Before my husband Monte and I moved to Boulder a few months ago, we lived for a year on New Yorks Upper West Side. There were tons of great restaurants, music at Lincoln Center, and plays on Broadway to keep us busy. But even with the great eats and culture all around us, some of our most meaningful time was spent on meditation cushions during group sits at the Manhattan JCC. Every weekday morning and evening, people would gather to learn, meditate, and connect. Many of the participants were regulars, folks who had been coming day after day for years. But there were also new people, like us, and we were always welcomed with open hearts and arms.

As we settle into our new lives in Boulder, we have already come to love hiking at Sanitas and our great meals at restaurants like Jaxs and River & Woods. What we were missing were the group meditation sits with a Jewish vibe, as a way to nurture our evolving practices, and to be a part of a community with a shared mindfulness intention.

Starting this week we are excited to have the opportunity to launch two new weekly sits, both of them happening on Tuesdays.

Monte and I will facilitate the sits, which will begin with a brief Jewish mindfulness teaching, then an 18-minute silent meditation, followed by a few minutes of voluntary sharing. Feel free to come once, once in a while, or come weekly and be part of an evolving meditation community. Beginners and long-time meditators are welcome!

Congregation Nevei Kodesh1925 Glenwood Nursery (second floor) Tuesdays4:15 to 4:45 p.m.

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Boulder JCC 6007 Oreg Avenue Reb Zalman Library (second floor) Tuesdays9:15 to 9:45 a.m.

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2 New Weekly Drop-In Meditation Sits on Tuesdays - Boulder Jewish News

As a retired spine surgeon with many years of experience, I was often referred complicated spine problems that required complex surgeries. Sometimes those surgeries resulted in complications for the patient. Although I was committed to having no complications from the first day I walked into the operating room, there was a point a few years ago when I faced up to the fact that I hadnt been able to eliminate them. My own thoughts were interfering with my work.

The most common interferences I felt during surgery were frustration, anxiety, distraction, complacency, and, especially, being in a rush to finish. They all detracted from the consistency of my performance. This led me to develop a somewhat defensive mindset. If I could get through the week without a surgical complication, it was a huge relief.

Things changed when I decided to enlist the help of a performance coach to help me reduce any mistakes in surgery. That was a major turning point in my professional life. I brought my coach into the operating room and clinic so he could better understand my world. For 18 months, he and I underwent regular debriefings and coaching. I began to use active meditation in the operating room.

This meditation model is not based on suppressing interference for instance, if youre frustrated, you dont pretend otherwise rather, you face these frustrations and then detach from them. Using tools and approaches that have been employed for centuries in the practices of meditation and mindfulness, I learned to identify any interference either before or during surgery, and then let go of it.

This is how it worked: Each surgical morning, I woke up and assessed how I was feeling. Like everyone, my feelings ranged from calm and relaxed to tired and anxious. Then, I immediately started sensing every smell, touch and taste possible. I felt the water on my back in the shower. I smelled the coffee. I also reminded myself that although that days surgery is just another case for me, its one of the most important days of my patients life.

I continued this process in the operating room. I carefully arranged the room, talked to each member of the surgical team, and reviewed the imaging studies. I was focused and immersed in whats right in front of me, when previously Id rush into the operating room at the last minute just before making the incision.

During surgery, awareness allowed me to perform my next move at an optimum level. I felt my grip pressure on each surgical tool; noticed the shape of the contours of the anatomy; felt my shoulder and arm muscles stay relaxed; and just watched the flow of the case.

If I felt any disruptive emotions intrude into my state of mind, I quickly practiced my environmental awareness techniques in order to re-focus. I learned to be more fully engaged on a higher percent of cases, so I could program myself into the zone.

Since I started practicing active meditation, my complication rate in surgery noticeably decreased. For instance, from 1999 until 2003 I had an acceptable 9% rate of inadvertently entering the dural sac (a sack of fluid surrounding the brain and spinal cord). After I started using meditation, I made this mistake only two or three times a year, which is less than one percent.

Surgery became a wonderful experience for me. I eagerly looked forward to Monday instead of Friday. I committed to getting a good nights sleep before my surgeries. If I woke up wired and uneasy, I slowed down until I felt relaxed, no matter how many things were on my to-do list.

I continue to practice active meditation daily. Environmental awareness is more difficult outside the operating room, in the less controlled areas of my life, but it is still my go-to active meditation.

One tool I use to practice awareness is my to do list. I remind myself that this list is an expression of my life, and so I practice being aware as I go about each item. For instance, when I have an appointment with a patient, I listen to myself talk to him or her. I feel the pen on the paper as I jot down notes. I also practice meditative techniques. such as watching the disruptive thoughts of need to finish up here, I have other things to do enter my consciousness and then leave.

I remember that my goal is to engage and enjoy every second of my to do list. It doesnt always work, but its surprising how often it does.

Environmental awareness engages me in the present moment regardless of the circumstances. It is not positive thinking, but just switching the sensory input. With repetition, it has become somewhat automatic. It is a simple strategy that can help the quality of your life, regardless of the level of your pain.

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How to Control Anxiety and Pain Through Meditation - Pain News Network

Taft Museum of Art exteriorPhoto: Provided by Taft Museum of ArtHead to the Taft Museum of Art for an after-work happy hour and house party, co-hosted by the Civic Garden Centers Young Professional Green Team.

Think calm and lean into green with soft jams by DJ Mowgli, spiked hot apple cider, food from the Cheesecakery, a chance to create your own light-up peony and a guided meditation session in the galleries.

The CGC will present a talk on current exhibit Poetry of Nature: Hudson River School Landscapes from the New York Historical Society, a collection of paintings that reveal natural wonders that sparked the first artistic movement in the United States, says the museum.

5-8 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 14. Free admission. Taft Museum of Art, 316 Pike St., Downtown, taftmuseum.org.

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The Taft Museum's After-Hours House Party Features Spiked Cider, Guided Meditation and a Glimpse of 'Poetry of Nature' - Cincinnati CityBeat

Research shows that veterans are at an increased risk of mental illnesses such as PTSD, anxiety, and depression as a result of deployment and combat. To treat it, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs National Center for PTSD (NCPTSD) recommends trauma-focused psychotherapies, including prolonged exposure, cognitive processing therapy, and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy. Medication is also used to treat symptoms of mental illness. But these therapies focus on the trauma, which veterans may want to avoid. The stigma of traditional psychotherapy approaches might also deter veterans from seeking help, as one study published in March 2016 in Annals of Behavioral Medicine found.

The field of psychology is really pushing cognitive and behavioral psychotherapies that involve talking and thinking about what happened as well as challenging maladaptive thought processes, says Bret A. Moore, PhD, the vice chair of the Boulder Crest Institute for Posttraumatic Growth, as well as a former active-duty army psychologist and Iraq War veteran. These are effective interventions for a portion of veterans, but not all.

Dr. Moore says that his field should focus on nontraditional interventions like meditation that are easy to engage in outside of the therapy room and avoid placing the veteran in the patient or sick role that is often associated with traditional treatments for PTSD.

And research finds a benefit to this approach. In a study published in December 2018 in The Lancet Psychiatry, researchers found that meditation worked as well as exposure therapy to ameliorate symptoms of PTSD in veterans.

Dan Libby, PhD, a licensed clinical psychologist, yoga teacher, and the founder of the Veterans Yoga Project an educational and advocacy organization dedicated to improving the health of veterans through the practices of yoga and meditation who was not involved in the study, said that the symptoms of PTSD can often feel as if youre trapped in a moving car without brakes.

When you really look at whats happening for someone whos dealing with trauma, their mind has become an unsafe, unpredictable, and uncontrollable place, Dr. Libby says. And the external world seems unsafe and unpredictable, too. He believes that many veterans could benefit from a more holistic, mindful approach to PTSD treatments. As a clinical psychologist working at the VA, I found that veterans who also had a practice, whether it be meditation or mindful movement, had better outcomes, he says.

RELATED: PTSD in the Military: Statistics, Causes, Treatments, and More

Meditation is a technique or set of techniques that can help a person to focus their mind and bring it back to the present moment. According to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, its been shown to help alleviate a number of health issues, from depression and anxiety to menopausal symptoms and even high blood pressure.

Heres what the research has to say on how meditation may also help veterans manage PTSD.

Compassion meditation involves the repetition of phrases designed to increase empathy and compassion toward others.

One common phrase used in the practice is: May I be happy. May I be peaceful. May I be free from suffering. Once you feel you have internalized the message, you can then move on to wishing the same positive thoughts to others: family members, friends, and even strangers.

Small studies show that practicing compassion meditation can lessen the symptoms of PTSD. An article published inApril 2019 in the Journal of Traumatic Stress found that practicing compassion meditation for 90 minutes weekly had a greater effect on the symptoms of PTSD among veterans than a program consisting of psychoeducation, relaxation training, and sleep hygiene. Another study published in April 2019, in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, found that veteran participants self-reported a significant decrease in their PTSD symptoms and a high degree of satisfaction with the compassion meditation program. Yet another study examined the effects of loving-kindness meditation (a specific kind of compassion meditation) on veterans symptoms of PTSD and depression. Published in the Journal of Traumatic Stress, it found that veterans who practiced a 12-week loving-kindness meditation course experienced a moderate reduction in symptoms of depression and a high reduction in symptoms of PTSD at a three-month follow-up.

Transcendental Meditation, or TM, is a form of meditation in which a person silently repeats a given sound, word, or short phrase in their mind for a set period of time in order to focus the mind and bring about a state of peace and relaxation. This word or sound is known as a mantra, and it doesnt need to have any meaning at all its only important insofar as it helps you to focus your mind on the sound of the mantra.

The Maharishi Foundation, which trademarked this form of meditation, recommends practicing TM twice a day for 20 minutes at a time once in the morning, once in the evening. The foundation offers courses that can cost hundreds of dollars and stipulates that mantras can be assigned only by TM practitioners.

Studies seem cautiously optimistic about the role of TM in reducing symptoms of PTSD. For example, a study publishedJanuary 2018 in Military Medicine found that TM helped reduce PTSD symptoms without causing veterans to reexperience their trauma. Another study, published November 2018 in Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, found that veterans who practiced an eight-week TM course reported increased mindfulness and quality of life, along with decreased symptoms of PTSD and depression. While the results seem to indicate TM is effective for veterans, most researchers agree that this specific area of study is still relatively new and merits further research.

Luckily for those who dont want to spend hundreds of dollars learning TM, there is another form of meditation that focuses on repetition of a mantra its called mantra meditation. According to the Blue Mountain Center of Meditation, its purpose is to redirect the energy you may spend on negative thinking toward the repetition of a simple and meaningful mantra. Research on the topic is limited, but one study of 173 veterans published in 2018 in theAmerican Journal of Psychiatry found that mantra meditation therapy was generally more effective than present-centered therapy for reducing some of the symptoms of PTSD.

This type of meditation encourages participants to simply be aware and mindful of the present moment, allowing thoughts to come and go without judgment or reaction. Theres a particular emphasis on deep breathing, which may help to ease the symptoms of anxiety and depression, according to one study published June 2015 inApplied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback. A study of 116 veterans, published August 2015 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that mindfulness meditation had a modest effect on the symptoms of PTSD, but a greater effect overall when compared with present-centered group therapy. And a review of a variety of mindfulness-based treatments for PTSD, published in the Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience in January 2018, concluded that thus far, the practice is moderately effective in reducing PTSD symptoms, and definitely merits further study.

Of course, as with many medical conditions, theres no single cure for the symptoms of PTSD among veterans. Treatment for this disorder should always be discussed with a doctor, and where necessary, adjustments to sessions or dosages should be made.

These [meditation] practices are an important and necessary complement to treatment for PTSD, not necessarily an alternative, says Libby. Its all about which tools work for you.

Moore also believes that the existing cognitive and behavioral psychotherapies can be useful along with complementary and integrative practices and he emphasizes that getting the right treatment can lead to deep personal growth for veterans.

Veterans with PTSD are not broken, he says. They are not dangerous. They are not unstable. They are brave men and women who are learning to manage some very difficult life experiences. They are individuals who are trying to make meaning out of what happened during their military service and take the lessons they've learned in order to improve their lives and communities.

RELATED: 5 Ways to Practice Breath-Focused Meditation

If you or someone you know is a veteran living with PTSD and wants help to manage the condition, there are a number of websites and resources you can use for help.

Link:

Here's How Meditation May Help Veterans With PTSD - Everyday Health

Ben Turshen Meditation: This month, Cleveland will be home to its first meditation and self-care studio collective. Opening in Ohio City at 3219 Detroit Avenue, Ben Turshen Meditation and SLFMKR will offer one-on-one and group meditation opportunities, plus personal wellness products and clean living experiences.

About Ben Turshen Meditation: Meditation teacher, Ben Turshen founded his practice in New York City, where he built a strong reputation both locally and nationally as an expert in the field of wellness. Ben's practice has been featured in The New York Times, The Huffington Post, CBS News, Fast Company, and more.

He recently brought his renowned practice to the Northeast Ohio community and launched his new accessible meditation program, Access Meditation.

About SLFMKR: Kait Turshen is the founder of SLFMKR, a self-care dedicated studio helping others to take action in improving their health with the belief that self-care has a place from head-to-toe, inside and out. The shop features personal care brands that are committed to optimal and holistic wellness, sustainability, non-toxic and cruelty-free practices, including Akron-based clean beauty brand OY-L; non-toxic nail care from New York, Sundays; all-natural oral care by Keeko and Twice; and holistic anti-aging tools from LanshinUpcoming events at the studios include:

Open House with Ben Turshen MeditationTuesday, November 19, 20196-8 p.m. Come for a fun and casual evening to celebrate the opening of Cleveland's first meditation and self-care studio.

Personality Portraits with Little BobosSaturday, November 30, 201910-2 p.m.Join lifestyle and family portrait photographer Caroline Seiffert for a day of personality portraits with your little one!

Holiday Shopping Pop-up with Emily RoggenburkFriday, December 6, 20195-8 p.m.Stop by SLFMKR for an evening of holiday shopping with Cleveland designer, Emily Roggenburk.

Non-Toxic Holiday Manicures Pop-upSaturday, December 7, 201910-4 p.m.Come by for a non-toxic manicure featuring Sundays 10-Free formulated nail polish.

Group Meditation with Ben TurshenTuesday, December 10, 20196-8 p.m.Join us for a meditators only event that will include a full group meditation!How to Detox Your Life with Abby Taft, RDN, LDNTuesday, January 14, 20206-8 p.m.Join us for an evening with Abby Taft, RDN, LDN to learn about how exposure to toxins and your diet affects your skin and overall health. Abby will outline what toxins are and most importantly, how to identify and avoid them in your food and beauty products.

To see all events and to learn more about SLFMKR and Ben Turshen Meditation, please visit benturshenmeditation.com and slfmkr.com.

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Meditation Studio To Open In Ohio City - Patch.com

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Bhajan is a powerful technology for personal transformation which helps people to live their excellence. Kundalini Yoga works with the endocrine system to stimulate glandular secretions within the body, producing profound systemic effects. The glands are the guardians of our health. When they are secreting properly, we are vital, energized and feel well.

Kundalini Yoga has existed for thousands of years, passed down from teacher to student with great care to preserve the effectiveness of these practices. Kundalini Yoga is a Raj or royal Yoga, in that for a large portion of history it was only accessible by royalty and the nobility. It is only within the last fifty years that these practices have been made available to such a wide audience, breaking with tradition, to meet the needs of people living in this era. We live in an age where we are constantly bombarded with information. This can wreak havoc on our nervous systems.

Under persistent stress, the body spends less and less time in the parasympathetic nervous system, which is all about rest, repair and rejuvenation. These practices and meditations stimulate the parasympathetic response and help to restore balance. We can also strengthen our nervous system through the conscious application of stress, experiencing the growth edge that exists around our perceived limitations, literally retraining the mind to better handle stress and stressful situations.

Join Luke at Resonance Costa Ricas next event:

Strengthening inner vitality to conquer stress with Kundalini Yoga and Meditation, the yoga of awareness.

This retreat and workshop series will contain practices and meditations which vastly improve our ability to handle stress and stressful situations. We will breathe consciously, move the body and sit in stillness. This retreat is available to absolutely anyone, regardless of physical condition, and will meet everyone where they are at, providing gentle alternatives and visualizations as an option, while offering plenty of opportunities for people to rise to mental and physical challenges, should they choose to do so.

Stress occurs when our inner vitality is unable to match an exterior stressor. Using this as our fundamental understanding of stress, we will engage in ancient transformative practices to strengthen our inner vitality and to calm the fluctuations of the mind. Kundalini Yoga is a powerful technology for personal transformation that brings forth an individuals full potential and helps them to live authentically. Specifically, we will be using:

Kundalini Yoga has been called the fast track to enlightenment for its capacity to quickly deliver profound experiences to the practitioner. Whereas some yogic paths focus on strengthening the physical body, Kundalini Yoga works directly with the Prana (life force) of the body, encouraging greater circulation of life energy to all cells of the body. Hundreds of Kriyas (specific sets of exercises intended to bring about a desired effect) exist within this technology and can be applied to ones own experience to meet the desired area of growth for that individual.

Click Here to find out more: https://www.facebook.com/events/457337294906211/

By: Luke McKim, KRI Certified Level 2 Kundalini Yoga & Meditation Teacher

Luke is an ever-evolving man of integrity. A KRI certified Kundalini Yoga and Meditation teacher, Luke is passionate about helping people to empower themselves through these transformative practices so that they can live authentically as their True expression. Certified as a recovery coach with Recovery 2.0 and Tommy Rosen, Luke is dedicated to helping people to uncover the unconscious patterns driving their behavior and thoughts, helping them to cultivate awareness of their conditioning and to step into greater freedom and ease of being. Having trained in Yoga with various Indian and International Yogic masters, including Anand Mehrotra, founder of Sattva Yoga, and Kia Miller, founder of Radiant Body Yoga, Luke is a constant seeker of Truth who embraces all paths and modalities which help to move a person from darkness into light.

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Scientific Understanding of Kundalini Yoga Kundalini Yoga and Meditation as taught by Yogi The Costa Rica News - The Costa Rica News

Young business team exercising Yoga in Lotus position on the floor at casual office. The view is through glass wall. Image Credit: Getty Images

Dubai: As Dubai gets set to host a massive, free-to-attend Wellness Festival or Dhyanotsav as part of the ongoing Dubai Fitness Challenge on November 16, wellness experts have emphasised the importance of meditation to de-stress and achieve better health in our fast-paced times.

Dismissing cynicism that mediation is a mere fad, or that it is an elusive concept, they said the challenges associated with the simple practice, which has many benefits, can be overcome if it is done the right way.

Luke Coutinho, holistic lifestyle coach who will be delivering the keynote address at the festival, said, Meditation allows us to ground ourselves and connectit gives us peace and calm, and helps us to find out why certain things affect us.

He said not having time for meditation is the lamest excuse. Everyone has time, people use it the wrong way. Also, too many people enter meditation thinking that no thoughts should come into play. That is not true, everyone has thoughts. The actual way is to watch the thoughts and gently come back to the breath and heart. Let the thoughts keep coming, after a while they will stop.

He said the easiest way to overcome the challenge of distraction is to practise regularly and meditate with the right intention.

Meditation is a practice where an individual uses a technique to train attention and awareness of the mind and achieve a calm and stable state.

Christian Williams of Heartfulness, a free meditation centre in Dubai, said, By zoning out, we learn to zone in, which is so important in this fast paced, material world. Every little time helps. To get started, we need commitment but to keep going, we need consistency.

Those practising meditation regularly vouch for the benefits.

Dr Rex Bacarra, Dean of General Education at the American College of Dubai, said, Our life can be a very long journey, collecting experiences that are stressful, toxic, problem-laden, made worse by unmet social expectations and most often impossible demands. Meditation serves as a punctuation to our everyday struggle. It is a decisional tool that impacts ones way of living with a promise that with constancy, your life will be better, and the self, calmer.

A former monk, he said, We were taught to practice meditation every morning for 30 minutes and another in the evening. When I left the monastery and decided to immerse myself in Dubais modernity, I reserved 10 minutes for meditation right after I woke up in the morning. It kickstarts my day. It makes my dealing with people and work better. Without you knowing it, people notice the difference in the way you handle issues and the way you look at lifes impermanence.

Julian Williams, Principal, Springdales School, Dubai, said, Meditation does not just happen because you give yourself a slot, have your yoga mat and wear comfortable but perhaps slightly fashionable clothing. Focus on yourself, not on your emotions, desires, anxieties and time itself. Let time flow. Breathe by inhaling slowly and deeply and then letting go by exhaling slowly and allowing your body to relax. Be open to good and restful thoughts and new ideas that emerge not from outside stimulus but from within.

When: Date: November 16, 6-9pm

Where: Hall #8, Dubai World Trade Centre

How:: Register for free at 800tickets.com

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Myths about meditation busted ahead of Dubai Wellness Festival - Gulf News

While the skill of a Szechuan chef may be assessed through their ability to balance four primary flavor componentsma (numbing), la (hot), xian (fresh) and xiang (fragrant)it is in their chili oil that one detects their passion. Chili oil is personal. It leaves its mark both figuratively and in an ombre ring of red on the plate. Chili oil is alchemical. It expresses more than the sum of the peppers, spices and oil of which its made.

At Taste of Szechuan in Cherry Hill (one of our hottest new restaurants of 2019), the chili oil is so resonant and flavorful that customers ask owners PinJun and Dandan Yue when they will bottle it.

The chili oil, thats special, says Dandan, who runs the front of the house like clockwork while her husband turns out a roster of Szechuan (also spelled Sichuan) dishes. Every Szechuan restaurant has their own chili oil, and every Szechuan chili oil is different. We dont sell it, but lots of the customers suggest that we could. My husband says no. Thats our secret!

Taste of Szechuan menu. Photo by Jenn Hall

That well-guarded recipe is all the more reason to plan a stop anytime you are in the area, or even if you are not. Drawing on their home city of Chengdu as muse, the couple has crafted a deep menu of traditional dishes that together express the poetry and complexity of one of Chinas eight great cuisines.

A meal here can serve as a meditation on the color red: that fire-hued oil adding la (heat) to dishes from hot pot to ma po tofuthough dont forget the ma. When you taste Szechuan cuisine, its not only hot from different chili peppers. It also gives you the tinging feeling on your tongue. The numbing flavor, ma, comes from the beautiful Szechuan peppercorns.

Szechuan cuisine leverages balance to create powerful flavors, and PinJun is a class-two master chef in the cuisine. In his hands, a culinary tradition that honors harmony is expressed as much through those four central flavor elements as through texture.

To experience the latter, begin with beef tendon in chili sauce. Adorned with scallions, it arrives piled in ribbons that are stained scarlet by a deft combination of sesame, chili, and Szechuan peppercorn oils. The dish is deeply savory with a singular, peppery snap achieved through a multi-step process of boiling, cooking on fire, cooling and slicing. Serving as a textural foil to the tendon, Chengdu cold noodles in (yes) chili oil are bright-sweet, carrying a whisper of dark vinegar and peanut crunch. They veer rust-red against the brighter orange of the tendon, luscious oil pooling beneath tangle of chewy wheat noodles.

Ma po tofu, left, and fish fillet with tender tofu. Photo by Jenn Hall

Both dishes showcase a Szechuan custom of serving cold, savory starters before a meal. A Sichuanese feast always begins with a teasing spread of cold dishes to arouse the senses, open the stomach (kaiwei) and set the mood for the meal to come, writes Fuchsia Dunlop in her just-released The Food of Sichuan, which updates her classic Land of Plenty from 2001. At Taste of Szechuan, such traditions are central to the experience. We come from Chengdu, Dandan says with her trademark smile. The beef tendon and the Chengdu cold chili noodles, if you had them there, they would be almost exactly the same. The restaurant pays homage to their home city, highlighting the specific, complex flavors of a food-obsessed province that names no fewer than 23 core flavor profiles.

As recently as 15 years ago, Dandan says, most Chinese restaurants stateside were in the American style. (Think sweet and sour.) Now, a lot of American people can travel to China, or they have Chinese friends or Chinese family members, so they know what the real Chinese flavor is. We keep it 95 percent Chinese traditional. Here, the emphasis is on Chinese flavor, with a few Americanized classics thrown in, like a simple, sublime wonton soup laced with white pepper and handmade dumplings that is altogether soothing on a dreary day.

Savoring a gorgeously old-school ma po tofu, yielding soy is balanced with rich bass notes courtesy of minced pork. Sizzling in a hot pot lit by gas flame, fish filet with tender tofu brings together fresh flounder and soy protein in a sea of sizzling red, brightened by Szechuan pickle (and yes, chili oil). A word to the hungry: you will leave with leftovers, all the better by which to relive a special dining experience.

My dream is that I want to share not only the dishes from Szechuan, China but also the Szechuan culture, Dandan says. Someday, that might include a few more restaurants, and perhaps a hand or two to help make the 1,500-plus dumplings the restaurant serves each week. (Dandan helps out with those. They kind of make me crazy, she laughs, though she can bang them out in three hours.) Until then, it is well worth the drive to Cherry Hill to experience PinJuns trademark chili oil and Dandans warm welcome in person.

Taste of Szechuan, 2091 Marlton Pike East, Cherry Hill; 856-888-1370. Open 11:30am9:30pm, Monday Saturday; and 11:30am 9pm on Sunday.

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A Meditation on Chili Oil and Tradition at Taste of Szechuan in Cherry Hill - New Jersey Monthly

If youve been practicing dentistry for any length of time, youve encountered your fair share of gaggers. It's a familiar situation: There you are working, and suddenly you see the patients tongue lift. Before you can say pharyngeal reflex, the patient is sputtering and choking nearly to the point of tears.

For clinicians, a patients strong gag reflex means longer appointment times and more treatment challenges. But to the patient, gagging is a potential barrier to care. In fact, a 2004 literature review found that frequent gaggers are more likely to postpone dental care than nongaggers.1

Gagging, however, isnt just a physiological problem. There is also a psychological component. According to a 2014 research paper in the Journal of the American Dental Association, a survey of 478 dental patients found that 50% had gagged at least once during a dental visit.2 Moreover, 7.5% reported gagging during every or almost every appointment. The survey also found that frequent gaggers were more likely to report higher levels of dental anxiety than nongaggers.

Clinicians who want to create a better experiences for gaggers and eliminate barriers to care have several options at their disposal, ranging from sedation to desensitization. But one little-used strategy could also be the easiest to implement: mindfulness meditation. In fact, teaching patients just a few simple mindfulness exercises could be the difference between a dreaded appointment and effective treatment.

Pam VanArsdall, DMD, MPH, is a dentist by trade and a former academic dean at the University of Kentucky College of Dentistry. She is also a mindfulness instructor certified in Koru Mindfulness, an evidence-based mindfulness curriculum developed by psychiatrists at Duke University. Dr. VanArsdall says that while anatomical variability in the sizes and locations of the glossopharyngeal, vagus, and trigeminal nerves can contribute to a stronger gag reflex, not all instances of gagging have purely physiological causes.

Dr. Pam VanArsdallThere are two components [to gagging], she says. Anatomic variation and systemic physical disorders like sinusitis can play a role, but there are also psychological factors like anxiety.

Dr. VanArsdall notes that the correlation between dental anxiety and gagging in the 2014 JADA study warrants further investigation. Ive read that study, and its interesting because its a chicken-and-egg problem. The study authors mention in the article that they dont know whether the fear causes the gagging or the other way around. A patient who didnt previously have a gagging problem might have developed one after a bad dental experiencemaybe the impression tray was overfilled and they felt like they couldnt breathe. Or perhaps they had a predisposition toward gagging that had nothing to do with the dentist or hygienist.

Dr. VanArsdall says that a patients strong gag reflex can pose a variety of challenges. A patient with even a mild gagging problem may make it more difficult to take x-rays, for instance. Depending on the severity of the gag reflex, the appointment may run longer than scheduled...or need to be cancelled partway through. Some patients, she says, have such a severe gag reflex that they may vomit mid-appointment, which can compromise the sterile environment.

Mindfulness meditation is a specific type of meditation that emphasizes paying attention to ones current environment without attaching emotional meanings or passing judgments on the events that are happening. The goal of mindfulness meditation is to induce a change in brain activity that creates a sense of relaxed focus and separates ones sense of self from ones thoughts and emotions.

Jon Kabat-Zinn is the inventor of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and a former Professor of Medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Kabat-Zinn defines mindfulness this way: Mindfulness is the awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgmentally.4

Mindfulness meditation is also an effective means of reducing stress and changing the brain structures responsible for creating the feeling of anxiety. One 2015 randomized clinical trial found that a three-day mindfulness meditation training intervention caused a statistically significant reduction in the size of the right amygdala, the brain structure that coordinates the stress response.3 This change was also correlated with reduced levels of cortisol and cortisone in participants hair and a reduction in participants self-report scores for perceived stress. Control subjects who participated in a nonmindfulness stress-reduction program did not see similar changes.

For patients who are not amenable to sedation, mindfulness meditation could potentially be an effective tactic for combatting a strong gag reflex. If frequent gagging is correlated with higher levels of dental anxiety, and if mindfulness meditation reduces stress and anxiety as Taren et al. found, then its reasonable to hypothesize that mindfulness meditation may have an effect on gagging during dental appointments.

While theres currently no research on the books to either establish or refute a direct causal link between meditation and reduced gagging, Dr. VanArsdall says that some patients may be amenable to mindfulness meditation.

There havent really been any studies on whether mindfulness can reduce gagging. It would definitely be an interesting study to conduct. But we do know that different strategies work for different patients. A mindfulness exercise could be helpful for mild gagging during an x-ray, but it takes practice.

Teaching mindfulness techniques in your practice doesnt have to be time-consuming or challenging. Resources from organizations such as the University of Massachusetts Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society, or even tools like Headspace and Calm.com, can provide you with easy-to-teach mindfulness strategies that patients can start using immediately. While not all patients will benefit from mindfulness techniques, it could be an effective strategy for those who arent amenable to sedation or whose insurance doesnt cover sedation.

There are strategies (like mindfulness meditation) that could be helpful for patients, strategies that are less risky and less expensive than sedation, Dr. VanArsdall says. It goes back to whether the patient is open to trying new things.

Dr. VanArsdall says the easiest in-chair mindfulness exercise to start with is diaphragmatic breathing. Ask the patient to place one hand on the chest and one hand on the stomach, and then close the eyes and breathe into the stomach.

Once the patient has a handle on diaphragmatic breathing, they can slowly count silently to three or four on the inhale and exhale. This can be hard for some people. The key is to encourage patients not to be hard on themselves and to approach the breathing in a non-judgmental way.

A smartphone app is an easy way to introduce patients to mindfulness meditation. Insight Timer is a freemium app for Apple and Android devices that offers guided meditations ranging in length from three minutes to three hours. Offline listening is only available with the paid version, but your patients can listen to any one of 28,000 free meditations when their mobile devices are connected to your office WiFi network.

Much like teaching proper flossing technique, mindfulness exercises could be an effective part of patient education that could help patients to have a more positive experience during appointments. More research is needed to investigate whether mindfulness meditation could resolve the gag reflex, but the available data suggests that, at the very least, it can help anxious patients relax and create a calmer, more peaceful in-chair experiencewhich is something that every dental clinician can get behind.

References

Mike Straus is a freelance medical and dental writer based in western Canada. He holds a Toronto Star Award for journalism, and his work has been published in Nutritional Outlook, Canadian Chiropractor, Grow Opportunity, and Massage Therapy Canada.

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Resolving the gag reflex with...meditation? - Dentistry IQ

I just spent 4 days fully immersed in my first Tony Robbins event.

[ TRIGGER WARNING ] This might make some of you upset. If you are easily offended, please be near your safe space.

PS. This is long, stop here if you dont have the mental stamina to read it.

First, let me set the stage.

1I have never consumed a single piece of Tony Robbins content in my life. (No joke)

2I make fun of Life Coaches often, but I have quite a few in my network and I call many of them friends (and clients).

3Im a realist and while Im spiritual and religious, I am not a meditation guy.

4Im not superstitious.

5I am a skeptic of everything.

6I have heard a lot of GOOD things about Tony Robbins & his events.

7I have heard many BAD things about Tony Robbins events.

Now, with that out of the way, lets continue.

I got a call Tuesday last week from a client who is/was a Platinum Partner (which is like Tonys inner circle) with an invite to come to the event as his guest.

It comes with a hefty price tag, but a truly unique experience.

You guys probably saw my pictures and video and the access I got as a guest.

I really got an inside look at how it runs.

Im going to give you what I saw, and my own thoughts for you to decide for yourself.

It was hard to not think of how much $ was spent on the event, nor how much it generated.

The bottom rows on the floor ranged from $3995 to $100k+

THEN there were 3 completely full FLOORS of bleechers.

It was packed, and those bleechers were starting at $500 a ticket.

Realistically, even if you didnt include the ground floor of $4k-100k tickets.

13,000 x $500 = $6.5M

Whoa.

Not to mention the sponsors and vendors

Now, lets get to the part you want to hear about.

The CULT

The crowd was insanely motivated and the energy was inescapable.

The Crowd was truly all-in on Tony, and most of the people who go to these events seem to really love Tony. Even in my network, I made a Facebook Post with a picture of me and Tony from Day 1 and it had crazy engagement (and the one in the Tony Robbins FB Group got almost 700 likes)

There were MANY times I felt like I was at church.

For anyone who is atheist, or agnostic, this could be tough.

They were very inclusive, they would often use phrases like whatever you believe, God, Mother Nature, the Universe.

I felt this was probably smart considering there were 13,000 people with tons of Faiths

On the last day I was next to a great guy named Abdul, a commercial pilot from Saudi Arabia who was Muslim.

Anyway, some spiritual observations:

There was a lot of meditation.

I mean a LOT.

As someone who never meditated before in my life outside of a long prayer

This was hard for me to get.

But I really wanted to give my all and truly give it my all-in effort.

I did find myself doing some very deep thought and prayer.

The guided prayers / Meditation were actually very calming.

I did feel many times as though I had been day dreaming for long periods of time and yet they were only 10-15 minute meditations.

The important thing is I didnt compromise my values as a Christian, and they didnt want you to.

They encouraged whatever your beliefs to dive deeper into them.

There was a colleague of mine who spoke at an event a few months ago who left the event early and wrote a scathing article on LinkedIn yesterday

She brought up her struggle with the spirituality part and obviously if you believe that life was not created, that we are a random set of occuring positive genetic mutations over millions of years and there is no life force or Creator, this isnt for you. Be warned.

I found some of it to be useful, especially the physiological priming of your body.

The meditation & breathing exercises were actually some of the most valuable things I learned from a body standpoint.

Personal Development

This was my favorite part. They went through a great process of human needs and I found myself nodding my head a lot in agreement.

I have been working on myself for the past 16 months through masterminds and coaching so a lot of this was more a validation that Im on the right track.

My belief system in the past was mainly led by my own need to feel significant and growth.

I remember in 2016 my actual goal was to grow my team to 100.

Talk about a stupid goal.

It had no real deep purpose.

Over the past few years Ive learned that by focusing on contribution is key to both my growth and need for significance.

It also helped me better understand some specific relationships and how I can make them stronger by learning to identify their needs.

How to get in PEAK STATE

This was very intriguing to me scientifically. I was pretty blown away how much the body does influence the mind.

Tony showed some simple techniques that help alter your mood, and attitude quickly

And it worked.

I have never in my life been to an event that started at 7am and ended at 2am and the only thing I felt after was hungry.

The energy was high, but my body felt great.

My feet definitely got a good workout considering my weight but Sunday was a meditation day and I felt like I recovered really fast.

Just look at the energy in this crowd ALL DAY:

Firewalk

One of the most contentious things people talk about and to be honest I was very skeptical.

I thought how convenient, we do the walk in the pitch black so we cant see the supposed hot coals

I figured it was rigged or there was something over them.

But when the girl in front of me walked over the coals and I saw one fly out burning hot I was like oh damn here we go.

Jake got his right foot singed a little but not bad. They just put fresh coals on the right side and I definitely felt it on the right side of the walk.

The Cool Kids aka Platinums

These are the elites, they spent some coin.Most of them like to do business witbin their own circle, and it makes sense

So do I.

They were really a great group and to be able to go to their platinum party and get a behind the scenes look into how they hold themselves and work with each other was inspiring.

I went to a Platinum Party hosted by some of the big dogs that pay $100K+ to hang with Tony and his team and the connections at the party were truly invaluable.

MY THOUGHTS

As most events go, Ive always tried to make the most out of them.

I definitely got more than I expected out of it.

There were some things that I didnt quite get and buy into from Master Coh

But there were some valuable breathing techniques and some undeniable truths about the power of the mind and how it can make you feel things that arent physically there. (Or in his case, feel an energy force)

It was definitely a unique experience and I enjoyed it.

Its definitely got a cult vibe but at the end of the day I learned a lot.

The way they motivated the crowd.

How they sold the crowd.

How they kept people engaged.

How they used a lot of great mind-hacks and NLP to make people take action to buy was something that inspired me to implement in my business right away.

So there it is.

Have you gone? If so what was your experience?

Responses have been pretty intense over on my Facebook Post here: https://www.facebook.com/jhunter101/posts/2204184929882407

Continued here:

The CULT of Tony Robbins - Thrive Global