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Breathe:

More Kindness for Ourselves and Each Other

Pass it on: New research shows nourishing food might save your brain

9/26/2017

7 Comments

 
Picture of bowl of berries with coconut
Worry wakes up before you do. It must, or it wouldn't be so ready to greet you before you wake. That unsettled flutter in the chest. The reluctance to face anyone, least of all your own mind. It can feel like this at a funky time like 4 AM or when the alarm goes off for work. The edginess can return in force in the afternoon, with that crashed-out, craving-a-pick-me-up feeling as the workday ends and before dinner appears.

Discovering the connection between food and mental health has been a revelation. It’s made a necessary difference in my sleep and chronic pain. Once perceived, it seems so clear. Yet not all doctors and therapists are making these connections yet. I'm passionate about letting you know how you can nourish your mood and give your brain health what it needs. I hope you will share this profoundly hopeful message with others.

I love geeking out on topics like the human microbiome, blood sugar and cortisol, microglia and inflammation, and the gut brain, our second brain. Not everyone wants to read dozens of books from my favorite teachers, like Nutrition Essentials for Mental Health by Leslie Korn and The Ultra Mind Solution: Healing Your Broken Brain by Healing Your Body First by Mark Hyman, MD. But the research is there, and it’s compelling.

Nutrition mental health research is slowly starting to come into more mainstream awareness, with review articles from the American Psychological Association; a collection of peer-reviewed articles in Clinical Psychological Science; and a review of the impact of food on neurotransmitters in Harvard Medical School's
blog. Just this week, the Harvard Medical School had an article about the impact of leaky gut -- which has been recognized and treated largely by the leaders in the field of naturopathic and functional medicine whom I follow --on autoimmune conditions, fibromyalgia, and mental illness.



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Water is Medicine

12/13/2016

1 Comment

 
Picture

“Mni Pejuta: water is medicine and Mni Wiconi: Water is Life,’ says Wakinyan LaPointe, Lakota community organizer. ‘In our Lakota way, it is our responsibility to strengthen our relationship with water.’”

Modern research continues to affirm indigenous wisdom, that water is one of our most useful medicines. Water can improve energy, mood, anger, concentration, and focus. The brain is very sensitive to small changes in levels of water in the body. Water is vegan, free, and in most cases comes with few side effects. You can do an experiment on yourself.

Like many of you, I've been deeply moved by what is happening at Standing Rock. Lakota Sioux have been joined by hundreds of indigenous nations from the Americas and the world, as well as other people of conscience called to protect the water, support the rights of our First Nations to their sacred ground and water and to protect the earth from from further global warming.

I read that the water protectors received word that the police had put out a list of requests including granola bars, energy drinks, soda, and warm clothing and gloves. The indigenous water protectors were the ones to respond to the police request.  They said, we gave them everything they asked for except for the soda and energy drinks, because water is life.

If you are moved to do more to support the water protectors, the current request is to contact the banks funding the pipeline.

In socially engaged mindfulness, we may engage with full energy but not attach to the results of our actions. 2 unexpected healings at Standing Rock were forgiveness ceremonies from the church and the military over the 500-year history of colonialization.

For heart-opening images, see a video clip of the 13 year-old Lakota Sioux girl, who had started the Standing Rock petition, after a successful goverment response to her efforts,  and images of the elders from many Native nations who gathered as water protectors.

Thank you. Water is life. Mni Wiconi. Water is Medicine.



1 Comment

Water Meditation

11/29/2016

1 Comment

 
Picture
Noticing a desire for water.

The desire may be experienced as a dryness in the mouth, an interest in the mind, a feeling of fatigue, or a cue -- of the morning, a meal, or a workout that reminds you of water.

Filling a drinking vessel with cold, room temperature, or hot water. Noticing the sound of the water as it fills your cup. Noticing how listening to the sound is experienced in the emotions and the body.

If you like, adding tea, lemon or anything else, or just drinking your plain, pure water.

Feeling the weight of the drinking vessel in your hand. Noticing the temperature of the water that is conveyed from the cup to your hand.

Looking at the water and seeing what you notice.

Telling your water, "I love you."

If you like, contemplating the sources of your water. Remembering or imagining where your water comes from to arrive at your cup. Does it come from a reservoir? Is it fed by a glacier, does it come from a river in the Sierras or other mountains? Noticing what you know and what you don't know. You may pray or send good thoughts to the sources of your water.

You may notice gratitude for being in that portion of humanity  that has running water in their home.

Smelling the water and noticing what you notice.

Taking a drink and noticing the temperature of the water in the mouth and the temperature of the water as it travels into your body.

Noticing that the water in your cup joins the water you are.


With a deep bow to the Lakota Sioux teen girls and elder women, traditional allies of water through the flow, who are leading the way and teaching us how to pray for and honor water. Thank you to the Ohlone people for the land where I sit and write. Please accept humble apologies for any misunderstandings of the teachings.




1 Comment

YUM! Mindful Eating, Mindful Nutrition: Eating with the Brain in Mind

9/1/2015

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Picture“Tuscan Plate and Eggplant” • Sally Baker Watercolors, click image for www.sallybaker.com
"YUM!"

My Food as Medicine conference teacher, chef and culinary translator tells fellow cookbook author Mollie Katzen in an interview that "yum" is an involuntary response to pleasure.
"Yum!" is a common response to her Everything Drizzle or Triple Triple Brittle in her book, The Healthy Mind Cookbook. "Yum" is so different, she says, than we expect to respond to healthy food, which we imagine as deprivation on the edge of sorrow and grief for what we are losing.

It can also be a delicious feeling to find new ways of understanding and caring for ourselves.

This next course combines the powers of mindful awareness and research-based brain nutrition.

Each class invites our inner wisdom to taste, perceive, and notice.

In the following week, we learn about the latest research related to the foods we have eaten and their potential impact on anxiety, pain, and sleep.

Eating with the brain in mind references my fascination with the current research on the role of nutrition, the gut organisms in the microbiome, and mental health. Did you know that serotonin is made in the belly?

As we eat many times a day, bringing kind awareness to eating is an opportunity to practice for all of us.

Mindful Nutrition means that instead of letting others decide, or just going by taste, we pay attention to which foods nourish us individually.

Next Class:
Tuesdays 9–11:15 am, 9/22-11/17/15
free orientation for class members and the public, Tuesday 9 am, 9/22/15

Sliding scale.

Early-bird pricing this week until 9/8/15.

Click here to register.

Interested but the class doesn’t work for your schedule?
Click here to learn about the benefits of individual mindful therapy for anxiety, pain, and insomnia and here to learn about weight loss and body acceptance counseling.

#mindfuleating #mindfulness #yum #sba  #mbsr #ibs

You can sign up for the classes here.

May you and all beings be nourished.


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    Author

    Reba Connell teaches Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Mindful Eating classes in the Rockridge neighborhood of Oakland.

    She has completed several levels of study in teaching Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, including a professional training program under the direction of Dr. Saki Santorelli and Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn and a training in teaching Mindful Eating, through UCSD.

    She is deeply engaged with science-based and traditional approaches to healing through food and self-care. Her trainings include Food As Medicine; The Gut Brain; and Preventing and Managing Chronic Inflammation: Special Focus: Nutritional Interventions.  She has been practicing meditation and yoga since 1999.

    Finding mindfulness, movement, and food to make big differences in her own healing from chronic pain, she feels called to share what she is learning with others and to help people make their own discoveries. She is committed to a feminist approach that honors all body shapes and sizes while collaborating in radiant wellness.

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Integrative Health Education for Anxiety and Depression,

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