(Editor’s note: The full event video and more photos are available on IBREA Foundation’s Facebook page.)
Ilchi Lee, IBREA’s founder, whose latest book is titled “I’ve Decided to Live 120 Years”, delivered his presentation wearing a ball cap with the prominent numbers 120 on the brim. It’s how many happy, healthy years he plans to live and he urged his audience to do the same: think of an exact number of years you plan to live, and let that direct how you live your life and the choices you make. With a goal like that it mind, you’re most likely to wake up your brain and get it together, health being the primary focus. Mr. Lee emphasized how we can’t leave our health in the hands of the medical system, supporting Dr. Wright’s patient-centered approach. We have to take charge of our own bodies and minds. Exhibiting the “map of consciousness” developed by Dr. Hawkins, Mr. Lee explained how in a normal mental state, we would be level 200, and that the mental states which we consider to be problematic (mental disorders) probably lie around 100 or below, with emotions such as shame, guilt, apathy. He questioned how our current educational methods might actually be feeding those kinds of emotions, by administering constant tests and keep evaluating the students when many of them might not be ready for it emotionally. But since systems take time to change, what we can do, rather than focusing on changing the systems, is focus on individuals and their own protection from mental and physical distress. He emphasized how the key for us as individuals to stay awake and be protected from disease, is focus. In order to focus, we need to activate our energy and increase our body temperature by at least half a degree, and do this often — every one hour or so. He gave this “gift” or “magic recipe” for health to the audience and had them experience it by rubbing their hands fast and strong for a minute.
Dr. Glenn Saxe, NYU professor of child and adolescent psychiatry found his calling when he worked with adult patients and imagined what it would be like if he were able to treat them for trauma they suffered in their childhood. As a result, he has studied post-traumatic stress disorder, a condition in which the brain feels it is constantly under attack, making it hard to live a happy and productive life. At the conference he discussed his method of treatment called trauma systems therapy, which focuses not only on the patient but the community in which they live and work — seeking to improve life for not only the individual, but for everyone they regularly interact with.
Dr. Nim Tottenham, Ph.D., who works at the developmental neuroscience lab at Columbia University, has long been fascinated by the development of the amygdala in prefrontal cortex as it alters throughout one’s childhood and adolescence. Using fMRI technology, she found a strong linkage between the development of these parts of the brain and early experiences — if her patients had a stressful childhood or if they were well-cared for. She has also studied the brains of parents as they developed — finding that limbic systems were healthier in the brains of caregivers.
The event’s host, IBREA FOUNDATION, will be opening a Holistic Training Center in Harlem in Spring 2018, with an approach that will focus on natural, preventive and proactive ways so that members of the community can take ownership of their physical and mental health. At the event, IBREA also exhibited the results of the implementation of its brain based holistic education in a high school in Harlem, and the kids from the program confidently led the 300-plus crowd in the audience through some of the exercises. Their energy said it all: Stay woke, y’all! Own your health!
(Editor’s note: The full event video and more photos are available on IBREA Foundation’s Facebook page.)
