Yoga for Stress Relief

As many of you probably know, I am a big fan of yoga as a form of stress relief. Yoga combines deep breathing, meditation, exercise, and muscular relaxation to create a powerful way to relax your entire body. My personal experience with yoga has convinced me that profound emotional and physical changes can occur when a person commits to a regular yoga practice. In fact, research is increasingly showing that yoga can be wonderful therapy for anxiety, depression, and many other mental illnesses and issues.

Yoga classes can be a great way to get started and there are many local resources available to us. However, for many people individual practice is the best option due to time and financial constraints. There are many great DVDs and videos that can get you started with this powerful practice. Here are a few of my favorites.

I've recently discovered that the web can be a wonderful place to learn more about yoga. In fact, many websites are offering streaming yoga videos that allow you to practice for free in the comfort of your own home. My favorite, http://www.yogatoday.com/ , offers a free, hour-long yoga class for every day of the year. You can also sign up to receive a free 15 to 20-minute yoga podcast that can be downloaded directly to your video i-pod or mp3 player at http://www.yogamazing.com/ . These are just two of the many resources a person can find on-line and can be a wonderful way of relieving stress, (and, for my students, a great way to complete their relaxation homework assignment!) Namaste!

Change your Brain - Change your Life

The human brain plays a key role in our mental health and well-being. Gaining an understanding of the workings of your brain can be an important part of living a happy, healthy and satisfying life. To learn more about the different parts of the brain and the role that these parts play in our functioning, click here. You can also follow this link to see how providing stimulus to certain parts of the brain can create movement in our bodies.

Katherine Benziger has developed a theory of personality and career development that is based on our cognitive strengths. Benziger believes that everyone has one part of their brain that is naturally more efficient than the others. Her belief in a nutshell is that people who choose careers that use the part of their brain that is naturally efficient experience greater job satisfaction. (You can find more information about Benziger's theory at businessballs.com.) She also believes that we choose friends with similar brains to our own, but typically choose partners with brains that are complementary to our own. Having a greater understanding of your brain truly can lead to better life decisions and satisfaction in a variety of realms.

Until recent years, scientists believed that the brain was relatively unchangeable after our early years. It is true that amazing growth occurs in the brain during early childhood, however with the development of advanced brain imaging technology, (follow this link to learn more about these techniques), scientists have learned that our brain is much more changeable than we had ever imagined regardless of our age!

As infants, our brain creates neural connections at a rapid rate. These connections are built in response to the many things that the infant experiences in his or her environment. To watch a video clip of this process, click here. At one time, it was believed that the brain did not change much after childhood, however research now shows that the brain experiences a second period of rapid change during the teenage years that can affect many areas of functioning. To access a video and multiple resources about the changing teenage brain, click here.

We are now learning that the brain changes in response to our thoughts, habits and environment. What we focus our attention on truly changes our brain. The more we focus on a particular thought, the more connections to this thought are built in the brain, causing us to focus on it even more. If this is a thought that brings us joy, this can improve our lives. However, if we form a habitual thought that is negative, we inadvertently change our brain in a way that makes this thought easier to access. Thankfully, we can also learn to reverse this process by shifting our attention and changing our thoughts. This is one of the reasons that meditation, affirmations, and therapy can all help people to make permanent changes in their lives.

We have also learned that it is important to continually try to experience new things. The brain can get stuck in a rut, leading to boredom and even neural degeneration. Research is beginning to show that people can avoid some of the negative effects of aging by continually searching out novel information, learning and experiences. Doing something new actually seems to create new growth and connections in the brain regardless of our age.

Finally, neuroscientists have discovered a new kind of brain cell, or neuron, that seems to be the source of a person's ability to empathize. The discovery of this particular type of neuron has huge implications in our ability to understand and treat people with autism and asperger's disorder (for a brief, but incredible video clip about a man with autism who is an artistic savant, click here. Well worth your time in the quest to understand the potential of the human brain!) It also helps to explain any of our everyday social behaviors. To learn more about mirror neurons click here. The video segment of this website does a great job of explaining why so many of us will be at the edge of our seats during the Super Bowl this weekend!

Psychology of Learning and Studying

The study of psychology gives us incredible insight into how an individual can maximize his or her ability to learn. We know that people are unique in the ways that they think, create, and process information. My work in special education has proven to me how varied a person's optimal learning style can be. When people are able to identify their strengths, they are able to approach learning in a way that uses their assets and maximizes their potential for success. Playing to your strengths will not only help you in an academic setting, but can help you in your career and life as well.

The first step, of course, is determining what these strengths are! I am particularly fond of Howard Gardner's work on multiple intelligences. His theory states that intelligence cannot be watered down to one number, (such as an IQ score), but instead varies over a variety of domains. These domains include linguistic, logical-mathematic, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, spatial-visual, interpersonal, intrapersonal intelligence. Other categories of intelligence that may be included within his theory pending further research are naturalistic, spiritual/existential, and moral intelligence (Gardner, 1999). There is no one way to be intelligent. There are many wonderful learning style assessments available on-line and free of charge. The website http://www.businessballs.com/ has a wonderful multiple intelligences self-assessment that can help you determine your intelligence profile. For more in depth information about these theories, I recommend the following books by Howard Gardner.

To gain additional information about your strengths as a learner, I also recommend learning about David Kolb's experiential learning theory. Kolb's experiential learning theory will help you to identify your preferred style of learning and can be administered at school guidance offices, and learning and career centers. A free online self-assessment based on Kolb's work is available at http://www.cloudnet.com/~edrbsass/kolblearningstyle.html. Please note that this is not the actual assessment and has not been researched to verify that it provides accurate results.

Research has shown that not all approaches to studying are equal. A person may spend many hours studying for a test, but it is the way the person chooses to study that will likely determine their of level success. My recommended study technique is the SQ4R approach. In this approach, the student starts by Surveying, or skimming, the information they are trying to learn. While they are surveying the text, they will then form Questions based on the topic headings so that helps them to read with a purpose. The next step is to Read the text and look for the answers to their questions. After reading a small segment of the text, the person will pause and Recite or rehearse the information that they have just read. In addition, it is important that they Relate the information to personal experiences or prior knowledge. After the text has been read, the final step is to Review the chapter and check their memory of the material read (Coon, 2006). Having a pre-determined approach to reading can greatly help improve the efficiency of you studying. Good luck!

References

Coon, D. (2006). Psychology: A modular approach to mind and behavior (10th ed.). Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth.

Gardner, Howard (1999). Intelligence Reframed: Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century. New York: Basic Books.