Dear Ones, the year is ending. What do you remember from your childhood? Think of those memories.
There are so many different memories. Start with what makes you happy.
- Comfort from your mother, father, grandma or Grandpa, when you fell down.
- Your birthday, cake and presents.
- Looking at the flowers and fruits in the garden or forest.
- Your first pet.
- Eating left overs, which do not taste like what they are made from.
- Having ice-cream on a hot day.
- Making a wish with an eyelash or looking at the shooting star.
- Your teacher and how you were taught.
- Winning or losing.
- Then as one grows older, your first crush. How you felt when your liking was returned or not returned.
- Sharing your sweets and good things with others.
Your list can go on. I have given happy memories but unhappy memories also add to our treasure trove. Memories enable us to understand ourselves better and we learn from them. Make your own list. Laugh and cry.
What do our memories do for us?
They are our brain’s way of storing and recalling past experiences, from fleeting sensory moments to long term skills and they form, who we are and shape our future. They involve conscious recall and unconscious learning. It is processed in the hippocampus.
The hippocampus is a crucial brain structure in the medial temporal lobe, shaped like a seahorse, vital for learning, memory, especially converting short-term memory to long-term, spatial navigation, and linking emotions to experiences.
Yogic sadhanas effect the hippocampus. Practice stimulates the vagus nerve and improves the autonomic balance and stress regulation. Lastly Yoga Nidra helps consolidate memory and resets stress pathways. Yogic Sadhana enable us by increasing the hippocampal volume and thereby combat age-related brain changes and diseases like Alzheimer.
Aim Hrim Klim
Photo by Paul Hewart on Unsplash