Sounds like the title of a new novel, but today’s post wraps up our fall exploration of brain health and how it intersects with our life as conductors and teachers. We started by looking at how our brain reacts to stress, then unpacked how we can mitigate stress in rehearsals with our breathing and movement […]
Wellness
The Conductor as Yogi: Brain Aerobics in Rehearsal
Our recent posts have focused on the impact of stress on the brain (not just on our “feeling” state) and how we can mitigate it by taking time in our day and in our rehearsals to pause and move and breathe. Today we look at another way to enhance brain health for us and our […]
Midweek Meditation: Cultivating Equanimity
Equanimity is an important concept in mindfulness practice and cultivating equanimity can be a primary benefit of a regular meditation practice. Equanimity is a mindset that reflects the capacity to take life as it comes, and not become caught up in anything that happens to us. It gives us a sense of balance and the […]
The Conductor as Yogi: The Brain-Healthy Rehearsal
In my last post, we looked at the brain’s response to stress and the importance of understanding stress not only as a “feeling” thing but also, a “thinking” thing. The effects of stress can negatively impact our short-term memory and our ability to manage the details of our professional and personal worlds and can have […]
Midweek Meditation: Unselfishly Self-Centered
“In the event of an emergency, please put on your oxygen mask first before assisting others.” I usually don’t take life advice from corporations that cram me into a metal tube, give me a bag of pretzels, and hurtle me from place to place across the earth at 400 mph, but in the case of […]
The Conductor as Yogi: This Is Your Brain on Stress
One of the most common reasons people come to a yoga class is to de-stress. Stress is at the center of our modern lifestyles, so engaging in the physical practice of yoga, as well as the meditation, mindfulness, and breathing that are built into the eight-limbed yoga practice, go a long way to helping us […]