Dahn Yoga Health Centers in Nevada

Although the mind is important to the creation of a young energy age, one cannot ignore the body itself. Energy travels through the body in a definite way, and it only makes sense to work with it, not against it. For that reason, the Jangsaeng method advocates specific angles of the body to consider when walking. You may be used to walking unconsciously, so at first this may seem a little burdensome. But after a little practice, it will become automatic and will feel completely natural.

The basic posture of Jangsaeng Walking is simple. Walk while focusing on these basic principles:

The basic posture of Jangsaeng Walking is simple. Walk while focusing on these basic principles:

*    Tilt the lower part of your pelvis forward.
*    Breathe with your lower abdomen.
»     Let your heel tap the ground gently as you step forward, with a straight leg. »  Feel your weight transfer fully to the balls (Yong-chun) and     toes of your foot. »  Keep your feet parallel, stepping on either side of an imaginary line.
*    Angle your body one degree forward.
*    Swing your arms freely.
*    Smile!

Ilchi Lee books on brain and breath respiration.

In Eastern thought, there is a saying, “Where the mind goes, energy follows.” Essentially, energy flows following our conscious thought. In fact, ev- erything that we accomplish in this world begins with a conscious thought. For example, if you admire a tall building in the middle of the city, you can say that it all began in the mind of the architect working in tandem with the investors, contractors, and workers who brought it into being. As all these minds came together, energy began to flow toward the fulfillment of the vision. In that way, imagination became reality. Every space mission, every classic piece of art, every saintly act began as a thought in someone’s mind.

MIND OVER MATTER

The same is true for the energy we feel in our bodies. When imagining that we can feel energy through our hands, it really happens that way, and if we imagine that energy is collected in the lower abdomen, then energy is really collected in the lower abdomen. One can only feel energy by focusing the consciousness—not by knowledge, analysis, or judgment.

Ilchi Lee tells that Jangsaeng Walking is partially based on this notion that energy follows the mind. Part of the goal is to teach the body to walk youthfully, which might be something you have never really done since bad habit can start early. Through walking youthfully. your body will regain the attributes of youth, as will your mind. Finally, my hope is that this feeling of energetic youthfulness will follow you into all areas of your life, creating a more vital and satisfying style of life.

You are not simply your thoughts, habits, memories, emotional responses, triggers, and biases. That would be like saying a computer is merely a collection of microprocessors and disk drives. But a computer, properly assembled, becomes a tool for writing this book, sending people into space, or changing the world. So too are you not simply the sum of the three parts of your brain, but their combined potential. It is possible to view the transition periods of later life not as crises but as opportunities to redefine the person you are. Brain Integration fuels that redefinition.

Brain Integration unifies the disparate centers of your brain, restoring the flow of energy and renewing communication. The process allows you to let go of the sense of self that depended on aspects of your life that have changed, and empowers you to create a new identity based on today—your new pursuits, relationships, and passions.

Imagine being able to shed your outdated sense of self and to let go of the unwanted influence of other people and events. You become free to decide what parts of your new life will define you and to July experience your emotions without fear. Brain Integration establishes new, robust connections between your three brain centers and the hemispheres of your brain—the linear and analytical left brain and the creative and intuitive right brain. You will be able to unleash your creativity, control your emotions, and approach situations from both a rational and intuitive perspective.

Instead of a brain fragmented by traumas during the aging process, you will find your lifetime of experiences and knowledge meshing like the parts of a wonderful machine, carrying you to new levels of insight, including:

*    Expanded awareness of your environment
»    A sense of the oneness of existence
*    Greater self-awareness
*    The development of new talents
*    Deeper, more satisfying emotional relationships
»    Greater wisdom

Older individuals who practice Brain Integration frequently find themselves attracted to new pastimes and activities, discovering new life purposes, and healing their relationships with friends and family. Who knows, vou might discover a love for writing vou never knew you had, decide to mentor a young scholar, or join a new7 circle of friends who are on the same life journey as you are. Brain Integration is challenging, but once vou have completed the first three steps, you will be ready.

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.

1.    EXERCISE REGULARLY.

Brisk cardiovascular exercise brings rich, oxygenated blood to the brain. Ilchi Lee advice aged people that they  should get at least 30 minutes of heart-pumping exercise 3 times a week. Also, do strength training at least twice a week, because muscle development also produces more energy for the brain.

2.    REDUCE STRESS.

Stress is a major cause of illness, thanks to the effects of the hormone cortical. Too much cortical can wear down the hippocampus, which plays a role in memory function. Yoga Exercise and meditation can help.

3.    GET PLENTY OF SLEEP.

Sleep deprivation is the number one cause of fuzzy, disjointed mental function. Studies show that people who get at least eight hours of sleep each night can avoid some age-related brain decline.

4.    EAT LOW-FAT AND HEALTHY.

Glucose spikes and fatty plaque deposits that accompany overeating can damage the brain. A lower-calorie diet promotes better circulation and also controls weight, leading to lower blood pressure.

5.    GIVE YOUR BRAIN A WORKOUT.

Try to do or learn something new each week, whether you are writing a letter with the hand you do not usually use or developing your knowledge of a new language. Challenging the brain with novel tasks and activities creates new neural pathways, makes it more versatile, and improves its multitasking ability.

The word jangsaeng is a Korean word used by Professor Ilchi Lee that roughly translates as “longevity.” However, the word in English does not quite carry the same connotation. For us, longevity primarily means long life in respect to passage of time. But the Korean word suggests not only living many years, but also living them in a truly vital way. Jangsaeng person carry a youthful vitality into their older years that may be otherwise missing in their peers. To have Jangsaeng, you must have much more than long life. Jangsaeng people have a spring in their step and twinkle in their eye that is an inspiration even to the youngest ones around them.

In the West, we have done much to promote longevity. People today are living longer and longer as Western medicine advances. But extended life span should not be the only goal. It is more important that we live more fulfilling, happy lives, not just longer lives. This book exists to promote Jangsaeng, a lifestyle that promotes a positive, healthy living through awareness and utilization of the brain.

In the appendix, you will find a description of Jangsaeng Walking and Dahn Exercises (page 179), a way of walking that keeps the body and the brain energized and youthful. This is one example of how the things we do evervdav, such as walking, have great impact on the quality of life. All the information in this book is meant to promote the Jangsaeng lifestyle by helping people get the most out of their brains in their later years. Please use it to create a Jangsaeng Brain and a Jangsaeng Life.

Before we move on to the steps of BEST, a word of wisdom about changing the way vou think right now. One of the blessings of the aging brain is that you have a deep reservoir of existing knowledge that helps you gain immediate perspective on a situation.

This means that you have the insight to savor a particular moment in time, a kind of insight that a younger person often lacks. Whereas young people are usually looking toward the future and the next hurdle with little regard for the present, your time-tested perspective allows you to pause and truly be in the moment, which is where all of life’s true delights arise. But this is not a characteristic restricted to those of retirement age. No matter in DahnHak what your age, you can train your mind to perceive and live in the moment. In part, that is what BEST is all about: extracting all the learning, delight, and peace each moment has to offer, then moving on to the next.

According to Ilchi Lee Brain Respiration rules, training your brain to approach life in this way will make your maturity a marvelous adventure. Instead of experiencing a decline, you will relish the vivacity that few people of any age genuinely experience, because you will have made the most of your brain’s unlimited potential.