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  • How Heated Yoga Affects Overthinking and Builds Mindfulness

    How Heated Yoga Affects Overthinking and Builds Mindfulness

    Psychologist Maren Nyer studies the impact of heated yoga on depression and rumination. After experiencing its benefits firsthand during graduate school, Dr. Nyer led two clinical studies showing significant improvements in mood among people with depression who practiced heated yoga in community settings. Now, with support from Tiny Blue Dot Foundation, her team is conducting a new study to break down which elements of heated yoga are driving these effects, specifically looking at whether reducing rumination, or a constricted perception box state, is a key mechanism behind the positive changes she’s observed.

  • Relieving Chronic Pain by Helping People Transcend the Self

    Relieving Chronic Pain by Helping People Transcend the Self

    Researcher Adam Hanley studies self-concept complexity and self-transcendence in relation to chronic pain. Through his project, he explores how expanding a person’s sense of self beyond pain-centered identity can reduce both physical and emotional discomfort. By combining mindful breathing with direct pointing techniques that guide people toward experiencing awareness as expansive and interconnected, Dr. Hanley's work investigates new ways to help chronic pain patients reorganize their self-concept and develop greater resilience.

  • Does Breathing Resistance Training Relax The Body And Calm The Mind?

    Does Breathing Resistance Training Relax the Body and Calm The Mind?

    Researcher Paul Macey explores how inspiratory muscle training (IMT) can strengthen breathing muscles while expanding body awareness and well-being. Using simple devices that create resistance while inhaling, IMT helps people breathe more fully without requiring meditation or focused attention. His work looks at how this accessible, low-effort practice can improve both physical and mental health by helping people connect more consciously with their breath throughout daily life.

  • How Psychedelics Affect the Brain to Create Lasting Emotional Shifts

    How Psychedelics Affect the Brain to Create Lasting Emotional Shifts

    Neuroscientist Julia Sophia Crone studies whether the therapeutic effects of psychedelics for conditions like severe depression and anhedonia depend on the psychedelic experience itself. Her research explores using psychedelics alongside other medications to suppress perceptual effects while maintaining clinical benefits, with the goal of making treatment more accessible and scalable in medical settings.

  • Using Meditation and Brain Feedback to Release the Sense of Self

    Using Meditation and Brain Feedback to Release the Sense of Self

    Neuroscience researcher Aviva Berkovich-Ohana explores how expanding and softening self-boundaries through contemplative practices like meditation, psychedelics, and neurofeedback can impact perception, reduce bias, and support greater connectedness. This project bridges yogic traditions and neuroscience to investigate how flexible self-perception shapes individual and collective experience.

  • How the Brain Understands Emotion—and How That Could Help Us Heal

    How the Brain Understands Emotion—and How That Could Help Us Heal

    Dr. Chi Hung Jan shares research exploring how emotional perception influences mental health through the lens of Buddhist values and neuroscience. His work investigates how techniques like transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) can modulate brain activity to help treat depression by expanding perception and regulating emotional bias in a safe, non-invasive way.

  • How Breathwork Can Help Heal Trauma and Improve Mental Well-Being

    How Breathwork Can Help Heal Trauma and Improve Mental Well-Being

    Dr. Martha Nari Havenith explores how circular breathwork, a simple deep breathing technique, can induce altered states of consciousness similar to psychedelics. Dr. Havenith's work investigates how these states may help reshape emotional processing patterns related to trauma by examining potential neural mechanisms and long-term effects on mental health and self-perception.

  • A New Path to Healing: Psilocybin and the Future of Mental Health

    A New Path to Healing: Psilocybin and the Future of Mental Health

    Usona Institute’s mission is to advance psilocybin therapy through clinical research and FDA approval. Usona is developing training programs for healthcare professionals to support future delivery of psychedelic care. Through studies on depression and end-of-life anxiety, psilocybin can help expand perception, offering individuals new perspectives on themselves, life, and death.