KSSreads

Laughter the 2nd best medicine

 

CBC Ideas: with Paul Kennedy
Thursday, December 4

This is a lengthy but encouraging audio program concerning new thoughts in medicine. Laughter therapy among many other insights. This oncologist from Toronto is a prolific speaker and writer. He recently hosted a CBC theLens doc about 'humanism', "Good Without God". Share your thoughts and insights with me on this important topic...post a comment below>

LAUGHTER: THE SECOND BEST MEDICINE
Dr. Robert Buckman, author of Cancer is a Word, Not a Sentence , takes his science very seriously. But in an evening recorded at the CBC's Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto, he says that finding – and tickling – our funny bone is definitely good for our health.

About the Author: Robert Buckman, M.D., is a cancer specialist and a professor in the department of medicine at the University of Toronto, Ontario. He is also coauthor of Magic or Medicine? and What You Really Need to Know about Cancer. Also at QuillQuire-

Listen to this fascinating program from CBC Ideas:
http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/ideas_20081229_10167.mp3 mp3: runs 54:26

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-Read more about Dr. Buckman's writing.

-Buy Local at Mosaicbooks.ca







-The Lavin Agency presents Dr. Robert Buckman, one of the funniest speakers in the world and expert on inter-personal communications. ( YouTube )

-CBC theLens: Good Without God. Source: http://www.cbc.ca/thelens/program_090107.html
(CBC)

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Brain Changes itself- new resource

 

CBC- The Brain That Changes Itself

http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/natureofthings/2008/brainchangesitself/

The Brain that Changes Itself

Join us as we explore the revolutionary science of "neuroplasticity" - a concept that expands not just our knowledge of how our brains work, but how we use them.

For centuries the human brain has been thought of as incapable of fundamental change. People suffering from neurological defects, brain damage or strokes were usually written-off as hopeless cases. But recent and continuing research into the human brain is radically changing how we look at the potential for neurological recovery. Researchers are discovering that you can teach an old brain new tricks. It seems the organ is more flexible than scientists originally thought. CBC Radio talks with Dr. Norman Doidge, the psychiatrist who wrote The Brain that Changes Itself. Known in scientific circles as "neuroplasticity," this radical new approach to the brain provides an incredible way to bring the human brain back to life. Some of the cases that we meet are:

Roger Behm, a blind man who is now able to see via his tongue (and can throw a basketball into a garbage can to prove it).

Cheryl Schiltz, who was written-off by doctors when she lost her sense of balance due to a drug's side effect. Once sentenced to a lifetime of wobbling, her brain rewired itself through a seemingly simple therapy, and has now regained her balance and returned to a normal life.

Michelle Mack, one of the greatest examples of the brain's ability to adapt: she was born, literally, with just half of her brain.

Michael Bernstein, who suffered a debilitating stroke in the prime of his life, paralyzing the left side of his body. He's now back to his former life, as his brain functions have been rerouted and re-invigorated. ( CBC TV)

Watch : CBC Video:

Listen Online: audio (real)

Also see...KSS Books

CBC Docs- Fixing the Brain

CBC-theLens: Fixing the Brain
Premiering On: Tuesday November 18, 2008 at 10 pm ET/PT on CBC Newsworld

Fixing My Brain tells the dramatic story of Barbara Arrowsmith, a woman who fixed her own brain, and the journey of three learning-disabled boys who spent a year at her "brain bootcamp" in an effort to change the brain they were born with. The film examines the question: Are we stuck with the brains that we're born with, or is the brain a highly intelligent muscle, able to change itself through specific exercises?

Barbara Arrowsmith was born with a "broken brain". Although her brilliant memory had propelled her through a graduate degree, she still couldn't read a clock, tell right from left, or understand conversations in real time. Exhausted by the stress of hiding her weaknesses, she contemplated suicide. But she was ferociously determined to discover why her brain was "broken".

With extraordinary diligence, Barbara Arrowsmith fused several different strands of brain science and by using herself as a guinea pig - she fixed her own brain. Putting herself through a "brain boot camp" for twelve hours a day over many months, she used her self-created exercises to stimulate the weak areas of her brain and achieved extraordinary results. Finally, she was able to tell time, understand logic and understand conversations in real time. When Barbara tried to share her success with educators they branded her a charlatan - because at that time, (the late 1970s) people believed that the brain was hard-wired and the brain's abilities could not be changed. So Barbara opened her own school, Arrowsmith School, to help students with learning dysfunctions. Fixing My Brain also follows the courageous journey of three learning-disabled boys as they face the challenges of re-wiring their brains.

"Fixing My Brain challenges our preconceptions of who we are, how we learn and how we teach our children. It examines the exhilarating possibility that we truly can change our destiny by learning how to change the pathways of our brain," says award-winning writer and director Christina Pochmursky.

Barbara Arrowsmith's training system is still the only one of its kind in the world and her role as a visionary leader in education is only now being acknowledged.
( CBC )

  Watch Video preview: http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/thelens/2008/fixingmybrain/#
Listen to backgrounder> http://www.cbc.ca/thesundayedition/media/doidge_se070429.ram

Sources:
http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/thelens/2008/fixingmybrain/
http://www.arrowsmithschool.org/index.html