doctor tea

The moment the woman who savored birdsong was wheeled into the classroom she asked me if we were going to be listening to birds again. It had been three weeks since we’d listened to my mockingbird and bluejay recordings, and the experience had clearly stuck with her, because from that point forward every time I saw her she greeted me with a plea for more birdsong. Last Thursday was no exception.

the woman who swayed to music

Last year I treated a woman who was in a minimally conscious state. This is what it's called when a brain has been so severely injured that it's hard to get more than primitive reflex responses from that person, and that person is able to perform only very basic behaviors, like reaching for an object that's wiggled in front of the face.

peacefulness isn't a lozenge

I was lining up groceries on the conveyor belt when some candy on the rack caught my eye. STRESS LOZENGES — 30 PER BOX. I had to chuckle. Peacefulness isn’t a lozenge. Peacefulness isn’t something you buy in a box and swallow. It’s something you do, a little bit every day, over and over and over until it becomes a habit. In other words, peacefulness is something you practice. That’s where I come in.

final logo

tell me about the time you got upset with your kids and threw away all their toys

photo: jetheriot

When I was a kid I loved toys. I played with action figures until I was in the ninth grade. I loved moving their arms and their legs around and coming up with all these stories. In my mind they all had personalities. And they all had their place in the hierarchy of my toy box. I took really good care of them, knowing that I’d give them to my own kids one day. Vintage Matchbox cars from the 60s, action figures, cool stuff like that.

the difference between breathing and thinking about breathing

A teacher of shamatha meditation, after instructing a newcomer in the proper sitting posture, proceeds to the second instruction. The abbreviated form of this instruction goes something like this: "Having assumed the proper posture, now place your attention on the breath." Or, "Begin to notice the breath." The gist of the second instruction is to bring greater awareness to the breath, the vital fluid whose passage through your tissues, for the most part, escapes your attention, fading into the background unnoticed.

you gotta have a tingle

With a peaceful exercise and a duration selected from the two drop-down menus, the user of the app establishes a daily practice goal, for example, “I will enjoy tea mindfully for five minutes each day.”

a smartphone is the opposite of a bubble bath

jetheriot

the level of the whole human being

IN ONE SENSE there’s a clear boundary around the brain. Reach into a cracked-open skull, peel away some membranes, and you can wrap your hands all the way around one. And in school diagrams, it’s clear where the brain stops and the rest of the body begins. The brain is that pillowy ball of pink, sometimes with a tiny tail at the bottom, sometimes not, floating in the middle of the head. In one sense, there’s a clear boundary around the brain. That boundary is an illusion.

prosthetic memory

A pink balloon pops in front of your face -- pop -- and on a fragment of slate with a piece of chalk you write SEPTEMBER 15. A PINK BALLOON POPPED.

bracing the vine

schematic for a german pillbox

A human being is like a growing vine. By providing a latticework around which a growing vine is encouraged to wrap itself, a structure may constrain the pathways of the vine, limiting it to certain directions, curving it where it needs curving, straightening it where it needs straightening.

i made it all the way to the top

replacement parts for the brain

If your plastic doll lost one of her legs in a playground accident, you could pop it back into her hip socket. Even if her leg were badly mangled by a lawnmower or melted off with a blowtorch, you could order a replacement from a toy warehouse in China. Snap the new leg on -- she’s as good as she ever was.

hijacking jennifer aniston

Few hand-held objects can compete with the allure of the smartphone. Has there been a more enticing hand-toy in the history of the planet? The greenest, most gleaming emerald in the world wouldn’t hold anyone’s attention for more than a minute or two these days, and a compact mirror will eventually bore even the vainest among us. Smartphones, on the other hand, we see every day, and we never tire of looking at them. We marvel at the beauty of smartphones.

making meditation more accessible

The idea that meditation can positively impact one's mood and quality of life finds support, albeit limited, in the scientific literature. And since mood and quality of life can suffer greatly after significant damage to the brain, meditation is a potentially useful treatment in brain injury rehabilitation. But because of the particular learning styles and cognitive impairments that characterize the brain-injured patient, it needs to be made more accessible before it can become a practical and effective mode of treatment.

interview with a stroke survivor

Q: What happened to bring you to Touchstone?

A: I had a brain clot. The right side of my brain was damaged and my entire left side was paralyzed. I can move it now, but I have no feeling in it. I was in the ICU for about a month. Touch and go.

about the app

tingle in g major

this is where you start

People are always asking me to recommend books on meditation. They say they're interested in learning more about it, but don't know where to start. Maybe this describes you. If so, my advice to you is this. You'll learn more about meditation by doing it than by reading about it. Learning how to meditate is like learning how to dance. You learn it only by doing it.

the brush

THE FEW MINUTES you spend each day moving a toothbrush against your teeth and gums you’d probably rather spend doing something else, but you make it a priority, because if you didn’t, food particles would accumulate, carbohydrates would wear away your enamel, and eventually cavities would form, causing pain or loss of teeth. So you brush them every day.

8 peaceful habits

coconuts of peacefulness

I SPOKE as I poured Moroccan mint tea, steaming, into seven small glass teacups. “A doctor could prescribe coconuts if he wanted to . . . ” I let the words hang in the air.

banana prescriptions

photo: jetheriot

One great thing about medication prescriptions is that they're standardized. There's a blank where the doctor fills in the name of the patient, an empty space where he writes out how many pills to take and how many times a day to take them, and a blank where he signs his name. The symbols may seem strange, but they have precise meanings, and they communicate very specific instructions.

the magic wand & the long hard road

A doctor can treat a patient using either of two approaches: a “magic wand” approach or a “long hard road” approach.

my daily practice

App for iPhone and iPad based on this design will be available in June.

the opposite of stress ball

my daily practice

photo: jetheriot

This double-sided bookmark is a tool for cultivating peacefulness. Based on enduring principles of rehabilitation such as repetition and incentivization, the design provides a framework for identifying a daily peaceful practice and keeping track of your progress in meeting this goal.

the opposite of stress ball

photo: jetheriot

Stress balls are squishy toys you hold in the palm of your hand. The idea is that they’re helpful for relieving stress, that squeezing them repeatedly is calming. Problem is, they don’t work. In fact, they do the exact opposite of what they claim.