Recently I interviewed neuropsychologist Rick Hanson about his specialty: hardwiring happiness. Using neurological techniques, Hanson says, you can change the structure of your brain by building neuropathways for feeling good. “When it comes to negative experiences, your brain is like Velcro,” he said. “With positive experiences, the brain is like Teflon.” He went on to explain that for survival purposes,…
We live in a time when we tend to look so far ahead into the future that we may lose sight of what’s going on in our lives at the moment. I know I used to find myself running so far and so fast that I missed an entire year here and there. All that changed when I began meditating.…
Music is now a government-endorsed painkiller. This is not to say the Food and Drug Administration has approved rock, jazz, or hip-hop MP3 downloads as over-the-counter analgesics. But stretching beyond the labels of “alternative” or “complementary” healing techniques, music and sound have been studied and applied to patients in recent years in well-funded federal labs with impressive and verifiable results.…
Recently I took my mother to see tap star Savion Glover at our local performing arts center. The hall was packed, mostly with children whose parents had brought them to see the legendary dancer. Predominant in the crowd were students from inner-city performing arts schools. During intermission my mother and I went to the concession stand, where candy was on…
It was with me at the beginning, almost before I was here myself. It will be there at the end, gently easing me closer to the secrets of the universe. It provides escape from daily stress. It makes all my problems disappear, at least for a little while. It helped me grow into what I am today. It is sleep.…
We tend to think of our internal organs as specialists, highly refined machines that work 24/7 at specific tasks. The one exception is the brain: the ultimate supercomputer that can make a multitude of decisions and manage our behavior with incredible speed and efficiency. Now research shows that the brain doesn’t have a monopoly on intelligence. The heart and stomach,…
You want something—maybe it’s a car, a job, a dream vacation, the end of an illness, the start of a relationship, Whatever it is, you set your sights on it and then…as the Stones so eloquently said, “You can’t always get what you want.” But will you be satisfied to only get what you need? In a life where free…
When I start to get overwhelmed and anxious, I have found that stepping out of my overscheduled life for a “haiku walk” can rewire my day. Traditionally, Japanese haiku walks are called gingkos, named after the tree, and are held in a place of historical or cultural significance or in an area of natural beauty. I live in Moscow, Russia,…
