Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) can help treating some disorders. The mind-body connection, using cognitive-behaviors therapy shown to be effective in gastro intestinal disorders.
A new therapy was developed to address Chronic Headache Pain. The Mindful-Based-Dance Movement Therapy (MBDMT) involves multiple mechanisms like mindfullness skills, body awareness, relaxation/releasing, Distancing and staying with discomfort, meaning making, self-regulation, acceptance and integration, creativity.
The study concluded that MBDMT is feasible and promising for chronic pain patients.
COVID-19 Pandemic is affecting the psychological health of the people. A worldwide survey was conducted over 243 studies, to assess the benefit of the practice of yoga (Hatha yoga, mindfullness meditation, sahaj yoga, and others) on the mental health parameters. It indicates moderate to positive effects of yoga on mental health, and provides recommendations. In India the Ministry of Public Health publishes guidelines to boost immunity during COVID-19 pandemic, recommending practicing daily Yoga for 30 minutes.
Sri Aurobindo Integral Yoga brings a new paradigm to “articulate a spiritually-informed approach to psychology and psychiatry”. This has now find its way and is becoming part of the mainstream of clinical practices. Integrative medicine, mindfullness-based stress reduction is now accepted and meditation has become a remedy for medical and mental health problems. This article gives an overview of Sri Aurobindo Integral Yoga Psychology, with its relevance to clinical practice.
Mindfullness-Based-Cognitive-Therapy (MBCT) are now well developed and well accepted in the medical communities. It has demonstrated its efficiency in psychatric domain, and is used in clinics and hospitals to reduce stress. A new study/experiment, using fMRI brain activation started to correlate the visible effects of this therapy with active zone of the brain. MBCT relies on intensive mental training with focussed, sustained attention practices. This is equivalent to the first phases of meditation practices and the results of this study brings another demonstration of the relationship/influence the mental can have on the physical body.
Another true story of a Near-Death experience in plain sight, during a cardiac surgery operation. The people around, including the surgeon, cannot but acknowledge the phenomenon which is raising so many questions to the materialistic scientists world, and which demands explanation. Such facts are piling up for some decades, well documented. The near-death process needs to be deciphered and the Traditions – The Egyptian Book of the Dead, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, the Theosophical teachings – have some clues to transmit there.
Communication between the neurons – the elementary cells of the brain – has been conventionally understood, using mechanisms as synaptic transmission, axonal transport, etc. A team of scientists has identified a new, unknown process of neural communication which seems to leap wirelessly from neurons – even when they are severed. The transportation medium may be a set of electromagnetic waves which have been identified to be active during sleep in the cortex and the hippocampus. It looks like new science.
A new research, using dual electroencephalography, has recorded simultaneously a mother’s and her baby’s brains activities. It shows that the level of connectivity is linked to the mother’s emotional state. The study found that the parent-infant inter-brain network is strongly modulated by the emotional quality and tone of dyadic social interactions.
“Our emotions literally change the way that our brains share information with others – positive emotions help us to communicate in a much more efficient way,” said one of the study’s participant.
Sri Aurobindo’s Integral Yoga Philosophy was published, starting August 1914, in an Indian review, the Arya. It offered a synthesis of some of the main yoga philosophies from India, the Bhakti (adoration), Karma (action), and Jnana (knowledge) yoga. This synthesis is presented as a path to perceive, understand and to live the One Life.
Modern integrative medicine has brought trans-personal themes inside the mainstream of contemporary healthcare. This article provides with an overview of Sri Aurobindo’s Integral Yoga in clinical practices. It encompasses topics as reincarnation, the chakra’s system, parapsychology and mind-body healing.
Million of people are giving a try to a vegan diet during the month of January 2020. Researchers at the University of Oxford are running a pilot experiment to assess the value of veganism for the environmental impacts aspect. Veganism is considered better for the planet than other diets. A 2018 Science study has quantified the today’s food supply chain impact at the global scale – feeding 7.6 billion people : meat and dairy contribute about 60 percent of agriculture’s greenhouse gas emission, and provide only 18 percent of our calories. The alternative of veganism starts to gain some momentum, and some coaching is available on the Vegan Society Web Site.
Meditation researches have been focusing so far on neural or physiological correlates of meditative states. A task Force was launched at IONS (Institute of Noetic Sciences) to explore further the field of meditation researches. Meditation has been identified as one of the key practices for cultivating positive transformations in consciousness. The findings and recommendations of the study were published and are available here, together with an online training course on meditation.
Complaining is very common in our human overstressed societies. This research shows how the brain mechanism handle it. The neuropsychologist Donald Hebb developed a theory in the early 1950’s – the Hebbian Theory – which explains how neurons are pairing together in a learning process similar to what recent researches in Artificial Intelligence (AI) called ” Unsupervised Learning”. This article identifies the various types of complainers and gives some advices.
An article, released by the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NIH), gives a thorough picture of meditation practices in the USA, and the benefits as seen by science. Meditation has entered the field of official medicine.
Mme Blavatsky wrote – (Lucifer, Vol. I, N° 2, October 1887, pp. 120-122) : ” In his hours of silent meditation the student will find that there is one space of silence within him where he can find refuge from thoughts and desires, from the turmoil of the senses and the delusions of the mind. By sinking his consciousness deep into his heart he can reach this place – at first only when he is alone in silence and darkness. But when the need for the silence has grown great enough, he will turn to seek it even in the midst of struggle with self, and he will find it.”
Korean scientists confirmed the existence of body meridians, saying this system is part of the cardiovascular system. It is suggested that this system is involved in channeling the flow of energy and information relayed by biophotons and DNA.
A previous study (HCMI-2014), using Computerized Tomography, had already match acupuncture points with body’s areas having a higher density of micro-vessels and a large amount of involute micro vascular structures.
A new study has identified supernatural agency in young adults on the autism spectrum. Sensing invisible presence, seeing visions, hearing voices, are among the reported phenomenons. It is suggested that somatosensory experiences are more prevalent in autistic individuals.
In her “Comments on a Treatise on the Yoga Philosophy“, Mme Blavatsky wrote (The Theosophist Vol. II, January, 1881, pp.72-75) : “The Yogi, says Patanjali, will hear celestial sounds, the songs and conversations of celestial choirs. He will have the perception of their touch in their passage through the air – which translated into a more sober language means that the ascetic is enabled to see with the spiritual eye in the Astral Light, hear with the spiritual ear subjective sounds inaudible to others, and live and feel, so to say, in the Unseen Universe.”