Scott Anderson, Ph.D.

When I was a kid, my family drove a ginormous Ford van. True to the times, it was fully customized with the requisite shag carpeting, wood paneling and captain's chairs. Sweet. In addition to feeling like a rolling living room, it had two huge fuel tanks. Each tank was probably about as big as my entire Smart Car, and the range of the Econoline was remarkably long. It felt like refueling took the better part of the day, though I scarcely remember ever stopping for gas in that van. I have fond late-70's memories of road trips to my family's cabin, track meets, and ski trips in that van - mostly accomplished without having to stop to refuel. Pedestrians - get out of the way! Small window made it hard to see out of groovy vans. Why am I reminiscing about the van that caused global warming? I'm mentioning this van because it had a large capacity to carry fluid, and it did so by having more than one reservoir to handle all its capacity. The human body similarly ha

The other night I had just cleaned up after dinner, and was settling down with Buddy Cat to go over notes from last week's Exercise Physiology lecture. In my final lead-up procrastination (procrastination takes many forms), I flipped to The Last Word column in the The Week  magazine, and found a loving tribute to Mr. Rogers . Mr. Rogers and Daniel Striped Tiger As I read the article, I grew misty-eyed thinking about the kindness that Mr. Rogers seemed to embody. As Anthony Breznican described his chance encounter with Fred Rogers, I was transported back to the magical world of Mr. Roger's Neighborhood. His neighborhood was filled with kindness and appreciation - basic goodness. Each day we have many opportunities to embody kindness and appreciation for the myriad beings that surround us. May we enjoy every opportunity to be the kind of helper that Mr. Rogers speaks of. Have a great week, Scott

For years, the book The Anatomy of Hatha Yoga sat on my bed stand, and I cannot estimate how many times I read and reread this classic text. In this and other readings, I came to appreciate yoga's influence on the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS), and in particular its potential to shift our response mode from a potentially inappropriate fight/flight/freeze response to a more sustainable rest and digest default status. The human heart beats at about 100 bpm, even if disconnected from neural input. Among the organs that are influenced by the ANS is the heart and its rate. Heart rate is naturally set to about 100 beats per minute (bpm) by pacemaker cells in the heart. In the absence of ANS input, your heart naturally beats at about 100 bpm. Provided sufficient nutrition, the human heart continues to beat at this steady drum beat even when outside of the body and disconnected from the brain or any other neural input. (please, do not try this at home.) Your ANS regul

My back used to go out regularly. As many of you have probably also experienced, back events make verticality difficult, and activities such as rolling over in bed and sneezing become major hurdles. I was probably about 13 or 14 years old when I first experienced back pain, and ever since I've episodically been reminded of samsara's suffering. The last time that my back went out was in November of 2014. I remember that event clearly, as I was scheduled to teach an out-of-town yoga workshop the following weekend. I could barely stand up without assistance, though rescheduling the workshop wasn't really feasible. With some Aleve and adrenaline coursing through my bloodstream, I traveled, taught, and wasn't that much worse for the wear. While my back started hurting shortly after the eclipse, I'm disinclined to think they're related. Since then, I redoubled my focus on Pilates, and I've enjoyed one of the longest stretches of a strong back since I

Being in graduate school allows me to wear many hats. One of the hats is that of teacher; to the undergrads in the anatomy course that I TA, I'm one of the teaching staff. Another hat is that of student; I'm still deep in the throes of taking coursework, with the full repertoire of exams, presentations and papers. And as graduate school progresses, my biggest hat will ultimately become that of researcher. While I'm just starting to dip my toes into the role of researcher, I'm already learning a lot about the cutting edge research in my various areas of interest. This fellow is wearing a very large hat. As many of you know, I've long been interested in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The non-profit that I helped to found, YogAutism , sprung from my initial forays into bringing the benefits of Yoga to those with ASD. Now that I'm choosing a research focus, one of my interests is building on the research that began with YogAutism. ASD is generally define