I was planning to write a post today about holiday gift-giving and how we're all under so much pressure to buy presents that we forget what it's like to be generous. Except on Saturday I started to feel pain around my right eye. I thought it was probably from grinding my teeth (I have TMJ) but by Sunday afternoon the pain had increased and redness appeared underneath my bottom eyelid.
A new study finds that lovingkindness meditation makes your vagus nerve more responsive. That's meaningful because it is involved in cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and immune responses.
Gender generalizations make me uneasy. But after practicing psychotherapy for many years with women from diverse racial, religious, and socioeconomic backgrounds, there’s one that is unfortunately consistent: most women struggle with genuine self-care.
Lots of schools are using mindfulness meditation to help students improve their focus and ease stress. There's both empirical and anecdotal evidence that it works. But one Ohio school system is moving the other way, dropping mindfulness instruction due to parents' objections.
At the Interdependence Project, we support all types of mindfulness—mindfulness of mind, mindfulness of breath, mindfulness of emotions, mindfulness of eating tacos, and, yes, mindfulness of poop.
Pooping is an age-old art that almost all humans partake in. Though some may deny it, chances are if they are alive, they have pooped.
The Buddha encouraged us to pay attention to our poop:
The Guardian newspaper reports that a hospital in England has installed a quiet room designed by ambient music pioneer Brian Eno. It's being offered as a place to help patients relax, and doctors plan to monitor people who use the room to see if their pulse and blood pressure are affected by it.
Peter Levine is a psychotherapist whose work has greatly influenced the field of trauma therapy, particularly trauma that is stored in the body. He offers this advice for minimizing the future onset of traumatic symptoms:
As various thinkers attempt to position Buddhism in relation to "Western Psychology," I thought IDP folks might benefit from understanding some of the movements that are lumped into the latter.
Gender generalizations make me uneasy. But after practicing psychotherapy for many years with women from diverse racial, religious, and socioeconomic backgrounds, there’s one that is unfortunately consistent: most women struggle with genuine self-care. 
