Weight-bearing exercises may help minimize cognitive decline and impaired mobility in seniors concludes a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
The study is one of the first randomized controlled trials of progressively intensive resistance training in senior women aged 65 to 75 was by the Centre for Hip Health and Mobility at Vancouver Coastal Health and the University of British Columbia.
12 months of once-weekly or twice-weekly resistance training improved executive cognitive function in senior women
Executive cognitive functions are cognitive abilities necessary for independent living.
"We were able to demonstrate that simple training with weights that seniors can easily handle improved ability to make accurate decisions quickly," Dr. Teresa Liu-Ambrose, researcher at the Centre and assistant professor in the Faculty of Medicine at UBC.
Also a researcher at the Brain Research Centre at UBC she “found that the exercises led to increased walking speed, a predictor of considerable reduction in mortality."
Previous research demonstrated that aerobic exercise, such as walking or swimming enhances brain and cognitive function. However, this does not help seniors with limited mobility.
Previously, there had been little research on the benefits of resistance training on cognitive function.
As Western populations are aging, cognitive decline is a major health issue and a key risk factor for falls and fall-related hip injuries.

So you want to light up a cigarette? Well go and exercise.  According to Dr. Harry Prapavessis, Director of Western's new Exercise and Health Psychology Laboratory, exercise can help you quit the habit for good.their smoking habit – for good.
Dr. Harry Prapavessis and his team have shown that supervised exercise in addition to pharmacological agents like nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) helps smoking cessation, improves physical fitness, and delays weight gain in women smokers.
"However, as with all smoking cessation intervention, relapse effects after stopping the program are common problems" said Prapavessis who was named Canadian Cancer Society Researcher of the Month of January 2010.
In a recent study, 70% of women had stopped smoking at the end of the 12-week program, but after one year, only 27% remained abstinent.
"This suggests that exercise needs to be maintained for individuals to continue to kick the habit" he said.
"It is important to determine whether inexpensive home and community-based lifestyle exercise maintenance programs can maintain exercise, fitness and weight after cessation program termination, and hence prevent (reduce) smoking relapse".
"This research project will not only contribute to a better understanding of the role exercise plays as a smoking cessation aid” said Mary Jung, part of  Prapavessis team and a Canadian Institutes of Heath Research (CIHR) post-doctoral fellow. “it will also explore a means of increasing the cost-effectiveness of long-term smoking cessation programs.”

All Who Dismisses, Dismisses His Own Flaw

How does the distribution between what is inside of me and what is outside of me help me with my spiritual development?

It is known that every mother always sees her children as the smartest, most beautiful, and successful kids in the whole world. On the other hand, if we observe her attitude towards the neighbors' kids, we will obviously see a totally different attitude. In fact this phenomenon exists in every one of us-the attributes that belong to us get a different outlook, one much less critical than attributes outside of us are scrutinized with. Even if I hate certain characteristics in me, laziness, flattery, shyness, etc., I try to give them some sort of excuse: "no choice", "it's part of me," or "I will have to put up with it," etc.. However, when I see these characteristics in others, in those that are outside of me, it is met with eruptions of anger and great hatred. These characteristics are magnified when they show up outside of me, to the point that I want to tear them out of their place.

The Wisdom of Kabbalah tells us that all of reality takes place within a person, and that it is divided in to "internal" and "external." What is felt as internal are usually desires, thoughts, tendencies, attributes, and physical and emotional sensations, and what is felt as more external are others.

In that case, why was reality divided into "internal" and "external," "I" and "others;" if everything is really taking place inside of me?

Because in what is "outside of me" and doesn't belong to me, I have a natural tendency to discover negative attributes, and to treat in a more critical matter, a "cleaner" matter. On the other hand, the attributes that belong to me, for the most part I try not to expose in this manner, the interaction with others helps one understand and clarify the negative attributes in him in a sharper and more powerful way. With experience, man reaches the conclusion that, "all who dismisses, dismisses his own flaw"-all the attributes that are despised by him out there, are in fact inside him.

The wisdom of Kabbalah tells us that the division into these two forms, of relation to internal and external, are to allow a person to reveal the true property of the Creator, the property of love and bestowal, through revealing man's opposite properties-the property of reception for oneself. His attitude towards what is "inside him" suits the property of reception in him. On the other hand, his attitude towards what is "outside him" suits his attitude to the property of bestowal.

Man's inability to love what is outside him like himself, reveals to him the gap between him and the Creator who loves and bestows to all without any thought of Himself. This brings him to the request to be released from the shackles of the property of self-reception. In this way he acquires a new property, and discovers with it, a new reality in which all people are connected in one desire and in love for one another.

Why don't we get the best out of people? Sir Ken Robinson argues that it's because we've been educated to become good workers, rather than creative thinkers. Students with restless minds and bodies -- far from being cultivated for their energy and curiosity -- are ignored or even stigmatized, with terrible consequences. "We are educating people out of their creativity," Robinson says. It's a message with deep resonance. Robinson's TEDTalk has been distributed widely around the Web since its release in June 2006. The most popular words framing blog posts on his talk? "Everyone should watch this."

A visionary cultural leader, Sir Ken led the British government's 1998 advisory committee on creative and cultural education, a massive inquiry into the significance of creativity in the educational system and the economy, and was knighted in 2003 for his achievements. His latest book, The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything, a deep look at human creativity and education, was published in January 2009.



Good morning. How are you? It's been great, hasn't it? I've been blown away by the whole thing. In fact, I'm leaving. (Laughter) There have been three themes, haven't there, running through the conference, which are relevant to what I want to talk about. One is the extraordinary evidence of human creativity in all of the presentations that we've had and in all of the people here. Just the variety of it and the range of it. The second is that it's put us in a place where we have no idea what's going to happen, in terms of the future. No idea how this may play out.

I have an interest in education -- actually, what I find is everybody has an interest in education. Don't you? I find this very interesting. If you're at a dinner party, and you say you work in education -- actually, you're not often at dinner parties, frankly, if you work in education. (Laughter) You're not asked. And you're never asked back, curiously. That's strange to me. But if you are, and you say to somebody, you know, they say, "What do you do?" and you say you work in education, you can see the blood run from their face. They're like, "Oh my God," you know, "Why me? My one night out all week." (Laughter) But if you ask about their education, they pin you to the wall. Because it's one of those things that goes deep with people, am I right? Like religion, and money and other things. I have a big interest in education, and I think we all do. We have a huge vested interest in it, partly because it's education that's meant to take us into this future that we can't grasp. If you think of it, children starting school this year will be retiring in 2065. Nobody has a clue -- despite all the expertise that's been on parade for the past four days -- what the world will look like in five years' time. And yet we're meant to be educating them for it. So the unpredictability, I think, is extraordinary.

And the third part of this is that we've all agreed, nonetheless, on the really extraordinary capacities that children have -- their capacities for innovation. I mean, Sirena last night was a marvel, wasn't she? Just seeing what she could do. And she's exceptional, but I think she's not, so to speak, exceptional in the whole of childhood. What you have there is a person of extraordinary dedication who found a talent. And my contention is, all kids have tremendous talents. And we squander them, pretty ruthlessly. So I want to talk about education and I want to talk about creativity. My contention is that creativity now is as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status. (Applause) Thank you. That was it, by the way. Thank you very much. (Laughter) So, 15 minutes left. Well, I was born ... no. (Laughter)

I heard a great story recently -- I love telling it -- of a little girl who was in a drawing lesson. She was six and she was at the back, drawing, and the teacher said this little girl hardly ever paid attention, and in this drawing lesson she did. The teacher was fascinated and she went over to her and she said, "What are you drawing?" And the girl said, "I'm drawing a picture of God." And the teacher said, "But nobody knows what God looks like." And the girl said, "They will in a minute." (Laughter)

When my son was four in England -- actually he was four everywhere, to be honest. (Laughter) If we're being strict about it, wherever he went, he was four that year. He was in the Nativity play. Do you remember the story? No, it was big. It was a big story. Mel Gibson did the sequel. You may have seen it: "Nativity II." But James got the part of Joseph, which we were thrilled about. We considered this to be one of the lead parts. We had the place crammed full of agents in T-shirts: "James Robinson IS Joseph!" (Laughter) He didn't have to speak, but you know the bit where the three kings come in. They come in bearing gifts, and they bring gold, frankincense and myrhh. This really happened. We were sitting there and I think they just went out of sequence, because we talked to the little boy afterward and we said, "You OK with that?" And he said, "Yeah, why? Was that wrong?" They just switched, that was it. Anyway, the three boys came in -- four-year-olds with tea towels on their heads -- and they put these boxes down, and the first boy said, "I bring you gold." And the second boy said, "I bring you myrhh." And the third boy said, "Frank sent this." (Laughter)

What these things have in common is that kids will take a chance. If they don't know, they'll have a go. Am I right? They're not frightened of being wrong. Now, I don't mean to say that being wrong is the same thing as being creative. What we do know is, if you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original. If you're not prepared to be wrong. And by the time they get to be adults, most kids have lost that capacity. They have become frightened of being wrong. And we run our companies like this, by the way. We stigmatize mistakes. And we're now running national education systems where mistakes are the worst thing you can make. And the result is that we are educating people out of their creative capacities. Picasso once said this. He said that all children are born artists. The problem is to remain an artist as we grow up. I believe this passionately, that we don't grow into creativity, we grow out of it. Or rather, we get educated out if it. So why is this?

I lived in Stratford-on-Avon until about five years ago. In fact, we moved from Stratford to Los Angeles. So you can imagine what a seamless transition that was. (Laughter) Actually, we lived in a place called Snitterfield, just outside Stratford, which is where Shakespeare's father was born. Are you struck by a new thought? I was. You don't think of Shakespeare having a father, do you? Do you? Because you don't think of Shakespeare being a child, do you? Shakespeare being seven? I never thought of it. I mean, he was seven at some point. He was in somebody's English class, wasn't he? How annoying would that be? (Laughter) "Must try harder." Being sent to bed by his dad, you know, to Shakespeare, "Go to bed, now," to William Shakespeare, "and put the pencil down. And stop speaking like that. It's confusing everybody." (Laughter)

Anyway, we moved from Stratford to Los Angeles, and I just want to say a word about the transition, actually. My son didn't want to come. I've got two kids. He's 21 now; my daughter's 16. He didn't want to come to Los Angeles. He loved it, but he had a girlfriend in England. This was the love of his life, Sarah. He'd known her for a month. Mind you, they'd had their fourth anniversary, because it's a long time when you're 16. Anyway, he was really upset on the plane, and he said, "I'll never find another girl like Sarah." And we were rather pleased about that, frankly, because she was the main reason we were leaving the country. (Laughter)

But something strikes you when you move to America and when you travel around the world: Every education system on earth has the same hierarchy of subjects. Every one. Doesn't matter where you go. You'd think it would be otherwise, but it isn't. At the top are mathematics and languages, then the humanities, and the bottom are the arts. Everywhere on Earth. And in pretty much every system too, there's a hierarchy within the arts. Art and music are normally given a higher status in schools than drama and dance. There isn't an education system on the planet that teaches dance every day to children the way we teach them mathematics. Why? Why not? I think this is rather important. I think math is very important, but so is dance. Children dance all the time if they're allowed to, we all do. We all have bodies, don't we? Did I miss a meeting? (Laughter) Truthfully, what happens is, as children grow up, we start to educate them progressively from the waist up. And then we focus on their heads. And slightly to one side.

If you were to visit education, as an alien, and say "What's it for, public education?" I think you'd have to conclude -- if you look at the output, who really succeeds by this, who does everything that they should, who gets all the brownie points, who are the winners -- I think you'd have to conclude the whole purpose of public education throughout the world is to produce university professors. Isn't it? They're the people who come out the top. And I used to be one, so there. (Laughter) And I like university professors, but you know, we shouldn't hold them up as the high-water mark of all human achievement. They're just a form of life, another form of life. But they're rather curious, and I say this out of affection for them. There's something curious about professors in my experience -- not all of them, but typically -- they live in their heads. They live up there, and slightly to one side. They're disembodied, you know, in a kind of literal way. They look upon their body as a form of transport for their heads, don't they? (Laughter) It's a way of getting their head to meetings. If you want real evidence of out-of-body experiences, by the way, get yourself along to a residential conference of senior academics, and pop into the discotheque on the final night. (Laughter) And there you will see it -- grown men and women writhing uncontrollably, off the beat, waiting until it ends so they can go home and write a paper about it.

Now our education system is predicated on the idea of academic ability. And there's a reason. The whole system was invented -- around the world, there were no public systems of education, really, before the 19th century. They all came into being to meet the needs of industrialism. So the hierarchy is rooted on two ideas. Number one, that the most useful subjects for work are at the top. So you were probably steered benignly away from things at school when you were a kid, things you liked, on the grounds that you would never get a job doing that. Is that right? Don't do music, you're not going to be a musician; don't do art, you won't be an artist. Benign advice -- now, profoundly mistaken. The whole world is engulfed in a revolution. And the second is academic ability, which has really come to dominate our view of intelligence, because the universities designed the system in their image. If you think of it, the whole system of public education around the world is a protracted process of university entrance. And the consequence is that many highly talented, brilliant, creative people think they're not, because the thing they were good at at school wasn't valued, or was actually stigmatized. And I think we can't afford to go on that way.

In the next 30 years, according to UNESCO, more people worldwide will be graduating through education than since the beginning of history. More people, and it's the combination of all the things we've talked about -- technology and its transformation effect on work, and demography and the huge explosion in population. Suddenly, degrees aren't worth anything. Isn't that true? When I was a student, if you had a degree, you had a job. If you didn't have a job it's because you didn't want one. And I didn't want one, frankly. (Laughter) But now kids with degrees are often heading home to carry on playing video games, because you need an MA where the previous job required a BA, and now you need a PhD for the other. It's a process of academic inflation. And it indicates the whole structure of education is shifting beneath our feet. We need to radically rethink our view of intelligence.

We know three things about intelligence. One, it's diverse. We think about the world in all the ways that we experience it. We think visually, we think in sound, we think kinesthetically. We think in abstract terms, we think in movement. Secondly, intelligence is dynamic. If you look at the interactions of a human brain, as we heard yesterday from a number of presentations, intelligence is wonderfully interactive. The brain isn't divided into compartments. In fact, creativity -- which I define as the process of having original ideas that have value -- more often than not comes about through the interaction of different disciplinary ways of seeing things.

The brain is intentionally -- by the way, there's a shaft of nerves that joins the two halves of the brain called the corpus callosum. It's thicker in women. Following off from Helen yesterday, I think this is probably why women are better at multi-tasking. Because you are, aren't you? There's a raft of research, but I know it from my personal life. If my wife is cooking a meal at home -- which is not often, thankfully. (Laughter) But you know, she's doing -- no, she's good at some things -- but if she's cooking, you know, she's dealing with people on the phone, she's talking to the kids, she's painting the ceiling, she's doing open-heart surgery over here. If I'm cooking, the door is shut, the kids are out, the phone's on the hook, if she comes in I get annoyed. I say, "Terry, please, I'm trying to fry an egg in here. Give me a break." (Laughter) Actually, you know that old philosophical thing, if a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, did it happen? Remember that old chestnut? I saw a great t-shirt really recently which said, "If a man speaks his mind in a forest, and no woman hears him, is he still wrong?" (Laughter)

And the third thing about intelligence is, it's distinct. I'm doing a new book at the moment called "Epiphany," which is based on a series of interviews with people about how they discovered their talent. I'm fascinated by how people got to be there. It's really prompted by a conversation I had with a wonderful woman who maybe most people have never heard of, she's called Gillian Lynne, have you heard of her? Some have. She's a choreographer and everybody knows her work. She did "Cats," and "Phantom of the Opera." She's wonderful. I used to be on the board of the Royal Ballet, in England, as you can see. Anyway, Gillian and I had lunch one day and I said, "Gillian, how'd you get to be a dancer?" And she said it was interesting, when she was at school, she was really hopeless. And the school, in the '30s, wrote to her parents and said, "We think Gillian has a learning disorder." She couldn't concentrate, she was fidgeting. I think now they'd say she had ADHD. Wouldn't you? But this was the 1930s, and ADHD hadn't been invented at this point. It wasn't an available condition. (Laughter) People weren't aware they could have that.

Anyway, she went to see this specialist. So, this oak-paneled room, and she was there with her mother, and she was led and sat on a chair at the end, and she sat on her hands for 20 minutes while this man talked to her mother about all the problems Gillian was having at school. And at the end of it -- because she was disturbing people, her homework was always late, and so on, little kid of eight -- in the end, the doctor went and sat next to Gillian and said, "Gillian, I've listened to all these things that your mother's told me, and I need to speak to her privately." He said, "Wait here, we'll be back, we won't be very long." and they went and left her. But as they went out the room, he turned on the radio that was sitting on his desk. And when they got out the room, he said to her mother, "Just stand and watch her." And the minute they left the room, she said, she was on her feet, moving to the music. And they watched for a few minutes and he turned to her mother and said, "Mrs. Lynne, Gillian isn't sick, she's a dancer. Take her to a dance school."

I said, "What happened?" She said, "She did. I can't tell you how wonderful it was. We walked in this room and it was full of people like me. People who couldn't sit still. People who had to move to think." Who had to move to think. They did ballet, they did tap, they did jazz, they did modern, they did contemporary. She was eventually auditioned for the Royal Ballet School, she became a soloist, she had a wonderful career at the Royal Ballet. She eventually graduated from the Royal Ballet School and founded her own company -- the Gillian Lynne Dance Company -- met Andrew Lloyd Weber. She's been responsible for some of the most successful musical theater productions in history, she's given pleasure to millions, and she's a multi-millionaire. Somebody else might have put her on medication and told her to calm down.

Now, I think ... (Applause) What I think it comes to is this: Al Gore spoke the other night about ecology, and the revolution that was triggered by Rachel Carson. I believe our only hope for the future is to adopt a new conception of human ecology, one in which we start to reconstitute our conception of the richness of human capacity. Our education system has mined our minds in the way that we strip-mine the earth: for a particular commodity. And for the future, it won't serve us. We have to rethink the fundamental principles on which we're educating our children. There was a wonderful quote by Jonas Salk, who said, "If all the insects were to disappear from the earth, within 50 years all life on Earth would end. If all human beings disappeared from the earth, within 50 years all forms of life would flourish." And he's right.

What TED celebrates is the gift of the human imagination. We have to be careful now that we use this gift wisely, and that we avert some of the scenarios scenarios that we've talked about. And the only way we'll do it is by seeing our creative capacities for the richness they are, and seeing our children for the hope that they are. And our task is to educate their whole being, so they can face this future. By the way -- we may not see this future, but they will. And our job is to help them make something of it. Thank you very much.

Ohio State University Press Release
Regularly practicing yoga exercises may lower a number of compounds in the blood and reduce the level of inflammation that normally rises because of both normal aging and stress, a new study has shown.
The study, done by Ohio State University researchers and just reported in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, showed that women who routinely practiced yoga had lower amounts of the cytokine interleukin-6 (IL-6) in their blood.
The women also showed smaller increases in IL-6 after stressful experiences than did women who were the same age and weight but who were not yoga practitioners.
IL-6 is an important part of the body’s inflammatory response and has been implicated in heart disease, stroke, type-2 diabetes, arthritis and a host of other age-related debilitating diseases. Reducing inflammation may provide substantial short- and long-term health benefits, the researchers suggest.
“In addition to having lower levels of inflammation before they were stressed, we also saw lower inflammatory responses to stress among the expert yoga practitioners in the study,” explained Janice Kiecolt-Glaser, professor of psychiatry and psychology and lead author of the study.
“Hopefully, this means that people can eventually learn to respond less strongly to stressors in their everyday lives by using yoga and other stress-reducing modalities.”
For the study, the researchers assembled a group of 50 women, age 41 on average. They were divided into two groups – “novices,” who had either taken yoga classes or who practiced at home with yoga videos for no more than 6 to 12 sessions, and “experts,” who had practiced yoga one of two times weekly for at least two years and at least twice weekly for the last year.
Each of the women was asked to attend three sessions in the university’s Clinical Research Center at two-week intervals. Each session began with participants filling out questionnaires and completing several psychological tests to gauge mood and anxiety levels.
Each woman also was fitted with a catheter in one arm through which blood samples could be taken several times during the research tasks for later evaluation.
Participants then performed several tasks during each visit designed to increase their stress levels including immersing their foot into extremely cold water for a minute, after which they were asked to solve a series of successively more difficult mathematics problems without paper or pencil.
Following these “stressors,” participants would either participate in a yoga session, walk on treadmill set at a slow pace (.5 miles per hour) designed to mirror the metabolic demands of the yoga session or watch neutral, rather boring videos. The treadmill and video tasks were designed as contrast conditions to the yoga session.
Once the blood samples were analyzed after the study, researchers saw that the women labeled as “novices” had levels of the pro-inflammatory cytokine IL-6 that were 41 percent higher than those in the study’s “experts.”
“In essence, the experts walked into the study with lower levels of inflammation than the novices, and the experts were also better able to limit their stress responses than were the novices,” Kiecolt-Glaser explained.
The researchers did not find the differences they had expected between the novices and experts in their physiological responses to the yoga session.
Co-author Lisa Christian, an assistant professor of psychology, psychiatry and obstetrics and gynecology, suggested one possible reason:
“The yoga poses we used were chosen from those thought to be restorative or relaxing. We had to limit the movements to those novices could perform as well as experts.
“Part of the problem with sorting out exactly what makes yoga effective in reducing stress is that if you try to break it down into its components, like the movements or the breathing, it’s hard to say what particular thing is causing the effect,” said Christian, herself a yoga instructor. “That research simply hasn’t been done yet.”
Ron Glaser, a co-author and a professor of molecular virology, immunology and medical genetics, said that the study has some fairly clear implications for health.
“We know that inflammation plays a major role in many diseases. Yoga appears to be a simple and enjoyable way to add an intervention that might reduce risks for developing heart disease, diabetes and other age-related diseases” he said.
“This is an easy thing people can do to help reduce their risks of illness.”
Bill Malarkey, an professor of internal medicine and co-author on the study, pointed to the inflexibility that routinely comes with aging.
“Muscles shorten and tighten over time, mainly because of inactivity,” he said. “The stretching and exercise that comes with yoga actually increases a person’s flexibility and that, in turn, allows relaxation which can lower stress.”
Malarkey sees the people’s adoption of yoga or other regular exercise as one of the key solutions to our current health care crisis. “People need to be educated about this. They need to be taking responsibility for their health and how they live. Doing yoga and similar activities can make a difference.”
As a clinician, he says, “Much of my time is being spent simply trying to get people to slow down.”
The researchers’ next step is a clinical trial to see if yoga can improve the health and reduce inflammation that has been linked to debilitating fatigue among breast cancer survivors. They’re seeking 200 women to volunteer for the study that’s funded by the National Cancer Institute.
Researchers Heather Preston, Carrie Houts and Charles Emery were also part of the research team which was supported in part by a grant from the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, part of the National Institutes of Health.

Autism may be caused by misconnections in the developing brain opening the possibility of a future Autism and thdrug treatment published in Nature Neuroscience on January 10.
Researchers from Children's Hospital Boston looked at a rare disorder called tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC), which causes benign tumors throughout the body, including the brain. Most individuals with TSC also develop epilepsy, and 25–50% are diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders.
The study found that mutations in one of TSC's causative genes (TSC2) prevent growing nerve fibers (axons) from locating their proper targets in the developing brain.
According to researchers at, it may be possible to one day treat the problem with drugs that target the molecular pathways that cause the miswiring.
Advances in recent have suggested that “dysregulation of axon growth and guidance is important in the pathogenesis of epilepsy, autism and intellectual disabilities.”
“ Deficient axonal growth has been associated with cerebral dysgenesis and intellectual disability” noted the study, “ whereas excessive growth of neuronal processes has been associated with epilepsy.”. The role of neuronal connectivity has also become apparent in autism. “
Magnetic resonance imagery has shown that autistic individuals had increased white-matter volume and aberrant white matter adjacent to brain regions implicated in social cognition.
The team focused on an axon route between the eye's retina and the brains visual processing area in mice. In neurons deficient in TSC2, the axons' tips, called growth cones, did not respond to cues from ephrin miolecules and the axons ended up in the wrong locations..
"Normally, ephrins cause growth cones to collapse in neurons, but in tuberous sclerosis the axons don't heed these repulsive cues, so keep growing," senior investigator Dr. Mustafa Sahin.
When neurons are deficient in TSC2, a molecular pathway called mTORis activated resulting in a loss of axon responsiveness to ephrin signals.


Supporting the mouse data, Sahin and his colleague Simon Warfield, from the Computational Radiology Laboratory examined the brains of 10 patients with TSC, 7 of whom also had autism or developmental delay, and 6 unaffected controls.
Using diffusion tensor imaging they documented disorganized and structurally abnormal tracts of axons in the TSC group, particularly in the visual and social cognition areas of the brain (see image).
They found the axons were poorly myelinated., That means the fatty coating that helps conduct electrical signals was compromised
In the images above the brighter images in the healthy brain apear brighter.because of the structural integrity allowing electrical flow. Sahin said their findings may help improve our general understanding of how the developing brain organizes.

"People have started to look at autism as a developmental disconnection syndrome -- there are either too many connections or too few connections between different parts of the brain" said Sahin.
"In the mouse models, we're seeing an exuberance of connections, consistent with the idea that autism may involve a sensory overload, and/or a lack of filtering of information."

When you think about orthodox Jews, you probably don’t think of yoga.

Yet Chabad, the orthodox Lubavitch Jewsh movement led famously by Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, or the Rebbe, as he is known, has a center in Dharamsala.

And it seems to have a collection of Guru Jews. The Dalai Lama, seeking how to guide a people in exile, has met with a number of Rabbis including the Australian mystic and kabbalist Rabbi Laibl Wolf.

Both Hinduisn and Judaism teach that that there is an underlying divinity that is in and through every level of creation and spirit.

It is not surprising then that Judaism has its own forms of mediation, usually visualizations. The practice of davening, which combines sequential bending the knees and bowing, is continued after prayer in a meditative repose by some Jews.

Some Jews even believe that that Indians are offspring of Abrahams second wife, Keturah, who some Rabbi’s believe was noneotherthan Hagar under another name, the mother of Ishmael, ancestor of Islam.

However, few imagined that the Rabbi Schneerson would send an emissary to ‘kosher’ yoga and mediatation practices.

In Hinduism the Ultimate Reality is described by the Vedic phrase "Ekam sat vipraha, bahudha vadanti" or "Truth is one, the wise call It by various names."

Ultimate Reality possesses infinite potential, power and intelligence, and therefore cannot be limited by a single name or form. Therefore the ultimate reality is described as having both personal and impersonal aspects.
The impersonal (Nirguna Brahman) has no attributes and is beyond reasoning, thought and conception, is not an object of prayer but the object of meditation and contemplation. However, the personal aspect (Saguna Brahman) is creator, controller and sustainer of the universe, however, being unlimited Saguna Brahman is unable to take only one form and so is worshipped via both male and female deities.

Judaisms famous declaration of faith, the shema, declares, “The Lord is G-d, The Lord is one.” In kabbalah this is not a mere statement of monotheism. It is a declaration of the divine unity permeating all things.

Ten divine qualities, or sephirot, that come from G-d’s light are compared to the spectrum, each a different quality of G-d. How these qualities relate to each other profoundly effects creation. In Kabbalah every level of creation, spiritual, physical and psychological in some way mirror each other in various degrees.

Although both faiths share a belief in a unifying oneness, Jewish law expressly forbids idols or the chanting mantras that include the names of deities. Not that all Buddhist, Hindu’s or yoga practitioners use images. Hindu writers like Mahatma Gandhi argued against idols, he conceded they were necessary for some people.



The Rebbe then began a program that took the therapeutic benefits of "Transcendental Meditation (TM) and dressed them in Judaism.

This way a person could enjoy the calming and physical benefits of yoga and meditation while not compromising Jewish faith.

"It follows that if these therapeutic methods, insofar as they are utterly devoid of any ritual implications, many could benefit from such treatment," said the Rebbe.

"This is a matter of healing of the highest order, since it has to do with the mind. It would therefore be wrong to deny such treatment to those who need it . . . if they had a choice of getting it the kosher way."

He sent emissaries, including Dr Yehuda Landes, to meet with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

Together the Rebbe and Dr. Landes planned center that would teach meditation, breathing and posture exercises for health developed "with halachic (legal) and general chassidic orientation for the dissemination... of these techniques to Jews and non-Jews."

The Rebbe offered to assist with funding and although the project did not get off the ground as was hoped for, today the project has become possible.

“In Judaism meditation is often associated with hitbonenut (contemplation), hitbodedut (isolation and conversation with G-d), and kavana (Divine meaning), practiced while praying or learning of deep concepts” said Lubavitcher Audi (Yehuda) Gozlan, founder of Kabalah Yoga.

“These forms of meditation have existed since Biblical times and were all developed by the founders of Chassidus” he said.

The word yoga means union or to join and is practied to unify mind and body with postures and breathing.

“When you physically move your body with more awareness and join your actions with your breathing you can become more energetic and graceful” said Gozlan. In the classic Chassidic text, Tanya, this is known as the mind focusing the heart.

“When the mind and heart are aligned then we can live in harmony and reveal the benoni, someone totally self-controlled.”

Gozlan was able to take this idea further when he realized some postures resembled Hebrew letters.

In Torah, G-d spoke and the universe occurred. The letters of the Hebrew alephbet , the language of Torah, in combination created the world.

As the physical, spiritual and psychological world are seen as one, each letter has profound spiritual and emotional significance and have been meditated on for centuries.

Gozlan was able to develop a kosher way to meditation whether in movement or in stillness.

The Rebbes approach was not just to keep Jews from leaving their faith. Chassidus, inspired by Kabbalah, teaches finding the spark ofdivinity in all things andreleasing it to the world. Even in the most mundane things.

The Rebbe envisioned of a harmonious world ready to welcome Moshiach and to release the possibilities within us.

Sandy Forster - Australia's Leading Prosperity Mentor


Experiencing a life of effortless prosperity, total financial freedom and outstanding success is available to everyone - even YOU - but you have to know the secrets! Here are 10 from the International Bestseller How to Be Wildly Wealthy FAST - make them a part of your daily experience and you'll begin to see more money, riches, wealth and abundance in your life than ever through possible!

1. Create a Millionaire Mindset

You will create more of whatever you focus on consistently. If you desire to become Wealthy and Abundant - you must THINK like the Wealthy and dream Abundant thoughts. Once you have conditioned your mind to focus on Riches, Abundance and Prosperity MORE than poverty, lack and limitation - that's when MORE Money will begin to flow into your life!

2. Know what your Money is doing

If you haven’t mastered this one, you could seriously be strangling your flow of Abundance. If you spend recklessly, don't pay bills on time, have no idea what money comes in and what goes out, on a subconscious level you could actually be repelling Wealth. You may be pushing it out of your experience because deep inside, you realise you wouldn’t know how to handle more money even if you had it. You will be amazed at how you ‘magically’ tap into MORE Prosperity when you become a master at managing your Money!

3. Constantly see the money already in the Bank

Visualising the Riches you desire in your life will accelerate the money into your experience at lightening speed. See yourself in your minds eye already using the things you bought with your mountains of money, living in the house you built with your wildly wonderful wealth, driving the car you purchased with your cash. Enjoy this one – add those delicious feelings of love, satisfaction and gratitude at the same time as you see your picture of wealth for even faster results.

4. Be consistently grateful for your Abundant Riches

Gratitude is one of the most powerful, yet underestimated prosperity tricks you can use. The more you are grateful for – the more will be given to you for you to be grateful for. This is a challenging concept if you are currently experiencing financial or personal hardship – but it’s well worth it. At the end of each day, write down at least 5 things you are grateful for – anything at all – the sunshine on the water, the birds singing in the trees, a cuddle from your children, the fact that the day is over and it’s time for bed (when I first began studying prosperity I had to use that one on a number of occasions!). Do this consistently for the next 60 days and be amazed at the abundance that begins to flow into your life.

5. Do something that makes you feel Rich

Whether you can afford to do this on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, just make sure that you consistently do something that you KNOW rich people do! Have a massage, buy fresh flowers, go to a day spa, hire a Porsche, go to a restaurant and don’t even look at the prices, have someone come in and clean your house, take your best friends out to lunch. Or do something that is FREE – pick a bunch of flowers, take a picnic to the beach at sunset, go for a drive in an expensive estate and imagine which house you now own. Whatever it is for you – just DO it! The more you practice this feeling rich, the faster it becomes a part of you. Just a quick note – do NOT go into debt to practice this one, make sure you spend only what you have in cash.

6. Create a space for your Prosperity

This one is EASY! The Universe abhors a vacuum. Create a space for your prosperity and it will be filled. Get rid of the clutter in your life – the books you don’t read, the paperwork in your drawers, the old clothes that don’t fit, the boxes of junk in the garage. When you clean out the old, you make room for the new – so start creating that space for abundance today.

7. Laugh and have fun

I’m serious! One of the most important things you can do on a daily basis to move easily and effortlessly into the flow of prosperity is laugh. Having fun moves your energy into a place of attraction – use this time wisely to attract to you the prosperity you desire. When you are playing with your children, watching a funny movie, spending time with your friends, laughing loudly at a joke – just for a few seconds while you’re in that fabulously funny space, imagine yourself as a multi-millionaire, feel the feelings you would feel knowing that you now have more money than you could ever spend, and feel SO GOOD about it.

8. Celebrate your Wealth

Do something grand or do it small, but celebrate today! Have a Prosperity party and invite your friends around complete with tuxedoes, ball gowns and waiters. Everyone (even the not so rich) must pretend for the evening that they have over $50,000,000 net worth and chat about which jet they are taking on their next overseas jaunt, what luxury car they are driving or the spending sprees they are planning. If that’s out of your price (and comfort) range – gather a group of friends and sing ‘Money, Money, Money’ at the top of your lungs as you dance around the house. Maybe you’d prefer to sprinkle 100-dollar bills and rose petals over your bed and roll around joyously with your lover. And make it a habit to shout thank you to the Universe every single time more prosperity flows your way – whether that’s finding 1c on the street, an unexpected $100 in the mail or a $10,000 windfall – celebrate it all!

9. Share your good fortune

Tithing is an age-old secret that Millionaires have known about forever! Plus, they didn’t wait until they were rich to begin tithing, they did it before, during and after they accumulated their wealth. Universal Law states that the more you give of something, the more you receive. If you want more smiles, give more smiles, if you want more love, give more love – if you want more money give more money. Generally tithing means to give 10% of all you make back to the person, place or institution who feeds you spiritually or empowers you to be your best. Having said that – don’t get too hung up on where the money goes, just GIVE! Whenever you do give money to others, bless it and expect it’s ten fold return back to you – you will be amazed at the abundance that pours into your life.

10. Prosperity is more than just masses of money, outrageous riches and Avalanches of Abundance

Prosperity and Abundance are worthless if you don’t have your health, loved ones in your life and something to do each day that makes your heart sing. On the other hand, if you’re continually struggling financially, it certainly takes the shine off all other areas of your life. Why not have it all? It really IS possible. How would you feel if you could spend each day with friends that inspire and uplift you? Only work because you love what you do. Be able to spend your time doing what you choose and when you choose and continue to experience greater and greater levels of abundance, wealth and prosperity year after year.

When you continually and persistently create a Millionaire Mindset, manage your money wisely, visualize yourself as wealthy, are grateful for the richness already in your life, feel abundant, clean up your clutter, laugh, celebrate and share your wealth - you will unleash such a flow of prosperity in your life - you will finally believe you CAN Create Outrageous Riches, Plentiful Prosperity, Wildly Wonderful Wealth, Fabulous Financial Freedom and Mountains of Money NOW!

Sandy Forster

Sandy Forster, author of the International Bestseller How to Be Wildly Wealthy FAST, offers more exciting free resources, articles, tele-conferences, books and live events in the areas of prosperity, success and personal empowerment at www.WildlyWealthy.com

NOTE

You’re welcome to reprint this article online or in hardcopy magazines or newspapers as long as it remains unaltered and complete (including the “about the author” info at the end), and you send a copy of your reprint to sandy@wildywealthy.com or P.O. Box 362, Mooloolaba. Queensland. 4557 Australia

Memorization tires most of us. Admit it, we’d rather glance on our palm tops or organizers once in a while for convenience. Memorization is something we don’t want to deal with for the rest of our lives although we deal with it in school because it’s something we need to do.

Now that’s just odd. When we need to do something, we tend to give our best shot at it. Why can’t we do the same thing with our simple everyday activities?

One effective and interesting way of familiarization and memorization of objects at a particular time or event is to associate them with a journey. The place or location where the journey happens can be stationary but not you, the traveler. You should come across the entire set of objects which are available on the setting you have chosen.

We can set the movie house as an example for this memory improvement approach. Before you enter the movie house lobby, you purchase tickets for you and your friend. You know it’s the ticket booth because you see people falling in line to buy their own tickets. Now, associate the elements you see with what you need to remember. Let’s pretend that you need to buy grocery items after seeing a movie. Seeing the long line of moviegoers to the ticket booth is a start. You can make the line of moviegoers going to the ticket booth, purchase chunks of meat instead of tickets. After getting your own meat chunk from the ticket booth, you then proceed to the lobby where you can buy popcorn and drinks served by two food counter clerks. The first clerk is named Ms. Tomato while the other one is named Mr. Lettuce. One has a head like a tomato and the others head looks like lettuce. After ordering, you are then served by Ms. Tomato a bucket of cheese bars instead of pop corn and butter for drinks.

After you’re satisfied with what you bought, you and your friend proceed to the movie theater and find yourselves a seat. Imagine the seats as giant apples. As you sit back and wait for the movie to start, picture the widescreen in front operated by four grocery clerks pulling the scenes with giant sausages stringed together from the projection screen to make the image move from one picture to another. Now that’s one wild imagination to keep you on your toes to remember the grocery items you need. The funnier the story is, the higher chances of remembering each item clearly.

From that scenario alone, important objects on the location are observed. You associate the things you see with the location easily since it involves vision, sound, smell, taste, touch and Kinesthesia (or the awareness of body position). All of the strategic points mentioned make Journey System, another memory technique, an easier method in remembering things you need to remember and placing them in a known place for easier memorization – without any pressure.

Try other memory techniques and discover the natural memorization ability you never knew you had all along at http://memory-improvement-techniques.com.

“We create our own reality” says William Lee Rand founder and president of The International Center for Reiki Training.”But when calamity strikes, how many of us take credit for our misfortune.”
“Frequently, when something negative happens to us, resentment, anger and fear begin to take over making it difficult to avoid blaming others or to blame circumstances that are seemingly beyond our control.”
This can in itself lead to a number of reactions.
People blame you because they think you should do something different. Or you blaming circumstances, including others, for your problems.
Either way, the act of blaming another, especially the emotional investment wasted in it, is a projection of our own shadow side onto another person.
John Demartini beleives that marriages, and I suggest, all closer relationships, in family, business and social, reflect our need to express the hidden shadow within us.
As Kabbalah argues, we experience the light of divinity through the our life experience, but our experience is in fact the opposite, the surface that divinity reflects.
In other words, we need the opposites in life, to be forced to face the changes we must make in ourselves.
I know in my own past, I argued strongly for flexibility, without realizing that there can be benefits for some in a fixed routine, bith physically and spiritually.
I described myself as “Intolerant of intolerance, and inflexible against inflexibility.” Of course, like a former smoker who attacks the smoking or other smokers, or like an alacoholic whi fights every day not to slip back off the wagon, I was damning myself in admitting my own shadow self.
Sometimes the most knowledgeable people are the worst teachers.
“The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside as fate” said Carl Jung.
“That is to say, when the individual remains undivided and does not become conscious of his inner opposite, the world must perforce act out the conflict and be torn into opposing halves.”
“Well then, how can I deal with that person who is annoying me, even if I may have attracted it?” you say.
Rather than blame others, or try to gain sympathy by spreading doom and gloom about others, we should recognize why a person acts as they do.
“when a person treats you poorly, it is usually because he does not feel good about himself” said David Lieberman Ph. D. in How to Change Anybody: Proven Techniques to Reshape Anyone's Attitude, Behavior, Feelings, or Beliefs “The solution is simple. If you give him what he needs emotionally, then he will treat you like pure gold”
Lieberman’s techniques have been used corporations in 25 counties, including the FBI and US Navy.
Consider a few situations.

Technique: Change How you react

People constantly belittle and embarrass you.
Show Genuine enthusiasm.
As soon as you see that person, find something to be enthusiastic about. There is alwys something. Smile, show genuine appreciation, and you will disarm the persons negativity before it begins, wears you down and brings out your own shadow self.
As the Christian Bible puts it “'If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head'" (Romans 12:20)
Once a person is on your side its so much easier to lead them to what you want.
Show respect
“This is known as reciprocal affection” wrote Lieberman. ‘We tend tend to admire, respect, and like someone once we are told that he has these same feelings for us.”
Be supportive
When a person stuffs up, chances are they know it. They don’t need you to tell them so.
Rather, offer support, letting them know you can assist, but don’t take away their initiative.
Let them know you appreciate them
Sadly, we often only say nice thing when we make mistakes.
Be proactive, and give appreciation.
“One nice word is worth a hundred after the fact” said Lieberman.
Allow the person to give to you
Sometimes the greatest gift is the thank you genuinely offer when a person has given to you.
There are 3 reasons for this:

• We feel closer to whatever, or whoever, you invest in. Let them invest in you.
• It makes the other person feel better about themselves, giving them a sense of control
• Giving causes psychological dissonance This means that since they unconsciously conclude we must now have a favorable impression of them. Then it is easier for them to convince themselves, you can’t be too bad afterall.

Besides, if people begin to feel good around you, they are less likely to criticize.

Train him about how you want to be treated

Mary is a verbal bully
Often people begin to treat us in ways they feel they can get away with around us.
Imagine, Mary describes you as incompetent in a group.
When appropriate approach her in private and say “Mary, I’m sure you didt mean anything by it, gbut whatyou said was offensive.”
She will either:

• Apologise, so say thankyou and end the conversation.
• Defensively accuse you of being too sensitive, even claim she was trying to help.

In this case, simply say “I’m sure your reasons were good, but what you said was offensive too me.” End the conversation and don’t debate.
(If they try to argue, simply repeat the statement and leave).

Outsmart Him

The school bull, Jack, y who pours out Jimmy’s milk every lunch hour in front of a crowd
As the Bully approaches, Jimmy calls out to everyone, Jimmy calls out
“Look everyone, here comes Jack, the Bully. Watch how important he is; because he’s bigger, he can pour my milk out . Wow!”
Then Jimmy pour the milk out in front of Jack, denyin Jack the feeling of importance he derives by his dominating others in public.
Or if Jane humiliates people in public you could turn the tables.
“OK, everone, be quiet now and give Jane your full attention, because she doesn’t get enough at home. OK, go ahead, Jane. You can humiliate me now.”
Personally, I think Outsmart Him is a last resort, but with bullies its sometimes the only language they understand.
The problem is that the issue in our shadow self still remains and needs addressing.
“The unconscious mind can have both healthy and unhealthy aspects and it is the unhealthy aspects that are often called the Shadow Self” said Rand.
“By working through the power of the unconscious mind, the Shadow Self is responsible for creating our unwanted experiences. Therefore, the only meaningful way to prevent unwanted experiences from taking place is by getting to know the Shadow Self and then to help it heal.”
As Rand points out, we have often been taught to not express our feelings. True, there are good and bad ways to do it.
“When we block our feelings unwanted feelings don’t simply go away, but accumulate in the unconscious mind, still very much alive and often even more angry and resentful for having been rejected in such an uncaring way.”
They seem to feed on themselves and build up to the point that they create our life’s difficulties.
“ Unwanted experiences are actually a reflection of our own Shadow Self” said Rand.
“This means that if there is someone in your personal life that you have strong negative feelings about and wish would go away, it is your Shadow Self that has attracted them to you and caused you to feel the way you do toward them.”
It also means that your nemesis also has the a similar problem that they are criticizing you for.
“It is likely that the characteristics of this unwanted person that you dislike the most are characteristics of your Shadow Self.”
Many times it is not what a person says but the emotions and fears that are triggered that are the issue.
It is possible that the criticism is correct which is why it hurts. It could also be that it is off the mark but triggered an unresolved hurt.

So how can we face our Shadow Self?

The shadow self exists because these feelings were ignored or denied. Once we recognize that our experience is from our shadow self then the process of self discovery and healing is possible.
“If you are to heal, it is necessary to reverse the process by paying attention to the Shadow Self and accept it as part of yourself. When you begin to do this, only then is it possible to heal” says Rand.
When the shadow self feels accepted it will be much easier to deal with others.
Unconsciously, the people who reacted to us, will also feel at ease and tensions will ease.
This is why EFT, Sedona, meditation Ho opono Pono and Reiki are so powerful.
Using the reflective method taught by Socrates we begin to discover and accept our self. The hurt child within stops screaming for attention and our world mirrors our inner calm.
As a Reiki master, Rand offers the Reiki solution.
I offer the method in full:
“if there is someone in your life that is causing you grief, and you would like to use this experience to get to know your Shadow Self better and to heal, meditate on the feelings you have toward the person” he said.
“Then ask yourself, “Is there a part within myself that is similar to this person?””

“As you do this, locate where in your body or energy field these feelings and/or the part resides. Direct Reiki energy there with your hands. Use the mental/emotional symbol along with the power symbol or the master or other Reiki symbols you feel would be helpful if you have them
As you do this, speak to the Reiki energy with your mind and ask it to show you the part of yourself that has attracted this experience into your life. This can bring up hidden aspects of yourself that you have been unaware of, but need attention.
When you begin to feel the part, let it know that you are sorry for ignoring it for such a long time. Tell it you would like to get to know it better and to help it heal. This process may feel uncomfortable at first, but continue sending Reiki and it will help you work with your emerging Shadow Self.
Allow yourself to have compassion toward the part(s) that come into your awareness. Continue to send Reiki and also, if you are open to it, say a prayer and ask for help from the Higher Power using whatever name feels comfortable to you. Continue sending Reiki, feeling compassion and looking into this part of yourself with the intent of understanding it and helping it to let go and heal.
As you do this continue to thank the Reiki energy and/or the Higher Power for its help. You may also include an affirmation such as, “I release all negative feelings into the Reiki energy to heal now” or similar words or other affirmations you feel are right.”

Rand suggests continueing until the session as long as needed and that it may need to be repeated until you have let go of all the negative feelings and you feel at peace.
The purpose of this approach is to turn our shadow self into an energizing ally empowering our conscious achievement.
“This is because the Shadow Self has what can be called a Radiant Self counterpart that becomes available when the Shadow Self begins to heal. The Radiant Self has the same abilities as the Shadow Self, but uses them to create benefits for you and to attract positive situations and experiences."
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