Stuff That I Learned - Week #15

-
Busy - but committed to eating right,
meditating and exercising
Fall Semester of 2016 is nearly complete. I've learned more in one semester than I ever could have imagined, and I continue to delight in my good fortune to be a non-traditional graduate student at the University of Wisconsin - Madison.

This week I had high hopes of writing more about neural control and/or my hearing, though the final push into exams is consuming more of my bandwidth than I had expected. Next week I hope to return to weekly updates.

Please keep an eye on my blog into 2017, as I'll continue with weekly updates on stuff that I learned. Next semester promises to be very interesting - I'm coming to refer to it as Neural Fest 2017.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cardio and Meditation

-
Image
Both cardio and meditation are strongly associated with improving mental and physical wellbeing. Whether measuring the incidence and severity of diseases, indices of psychosocial wellbeing or inflammatory biomarkers, both cardio and meditation are disproportionately effective in cultivating wellbeing. During my recent pilgrimage, I spent many hours meditating while riding my bike. Since many of us are short on time, I strongly encourage you to practice meditation while doing cardio. The scientific evidence is increasingly indicating that active meditation confers the same benefits as formal meditation, and combining cardio and meditation has the potential to allow double-dipping in the time that you allocate to physical fitness. If you haven’t already tried my MDFL CARDIO classes, I encourage you to check them out via my studio's on-demand library . Interestingly, it appears as though cardio and meditation interact with different anti-inflammatory pathways. University of Wisconsi...
Read more

Whether you are training aerobic capacity, mobility or alignment, don't forget your muscles!

-
Image
Does your workout regimen include muscle building activities? It’s hard to overstate the importance of maintaining and building muscle mass. While strength, power and muscular endurance are all very important for optimal aging, your overall wellbeing is disproportionately related to your muscle mass. There are several factors that are influenced by muscle mass. Among them are: Muscle mass supports your joints . More muscle mass is generally associated with healthier joints. Your sense of balance is highly dependent on sensations that arise from your muscles. As you lose muscle mass, your balance tends to become shakier Bone density is influenced by muscle mass. When muscles pull harder on the bones, the osteoblasts in the bones respond by increasing bone density. More muscle = more force = greater bone density. Muscles are integrally involved in glucose metabolism ; building muscle is a powerful way to both treat and prevent insulin resistance. The academic article, linked below, des...
Read more

Aging & Inflammation

-
Image
Aging well is largely about managing inflammation. You will likely feel better and have more energy if your baseline levels of inflammation are lower, and will likely struggle more with aches, pains and low energy when your baseline levels of inflammation are higher. Managing inflammation is essential to aging well, and requires more than anti-inflammatory supplements and down time . Reducing baseline levels of inflammation requires the strategic application of inflammation. Known as hormesis , regular applications of inflammation can lower baseline levels of inflammation. To some small extent, that which doesn’t kill you may well make you stronger. The trick is getting the dose just right, as the dose of inflammation either makes the poison or the medicine. Yes, this is an eBike. I adjust the level of assist to maintain the just-right challenge. Exercise, particularly cardio, is inflammatory. This is among the many reasons why doing cardio is an essential element in aging well. In th...
Read more