Meditation May Protect Your Brain

By Michael Haederle
Via Miller-McCune.com

For thousands of years, Buddhist meditators have claimed that the simple act of sitting down and following their breath while letting go of intrusive thoughts can free one from the entanglements of neurotic suffering.

Now, scientists are using cutting-edge scanning technology to watch the meditating mind at work. They are finding that regular meditation has a measurable effect on a variety of brain structures related to attention — an example of what is known as neuroplasticity, where the brain physically changes in response to an intentional exercise.

A team of Emory University scientists reported in early September that experienced Zen meditators were much better than control subjects at dropping extraneous thoughts and returning to the breath. The study, "'Thinking about Not-Thinking:' Neural Correlates of Conceptual Processing During Zen Meditation," published by the online research journal PLoS ONE, found that "meditative training may foster the ability to control the automatic cascade of semantic associations triggered by a stimulus and, by extension, to voluntarily regulate the flow of spontaneous mentation."

The same researchers reported last year that longtime meditators don't lose gray matter in their brains with age the way most people do, suggesting that meditation may have a neuro-protective effect. A rash of other studies in recent years meanwhile have found, for example, that practitioners of insight meditation have noticeably thicker tissue in the prefrontal cortex (the region responsible for attention and control) and that experienced Tibetan monks practicing compassion meditation generate unusually strong and coherent gamma waves in their brains.

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Self-employment ideal for PWD

Coping and problem-solving skills asset to managing SMEs

VIA Daryl-Lynn Carlson, Financial Post- Canada

Brett Gundlock/National PostSunny Gervan, of Design Revolution, has learned to manage her disability and forge a successful professional career.

More avenues are opening up for people with health challenges and physical disabilities to launch their own business. This is especially important as the term "disability" grows to include conditions that aren't physically obvious, ranging from environmental sensitivities to chronic pain, learning challenges, behavioural disorders or even clinical depression.

Yet, there is a growing awareness that such individuals are more than capable of running their own business and in many cases, are better able to manage their condition when in charge of their own schedules and work commitments.

Sunny Gervan has quadrupled her client list within one year of launching an architectural renovation and restoration company, Design Revolution.

Having learned the business under the tutelage of her father, designer Mac Gervan in Kingston, Ont., Ms. Gervan had to relocate to Toronto to access health programs unavailable in that city.

She describes her condition only as a "hidden disability" that is episodic in nature and requires her to carefully manage her workload. To empower herself in the business world, she enlisted in programs funded by the federal and provincial governments, including a business incubator that caters to entrepreneurs with disabilities run by the Toronto Business Development Centre (TBDC).

"I learned how to organize, prioritize and be disciplined," says Ms. Gervan, whose clients run the gamut from individual homeowners to contractors. They retain her expertise in a project management capacity, which requires her to liaise with government agencies and facilitate requisite permits and specifications.

She says the one-on-one coaching she received from the program's business advisors was particularly beneficial. "They showed me ways I could make contingency plans to get through what are normal ups and downs for most people, but for me would be a little more exaggerated in terms of fatigue or the ability to get through a day. There are things that come up on a regular basis that I need to carefully manage. At the same time, I want to work because it makes me feel good," she says.

"Because I'm aware of my health challenges and I'm very careful with my energy and my health, I've structured my business with safeguards and partnerships that create a solid foundation for my business and its growth."

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President Elect Geek

VIA Geekdad

5 Signs President-Elect Obama Is a Geek

By Matt Blum November 06, 2008 | 7:00:00 AMCategories: Famous GeekDads

Barack Obama, soon to become the 44th President of the U.S.A., is many things: a statesman, a lawyer, an author, and an orator. It is also our opinion at GeekDad that, even without knowing him personally, we have enough evidence to demonstrate that he is a big geek. Even if you didn't want him to win the election, you have to admit that it would be awesome for him to be not only the first African-American President, but also the first geek President. Here, then, is our evidence:

1. Obama has pledged to create a cabinet-level Chief Technology Officer for the country. The U.S. CTO would be responsible for making broadband technology readily available to every U.S. citizen, and for fighting the telcos for net neutrality. While this is admirable for many reasons, it seems to us that nobody would make this a central point of his presidential campaign unless he were, on some level, a geek.

2. He is a big fan of Star Trek. He said himself: "I grew up on Star Trek. I believe in the final frontier." And, when Leonard Nimoy was the guest on NPR's "Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!" in September, he said that he had run into "one of the presidential candidates" and that that candidate had, upon seeing Nimoy, given him the Vulcan salute. He refused to name the candidate, but said he "was not John McCain." (Ed. Note: not to mention, he is the best example of the strength of IDIC we've seen in a long time)

3. He can talk techspeak when the occasion demands it. Almost a year ago, Obama visited Google and had a Q&A session with employees. CEO Eric Schmidt asked him what the most efficient way would be to sort a million 32-bit integers. Obama smoothly responded "I think the bubble sort would be the wrong way to go." Now, yes, he was probably prepped for the question by his staff (since McCain had been asked a similar question at his Google Q&A weeks earlier), but that's OK—plenty of geeks BS their way through technical interview questions, right?

4. Obama has repeatedly spoken about using the Internet to make the White House more open and accessible to the public once he's President. This would include letting people enter comments on bills before he signs them, putting videos of some meetings online, and in general making the executive branch transparent. He's already shown in his campaign that he and his staff know how to use the Internet to extremely good purpose, including extensive use of SMS, Twitter, and even building an iPhone app. This would be another of the duties of the CTO mentioned in #1, but is significant enough we felt it was worthy of being considered a separate piece of evidence.

5. The photograph you see to the right, which can even be found on Obama's official Senate website. I don't think any explanation is necessary as to why this qualifies as evidence.

So, what do you think? Any further evidence? Any evidence against?

It must be pointed out, since this is GeekDad, that if indeed Barack Obama is a geek, he is a geek dad like us, since by now just about everyone knows about his two daughters. The coolness of having a geek dad President-Elect can scarcely be overstated.