A 1982 Harvard study confirmed that Tibetan monks can raise their body temperature with their minds. Practitioners of “g-tummo” yoga demonstrated the ability to raise the temperature of different parts of their bodies through meditation alone.
If you ever spent any time in detention as a kid, you probably thought, “what is the point of this?” I think it’s pretty universal that detention consisted of staring at a wall and not doing anything, except maybe homework. Not the best.
The people in charge at Robert W. Coleman Elementary School in Baltimore, Maryland, had a different idea. Instead of putting kids who misbehave to detention, they’re sent to what is called the Mindful Moment Room.
"The truth is best as it is. No one can alter it; neither can anyone improve it. Have faith in the truth and live it -Buddha
The room is filled with plush pillows, lamps, and decorations. Kids are asked to calmly talk through what caused them to be sent there and then are encouraged to meditate and do breathing exercises to calm down.
The school partnered with a local nonprofit called the Holistic Life Foundation to create the Mindful Moment Room. For more than a decade, the Holistic Life Foundation has offered an after-school program where kids can practice mindfulness exercises and yoga.
"The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction." -Rachel Carson
The programs run by the Holistic Life Foundation also include mentoring, tutoring, and learning about the environment by visiting farms, cleaning up local parks, and building gardens.
Do you know we have a community garden at Robert W. Coleman Elementary School? This initiative teaches students more…
The kids have responded well to the program – in fact, suspensions at the elementary school plummeted. When nearby high school implemented the same programs, they also saw suspension rates drop and attendance increase.
Take a look at this video about the program at Robert W. Coleman Elementary.
This is a great idea. Honestly, I wish the schools I went to as a kid did this…
A forthcoming study in Psychological Science confirms what everyone who has a yogi friend already suspects: regular practitioners experience inflated egos.
According to the study, both yoga and meditation increase “self-enhancement,” which is the tendency for people to attach importance to their own actions. In a report, Quartz said that the study followed 93 yoga students over the course of 15 weeks, and measured superiority, communal narcissism, and self-esteem. They repeated the study with 162 meditation students.
In the hour after their practices, both participants showed significantly higher self-enhancement and were more likely to make statements that implied an inflated sense of self-importance.
Whether this is good or bad is your call, but given that the roots of Hindu and Buddhist yoga is the ideas of quieting the ego and conquering the self, there seems to be little doubt that Western-style yoga seems to be missing the mark.
The Beatles trip to India ended badly because the Maharishi wanted the band to deposit up to 25% of their next album’s profits in his Swiss bank account as a tithe, to which Lennon replied, “Over my dead body”.
After an 8-week course in mindfulness meditation, the amygdala, associated with fear and emotion, shrinks, while the pre-frontal cortex, associated with awareness, concentration and decision-making, becomes thicker.