Body Centred Living

11/10/2026

The lovely thing is the option to use a pose to rest and allow regulation when needed or use it to activate muscles to improve the functionality of a joint. All is good when awareness and conscious choice are present!

10/10/2026

Yes, this is a way to move: no sense of purpose, no external cues or preconceived plan. Natural, spontaneous and with nature.

We tend to assume action begins with deliberation: weighing options, reasoning, then choosing.

But Chinese philosophy suggests something different: Daoist texts like the Zhuangzi describe agency without a reflective self at all, no detached rationalising, just spontaneous, effortless action in tune with nature.

Philosopher of cognitive science Brian Bruya argues that as well as this being a more accurate account of how action actually feels., it also sits far more comfortably with recent cognitive science than the Western ideal of reasoned choice, which he traces back to mistakes originating with Aristotle.

Read the full article here. https://iai.tv/articles/chinas-radical-philosophy-of-action-free-will-and-the-self-auid-3340

08/10/2026

With more philosophers questioning realist and postmodernist stances, metamodernism is on the rise: a new outlook promising a combination of irony and sincerity, truth and commitment.

In this debate with Hilary Lawson and Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm, Linda Martin Alcoff defends a realist approach to knowledge, and is sceptical of both postmodernism and metamodernism.

Professor of Philosophy at City University, New York, in 2021 she was ranked the third-most influential philosopher in the world.

Tap here to watch the full debate now. https://iai.tv/video/the-metamodernist-turn

06/10/2026

The really interesting part is that it isn’t simply “pressure on the shin somehow helps the brain.” It appears to be a bone–brain signalling system:

Mechanical force → bone cells → bloodstream → brain

* The researchers repeatedly compressed the tibia (shinbone) in mice with traumatic brain injury.
* The bone contains osteocytes, living cells embedded throughout the bone.
* Those cells have a mechanical-sensing channel called PIEZO1. When the bone experiences force, PIEZO1 detects it.
* The osteocytes then changed what they released into the circulation, including HSP70, IL-1R2 and APOL11a, while systemic levels of BDNF, PF4 and dopamine also increased.
* The treated animals showed less neuronal loss, less chronic inflammation and better motor and cognitive performance.
* Crucially, when the researchers removed PIEZO1 specifically from the osteocytes, the beneficial effect of bone compression largely disappeared. That is quite strong evidence that the mechanical sensing in bone is actually part of the mechanism.

And they didn’t stop at mice. They replicated important findings in pigs, which is one reason this is more interesting than a typical mouse-only result.

But there is a very important distinction

The experiment doesn’t mean that we should start firmly pressing our own shinbones for a few minutes every day.

But there’s a beautiful connection to what we already know about movement

This makes the idea of movement as biochemical communication even more interesting.

We’ve traditionally thought:

brain → nerves → muscles → movement

But this is suggesting another direction:

movement/mechanical force → bone → biochemical signals → brain

In other words, your skeleton isn’t just the scaffolding that carries you around. It is a mechanically responsive endocrine organ.

And that has potentially enormous implications for rehabilitation, particularly after periods of immobility. The authors describe the finding as establishing a bone–brain axis in which bone’s endocrine function can be altered by mechanical forces.

somatic approaches are interested in how physical experience can influence nervous-system state. I think the broader implication is particularly interesting: the body’s mechanical environment may be sending much more information to the brain than we’ve appreciated.

Firmly pressing down on shin bones for just a few minutes every day drastically improved movement and cognition in mice and pigs one week after they had a traumatic brain injury. The intervention stimulates bone cells that are sensitive to physical force, causing them to release substances that promote good brain health.

“This is big news to me, as it reveals a previously underappreciated bone-brain communication system, and could potentially lead to new therapeutic approaches in the future,” says Kristian Franze at the Max Planck Center for Physics and Medicine in Germany, who wasn’t involved in the work.

Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2591964-compressing-bones-releases-molecules-that-ease-traumatic-brain-injuries/

Image: JOSE CALVO/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

06/10/2026

Science light and the brain.

06/10/2026

I don’t like to say it but.. Duh! 🙄

😆

05/10/2026

For a long time, doctors thought it was just a series of fragmented tissue flaps. However, in 2016, medical researchers officially reclassified the mesentery as a single, continuous organ.

Here is what we now know about it:

• What it is: It is a continuous, fan-shaped fold of tissue (peritoneum) that attaches your intestines to the back wall of your abdomen.

• Its main job: It acts like an anchor, keeping your small and large intestines securely in place so they don't twist or collapse into your pelvis when you stand up or move around.

• Its hidden network: It isn't just empty tissue; it acts as a massive highway system, carrying essential blood vessels, nerves, and lymph nodes directly to and from your digestive tract.

And in yoga: think about all the sensations your gut gives you when you hug in, squeeze, twist, stretch and turn upside down! 🙃

The deep gut is part of your yoga even if you never noticed before.

05/10/2026

What does this pose do that makes it so supportive for women’s health? Like much of yoga one has to experience it to know the answer.

Sri Krishnamacharya often recommended the practice of Mahamudra for various issues related to women’s health. Mahamudra works the body in a unique way. The key focus in the movement is the positioning of the spine and the breathing pattern.

It is classified as a Mudra because we can practise the bandhas in it. However, Mahamudra need not necessarily be practised only with bandhas. It can be adapted and practised without the bandhas. To personalise it, we can work with the placement of the hands and shoulders, the position of the head and neck, the angle of the foot against the thigh, etc.

At the same time, it is an asana that requires careful preparation over time because, without proper preparation of the spine and the breath, it will not be possible to reap the benefits or deepen the intention of the asana.

👉 Learn more about Mahamudra and its benefits in our Yoga for Women course. Click the link in the first comment for more information.

05/10/2026