Although tapping on your chest and saying ‘ahhhhhh’ as if you were at the doctor’s office may gain you a few stares, it can also help you release stress. If you haven’t yet tried chest tapping and breathing out to get through your most stressful days, watch this video and start to try it.
Posts Tagged: Boston
12
Jul 10
Say ‘ahhh’ and release your stress!
5
Jul 10
A Great Exercise for your Post-Holiday Weekend Body
Although enjoyable, sometimes a long summer weekend leaves the body feeling a little heavy from too much sun, resting, and drinking, or sore from intense physical activity. This gentle but stimulating stretch for the liver is gentle but effective in opening and relaxing your body.
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24
Jun 10
Research Study Shows Practicing Brain Wave Vibration Has a Positive Effect on Regulating Stress
Brain Wave Vibration (BWV) is the signature moving meditation practiced at the Dahn Yoga Centers. Most people learn it within their first few visits to a center. Developed by Ilchi Lee (founder of Dahn Yoga), BWV is an easy-to-learn and practical meditation technique to relax both mind and body through natural rhythmic movements. BWV was recently the subject of a research study on the effects of mind-body training on stress and emotions.
The study was designed to assess the association between stress, positive and negative affect, and stress hormone levels in meditation and control groups. Overall the experiment found that people who engaged in a regular Brain Wave Vibration practice were less stressed and displayed more positive emotions. Stress factors such as depression, anger, and the manifestation of psychological symptoms in the body, were also significantly less in the meditation group than in the control group. These effects were similar to those found in experiments with other mind-body techniques.
It also found that there was more dopamine (DA) in the blood of people who engaged in Brain Wave Vibration than in healthy adults who did not. In subjects who had practiced Brain Wave Vibration for three years or more, blood dopamine levels were higher in those individuals with more positive emotional states.
Primary investigator Dr. Do-Hyung Kang from the Clinical Cognitive Neuroscience Center, Seoul National University Medical Center explained, “Now it is widely accepted that meditation has positive effects on regulating stress. This study supports similar results, but also gives us a clue that this can be by the regulation of the sympathetic nervous system [the system that generates the stress response], especially by elevation of DA level in this vibrative meditation group.”
This research was funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology of South Korea and carried out by scientists from major national research centers in South Korea, including several institutes at Seoul National University, as well as the Korea Institute of Brain Science. Sixty-seven people who regularly engaged in Brain Wave Vibration for an average of 43 months were gathered and compared to a group of 57 healthy adults. The results were published in the June 2010 issue of the international science journal, Neuroscience Letters.
Brain Wave Vibration as a mind-body training technique fit the aims of the study well. The researchers described the technique as being “designed to relax both mind and body through natural rhythmic movements. It is intended to be a simple meditation technique, a kind of moving meditation that can be used to manage stress and optimize brain health. This technique is designed to quiet the thinking mind and release emotions, particularly negative emotions, through physical movements and focus on body sensations.” To learn more about Brain Wave Vibration, you can visit www.brainwavevibration.com.
For more details about the study, visit http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20546836 for the abstract and links to the full article.
How can I do Brain Wave Vibration? (see www.brainwavevibration.com for more information)
- Sit in a chair with your arms resting comfortably at your sides or in front of you on a desk. When sitting in a chair, do not lean your back against the chair, but keep your back straight.
- Close your eyes and breathe comfortably, relaxing your body completely.
- Begin gently shaking your head from side to side; take three seconds to shake your head from one side to the other.
- Follow a rhythm that feels natural for your body. The vibration becomes stronger and deeper. Your head may also go up and down or follow the shape of an infinity symbol as you go deeper into the motion.
- Focus on your brain stem, located at the point where your head pivots left and right. The vibration is spreading from your neck to your whole body through your spinal cord.
- Repeat this movement for five minutes. Slow down your movement and focus on your lower abdomen.
- Inhale and exhale fully three times.
[Reference] Brain Wave Vibration, Ilchi Lee, Best Life Media
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14
Jun 10
The Butterfly Effect: Can Yoga Practice Help to Save the World
If a Dahn Yoga practitioner taps her dahnjon 500 times in Boston, does it trigger a decrease in global warming elsewhere on the planet? 
It might seem like a stretch to say so, but it isn’t impossible. The concept of the Butterfly Effect is that even a seemingly small action can cause a chain of events that results in consequences on a global scale. In this sense, we could reason that every mindful Dahn Yoga practitioner could effectively initiate positive change for the Earth. This is action that begins at an individual level and could potentially result in radical healing for our planet.
In harmony with the earth
Intestine exercises, breathing postures, and dahnjon tapping are internal exercises that directly improve the health condition of the internal organs and repair the ki and energy meridian systems. The result is immediate improvement in physical and mental health. Another result is that the physical body starts to develop sensitivity to the energy body.
With continued practice, people can become increasingly aware of energy everywhere: food, nature, other people, and the general atmosphere that surrounds us. This sensitivity often results in changes of habit.
For instance, when the energy of the stomach is weakened from an excess of heat in the head, the lack of balance in the body makes it crave excessive sugar and cold beverages, for example. When these urges are occurring in millions of people, it has a certain effect on the environment. If people with the same condition strengthen their stomach’s energy through internal exercises, they become more aware of the immediate discomfort that accompanies the consumption of cold drinks and excessive sugar. As it becomes healthier, the stomach begins to demand wholesome food; practitioners can thus experience natural and spontaneous changes in diet.
To continue this example, if the demand for refrigeration and sugar were sufficiently decreased, industries would have to respond accordingly, resulting in a positive change for the environment.
The energy body feels sensations before they settle into physical reality. Sensitizing ourselves to our energy body is like getting a glimpse into the future. It may take decades for the average person to feel the effect of too much sugar on the hips and knees. But with enhanced sensory awareness, people could feel it in their 20’s. It may take a tumor on the lungs to stop a person with severe nicotine addition to quit smoking, but intense lung-meridian pain twenty years prior may provide the same incentive to quit. If people can sense some ill effect from eating food processed with unnatural chemicals in a pollutive and inhumane environment, they will choose food produced in a more healthy fashion.
From an ideal to a need
It is consumers that drive the demand for products. The green movement is on the rise, but there is still a lot of room to demand more environmentally friendly products and policies. Perhaps, for the average consumer, the idea of environmentally sound choices may just be a noble ideal, but not a dire need. Dahn Yoga exercise could potentially motivate us to take actions that are more aligned with our ideals.
There is a growing number of people with an elevated consciousness who are aware of our place as stewards of the Earth and are working to create a world in which we behave accordingly. Thanks to these people and to sufficient scientific evidence, few could dismiss the idea of global warming without political consequence.
When we develop energy sensitivity, we don’t have to rely only on people whom we feel have extraordinary wisdom or higher consciousness. We will all act together in an instinctual movement for self-preservation.
Connecting with our mother
We cannot feel the subtle vibration of peace from the cosmos, or the earth, if we are numb. Unless we feel our direct connection with the Earth, we will see it only as a physical object that is separate from us, something to be used as a resource. We will feel no alarm as poorly planned urban environments threaten natural ones and our oceans and skies become polluted. We would hardly take notice until our own stomachs were hungry from lack of food, our livers bogged down with toxins from processing too many chemicals.
Author Genia Sullivan started practicing Dahn Yoga in Brookline, MA in 1999, and has been teaching since 2001. She has also worked leading Outdoor and Environmental Educational Programs with Youth. 
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10
Jun 10
Two Minute Tips from Dahn Yoga~ For tired & heavy legs
Do your legs get tight and heavy sometimes after a long day of walking or standing up? Try this exercise for quick relief!
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7
Jun 10
Long term outreach classes have brought great rewards
I have been a Dahn Yoga member for 4 years now and am involved in several classes that are being taught at no cost in the Greater Boston area. Some of these classes
have been running for 7-10 years. When I realized that the average member at the center has no idea about these classes are happening, I decided to share about them. They have been such a special experience. Here is a brief glimpse.
The longest on-going class (started in 2000 by Danielle Gaudette, Boston Regional Director of Dahn Yoga Centers) takes place at the Sunrise Assisted Living Center in Arlington. Once a week, we hold a class in the community room with 10-12 residents attending. Several BMC graduates alternate weeks of teaching, and the staff frequently attend if their work schedule permits. The activities director tells us how much the residence look forward to our visit, and the volunteer instructors share the same.
The class at the community health center in Dorchester has also been ongoing for many years (since 2003?). It is geared towards people suffering with diabetes. I have been responsible for it for the past 3 years. Many are Cape Verde natives who don’t speak much English, and overtime we have learned to communicate without words.
I have grown to love these wonderful souls. The experience is much than doing stretching exercise and relaxation. I believe we have built a small community of trust and oneness of spirit. I have seen remarkable changes in several of the patients. The class has become a real part of their lives. They care about each other and have started taking responsibility for their health. Their moods have lifted and we have started teaching each other our native language. To hear an 80 year old Cape Verde woman count to 10 one day in English gave me great joy.
One of the members has even taken Shim Sung, has started taking classes at a Dahn Center and assists with class at the community center. My goal is to see more patients
Outreach Shim Sung at the Red Cross
attend Shim Sung and even to see some of the staff take the workshop.
An similar project has be initiated at a community health center in Jamaica Plain. The participants of this class are spanish speaking women suffering from depression.
The American Red Cross Blood Services hosts another outreach program. Class is offered 3 different times per week. Staff members attend from various departments. Recently the class has been formatted to allow staff to attend either a half hour of stretching and breathing or to stay and participate in the second half of relaxation and energy accumulation so more can participate.
As a result of this outreach, the first workplace Shim Sung in New England was held at Red Cross last February, with 10 people attending. The Red Cross supported the staff by paying a portion of the workshop cost and attendees who were nurses received continuing ed credits.
All of these outreach projects have offered a great opportunity for growth and a way to share with the community. The joy and satisfaction experienced is immeasurable. Seeing the smiling faces, sincere appreciation, and the relaxed mental and physical state of the staff and patients is a great reward.
Barbara Maffeo is a BMC graduate and instructor of Dahn Yoga. She is a nurse and works for the Red Cross.
