Untangle

Want a Fitter Mind? Better Mental Health? Better Brain Health? Neuroscientist Dr. Jennifer Heisz shows us what kind of exercise will get you there, with an in-depth dive into the mechanisms that make exercise so helpful for brain health and cognition, how it helps decrease anxiety and depression, and how to choose the optimal type of exercise to suit your own brain and mental health needs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

World-leading Neurologist and best-selling author, Dr. Stephen Laureys is our guest. His latest book is called the No Nonsense Meditation Book— a Scientists Guide to the Power of Meditation. He shares the data and evidence on how meditation impacts our brains. He says that it’s a ‘free source’ of reduced stress, sharpened attention, better sleep, and a more contented mind. He’s been known to prescribe medication and meditation to his patients and, often, just meditation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Emily Fletcher, Ziva Meditation founder, and Meditation Studio app teacher, shares how meditation helps us to be a more ‘present’ partner in our relationships and--bonus!--gives us a boost in our sex lives too. Spoiler alert? Don’t expect someone else to ‘complete’ you: it all begins with loving and accepting ourselves first. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We look into our brains to answer if True Love is real? How to find a mate? Keep one? Do opposites really attract? Our guest is Dr. Helen Fisher, anthropologist, an expert on the neuroscience of love, and the Chief Science advisor of Match.com. She’s seen it all lately- from the eternal qualities of mate selection to changing trends in love during covid, to why the next generation of families might be more stable, and how, according to our brain, to make love last. Dr. Fisher gets personal and shares it all with us. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this Valentine's day edition, we learn about Mindful sex. Our guide is Jessica Graham mindfulness teacher, actor, and author of “Good Sex” A fun, sensitive, and informative guide that shows you how to bring mindfulness into sex for a bigger, richer, and more present life. No partner required. We also look at how to use mindfulness to unwind some of the difficulties we can have with sex. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sebene is a renowned meditation teacher, speaker, and author of the new book, You Belong, A Call for Connection. She talks about how meditation has transformed her world and how we can bring these teachings into every part of our lives. She believes that we are all inherently interconnected and shares how meditation has been a catalyst to expand awareness, reduce suffering, stay in the present moment, and to generally see the world more clearly. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today’s guest is the amazing Parker J Palmer. At age 82, he is one of the wisest souls I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet. It’s our luck that he’s written 10 books that share so much of this wisdom with heart, vulnerability, and authenticity. When I read his work, I know that we are all connected as humans, that we all are both whole and broken at the same time. He is a writer, speaker, activist, poet, founder, and Senior Partner Emeritus of the Center for Courage & Renewal. He has reached millions worldwide through his books, including the best-selling Healing the Heart of Democracy, Let Your Life Speak, The Courage to Teach, and A Hidden Wholeness. His latest bestseller is On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity, and Getting Old, which is what we discuss today. I devoured this book on my last birthday, feeling the weight of age and time passing. It was like wrapping myself up in a warm blanket. He also holds a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California at Berkeley and 13 honorary doctorates. He has won numerous awards, which are listed in our show notes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

4X NYT best-selling author, the hilarious and poignant AJ Jacobs, spent a year following every commandment in the Bible, to see what would happen. He then dove deep into gratitude by traveling around the globe to thank every person who had helped produce his morning coffee. In an incredibly interesting conversation, he shares his witty and profound insights from these experiments, and also teaches us what it takes to accomplish the things we want in our own lives, and gives us techniques we can use to motivate ourselves towards our goals. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today’s guest is writer, singer, songwriter and teacher, Marisa Handler. Marisa is the author of the memoir, Loyal to The Sky, and is a longtime spiritual practitioner and teacher in the Insight Meditation tradition. She’s also a Facilitator of The Work of Byron Katie. Marisa teaches creativity, meditation, and transformation at places like Stanford University, Spirit Rock Meditation Center, and California Institute of Integral Studies. Today we talk about her 9-month program called Live Your Creative Genius: Birth Your Most Brilliant Work where she integrates creativity, art, meditation, spirituality, and community. She shares how we can let go of old ways of creating, identify resistance and blocks that get in our way, open up a clear channel for our creative energy and vision all while finding and expressing our true creative voice. I especially like her ideas about confidence, trusting yourself as a creative, and knowing that what you have to say matters. You can find out more about her one-on-one coaching or her 9 month program at marisahandler.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the perfect Zen antidote to new year’s resolutions and planning and striving, Zen priest Rev Angel Kyodo Williams shows us the simplicity of returning to the self. To our enoughness. To the present moment. To our multiple and ever-changing purposes. To the joy that unfolds from just being, not doing, planning, or striving, and to the timelessness of the value of life- whatever year it is. This podcast offers a collective exhale to just be and take life as it is. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices