Astounding Articles of the Week

Because a number of amazing health articles have continued to come my way this week, I realized that I could no longer continue to ignore them and had to share. Although most of us yogis already know/feel that yoga & meditation is the world's most ancient cure-all, it's still nice when science backs us up :)

So, read on for two interesting yoga articles and one crazy article about food addiction.

BUT FIRST...to inspire and amaze, a few pics of my favorite yoga granny doing her thing. Her name is Bette Calman and she's 83. Yep!

Photo credits: BP/Barcroft Media

Look at her! I can't even do this pose and I'm 57 years younger than her. And on cement, no less :)

Um, yeah. Can you tell that shes wearing hoes? SO. GREAT.

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Articles

technorati.com

Meditation Stronger than Drugs for Pain Relief:

"Researchers have found that just one hour of meditation training can reduce immediate pain by nearly half and have a long lasting effect. The technique appears to work as it calms down pain experiencing areas of the brain while at the same time boosting coping areas.

"This is the first study to show that only a little over an hour of meditation training can dramatically reduce both the experience of pain and pain-related brain activation," said Dr Fadel Zeidan, lead author at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in North Carolina."

-Read the full article on The Telegraph

SO wonderful to hear and another reminder about beginning/maintaining a daily meditation practice (something I have struggled with over the past few years!). This also "proves" why so many yoga students do find pain relief from their yoga practice.

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Photo via health.howstuffworks.com

Yoga May Also Calm a Dangerous Irregular Heartbeat:

"In a small preliminary study, the ancient art of yoga appeared to halve the number of episodes of a potentially dangerous irregular heartbeat known as atrial fibrillation.

Three sessions of yoga a week also improved quality of life, lowering levels of the anxiety and depression which often plagues patients with this condition, according to research to be presented Saturday at the annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology in New Orleans."

-Read the full article on BusinessWeek

Not surprising AT ALL! I love when scientific studies show new ways in which yoga can help overall health, and this is a perfect example. What a great "prescription" to receive from the doctor!

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Photo via liberationwellnessblog.com

Food Addiction Works Like Drug Addiction on the Brain:

"Seeing a milkshake can activate the same areas of the brain that light up when an addict sees cocaine, U.S. researchers said on Monday.

The study helps explain why it can be so hard for some people to maintain a healthy weight, and why it has been so difficult for drugmakers and health experts to find obesity treatments that work.

"If certain foods are addictive, this may partially explain the difficulty people experience in achieving sustainable weight loss," Ashley Gearhardt of Yale University in Connecticut and colleagues wrote in the Archives of General Psychiatry."

-Read the full article on Huffington Post

I'm not surprised by this, but do think it's important to note that they say that "certain foods are addictive." To me, it's pretty obvious that this means that healthy, all-natural foods aren't addictive, but rather, that foods with added sugar, crazy unnatural additives, added flavors, fried foods, etc. are addictive. The problem isn't finding a drug that ends this addiction, the problem has roots in the types of food that keep being manufactured (not cooked--they are literally manufactured!) and sold in the U.S.  Just my two cents.

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Share: Thoughts on these articles? Let me know what you think.

Namaste!
Mary Catherine

PS. Check back later today for my Thursday painting update post!