Friday, January 30, 2015

The Scientific Power of Meditation

Meditation is an activity often suggested to those having problems with pain, stress, depression, anxiety and other struggles of the human condition. 

It's easy for some to disregard the activity as new-age nonsense, but is there more to it - AsapSCIENCE explores the study of meditation, considering the findings of relevant scientific research.

Check out the video


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aw71zanwMnY&feature=em-subs_digest


Thursday, January 15, 2015

The divided brain and the making of the Western World (by Iain McGilchrist)

In this TED Talk, psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist describes the real differences between the left and right halves of the human brain.

Theories of the 1960s and ’70s, gave rise to a lot of speculation on the "different functions" for the two halves of the brain to do, as if it were a machine with a lot of little specialised modules –language here, maths there, or reason here, emotion there.

Over time, science discovered that each so-called ‘function’ was carried out in both hemispheres, not one, recognizing that the differences lay not in what they do, but how they do it. 

So differences are not simply explained by "emotion on the right brain, reason on the left brain," but something far more complex and interesting.
https://www.ted.com/talks/iain_mcgilchrist_the_divided_brain