I’d like to tell you the story of an apprehensive pack of lab rodents that have been able to teach us something profound about stress. If you’ve seen my film The Connection you will have heard a little about these animals, which were studied by scientists at the National Centre for Biological Sciences.   In a series of studies, the Indian researchers took lab rats and restrained them for two hours a day, for ten days to stress them out. The scientists observed that the animals started acting anxiously even when they weren’t being constrained. When they were placed in... Read full article »

Some people call it the hangries. Others call it food fury. In my house it’s called the Shan Monster and my husband generally gets a fifteen-minute warning before she starts spitting venom. The only way to fend her off is to feed her. Fast.   I know I’m not alone when I confess to being grumpy when I’m underfed and this week I’ve found myself looking into the science of how being nutritionally deprived can set off mood changes in my brain. It’s an amazing example of the mind body connection and it’s fascinating.   If you’ve seen my feature... Read full article »

You would expect the business card of a man who was one of the first people to be employed by Google to read Head Programmer or Manager of Digital Innovation, but when Chade-Meng Tan handed me his card, it gave him the title of ‘Jolly Good Fellow’ with a subtitle ‘Which nobody can deny.’   Meng’s job description at Google is to enlighten minds, open hearts and create world peace. He was awarded this noble position after he spent his 20% time - the time Google engineers are allowed to spend on something other than their regular job, developing a... Read full article »

In just seven days I will be competing for a coveted prize. Like many challenges worth setting one’s mind to, the actual winnings are not as valuable as the prestige of triumph. The competition will be fierce and although to a certain extent the outcome will be out of my control (I have my suspicions that it may be rigged), I will compete wholeheartedly in hopes I am victorious.   To win, one must be the recipient of a whole almond in one’s Christmas rice pudding. One must consume one’s pudding in its entirety without chewing too vigorously or one... Read full article »

I had the great pleasure of spending last weekend with a group of people who had just been through an amazing transformative experience.   All week they had been eating amazingly healthy food, exercising, meditating and practicing mindful activities like Tai Chi and Yoga. They had no alcohol, caffeine or chocolate, which some of you might think sounds like torture, but these people all had the healthy-shiny-glowy look of well people.   They’d been through a program at The Golden Door health retreat and it culminated with a screening of my film The Connection, followed by a Q and A... Read full article »

There is one sentence in the English language guaranteed to trigger a stress response in my body and a friend said it to me the other day.  ‘There are just four weeks until Christmas.’  I instantly felt panic rising in my body with thoughts like ‘I haven’t bought any presents,’ ‘There goes my diet,’ and ‘Here come the late nights.’   To me, the modern version of the ‘Silly Season’ seems completely out of whack with the origins of many of the traditions that we celebrate. In the US, it starts with Thanksgiving and then the rest of the world... Read full article »