light box therapy for improved moods

Mental health professionals have used light-box therapy for decades to treat seasonal affective disorder (SAD), which leads to a low mood in winter but eases its depressing grip when the days get longer. 

HANNAH WHITAKER

New research indicates that the same therapy may be effective for other types of depression, including treatment-resistant depression and even bipolar depression. (Indeed, one recent study found that among patients hospitalized for depression, those in rooms facing southeast, which received the most light, were discharged an average of 30 days earlier than those in rooms facing northwest.) 

Researchers believe that the therapy, which involves sitting near a light box during morning hours, resets a disordered circadian rhythm, resulting in an improved mood.

meditation medication

Studies now support the added benefits of meditation to our health and our lifespan.

One Nobel Prize-winner is finding the scientific in the spiritual

Just like the ends of a rope or string, the tip-like telomeres within our DNA begin to fray over time, especially under stress. 

Damaged telomeres are linked to many diseases of aging - such as diabetes, cancer, depression, anxiety, etc. Thankfully, telomere damage can be slowed down and even reversed. 

Recent findings equate it this way: If your genes are the piano keys, and your lifestyles choices are the pianist, then meditation may just be Mozart. 

We owe it to ourselves to create as much harmony and balance in our lives. In however way we can, no matter how challenged we are. 

OM shanti indeed. 

2019 revelation

Last year I posted about the age of Kali Yuga on my Change Warrior blog. In 2017 I was fierce yet more hopeful.

If as most believe we are smack in the throes of Kali Yuga until at least 2025 - what then do we do in the meantime?

The general consensus is that Kali Yuga or the iron age already ended on the 21st of December 2012 with the end of the Mayan calendar.

It will take approximately 15 years for the new cycle to begin. We are now in that transition period between 2012 and 2027. The next cycle, Dwapara Yuga, starts in or around 2027.

Why is there such a difference of opinion among various Masters and Gurus or theorists and historians about these dates and their cycles?

According to sacred scripture and historical research much has to do with two main aspects:

[1] Spiritual teachings are often interpreted or presented in different ways throughout the ages - according to the needs of its seekers or audience.

[2] The speed at which humanity experiences these cycles can be affected either way by our conscious awareness at the time these events are unfolding.

In truth, it all boils down to which path or teacher we personally choose to follow, whether we accept the teachings of that path, and how wholeheartedly we apply it in our lives.

Popular belief today encourages us with the practice of kriyas and meditations designed to raise complete body awareness. To prepare the physiological body, nervous system, and intellectual mind to handle the energy of Kundalini rising within us.

Whatever your culture, tradition or belief it would be wise to pay attention and heed your body's needs. May the road to wellness unfold well for each of us.

Alan Watts' Antidote to the Age of Anxiety

Wisdom on overcoming the greatest human frustration from the pioneer of Eastern philosophy in the West.

BY MARIA POPOVA

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives,” Annie Dillard wrote in her timeless reflection on presence over productivity — a timely antidote to the central anxiety of our productivity-obsessed age. Indeed, my own New Year’s resolution has been to stop measuring my days by degree of productivity and start experiencing them by degree of presence. But what, exactly, makes that possible?

This concept of presence is rooted in Eastern notions of mindfulness — the ability to go through life with crystalline awareness and fully inhabit our experience — largely popularized in the West by British philosopher and writer Alan Watts (January 6, 1915–November 16, 1973), who also gave us this fantastic meditation on the life of purpose. In the altogether excellent 1951 volume The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety (public library), Watts argues that the root of our human frustration and daily anxiety is our tendency to live for the future, which is an abstraction.

Read the full article at https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/01/06/alan-watts-wisdom-of-insecurity-1/