The Second Arrow: Thoughts that Kill
Siddhartha Gautama, or simply the Buddha as he would later be known, lived in eastern India somewhere around 400 BCE. The Buddha, meaning, “awakened one,” spoke of a Middle Way, or halfway point, between...
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Neuroscience of Mindfulness: Default Mode Network, Meditation, & Mindfulness
“Ipsa scientia potestas est.” ~ Sir Francis Bacon Translated as, “Knowledge itself is power,” this quote by Sir Francis Bacon appeared in his 1597 essay, Meditationes Sacrae (“Sacred Meditations”). Bacon has been credited as...
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Drowning in the Future
Most of our lives are spent holding our breath. We are submerged underwater, swimming for the surface. We grasp and pull towards the sunlight but never seem to get any closer. Recycled oxygen cycles...
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Down the Rabbit Hole
I placed my Zafu (meditation cushion) on the floor and sat facing the wall. I set the timer on my phone for twenty-five minutes and took my seat. I relaxed my gaze and focused my attention on my breathing.
In, out, in, out. The gentle rhythm of my breathing lapped against the shore of my mind like small waves born from a quiet ocean. I sat on the shore and looked out across the water as a seagull lazily circled before settling down to bob peacefully on the tide.
“Matt!”
I whipped around to see a Buddhist monk running down the shore towards me, his saffron robes billowing behind him…
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When Mindfulness Meets Life
From the chair of my desk it can be all too easy to make life seem like a paper tiger when viewed through the lens of mindfulness practice. However, what happens when the real...
Human Language & Communication: Bayes’ Theorem & Deciphering Your Boss’s Behavior
Welcome to the second article in our Human Language & Communication series. If you haven’t already, we recommend that you start with the first article in the series: Words, Meaning, & Misunderstandings. In our...
Human Language & Communication: Words, Meaning, and Misunderstandings
Language provides the cognitive scaffolding upon which lexical thought and speech are constructed. Thought and speech, in turn, facilitate complex intrapersonal and interpersonal communication, respectively. Given the importance of language to human cognition and...
The Cathartic Fallacy: Why Venting Anger May Actually Make You More Mad
We vent about our jobs, our relationships, even ourselves. The immediate pleasure and release1 that we experience when we vent our anger leads us to a seemingly self-evident conclusion: venting provides an enduring cathartic...
Job Burnout: Risks, Protective Factors, and Prevention
Job burnout is a ubiquitous challenge in the workplace; however, the affliction seems to be particularly prevalent among physicians. In a recent article published in the journal Academic Psychiatry Drs. MacKinnon and Murray argued that...
The Mortality Benefits of Exercise
In today’s article, we will examine the relationship between exercise and mortality. Let’s begin by reviewing some key points from the larger literature. The Centers for Disease Control (“CDC”) and the World Health Organization...
Coffee and Mortality: Health Benefits Associated with Coffee Consumption
Disclosures: We love coffee. With our bias thus aired, let’s look at the literature pertaining to coffee and health. This article may seem like a post-hoc rationalization for our continued consumption of this most...
Ten Plant-Based Medicines That Altered the Course of Human History
10. Vincristine & Vinblastine Vincristine and vinblastine are two related chemotherapeutic drugs used to treat cancer. Vincristine is used most often to treat non-Hodgkin’s and Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Vinblastine is also used to treat Hodgkin’s...
Why We Wash Our Hands Before Surgery
For every 10 pregnant women who walked into a hospital in 1840s Europe, only 9 would ever leave.1 One in 10 pregnant women died of a disease known at the time as puerperal fever,...
The Neuroscience of Emotion, Memory, Language, and Consciousness
This is part four of our four-part introduction to neuroscience series. For a review of the motor systems at work in the brain, please see our previous article. A review of the foundational concepts...
The Neuroscience of Movement
This is part three of our four-part introduction to neuroscience series. For a review of the five senses, please see our previous article. A review of the foundational concepts in neuroscience may also serve to...