You may remember just over a month ago, when we promised to donate half of the registration fees from our Holiday Package to charity:water. We sent in $37,500 to be exact. The Holiday Package charity is an annual project that the staff chooses. (I don’t vote, since I get to choose the other charities that […]
The Science of Altruism: A Daily Act of Kindness
I recently read about a new blog started by a man who wanted to do one act of kindness a day for the entire year in celebration of his daughter’s birth. So far, he has done things like buy lunch for firefighters, put change in vending machines, compliment strangers, and let people go ahead of […]
The Benefits of Exercise for the Brain
I was just reading about the abnormally severe winter that folks in Europe are currently enduring. Last year at this time, my house was surrounded by six-foot snow piles and topics of conversation were about how to shovel snow off the roof. At any rate, my exercise regiment had fallen by the way-side, with snow […]
The Now Effect
Mindfulness practices can make such a profound impact on the seemingly small, everyday interactions in life – and this can add up to major positive changes for patients. That’s why I asked my friend Elisha Goldstein, PhD to share some insights on using mindfulness in clinical practice. Elisha is a Clinical Psychologist in private practice, […]
Mindfulness Taught via Internet?
I am always amazed when I read about innovative new technology for things that ten years ago I would never have imagined. Video games that help surgeons improve their skills, iPhone Apps for measuring happiness. I could go on and on, but you get the point. I recently read an article in BMC Psychiatry that […]
Mindfulness or Medication: Who will beat Insomnia?
Imagine a country where we no longer have to depend on medication to help manage depression, chronic pain, or insomnia. Lately, I’ve been seeing a trend of studies that are showing how mindfulness is just as effective as side-effect loaded medications. This latest study, conducted by Cynthia Gross, PhD and her colleagues from the College […]
Can Children Learn to Be Mindful?
There have been countless studies on mindfulness with adults, but what about children? Is mindfulness for young kids and adolescents? If so, how do we introduce it and what are some effective ways of teaching it? A literature review about using mindfulness with children, published in Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry by Miles Thompson, DClinPsy […]
This Explains It: Answers to Mindfulness Questions
I know I said I would be reporting more on how REM sleep can help regulate emotions, but when I found this, I knew I had to share it with you. So here it is and we’ll get back to REM sleep a little later. Mindfulness. . .what is it? How does it work? What […]
Healing Trauma with Our Dreams
We’ve all heard of ‘restful’ sleep . . . but what about ‘healing’ sleep? Is it possible that dreaming could help reduce the pain of traumatic memories? Researchers at UC Berkeley have found that when dreams occur during the REM (rapid eye movement) stage of sleep, our stress responses shut down, and the neurochemicals responsible […]
An Outhouse and a Pump at the Sink. . .
Modern plumbing is such a blessing. I’ve never shared this, but the first parsonage I lived in (my father is a retired minister) was in a small rural community in Maine. We had a pump at the sink and an outhouse for a toilet. My parents had 3 children (I’m the second) all under the […]