#30daysofnewthings: exotic fruits, pants, and poses

As I’ve been bringing yoga into my #30daysofnewthings challenge, there’s something I’ve been avoiding: Anything where I’m relying on the upper body strength I don’t have to keep me from a supercharged faceplant fueled by the added weight of my graceless legs and man-like torso. “Day Four – I’ve never been permanently paralyzed before!” #newthings (Dear glob, please don’t let that be the price for my wanderlust and sense of.. Read More

Musings on future-trippings

Some days, hippie guru advice is just annoying. I can’t be bothered with it. But on others – when Chandler’s couch is a metaphor for getting crushed by consciousness – I’m magically more open. Such was what I encountered today when I clicked on this Youtube video some yoga chick had made about “releasing fear”. Her point (painted in what some might call fairly esoteric language) was that when we’re.. Read More

Pessi-mist: sniffing out the link between physical and mental ouchies

I saw this article in Psychology Today and thought, “I already read and wrote about this.” Actually, I hadn’t. It was something close – how physical pain and emotional pain following social rejection are similar. In fact, so similar are they, that in the study carried out, an over-the-counter analgesic like Motrin (meant to solve physical pain, obv) also served to mitigate painful emotional responses in chicks. As a yes-and.. Read More

Can virtual reality erase our irrational fears?

“Read to me!” I commanded my mother as we sat by the river, tanning. She frowned and replied, “Can’t you read yourself?” “No,” I sadly said, handing her an issue of Psychology Today. “I can only write – they didn’t learn me how to book.” Unamused and with a heavy sigh, my poor mother reluctantly took the magazine. Thusly, she began to relate an interesting virtual reality piece to my.. Read More

Success: Spurred by satisfaction or suffering?

Does happiness lead to success? Vice versa? This thing I was watching (Fine. It was SoulPancake again. Get off me) asked a bunch of randoms to come in for an experiment. The first part was to offer half the subjects snacks and the others nada. The second involved giving them a puzzle to solve requiring critical thinking. *Okay, before we go any further, let’s see what you’d do: 1. You’re.. Read More