One of the first things Lynn asked when she settled into my office for help overcoming post-traumatic stress disorder was, “Can’t we just erase the memories that are making me feel this way?” As a trauma survivor myself, I understood Lynn’s plea. I carry quite a few memories that have made my life miserable at times. Instead of seeking to…
As a middle school teacher, I try to be aware of the big picture—the curriculum—as well as the tiny shifting reactions of my students. I have to be conscious of how each child grows and changes over time so I can help all of them stay motivated and engaged. By the end of most days, my mind is tired yet…
Our understanding of how heart function affects mental and emotional well-being has been advanced by leaps and bounds thanks to the Institute of HeartMath (IHM). Studies conducted by this pathbreaking research organization show that signals sent from the heart to the brain via the nervous system dramatically affect how we think and feel. As the IHM notes, “These heart signals…
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.…
What do books about dog brains, a year spent in a tiny French village, mindfulness at work and in our daily lives, and new perspectives on mental and physical health have in common? They all involve some sort of transformation—to our thinking, to our behavior. Here’s a list of some of the Rewire Me editors’ favorite books of 2013. How…
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,…
