NY Times: How Exercise Can Jog the Memory

Interesting study on the effects of exercise on memory, specifically on the perirhinal cortex, which is responsible for object recognition.

30
05 12

0 plays

(Source: Spotify)

27
05 12

Day 142

Full day, been moving nonstop since 6am (woke at 3am, incidentally, feeling completely rested). Told people at yoga that I was tired, but realized I was lying inadvertently; was allowing old paradigms to speak for me. Find myself struggling against these lately as I grow and change beyond my previous boundaries into something new and different, an alien creature. Wore my old shorts to yoga today and they billowed like a giant’s clothing. This is a physical manifestation of change and a decent example to illustrate how analogically I am changing internally. To say that “everything is different” doesn’t begin to describe it.

Was struggling in class today and then thought, “I am a floppy person,” and all was suddenly well. Day before I got through by thinking “Damn, fool, this is supposed to feel good.” New magic mantra every day; it’s part of the game to find it. Bikram forces you to adapt anew every day, nay, every moment. It makes one extraordinarily adept at reacting to change and unexpected things in day to day life as well. Guess I’m trying to say that this is one reason I will never go back. Have started marking time “B.Y.” and “A.Y.” (“before yoga” and “after yoga,” as if I need to explain).

Also find that I have fewer and fewer thoughts in daily living. Instead of mind clogged with this and that I simply…flow. Am. Exist. Do what I need to do and efficiently; spend little time thinking about it otherwise. This deep calm at the center of me.

My mom reminded me recently that I did all this — enacted these positive changes in my life. I generally credit yoga, but I’m the one going there every day. Believe it or not I rarely think about this. Have so much else to celebrate. But feels good to remember.

Much love my people. Time to rest.

Peace

Jane

27
05 12

cavetocanvas:

Camille Pissarro, The Rainbow, 1877

24
05 12

Dark, rainy Thursday morning. Insomnial last night and read some of The New Man. Hoped to calm the general unease I felt in my soul and remind it of my true priorities. Helped. Am greatly intrigued by the contrast between inner and outer transformation and the desires that drive each. Becoming new is a great struggle; working on the body alone is not enough to entail an internal sea change. It merely allows for the possibility of it; one must consciously focus on the internal to enact transformation in that realm.

Find myself greatly affected by external energies these days as well. Criticisms and negativity strike me in the heart rather than (what is ideal) bouncing off like raindrops off a raincoat. Although I am a burgeoning yogi I am still very human; my heart and mind remain vulnerable to direct or implied aggression and cruelty. Observing this I am very hard on myself; be your own happiness and let nothing steal your peace ring through my mind like the church bells that I have long been in the habit of ignoring; though present they do not strike me where it counts; they settle like heavy rocks into the basin of my spirit. Unwilling, or unable, to accept.

Despite all this I still feel a renewed optimism regarding my life state and direction. There is something stirring in my soul. Although my eyes are gently shuttered the days in which they are fully open come with ever greater frequency. One cannot expect always to be at the height of one’s powers; the cycles demand rest periods, fallow times; day and night complement each other and cannot exist independent of one another, like all such binary concepts. Thus one must love the darkness as one loves the light, accepting it as a necessary complement. That’s not to say one should linger in it — merely that one must not ignore or deny its reality.

24
05 12

❝

This is what the things can teach us: to fall, patiently to trust our heaviness. Even a bird has to do that before he can fly.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke

— Word. Letting myself fall out of poses these days — pushing to my edge and beyond, to the inglorious faceplant. It’s working; I’m so sore can hardly walk. :D

(Source: journalofanobody)

22
05 12

jtotheizzoe:

Apparently this is how xkcd creator Randall Munroe pays his Verizon bill.

That’s one way to stick it to the man. It’s also awesome.

(Yes, there’s a typo in the caption. It’s iπ, not 2π. Carry on. Original here.)

I love this. Please note the memo line. !

20
05 12

Some Benefits of A Regular Yoga Practice

…In neatly summarized form.

Increased strength and energy The reserves of energy I now have are phenomenal. I’m working three jobs and almost never feel tired or cranky. On the contrary, the constant movement somehow energizes me; my feet hurt sometimes, but that’s the extent of my suffering with regard to physical stuff. Plus, people appear amazed by my ability to do things at work; tasks that others dread I enjoy because they test my strength and endurance.
Stabilizing mood Frankly, I used to be kind of nuts, emotional issues in spades. Now, I’m sorta like a body of water on a calm day. I experience emotional fluctuations, but I always know, now, that they will pass, like waves do; and I’m able to endure them with relative grace. Plus, my highs are not so high; nor are my lows quite so low (except in class, but that’s part of the game). I no longer freak out over small things; nor am I really “an anxious person” any longer. When shit goes down, I know now that there is a solution, and I focus my energies into finding the solution instead of exploding like fireworks.
Increased pride in my being I suspect that this is partially a physical development — being able literally to stand taller and hold my head up high — but as we all know, physical translates to mental and emotional. Now that I’m strong and stable I’m starting to feel genuinely proud of who I am, and am no longer anxious about interacting with others for this reason. Also has to do with feeling like I’ve found my calling in yoga; I’m good at it, really good at it; but what’s more I love it. I mean I’m still a beginner; and some tell me that I’ll surely fizzle out eventually, should have a backup plan and so forth. But I know — in a way I’ve never really known anything before — that this is not the case. Sometimes I feel about yoga the way other people claim to feel about finding their soul mate. “I just knew.” That’s exactly how it is for me. Having this love makes everything else seem bearable, even when things are at their worst.
Spiritual calm/certainty I’ve always struggled with religious matters. Feared death in a way that I cannot or wish not to describe at this moment. Will say only that it permeated my being in a crushing manner. Now, I no longer have this fear. (I actually have very few fears, if any.) I have now this calm certainty with regard to life and the what-is of existence; I trust in the world and am not afraid either of my future or my eventual demise. Religious texts now make sense to me and I’m no longer reluctant to engage with them due to that general suspicion I had of all things vague. The referents are real to me now; I get what they’re saying; I can see now the path I’m on and how much work I have still to do. My doubts have been replaced with this beautiful certainty and faith in existence itself. In short: I can “see” again.
Heightened intuition Feel sometimes like I’ve developed super powers. I can “read” my interior now in a way I never could before. I understand what my emotional signals had been trying to say to me, and am able to put this into practice. Plus, because I am no longer so wrapped up in my own problems, I’m able to “read” external signals as well, like people and weather and other things. Someone commented once that it was “frightening” how well I was able to read his energy, the subtle shifts in his body language. No one ever said that to me before yoga. It’s freaking cool, people. Yoga unleashes things and makes you a different type of being.

There’s more…but you’ll have to wait for a second installment, because I want to go eat something. Til later!

Namaste

p.s. I’m a broken record; but you’ll have to excuse me; I’m in love. One can’t help but obsess over the object of one’s devotion. <3<3<3 yoga for life <3<3<3

18
05 12

scribnerbooks:

why old books smell good.

Well this is cool. Sitting on a bench in Union Square today I smelled old paperback. Three benches over a guy was reading something that looked like it was called “Into the Ocean.” Krishna says among natural phenomena, he’s the ocean. Incidentally. He is also the Om. A one syllable yet multifarious being, I like the idea. — Jane

(Source: timetravelingscamp)

18
05 12

Recent developments in my practice (technical notes)

Learning to separate hips from ribs. Feel at this juncture that it has to do with activation of the inner thighs and relaxation of core muscles, which allows me to utilize the underdeveloped lower belly and “feel” all the separate parts (i.e., as the separate entities that they are, rather than as one uncomfortable core unit).
Floor poses improving. Rabbit still feels lousy, struggling too with half tortoise, but strengthening series has been stellar since the event of above-mentioned developments.
Slowly learning how to lock the knee. Apparently the hamstrings are not supposed to be engaged at all during knee lock. I had been engaging them. Looking forward to testing out/applying this new knowledge in tomorrow’s class.
Standing bow getting much better. Can now bring body down sort of almost almost parallel to floor. No longer hovering at the 45 degree angle. Can hold 3 out of 4 iterations most days for the duration. Some days all.
Half moon now kickass. Feels incredible. Almost always elicits a smile. Feels “right,” i.e., pleasurable. Have some crazy backbends happening too. Learning to let go more and more. Saw the edge of my mat the other day. No longer losing my balance here either.
Still not able to touch forehead to knee with confidence in standing head to knee pose. Wobble all around when it’s time to bring the body down. Some days manage to touch head to knee for a second, but usually fall out. Working on this one.
Meditation is improving. I still drink too much water, but no longer use a hand towel and most days can achieve a passable stillness during savasanas and standing rest moments. Learning to use breath to calm body. Can will most itch-type feelings away.
Not sure how these developments are reflected in my body. I can see all the areas that I have still to strengthen and stretch. Bothers me some days. That’s another part of the challenge, having patience with body as it becomes something new. Still feel that once I’ve seen issue in form should be able to fix it immediately. Not the case. These things take time.
Hips slowly beginning to make sense. No longer struggling to keep them from being weird (well sometimes, but less often). Brain half-functional at the moment so that’s the best I can do for description. More on this later perhaps.
Discovering how essential hydration is. Striving to actually drink things when not in the studio. Seems to help my practice considerably. Issue with morning classes seems to be lack of hydration more than anything else. Very dry this morning and had a pounding headache. Unpleasant.
Very confused on the nutrition front. Have been eating lots of carbs (pasta, bagels) because they’re inexpensive and filling. Suspect it’s negatively impacting my practice in some way, not eating variety of fruits, veggies, proteins, etc. Look forward to having money so I can eat salads and tofu and hummus and yogurt again. Carbs make me feel lousy. One does what one has to do. Will survive this ill-nutriented phase, at any rate. Hope for more clarity on this front with greater variety of intake.
On a related note, not sure whether I’m fat or thin. Receiving contradictory feedback from external sources (other people) as well as my own perceptions (mirror-gazing in class). Considering dispensing with these categories entirely and thinking of myself as “athletic.” Fuck binary divisions. They do little but make trouble. Plus, this is just my physical vessel, so who gives a shit what it looks like. It’s changing every day.
Also considering adding additional exercise into my daily routine. Regular morning runs and so forth. Have been doing lots of walking, to and from the studio every day etc, but craving the intense release of daily sustained aerobic exercise. Need to locate running shoes; crappy sneakers mess up my knees.

I think that’s it. For now. I’m out.

17
05 12

❝

They’re crazy, but they have good stuff.

— My yoga instructor, comparing Bikram Choudhury and American Apparel’s Dov Charney

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05 12

15
05 12

Dark times, my friends

Dark times. Seems like it’s not just me, either. Some strange universal energies permeating the human sphere. Only option during times like these is to keep waking up in the morning, keep going to yoga and taking showers and going to work and doing the things that make a life, even if it isn’t one I’m happy to be inside at the moment. Yoga helps; I’ll meditate through this shit, zone out to the land of flowers and honey and all the puppies and whatnot. I never use the word whatnot, it bothers me somehow, but it seemed appropriate.

Yoga doesn’t make suffering any easier, but it makes it bearable. I can still stand up under the weight. Once I would have collapsed. So that feels good in some way. Keep on keeping on. It’s an acceptable time for cliches. Tomorrow I plan to rest all day after work and yoga. I really need it. Last night I was so tired I literally could not move. I mean literally literally. It was a little bit alarming. Today I had an exhaustion hangover. Napped on a bench in the studio with towels for pillow and blanket while class was going on. Sort of helped, though I wanted to pass out forever.

Persevere. Maintain. Do the damn thang.