RIP VAN WINKLE

 A

Stop watching the clock! Insomniacs lose sleep while thinking about losing sleep

A

Convenience vegans, who make up 53 percent of the study participants, consumed more processed fish and meat alternatives, vegan savory snacks, sauces, cakes, sweets, convenience foods, fruit juices, and refined grains. In contrast, the health-conscious group, making up 47 percent, ate more fresh vegetables, fruits, potatoes, whole meal products, vegetable oils and fats, and protein and milk alternatives

A

“Our study demonstrates that mycoprotein is comparable to animal proteins in terms of its ability to facilitate increases in muscle mass and strength in young adults who are regularly engaging in resistance training,” says study co-author Alistair Monteyne, a researcher at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom,

a

CHOREA IN KOREA

A

a

Emotional Eating Isn't All Emotional

It's important not to dismiss emotional eating as all emotion driven. Recall that hunger is hormonally regulated. There are two main hunger pathways: the homeostatic pathway and the hedonic pathway. The homeostatic pathway is our biological hunger pathway and is driven by the need for energy in calories. Conversely, hedonic eating is pleasure-driven and uses emotional stimuli to "bypass" the physical hunger/satisfaction signals. Emotional eating falls under the hedonic pathway. As clinicians, the first step in helping a patient struggling with emotional eating is empathetically listening, then assessing for any physiologic causes.

Several factors can disrupt physiologic appetite regulation, such as sleep disturbances; high stress levels; and many medical conditions, including but not limited to obesity, diabetes, and polycystic ovarian syndrome. Such factors as insulin resistance and inflammation are a common link in these conditions. Both contribute to the pathophysiology of the changes in appetite and can influence other hormones that lead to reduced satisfaction after eating. Furthermore, mental health conditions may disrupt levels of neurotransmitters such as serotonin and dopamine, which can also cause appetite changes.

a

Putting It Together: Addressing the Facts and Feelings of Emotional Eating

1 .Treat biological causes that impact physiologic hunger and trigger emotional eating.

2. Triggers: Address patterns, places/people, psychological events.

3. Transition to non-food rewards; the key to emotional eating is eating. While healthier substitutes can be a short-term solution for improving eating behaviors, ultimately, helping patients find non-food ways to address emotions is invaluable.

4. Stress management: Offer your patients ways to decrease stress levels through mindfulness and other techniques

A

For those among us fortunate enough to have enjoyed consistent and reliable love from our parents in childhood (roughly 50% of the population), the risks of attachment, though always present to some degree, will be manageable. 

A

a

The word mantra is derived from two Sanskrit words—manas, meaning “mind,” and tra, meaning “protect.” Together they translate to “protection,” and in some cases, “compassion.” Our original, still mind is always here, but our worries and fears leak all over everything, so our original self goes unnoticed#

a

The very first phrase I used to mindfully focus my thoughts, feelings, and highest intention—knowing almost nothing about Buddhism—was from The Teachings of the Mystics by W. T. Stace. It was Jesus’s simple phrase, “the peace that passeth understanding.” I repeated it, over and over, during a train ride from San Francisco to Salt Lake City. This was before I began a meditation practice or even knew what meditation was. I discovered that if I repeated it continually with heartfelt effort throughout the trip, I became surrounded and permeated by a feeling of deep spaciousness and joy. Once I fell into the groove of it, the sense of spaciousness sustained itself through the remainder of the trip. 

A

Are most secular Buddhists really Taoists?

There are a lot of superficial similarities and when you remove the doctrine of rebirth, it looks to me a lot like Taoism just borrowing from Buddhism the way the two seem to have borrowed from each other when they met thousands of years ago.

a

Remember that success is not linear

In life, there really isn’t actually an end goal.

It’s not a video game where we can reach the top level. We don’t suddenly reach the finish line where we are crowned as “winners”.

There is no pot of gold waiting at the end of the rainbow. It’s not a movie where we’re working towards our happy ending.

A