Brain Shaman

In this episode, we talk with Niraj Naik, the founder of SOMA Breath. We discuss breathing practices and techniques for altering your cognition, mood, and health. Learn how to quiet down your thinking mind, find focus and calm, and enter mystical, psychedelic, and blissful flow states via the breath. Breath patterns, speed, duration, and intensity are all part of this. We can change our breath to change how we think, feel, perceive, and connect.
Music, visuals, symbols, light and dark, dance, touch, social connection, sex, exercise, and TRE can also be combined with these breathing experiences to enhance the psychophysiological effects further. By using these other sensory and somatic techniques, combined with the breath, you can more deeply and enjoyably tap into the programming of your body and mind. We talk about all that.
You will also learn about tantric sex breathing practices, psychedelics (e.g. the different varieties of magic mushrooms), and more.
**Connect with Niraj Naik**
website: somabreath.com
Instagram: @Nirajnaikofficial
RESOURCES
ORGANIZATIONS
- HeartMath InsitutePEOPLE
- David Berceli
- Jan Kounen
- Lao Tzu
- Robert Sapolsky
PLACES
- Ibiza, Spain
- Gili Islands, Indonesia
- Ko Pha-ngan, Thailand
VOCAB
- 5-MeO-DMT
- Buteyko method
- collective coherence
- dark retreats
- default mode network
- DMT
- fractals
- Ganesha (psychedelic)
- mandelas
- Pranayama
- psilocybin
- Siddhi powers
- sigils
Connect & Learn More:
website: somabreath.com
app: somabreath.com/soma-app
Instagram: @Nirajnaikofficial
21-Day Awakening Journey: somabreath.com/the-awakening-breathwork-journey
book: Breathworks (coming soon!)
Cambridge study: biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.02.19.580985v1
FREE Masterclass: somabreath.com/soma-awakening-meditation-ewo

In this episode, I talk with Peggy DeLong, the Gratitude Psychologist 🙏 about how to cultivate gratitude. Discover simple yet powerful exercises, tools, and tips to help you experience and express more gratitude in your daily life. We also explore the science behind gratitude and its many benefits.

Whether you're facing low mood, stress, jealousy, grief, loss, loneliness, insomnia, fear, hopelessness, negativity, or pain—or simply want to feel better and more alive—this episode is for you.

Thank you for listening!

RESOURCES

PEOPLE

• Eckhart Tolle
• Leon Festinger
• Shawn Achor
• Theodore Roosevelt
• Wayne Dyer

Connect & Learn More

🌐 Website: drpeggydelong.com
📩 Newsletter: drpeggydelong.com/thegratefulday
💎 Bracelets: loveinabracelet.com
📸 Instagram: @the.gratitude.psychologist
🔗 LinkedIn: Peggy Doherty DeLong, Psy.D

In this episode, we're joined by Osinakachi Akuma Kalu, the founder of TAFFD's, dedicated to enhancing health and biological longevity for Africans through educational initiatives. He's also an author, futurist, musician, and speaker.
Our discussion centers on traditional African health practices, mindsets, and tools, covering: social connection, community, movement, nutrition, farming, medicine, music, dance, language, metaphysics, morality & ethics, biodiversity, environmental factors, holistic living, and more.
We also discuss how Westernization has negatively impacted the health and longevity of Africans, across these various dimensions. History, politics, education, and big business are a big part of this. Some ways in which Africa is degenerating include: social isolation, fracturing of family and community, poor nutrition (e.g. processed foods and added sugars), environmental toxins, loss of religion and culture, and increasing use of chemicals and pharmaceuticals.
Osinakachi aims to reconnect Africans to their ancestral roots, returning to a time marked by robust health, longevity, strong social bonds, community, safety, trust, empathy, vulnerability, natural exercise, biodiversity, nutritious food, and a mindset that values such. We must redefine wealth, prioritizing health and social cohesion over money, comfort, and convenience. While traditional practices like farming and open dwellings may be disappearing, education and hard work can help revive some of the positive aspects of Africa's heritage.
The principles, practices, and mindsets discussed in this episode can be applied to your individual life, relationship, family, or community, regardless of your location in the world.
*Connect with Osinakachi*
LinkedIn: /osinakachi-akuma-kalu
Facebook: /authorOsinakachi
website: taffds.org

RESOURCES
MUSIC IN AFRICA
- African Traditional Music (ATM)
- Afrobeats
- Amapiano
- Bongo Flava
- Highlife

PEOPLE
- Aristotle
- Feta Kuti
- Izu Marcel Onyeocha
- Ludwig Wittgenstein
- Martin Buber
- Plato
- R.L. Stine
VOCABULARY
- assimilation
- association
- Berlin Conference
- Igbo
- Ohafia War Dance
- Omenala
- palm wine
- Scramble for Africa
- Ubuntu
- Zulu

This is a conversation with Rich Goldsand, a Feldenkrais practitioner who has been working with athletes, children, and a range of clients all over the world for over 30 years. We talk about how to use movement, novelty, and principles from tensegrity as tools for understanding and changing our self and habits. Through such, we can find points of intersection within our self, body, and life that open up awareness, learning, connection, freedom, possibility, and more.
**
Connect with Rich at: www.feldenkrais-goldsand.net
Join the FREE online course (October 26th, 17:00 Pacific time): www.learnitlive.com/Class/Opposing-Forces-working-together-/23575
**
Here are some of the questions we explore in this episode:

• How does embodiment impact learning and improvement?
• How can we know and change our habits?
• Why is movement such a powerful tool for self-awareness and change?
• How much effort should you put into your actions and movements?
• How can you change your perception of effort?
• What are the limits of abstract theoretical knowledge and what role does our direct concrete personal experience play in our education?
• How does novelty (in movement, sensory experience, etc.) and change to increase learning, neuroplasticity, and self-understanding?
• How can we change our sensory input (e.g. through our eyes, ears, nose, mouth, etc.) to change our habits in thinking, perceiving, feeling, and action?
• How can you change yourself and learn new perspectives of yourself by changing how you move and take in the world?
• Why are mistakes, errors, and novel movements so important for learning?
• What is the difference between choice and compulsion?
• What is biotensegrity and how can we use it for habit awareness & change?
• How can we use opposing movements to increase both our internal and external experience of ourselves?
• What is the connection between existentialism and Feldenkrais?
• What are the different kinds of discomfort, and do we need it?
• How can you use Feldenkrais to improve athletic performance?
• How can you use Feldenkrais to prevent or reverse aging?
• What is it about pools or swimming that opens people up socially?
• How can you use a foam roller to improve how you play a musical instrument or sport?

RESOURCES
BOOKS
- Being and Nothingness by Jean-Paul Sartre
- Outlive by Peter AttiaPEOPLE
- Alan Questel
- Anat Baniel
- Clayton Kershaw
- Dick Fosbury
- Jean-Paul Sartre
- Michael Jordan
- Moshe Feldenkrais
- Peter Attia
- Russell Delman
CONNECT & LEARN MORERich Goldsand's website: www.feldenkrais-goldsand.net
upcoming online course: www.learnitlive.com/Class/Opposing-Forces-working-together-/23575

Dylan Fox is the Director of Operations for XR Access, a research consortium at Cornell Tech that works on making VR, AR, and MR accessible to people across the full spectrum of abilities and disabilities. In this interview, we talk about how to design immersive experiences for people with vision, hearing, mobility, and other limitations. We explore possibilities for ways to help people use and comfortably navigate through emerging technologies such as VR and AR regardless of their abilities.
*** XR Access ***
website: xraccess.org
LinkedIn: /xr-access
Slack: join here
X: @XRAccess
YouTube: @XRAccess
RESOURCES
ARTICLES
- 'The Blind Man Who Taught Himself to See'
- XR Access research database: xraccess.org/researchCOMPANIES & ORGANIZATIONS - Cornell Tech - Equal Entry
- National Science Foundation
- Owlchemy Labs
- XR Association
HARDWARE
- Apple Vision Pro
- HoloLens 2 PROJECTS & EXPERIENCES
- AltSpaceVR (defunct as of March 2023)
- Benvision
- Cosmonious High
- SocialSense XR
- VRChat
- WalkinVR
- We Met in Virtual Reality (documentary)
- XR Accessibility Project

Learn more about XR Access at xraccess.org
Connect with Dylan Fox on LinkedIn: /dylanrfox