Dahn Yoga Health Centers in Nevada

At this level, BEST is all about three skills:

a.    Being fully aware of your emotions and moods

b.    Cleansing troubling, harmful emotions from your mind

c.    Developing the ability to change long-term temperament patterns

It is a myth that our emotions are beyond our control. Those who claim this are really saying, “I choose not to exercise control over my feelings.” Often this attitude is born of a sense that negative emotions are just part of who we are—that feeling persistently angry or sad is something that just comes through the hard knocks of life. But how sensible is it to continue harboring such ideas when they wreak havoc on our bodies and our energies? The path oi personal wisdom is to harness the brain’s great powers of self-awareness—the watcher watching the watcher—to uncover the hidden patterns of mood and emotion that we bear within us and change the way we view the world. We have the power to change our set points, as it were. Have you ever wondered how some families living in poverty in the inner city or in a small village in the Third World can live with so much joy? It’s because their set points are modest. They have each other, food to eat, a roof over their heads, and, often, their faith. That is all they need. What do you need to truly be happy and at peace with this life?

Let’s differentiate between emotion and mood. Our marvelous brains recognize emotions from the time we are born. Feelings become hardwired into our neural connections long before we can manage the complex dance of cognitive thought and language. Emotion is like weather; it is what we feel in the moment as we encounter the conditions and people in our lives. Mood is like climate; it lingers and engulfs us. Thus, we say, “He’s in a bad mood.” Moods are emotion made persistent and can go on for an hour, a day, or even develop into a life-long disposition. Sometimes, when a melancholy mood becomes dark and helpless and hopeless, and persists for a long time, it is called clinical depression.

All about Ilchi lee’s research, thanks.

As we age, emotional health becomes more important than ever. After all, your emotional state is your constant companion throughout your life and should remain fairly consistent from your youth through your senior years. Assuming your brain is stable and well, the mental outlook you have at sixty- five can be healthier and more positive than the one you had at twenty-five, since you have the added benefit of life experience. Or it could be worse, if you allow yourself to fall into negative emotional habits. It’s really up to you. One of the keys to this emotional wellness is balance between positive and negative, hope and realism, doubt and faith. You should be able to treasure memories of the past, while being able to let go completely of lingering pain and resentment.

However, this is not usually as easy as it sounds. As Verne Kallejian, Ph.D., writes, “Unfortunately, we have neither the philosophy nor the rituals in Western civilization to facilitate emotional health in the aging process. Very few life experiences prepare us to deal with the potential problems of aging. Nothing can easily replace the self-esteem of an important job or easily replace the friendships that are terminated by illness, death, moving to a new environment or other unexpected events.”

As we age, the inevitable losses and changes of living can tilt our moods toward the negative. The death of a friend or loved one breeds loneliness and reminds us of our own mortality. Retirement, if the void is not filled with productive hobbies or volunteer work, can make us feel as if we have lost part of our identity. Failing health can cause anxiety or depression and contribute to one of the most harmful aspects of age: isolation. If a person lacks a proper sense of perspective or the cognitive tools to identify and change defeatist, dark thought patterns, it is easv to see how that person could, with age, become unpleasant and unhappy.

But as we age, destructive emotional patterns, resentment, and solitude are not inevitable. Current psychological theory holds that all of us possess “set points,” lite conditions that must be in place for our minds to feel a sense of well-being. You decide what conditions make up your set point and what emotions to associate with those conditions. For example, if your whole world has been work. YOU might associate retirement with uselessness and decay. In the remainder of this chapter, YOU will find specific-exercises that will help you avoid these very dangerous pitfalls. And through the process of BEST, you will discover a sense of identity and purpose that will truly satisfy you.

Dahn Yoga’s founder Prof Ilchi Lee is famous as brain educator. The subject of this chapter is Brain Refreshing, the process of releasing negative emotional residue and letting go of past traumas. The goals: a more positive state of mind and greater, more productive control over your thought patterns.

Negative thought patterns are a major source of stress, and stress is the most common mental problem of our time. Hundreds of thousands of years ago, our hominid ancestors developed stress response systems that were designed to flood their bodies with powerful hormones in the face of a threat—an attacking bear or a dangerous deer hunt on the plains, for example. Those chemicals produced a wave of very useful physical and mental changes: more blood flowed to the heart and brain, the pulse raced, the skin temperature dropped, muscles tapped reserves of sugar energy, the brain sharpened and quickened. These responses were very important if you were a hunter-gatherer looking to outrace a wounded bison or fend off a hungry wolf. In this setting, the fight-or-flight response was very healthy.

However, attacking animals are rare in our modern world, and hunts on the plains are even rarer. Our mighty brains and our knack for technology have enabled us to become a race that uses its mind, not its muscle. We are farmers of information and hunters of data now. Rather than tracking prey in woodlands, we sit at desks in cubicles. Yet in terms of evolutionary time, we’re just a few ticks of the clock from those seven days, so our physical nature has not changed much. Back then, when the danger was over, our stress response was too. Our bodies relaxed to conserve energy. But today, under the pressures of work and traffic and debt and politics and war, our stress response is on overload. Many of us are “stressed out.” Chronic, long-term stresses are our problem, and that fight-or-flight response does more harm than good. Those potent hormones are being dumped into our bodies constantly, which is not what nature intended.

As a result, our immune systems suffer. Our blood pressure spikes. We develop migraines, anxiety, and depression. In the short term, the stress response helps us. But chronic stress, hours every day, causes deterioration of both the body and the mind. And yet how easy it is to cleanse ourselves of such damaging effects! In chapter one you learned how to release tension from your body, but it is all for naught if you do not also learn how to release emotional tension from your mind. It is really a matter of choosing positive emotions to replace the negative, which is essentially what Brain Refreshing is all about.

One quick way to do this is to follow the old adage, “Laughter is the best medicine.” Research shows that laughter reduces levels of at least four of the common stress hormones. A short, intense walk (it doesn’t even have to be one mile long) can clear stress hormones from your bloodstream. And the simple act of taking a breath—something we do thousands of times each day without thought—can sweep away stress, relaxing the body and allowing it to rest and heal. But in today’s world, even the simple act of proper breathing becomes difficult, as our bodies become full of stress-related tension. What’s needed is deliberate attention to our breathing, emotions, and actions. Living consciously to shape one’s emotions and attitudes is the next step in BEST.

When you take a walk, try shifting your focus from one sense to another. Our normal habit is to rely on the information given to the brain primarily through the eyes. This habit deprives your brain of the chance to develop and maintain your full range of senses throughout life.

So, instead of focusing only on visual information, try focusing on your other senses, one at a time. Try tuning in to your ears, recognizing and isolating as many distinct sounds as you can. Then do the same for your sense of touch—feel the breeze on your skin and the warmth of the sun penetrating your body. And continue with your sense of smell and even taste. Doing so will help to stimulate various parts of your brain and help you to keep your walks interesting and new.

What is more ingrained in the brain than handedness? To really challenge your brain, try doing everything with your nondominant hand, including writing. It may be difficult at first, but you will feel your capacity to use another part of your brain improving as your coordination improves.

CREATIVE SHAPES

Take a look at these shapes. How many different objects do you see? If you think three, look again. Think of things that the shapes remind you of— maybe the square is a TV and the circle is a penny. Draw on the following shapes to turn them into something new.

Doctor Lee Articles about Brain and Dahn Yoga

Neurons are the basic building blocks of our brain. Neurons communicate with one another through synapses. These are the tiny spaces between the separate individual neurons. Chemical messengers are released by one neuron to be delivered to another, thereby effecting communication. The performance of a brain depends not on the number ot neurons but upon the information network of neurons and their synapses. The more synapses there are, the more intimately connected the neurons are, resulting in higher level functioning of the brain.

Generally, the number of synapses in the human brain increases dramatically at three specific times during life. This first happens at the age of two when we start to walk and learn to talk. The second is at the age of six when we begin to learn to read and do math. The third time is at the age of twelve when we begin to grasp abstract and logical concepts. The number of synapses inside a human brain directly relates to intellectual and academic performance, activities that are centered in the human cerebrum.

Basic guidelines on Yoga D

Conscious control of the flow of energy throughout the body is one aspect of Brain Respiration. Another critical aspect of Brain Respiration is to act on the flow of information that travels in and out of the human brain. Therefore, Brain Respiration includes both “energy respiration” and “information respiration” Conscious exchange of information to and from your awareness, this is the meaning of Brain Respiration in the spiritual context.

An exchange of gasses in the lungs defines physical breathing. The brain is the place in the human body where an exchange of information defines “informational waffling.” The brain is the organ that receives, registers, and processes information. Just as there are different grades of air quality, information can also be classified as either healthful or harmful. Just as you can become ill by breathing in polluted air, or by blocking the flow of life energy through the meridians, you can be adversely affected by taking in harmful information. This results in sickness of the spirit. Negative and destructive information weakens the spiritual body.

Therefore, Sir Lee says that you take good care of your brain means that you take full and conscious control over the process of choosing, judging, and communicating the information in your brain. A brain that does these three things well is a capable, powerful brain.

Information provided by Ilchi Lee

The principle of Shim-Ki-Hyul-Jung is at once the underlying principle of Brain Respiration and the law of the universe. It provides fundamental guidance for the process of evolution, creation, and the existence of all things. When consciousness begins to be concentrated, energy starts to gather. This in turn begins to attract the material necessary to manifest the essence ot the concentrated consciousness. In this principle, Hyul refers to all material required to generate the shape and form of a wish. Thereto re,

Shim-Ki-Hyul-Jung refers to the process of the invisible consciousness creating a tangible form through the power of concentration. Ultimately, the invisible creates the visible. The world of form is therefore created by concentration of our consciousness. The underlying rule of creation is rather simple… you just have to ask the question: “What do I really want?”

This is why every sage in the history of humankind has told us to be careful with our mind and our thoughts. An unconscious wish is still a wish and an unconscious curse is still a curse. It is crucial to be continuously aware of what you are thinking and how you are acting and speaking. You must also develop discipline and will to align your words and actions with your wishes. The universe is filled with information and energy that you can draw on to manifest your innermost dreams and visions… whatever they may be.

Dr. Lee Dahn Yoga guidelines

from Dahn Yoga Member’s Blog

We can make our minds so like still water that beings gather about us to see their own images and so live for a moment with a clearer, perhaps even with a fiercer life because of our silence. -William Butler Yeats

from Dina

I recently moved here from California, and while in CA., my daughter went to the Brain Education Classes at the Dahn Yoga Center. Wow, what a terific difference that training made in my little girl. It gave her so much confidence. Also, she learned alot about her body and her brain. I want to sign her up again here in Las Vegas, but I really wish they would start using this great program in the schools. It would help so much.

from Stephanie

I went to the HSP Olympiad for Brain Education in New York in August. The Kids involved were spectacular. They really seemed to be having a lot of fun expanding their brain capabilities. The atmosphere was very similar to that of the Capsule Training. Very Positive, Alive, Fun and Insiteful.