334: The Brain, Meditation, Sleep and Muse with Ariel Garten
The Adult Chair Podcast with Michelle Chalfant
Michelle Chalfant
4.9 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 29 September 2022
⏱️ 46 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
You guys know I'm a huge believer in meditation for its emotional and spiritual benefits. It's one of the greatest tools I've found for personal growth and living a more peaceful life.
But it turns out that meditation also has a major impact on the brain, from our fear response to how well we sleep at night. In this show, we take a deeper look at meditation through the lens of neuroscience alongside neuroscientist and brain expert Ariel Garten.
In this fascinating show with a fascinating guest, Ariel talks about what meditation is (and what it's not), the benefits of meditation and how it positively affects the brain – backed by tons of research and data. And in case the studies she cites aren't enough, she actually invented a smart headband called Muse that monitors brain activity and gives you biofeedback to help you calm your busy mind, sleep better and measure the real benefits of a meditation practice! How cool is that?!
This episode will give you the scoop on all the science behind fear, how our brains get wired for anxiety, how the brain contributes to sleep and the power to choose thoughts that heal our brain instead of hurting it.
Listen to discover:
- What meditation is and what it does for the brain
- How to get started with a meditation practice
- The benefits of meditation (with data to prove it)
- The amygdala, the fight or flight response and how it connects to meditation
- What happens to the brain during sleep + the two mechanisms that govern sleep
- The 5 essentials of a good night's sleep
- The neuroscience of anxiety
I absolutely love when science helps back up and explain ancient wisdom, and there's no arguing with the info Ariel shares. We NEED to be meditating as humans!
If you don't currently meditate, start small (even 5 or 10 minutes a day has major brain-boosting benefits) and consider using tools like Muse to help you build a habit. I promise you won't regret it!
"Meditation is not a weird or woo woo thing. Meditation is a practice or a training that leads to healthy and positive mind states." - Ariel Garten
"Meditation is a practice. It's not something we can ever master." - Michelle Chalfant
"Meditation is about learning to observe your thinking and then be able to make a different choice." - Ariel Garten
"Our amygdala is really there to save us from the bad things in the world, but it goes way overboard." - Ariel Garten
"Just eight weeks of meditation led to actual change in the brain." -Â Ariel Garten
"The trick with anxiety is just to realize it's just a broken alarm." - Ariel Garten
"In meditation, you have the thoughts that come. You rise up above them. You notice that you're having thoughts and you don't get sucked in." - Ariel Garten
"We forget how powerful we are, that we can actually choose our thoughts." - Michelle Chalfant
"We fall victim to our thoughts all the time." - Michelle Chalfant
"One of the things that may be happening in somebody who has a hyper-reactive emotional state is that they've spent a long time engaging with that emotional state." - Ariel Garten
"The thoughts in your mind and the emotions in your body don't need to trap you into yourself and into a small way of living your life." - Ariel Garten
LINKS & RESOURCES
Muse
Use code POD10 for 10% off
Muse Social Media
@choosemuse
Ariel Garten Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/ariels_musings
Untangle (Ariel Garten podcast)
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/untangle/id1073460738
The Adult Chair Workshop Nashville: November 3-5, 2022
https://theadultchair.com/nashville
MORE ADULT CHAIR
The Adult Chair® Website
The Adult Chair® Membership
https://theadultchair.com/membership/
The Adult Chair® Events
https://theadultchair.com/events/
The Adult Chair® Coaching Certification
https://theadultchair.com/certification
STAY CONNECTED
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themichellechalfant
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheMichelleChalfant/
The Adult Chair® Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/theadultchair/
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hi, I'm Michelle Shelfand, psychotherapist, holistic life coach, and human just like you, |
| 0:09.4 | learning to navigate life challenges. |
| 0:11.8 | With over 25 years experience, I teach people how to get healthy using the adult chair model. |
| 0:17.6 | The adult chair model is where simple psychology meets grounded spirituality, and it teaches |
| 0:23.0 | us how to become healthy adults. |
| 0:26.2 | From anxiety and depression to codependency and relationship issues, you can use the |
| 0:30.4 | adult chair for just about anything. |
| 0:33.7 | Each week, I share practical tips, tools and advice from myself and a wide range of experts |
| 0:40.0 | on how to get unstuck, how to live authentically, and how to truly love yourself, all while |
| 0:45.7 | sitting in your adult chair. |
| 0:48.8 | Welcome to the adult chair podcast. |
| 0:52.8 | Hello, everybody, and welcome to the adult chair podcast. |
| 0:57.3 | I am Michelle Shelfand, happy to be here with you on the final Thursday in September. |
| 1:05.2 | Yes, indeed. |
| 1:06.2 | This month flew by, and also just five short weeks until we do the last adult chair workshop. |
| 1:15.8 | The last adult chair live event is happening in Nashville, Tennessee, November 3rd through |
| 1:22.2 | 5th. |
| 1:23.2 | We would love to have you. |
| 1:24.6 | If you love this model and you want to learn more about it and you want to learn really |
| 1:28.8 | how to use it for yourself, this is the place to come. |
| 1:34.6 | It's a very, very experiential workshop. |
| 1:37.0 | You will learn a lot. |
... |
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