Looking to the Horizon
We’re in slightly strange times. We had perhaps hoped the upheavals of 2020 were behind us, yet as we come in 2021 Covid infections are going up; lockdowns are continuing; fear abounds. Over Christmas I took a break from my daily structured on the mat yoga...Book – The Science of Meditation – Coleman and Davidson (2017)
The subtitle is “How to change your Brain, Mind and Body”, and the authors set out their journey as “close friends and collaborators on the science of mediation since the 1970s”. They are both trained psychologists, moving on to Journalism and Neuroscience...Book – Do Your Om Thing – Rebecca Pacheco (2015)
Anyone who has practised with me over a length of time will know I am keen to take yoga out of the studio and into daily life – either as a daily(ish) practice on a mat; micro practices during the day; or simply integrating yogas wisdom into the detail of daily...Book – Healing Yoga for Neck and Shoulder Pain – Carol Krucoff (2010)
Neck and shoulder pain could be described as a silent plague in modern life – the hunched forward iPosture, along with heightened stress levels probably make us more susceptible than previous generations. And the phrase “it’s a pain in the neck” isn’t in our...Book: Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art – James Nestor (2020)
Most yoga classes have attention to the breath at the fore – maybe starting with breath observation, moving to a breathing exercise, then using the breath as an anchor in poses, before returning to observing the breath in final relaxation. And for good reason as...Book: Trauma-Sensitive Yoga – Dagmar Härle (2017)
Trauma is something of an undercurrent in our modern world – only recognised comparatively recently as a separate condition, its something you don’t think about, or use the term flippantly, until it impacts you or those close to you. For those of us...Book: Ayurveda for Yoga Teachers and Students – Siva Raakhi Mohan (2019)
The subtitle of this work is Ayurveda for Yoga Teachers and Students: Bringing Ayurveda into Your Life and Practice and it sums it up well. I’ve read other books about Ayurveda – Yoga’s sister science of well-being – I’ve sat in courses,...Book: Physical Intelligence: The Science of Thinking Without Thinking – Scott Grafton (2020)
Depending who you listen to at any one time we are using 30% / 50% / 70% / pick a number of our brain. It’s a nice headline, but untrue – the complexity of the brain is such its all in use all of the time, its just we may not be consciously aware of it....NIH: Study Provides New Insights Into Changes in Brain Function in Fibromyalgia
I came across this article from NIH National Center for Complimentary and Integrative Health a few days ago. Study Provides New Insights Into Changes in Brain Function in Fibromyalgia Its a commentary on a recent study into how a functional set of connections in the...Book: Yoga Therapy for Digestive Health – Charlotte Watts (2018)
This book covers a topic close to my own heart – Digestive Health. When I first started studying Yoga beyond the confines of single classes and learned about the Digestive System, I came across a meeting place of staggering complexity versus elegant...Chronic Pain and Cognitive Impairment
Cognitive Impatient is the range of conditions we commonly refer to as Dementia – decline in cognition over and above that normally expected with ageing (basically, we all get a bit slower as we age, but CI/dementias go beyond that). Chronic Pain has various...What Has Neuroimaging Taught Us on the Neurobiology of Yoga? A Review
I recently came across the research paper published in July this year (2020) What Has Neuroimaging Taught Us on the Neurobiology of Yoga? A Review Its fair to say its complex, but what emerges is that there is a consistent trend to improved neuro health through yoga...Yoga for Pain Relief
The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), a US body, has published a useful Clinical Digest on Yoga for Pain Yoga may help relieve low-back pain and neck pain, but it has not been shown to be helpful for some other painful conditions such...Book: Principles and Themes in Yoga Therapy – James Foulkes (2017)
Subtitled Principles and Themes in Yoga Therapy: An Introduction to Integrative Mind/Body Yoga Therapeutics this isn’t a how to manual about Yoga Therapy – not for Yoga Teachers / Therapists, not for Yoga Practitioners. Instead its a reflection on the...Book: Relax into Yoga for Chronic Pain – Jim Carson (2020)
The Subtitle of this work is “A Eight Week Mindful Yoga Workbook for Finding Relief and Resilience”, and its a slightly unusual book in that its based around an eight week course of Yoga for Chronic Pain. The book is thus very practical, and the eight...Book: The Other Side of Silence: A Psychiatrist’s Memoir of Depression – Linda Gask (2015)
You’d think that a Psychiatrist would be the last person to have serious Mental Health problems? Or at the least the last to admit it? My experience is if you look behind the scenes the “Wounded Helper” is not at all uncommon. Maybe its peoples...Book: Yoga as Medicine: The Yogic Prescription for Health and Healing – Dr Timothy McCall (2007)
At over 500 pages, this book was, for a long while, considered one of the seminal works in the use of Yoga for well-being. This was the first time I had read it – so many books, so little time! – and my feelings were mixed. Certainly a through and...Book: Yoga Therapy for Fear – Beth Spindler (2018)
The subtitle of this book is, “Treating Anxiety, Depression and Rage with the Vagus Nerve and Other Techniques” – it is a manual predominately aimed at Yoga Therapists and therapeutically orientated Yoga Teachers, however I am sure it would be of...Book: Welcome to the Microbiome – DeSalle and Perkins (2015)
Subtitled “Getting to Know the Trillions of Bacteria and other Microbes In, On and Around You”, this is a book about Bacteria, mainly, but also Archaea and Eukarya – all single cell organisms – although, apparently you get multi celled Eukarya, including...Socials and Feeds
