This June, I attended SYTAR, the Symposium on Yoga Therapy and Research. I met a woman named Bo Forbes – my new geeky neuroscience crush and hopefully a future mentor – and she talked about embodiment and disembodiment. Our ability to feel present sensations and ‘be in our body’. It may sound kind of abstract and woo-woo – yet to the clients I meet with each week, this is real, tangible, concrete and NECESSARY practice. And her talk sounded a LOT like my TEDx Abstract I wrote this spring. We are kindred! Being in the body transforms our immediate sense of self and our long term health outcomes. In Bo’s talk, she confirmed with scientific research that being embodied changes many things on a physiological level. Slower breathing and heart rate, better heart rate variability and blood … [Read more...]