We try so hard to overcome separateness with others. More intimacy. More rubbing of bodies. More exchanging of ideas. But always it’s as if you are yelling out of your room and I am yelling out of mine. Even trying to get out of the room invests the room with a reality. Who am I? The room that the mind built
In honor of Brain Injury Awareness month, former pro snowboarder Kevin Pearce talks about how key the practice is to his ongoing brain injury recovery.
On December 31, 2009, less than two months before the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, snowboarder Kevin Pearcecrashed his head into an icy half pipe in Park City, Utah.
The traumatic brain injury (TBI)brought on a 6-day coma, memory loss, mood swings, and vision problems, but Pearce’s discovery of yoga has helped give him new eyes. Quite literally.
Pearce’s vision problems required glasses all the time, but two months ago, Pearce attended a life-changing yoga class near his home in Carlsbad, California. He drove to the class, wearing his glasses, but found afterward as he drove home, he didn’t need to them for the first time in five years.
“In no way are my eyes 100 percent better, but it made that big of a difference that I don’t have to wear glasses anymore,” says Pearce, whose story is captured in the 2013 documentary “The Crash Reel.” Since then, Pearce has become a regular, practicing yoga and meditation at least once a day when he’s home and at least two or three times a week when traveling.
Explore Yoga Poses for the Brain
How could one yoga class have such powerful effects? Former representative Gabrielle Giffords has also been quoted saying yoga is a key part of her therapy recovering from that 2011 gunshot wound to the head. Kim Greene, an injury prevention specialist at the Vail Valley Medical Center in Colorado, isn’t surprised. Greene’s son, Jeremy, suffered a severe TBI in a 1999 car accident when he was 16 years old, and she says that’s when both she and her son found yoga and meditation.
“The practices help you use your brain in a different way to calm it down and to focus,”Greene said. “I think that’s for all of us, but when you have a TBI, your brain is going in 100 different directions at one time, and the yoga and meditation helps to slow it down and bring a calmness.”
See also Yoga Helps Vets With Brain Injury
“Finding yoga and that ability to be exercising and be moving, but at the same time be meditating and be calm and be so relaxed and so mellow, has been so helpful and healing for me in the most amazing way,”Pearce said. “It has changed my life in a way that I could have never imagined, so I want to share what I have found with the rest of the world.”
The impact was so real for him that he enlisted his brother Adam and started The LoveYourBrain Foundation in 2014. In honor of March, Brain Injury Awareness Month, the new nonprofit is leading a monthlong yoga and meditation fundraising campaign. Their aim is to partner with at least one studio in every state to offer a donation-based class. All of the money raised will help grow LoveYourBrain’s flagship yoga program, supporting affordable yoga and meditation classes tailored to the needs of traumatic brain injury survivors.
Interested in participating? Learn more about the LoveYourBrain Foundation and the March yoga fundraising campaign.
See also The Big Brain Benefits of Meditation
Kim Fuller is a freelance journalist and yoga instructor based in Vail, CO.
Originally published October 20 2014
Yoga found to benefit dementia patients as well as their caregivers
by Antonia
(NaturalNews) Yoga provides people with a multitude of benefits to their overall health, improving everything from mood and circulation to energy levels and aches. While most people are aware of this, they may not be privy to the fact that it’s also been shown to help those suffering from dementia, such as Alzheimer’s disease. (1) Furthermore, it’s even been found to help caregivers who are helping those with such diseases. (1)
A UK study found that a blend of techniques which are a part of a program called “Happy Antics” and include yoga, tai-chi, qigong and meditation have boosted both mood and memory of those impacted. (1) Individuals affected with early to mid-stage dementia who were aged 52-86 engaged in a series of non-strenuous motions and techniques such as simple stretching and breathing exercises during biweekly sessions, and it was noted that their ability to anticipate the next movements and even remember some sequences increased. (1)
Many participants expressed enjoyment from the sessions, which lasted for six weeks. One patient said they felt better after the relaxation techniques, and another added, “Good company, nice people. Feeling part of a team.” (2)
“This is an activity that caregivers and patients can do together,” said Yvonne J-Lyn Khoo, lead study author and a researcher with the Health and Social Care Institute at Teesside University in Middlesbrough, UK. “Because everyone is doing the program together, caregivers have peace of mind to at least allow themselves to ‘let go’ and do some exercise.” (2) She explained that having a caregiver participate in the process with them provided a sense of security and assurance for the patients that also promoted a heightened sense of well-being and interest in social interaction.
“The general impression is that people with dementia don’t exercise, won’t exercise or can’t exercise, but our findings show that it may not necessarily be that way.” (2)
According to the Alzheimer’s Association, every 67 seconds, someone in the United States is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, the most common form of dementia, and over 5 million Americans have been diagnosed with the memory-robbing condition. (3)
Sources:
(1) http://www.sciencedaily.com
http://science.naturalnews.com
About the author:
A science enthusiast with a keen interest in health nutrition, Antonia has been intensely researching various dieting routines for several years now, weighing their highs and their lows, to bring readers the most interesting info and news in the field. While she is very excited about a high raw diet, she likes to keep a fair and balanced approach towards non-raw methods of food preparation as well.
Read more: http://rawandnaturalhealth.com/author/antoni…
http://www.naturalnews.com/z047318_yoga_dementia_caregivers.html
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