Flourish As You Age

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Have you ever wondered what yoga was all about? Have you asked whether there is more to yoga than just putting your body into weird shapes? If you have been curious about yoga or want to deepen your understanding of what the practice is all about, you will want to listen to this conversation with master yoga teacher Keric Morinaga.

I study with Keric and, as I imagine happens with most yoga students, I listen to the instructions and do my best to intuit the philosophy and the guiding principles of what we are doing. Every now and then, tentatively, I might ask a question about the purpose of a particular pose or ask for clarification of a particular instruction. Well, recently Keric was gracious enough to take an hour to patiently answer all of my most pressing questions about the yoga practice.

This episode focuses on Keric’s description of Anusara yoga, which is the discipline he teaches. We also ventured a bit into the realm of the esoteric. I’m always a bit flummoxed when people talk about spirit and spirituality. I know vaguely what people are talking about, but I sense it has different meanings for each person. I wanted to know what Keric meant by “spirituality.” His answer surprised me.

Chapters:

• Teacher of Teachers
• 3 Core Elements of Anusara Yoga
• 5 Principles of Alignment
• Enriching the Practice
• Is Yoga a Form of Meditation?
• What is “Spirituality?”
• Managing Body & Mind with Yoga

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The Virtual Activity Design Program is based on MINDRAMP’s first-in-the-nation college course and textbook called Cognitive Activity Design. A major part of the text and course materials consists of descriptions and analyses of wonderful cognitively stimulating activities Roger designed for an Assisted Living Facility.

The rest of the podcasts in this section feature Roger describing a number of the most memorable and instructive activities. These case studies are then followed by analyses of the elements that made them effective in promoting brain health and mental engagement.
These case studies do not use virtual communications mechanisms but offer a number of core principles that help enrich any kind of activity (live or virtual).

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Support our work to promote creative aging. Subscribe to the MINDRAMP Podcast.

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Dr. Judy Rubin a pioneer in the field of art therapy. In Part I of my discussion with Dr. Rubin, she explains how she "stumbled into" the emerging field and gradually figured out how to harness the synergistic benefits of the arts and psychotherapy.
Early in her career Judy appeared with Fred Rogers as "the arts lady" on the PBS series Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. Her training brought her into contact with the renowned developmental psychologist Erik Erikson and with Benjamin Spock who wrote the hugely influential parenting guide that was the bible for my mother and millions of other parents in the 1950s. Judy, now in her 80s, is still active, creating and curating documentary films about art therapy.
In Part 2 Judy and I asked Judy to speculate about the power of the arts and then shifted gears to for her advice on aging well.

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Support our work to promote creative aging. Subscribe to the MINDRAMP Podcast.

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Albert Garcia-Romeu does research on psychedelics at Johns Hopkins University. In this first part of our discussion I asked Al why older adults should be interested in psychedelic research. How could psychedelics help us to enjoy a more successful longevity? We also delve into the subjective experience of a psychedelic trip. What do people taking psychedelics in a clinical setting report feeling, and how what kind of benefits does the trip provide?

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Support our work to promote creative aging. Subscribe to the MINDRAMP Podcast.

We can increase our emotional intelligence by expanding our vocabulary for emotional words.  This is the core idea of the theory of emotional granularity put forth by neuroscientist  Lisa Feldman Barrett. During a road trip through southern Utah and western Colorado my wife and I expanded our ability to articulate our feelings of wonder and delight.  We invented the word "awe-gasm" to describe the visceral ecstasy evoked by the natural splendors of the mountain west.  

This podcast is based on an article of mine that appears in the Winter 2021 edition of 3rd Act Magazine.