ephemeral and fleeting than life . . .

Environmental Working Group's Guide to Pesticides - 2013

http://www.ewg.org/foodnews/summary.php

We should all cook our own food.  Here is what happens when we have corporations cook our food for us!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7Ty8HoIEEg

Music and Contemplation in Teaching

 The Role of Contemplative Practice in Teaching - Music and Contemplation - a blog post by Earon Davis



http://www.garrisoninstitute.org/contemplation-and-education/ctl-blog/1829-coming-to-care-music-and-contemplation-earon-davis

1999 Study Showing Placebo Pacemaker Improved Life for Heart Patients and Actually Improved Heart Function.

This is a classic study on placebo effect.  Pacemakers were implanted in 80 people, but only 40 of them were turned on.  Perceptions of improvements by both groups were similar.  While the actual improvements in heart function were much greater in the people with functioning pacemakers, those with pacemakers turned off also experienced significant improvement in heart function.

It appears that perceiving and emotionally feeling that your heart is working better can actually lead to actual improvements in functioning.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10190407

Bill Moyers Interviews Pema Chodron about Buddhism and Efforts to Eliminate Suffering

Bill Moyers Interviews Pema Chodron.
This is part I of a six part PBS series available on youtube about Buddhism and its path to learn about suffering in ways that help us limit suffering in the world, although not to eliminate all pain.  Suffering, we have significant control over, but pain, tragedy and death are not under our control.  However, if we eliminate causes of suffering, we can also reduce the tendency towards the pain caused by violence and injustice.