Thank you to everyone that attended yoga today. Below are our readings related to the contemplative life and healing power of spending time in nature. 

“Dear friend, all theory is gray,
And green the golden tree of life.”

Goethe, from Faust

“I finished my walk on the forest’s edge, where the great music of crashing waves flooded into the tide pools, where wind ruffled devil’s club leaves and hermit thrushes sang. I reminded myself that the wisest, most inspired people I knew had all taken this second path, heading for what I call the Far Outside. It is the path found when one falls into “the naturalist’s trance,” the hunters pursuit of wild game, the curandera’s search for hidden roots, the fisherman’s casting of the net into the current, the water Witcher’s trust of the forked willow branch, the rock climber’s fixation on the slightest details of a cliff face. Why is it that when we are hanging from the cliff - beyond the reach of civilization’s safety net, rather than in it - we are most likely to gain the deepest sense of what it is to be alive? Arctic writer-ethnographer Hugh Brody has brooded over this question while working in the most remote human communities and the wildest places her could find. There, he admits, “at the periphery is where I can come to understand the central issues of living.”

Gary Paul Nabham, from Cultures of Habit

“To live a contemplative life is to be open enough to see, free enough to hear, real enough to respond. It is a life, and so it has its own rhythms of darkness, of dying-rising. Simply enough, it is a life of grateful receptivity, of wordless awe, of silent simplicity.”

S. Marie Baha, with thanks to Friends of Silence

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According to Aldo Civico Ph.D., "matching and mirroring is the skill of assuming someone else’s style of behavior to create rapport. When you match and mirror, you don’t only listen with your ears, you listen with your entire body. You are present to the other person.

Matching and mirroring is not mimicry. To the contrary, it’s about being in tune with the other, by using your observations about the other’s behavior. Here are the four things you need to do, to match and mirror your interlocutor:

Body postures and gestures
What posture is the person you are having a conversation with assuming? What is he or she doing with his or her arms and hands? Is the person leaning forward or backward? Observe, and then match the posture and gestures. If, for example, the person is reserved in using the hands, there is no point for you to gesticulate frantically!

The rhythm of the breath
Pay attention to how the other person is breathing, and then match it. This technique helps tremendously in bonding with the other. If the person you are having a conversation with is breathing with her diaphragm, it will not help building rapport if you breath with your upper chest. Instead, match your interolocutor’s rhythm of breath.

The energy level
What is the energy level of your interlocutor? Is he or she shy, reserved or exuberant and extroverted? If he or she, for example, is timid, it might be perceived as aggressive and invasive if you are exuberant. If your interlocutor uses few words to express a concept, it does not make your communication effective if you are very wordy.

The tone of your voice
What is your interlocutor’s tone of voice? Is he or she talking softly, almost whispering? In that case, to build rapport, you need to mirror his or her tone of voice. Being loud, in fact, will not help establishing a bond with your interlocutor. In addition, pay attention at the speed of the speech. Is your interlocutor speaking slowly or fast?

Paying attention to these four characteristics and mirroring them when communicating with others, helps you with rapport building (By the way, I am currently sending free videos to individuals interested in learning techniques on how to build rapport. Just sign up here for my weekly advice on effective communication).

Read the full article here on Psychology Today. 

According to Dr Zali Yager, a researcher at the Institute for Health and Sport at Victoria University, an expert in body image, and the Director at Well Researched, "decades of research has indicated that, even brief exposure to ‘idealised’ images in the media and advertising has a negative effect on body image and mood. Recent research has also confirmed that viewing fitspiration leads to increases in body dissatisfaction, and is worse for body image than viewing idealised thin images. In some studies, participants reported that fitspiration inspired them to exercise, but this did not translate into increases in exercise behaviour.

In contrast, viewing images of average-sized models has been found to enhance body appreciation, or positive body image. Evaluations of media campaigns that use real women of all sizes, such as This Girl Can, and #jointhemovement found that these campaigns increased appearance satisfaction, and intentions to exercise."

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According to the New York Times article, "To Treat Chronic Ailments, Fix Diet First," several studies around the country are using the food as medicine approach, using nutrition to care for chronically ill patients. "Medically tailored meals represent a shift in thinking from a problem-based medical delivery system to a holistic, wellness-focused preventive maintenance.
 
Last year, California’s version of Medicaid, Medi-Cal, introduced a three-year pilot study that’s already showing what experts in the health care field have seen anecdotally* — that tailored nutrition can improve health and lower medical costs for the chronically ill. The pilot includes specially formulated meals and in-home visits for patients who suffer from heart disease, which has caused some of the highest rates of hospital readmissions." 
 
*Note: We have far more than "anecdotal" evidence that whole plant foods can improve health and lower medical costs for chronically ill patients. See the research of T. Colin Campbell, PhD, Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr, MD and Dr. Dean Ornish, MD. 
 
The article continues, "another body of research is showing that medically tailored meals can go a long way toward reversing that downward health spiral. A retrospective cohort study headed by Seth Berkowitz, M.D. at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill School of Medicine, and published in April concluded: 'Participation in a medically tailored meals program appears to be associated with fewer hospital and skilled nursing admissions and less overall medical spending.'
 
Tanvir Hussain, a clinical cardiologist and board member of Project Angel Food, said he is impressed by the preliminary results of the Medi-Cal study. If the numbers hold up and Medi-Cal chooses to add medically tailored meals in its coverage, he said, it could be a game changer for the lower-income populations he serves in southern Los Angeles.”
 
Learn more about the science and execution of whole food plant-based eating with this Guide from the T. Colin Campbell Foundation. Working with a coach can be helpful when looking to makes changes to your eating habits. 

"The intestinal microbiome is a delicate ecosystem made up of billions and billions of microorganisms, bacteria in particular, that support our immune system, protect us from viruses and pathogens, and help us absorb nutrients and produce energy.

The industrialization process in Western countries had a huge impact on its content. This was confirmed by a study on the bacteria found in the intestine of Ötzi, the Iceman who, in 1991, emerged from the ice of the Ötztal Alps, where Italy borders with Austria. Scientists of Eurac Research examined samples of the mummy's bacteria, confirming the findings of the researchers of the University of Trento who had analyzed the genome of intestinal microorganisms of over 6500 individuals from all continents.

Previous studies by the University of Trento had demonstrated that there is a connection between the microbiome's bacterial content and the increase, in Western countries, of obesity, autoimmune and gastrointestinal diseases, allergies and other complex conditions. In the study that appeared today in Cell Host & Microbe, researchers from Cibio of the University of Trento and Eurac in Bolzano/Bozen demonstrated that the differences between Western and non-Western or prehistoric microbiome lie in the decrease of some types of bacteria that process complex and vegetal fibers in the intestine.
​
That may have been caused by the Westernization process. Changes in diet, which is now higher in fat and low in fibers, a sedentary lifestyle in an urban setting, the development of new hygiene habits and the widespread use of antibiotics and other medical products have, with no doubt, made our life safer, but impacted the delicate balance of our microbiome." Read more about the research study here. ​

"Careers that rely primarily on fluid intelligence tend to peak early, while those that use more crystallized intelligence peak later," according to a recent Atlantic article. 
 
British psychologist Raymond Cattell introduced the concepts of fluid and crystallized intelligence in the early 1940s. He defined fluid intelligence as "the ability to reason, analyze, and solve novel problems—what we commonly think of as raw intellectual horsepower." In contrast, crystallized intelligence "is the ability to use knowledge gained in the past, [like] possessing a vast library and understanding how to use it. It is the essence of wisdom." 
 
"Innovators typically have an abundance of fluid intelligence. It is highest relatively early in adulthood and diminishes starting in one’s 30s and 40s." Older people can find innovation more challenging. Crystallized intelligence is enhanced by "accumulating a stock of knowledge, and it "tends to increase through one’s 40s, and does not diminish until very late in life." 
 
This contrast is illustrated by two example careers. "Dean Keith Simonton has found that poets—highly fluid in their creativity—tend to have produced half their lifetime creative output by age 40 or so. Historians—who rely on a crystallized stock of knowledge—don’t reach this milestone until about 60." 
 
The good news is that "no matter what mix of intelligence your field requires, you can always endeavor to weight your career away from innovation and toward the strengths that persist, or even increase, later in life."
 
For example, "teaching is an ability that decays very late in life, a principal exception to the general pattern of professional decline over time. A study in The Journal of Higher Education showed that the oldest college professors in disciplines requiring a large store of fixed knowledge, specifically the humanities, tended to get evaluated most positively by students. This probably explains the professional longevity of college professors, three-quarters of whom plan to retire after age 65—more than half of them after 70, and some 15 percent of them after 80. (The average American retires at 61.) One day, during my first year as a professor, I asked a colleague in his late 60s whether he’d ever considered retiring. He laughed, and told me he was more likely to leave his office horizontally than vertically." 
 
Are you craving a career change but don't know where to start? Work with a Thrive Wellness Coach to plan your next move. 
 

Proponents of mindfulness meditation have long thought that meditation can actually cause physical changes in the brain; as it turns out, they were right! Mindfulness meditation  can, in fact, change the brain, through neuroplasticity.

Jessica Cassity writes this about mindfulness meditation and neuroplasticity: “With meditation, your brain is effectively being rewired: As your feelings and thoughts morph toward a more pleasant outlook your brain is also transforming, making this way  of thought more of a default. The more your brain changes from meditation, the more you react to everyday life with that same sense of calm, compassion, and awareness.”
 
The more mindful we become the more our brain adapts to this state as our default state. This is why mindfulness meditation has such a big impact on  regular practitioners even outside of their dedicated practice time; they have taught their brain to be mindful, calm, at peace, and centered all throughout the day, not just when they are actively meditating.

Thank you to everyone that joined us for yoga practice today and below please find today’s reading on the theme of going with the flow. 

The Way of the Water

“The weakest, most yielding thing in the world, as he calls it, water chooses the lowest path, not the high road. It gives way to anything harder than itself, offers no resistance, flows around obstacles, accepts whatever comes to it, lets itself be used and divided and defiled, yet continues to be itself and to go always in the direction it must go. The tides of the oceans obey the Moon while the great currents of the open sea keep on their ways beneath. Water deeply at rest is yet always in motion; the stillest lake is constantly, invisibly transformed into vapor, rising in the air. A river can be dammed and diverted, yet its water is incompressible: it will not go where there is not room for it. A river can be so drained for human uses that it never reaches the sea, yet in all those bypaths and usages its water remains itself and pursues its course, flowing down and on, above ground or underground, breathing itself out into the air in evaporation, rising in mist, fog, cloud, returning to earth as rain, refilling the sea.
 
Water doesn’t have only one way. It has infinite ways, it takes whatever way it can, it is utterly opportunistic, and all life on Earth depends on this passive, yielding, uncertain, adaptable, changeable element.
 
The flow of a river is a model for me of courage that can keep me going — carry me through the bad places, the bad times. A courage that is compliant by choice and uses force only when compelled, always seeking the best way, the easiest way, but if not finding any easy way still, always, going on.”

Ursula LeGuin

Find a Farmer's Market near you for fresh and local produce and whole foods. 

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"Researchers at Yale and Oxford say exercise is more important to your mental health than your economic status. The scientists found that while people who exercise regularly tend to feel bad for 35 days a year, nonactive participants felt bad for 18 days more. The team also found that certain sports that involve socializing can have more of a positive effect on your mental health than others."

​Read more at Business Insider.