Category Archives: 1. BODY

The body is the integral physical substance of a living organism. Physiology is the study of the unified systems and functions of a living organism. By extension, the word body can also refer to the fundamental character, appearance, texture, or content of something. In each sense, the word body serves to focus our exploration on revealing the essence, integrity, unity and fundamental nature of a living organism or object.

Body: Brain and Learning — Two Kinds of Signals

Posted on 06/01/2010 by Brian Alger

An inter­est­ing per­spec­tive on learn­ing that brings it closer to capac­i­ties and qual­i­ties asso­ci­ated with impro­vi­sa­tion and brico­lage. Learn­ing requires the sophis­ti­cated abil­ity to con­stantly update expec­ta­tions in order to make accu­rate pre­dic­tions about the chang­ing environment…“The sim­pler model-free learn­ing … Con­tinue read­ing →

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Mental Degradation: Caffeinated or Decaffeinated Learning?

Posted on 02/14/2010 by Brian Alger

Caf­feine is an addic­tive sub­stance that pro­duces stim­u­la­tive effects in the body and mind. Caf­feine simul­ta­ne­ously affects our body and mind and there­fore influ­ences how we think, feel and act. If we devel­oped a diet based on the prin­ci­ple of … Con­tinue read­ing →

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Psychosomatics: The Heart of Anger

Posted on 01/28/2010 by Brian Alger

[Explor­ing Life] Psy­cho­so­matic med­i­cine focuses on dis­eases or phys­i­cal dis­or­ders that may have their ori­gin within our thoughts and emo­tions. An emo­tion that becomes habit­ual will man­i­fest as a phys­i­o­log­i­cal real­ity within the body. Pos­i­tive emo­tions can be defined as … Con­tinue read­ing →

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Functional Fitness: Functional vs. Dysfunction Exercise

Posted on 01/27/2010 by Brian Alger

[Explor­ing Life] One of the most impor­tant prin­ci­ples in a func­tional fit­ness pro­gram is the even, coor­di­nated devel­op­ment of the mus­cles. Unfor­tu­nately, many exer­cise pro­grams tend to treat mus­cles as if they exist in iso­la­tion. Strength exer­cises that iso­late mus­cles … Con­tinue read­ing →

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Food-Behavior: You do what you eat

Posted on 12/31/2009 by Brian Alger

You do what you eat Inter­est­ing arti­cle link­ing qual­ity of food to behav­ioral out­comes (Sept. 2005). Key Ques­tions The ques­tion is: What are the con­se­quences when we increas­ingly shovel junk food into our bod­ies? Is it sim­ply coin­ci­dence that the … Con­tinue read­ing →

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Mental Degradation: Toxic Food Toxic Mind

Posted on 12/28/2009 by Brian Alger

[Explor­ing Life] What we eat has a direct and imme­di­ate affect on how we behave. Though we may prac­tice relax­ation, mind­ful­ness, and med­i­ta­tion in order to fos­ter a sense of equa­nim­ity in our body and mind, we com­pletely under­mine our … Con­tinue read­ing →

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Breathing: Optimal Breathing Under Stress

Posted on 12/24/2009 by Brian Alger

[Explor­ing Life] What makes you hold your breath? describes the impor­tance of opti­miz­ing our breath­ing pat­tern in order to pro­mote healthy diges­tion as well as calm­ing the ner­vous sys­tem. The authors rec­om­mend that the stres­sors that are the root cause … Con­tinue read­ing →

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Functional Fitness: Designing a Functional Fitness Program

Posted on 11/13/2009 by Brian Alger

[Explor­ing Life]The world of fit­ness and exer­cise is becom­ing increas­ingly com­pli­cated and often times con­fus­ing. Var­i­ous styles and meth­ods of exer­cise con­stantly com­pete for our atten­tion. My own expe­ri­ence in fit­ness and exer­cise include Yoga, Pilates, weight train­ing, car­dio rou­tines … Con­tinue read­ing →

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Functional Fitness: The Essence of the Pilates Method

Posted on 10/19/2009 by Brian Alger

[Explor­ing Life] Con­trol­ogy is the term coined by Joseph Pilates to describe his method of inte­grated mind-body fit­ness. Today it is com­monly referred to as the Pilates method. Joseph Pilates wrote two books: a) Your Health-1934; and Contrology-1945 [1]. These … Con­tinue read­ing →

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Functional Fitness: Posture and the Core Area

Posted on 09/07/2009 by Brian Alger

[Explor­ing Life] The word core means the cen­ter of an object. The Earth’s core, for exam­ple, is also referred to as the cen­ter of the Earth. The core area, or cen­tre, of the body is the site of the inter­nal … Con­tinue read­ing →

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