Stimulate your brain with simple yoga

By Virginia Linn, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

If you're among the 2 percent of Pittsburgh's population too young to receive AARP magazine, you may have missed this essential tip to boost your brain function.

It's a simple yoga position that -- if practiced properly, and that's very important -- "is like putting more gas in your brain's tank," according to Eugenius Ang, a neurobiologist who was trained at Yale University.

But it sure looks silly.

The ancient Indian technique, promoted by Grand Master Choa Kok Sui, a Filipino-Chinese scientist and teacher, is supposed to develop and increase a person's intellectual capacity and sharpen memory and concentration. The exercise, according to preliminary studies, has helped improve concentration among children diagnosed with autism and/or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. But it can help anyone of any age, he contends.

It all has to do with energy connection and ear acupuncture, with the right ear lobe corresponding to the left brain and the left ear lobe corresponding with the right brain.

Here's how to do it:

First, place your left hand on your right earlobe, with the left thumb on the outside of the lobe (facing away from you) and left index finger on the inside. This is supposed to create an energy connection that causes the left brain and pituitary gland to become energized and activated.

Then with your right hand, grasp your left earlobe in the same position as the other side. The right arm must be outside the left arm when they're crossed (which is supposed to help energy travel upward to the brain).

Gently press both earlobes simultaneously.

As you're pressing the earlobes, squat down, keeping your back straight, and do 10 to 12 deep bends (but don't kill your knees). While doing this, inhale through the nose on the way down and exhale through the mouth coming up.

AARP suggests placing a chair underneath yourself in case you lose your balance.

Oh, and repeat this exercise daily.

You can learn more about this exercise at www.superbrainyoga.com or in the book by the same name by Choa Kok Sui, published by the Institute for Inner Studies. Master Sui is known as the founder of the modern Pranic healing techniques, which is a way of harnessing the body's vital force and using it to balance and harmonize your strength and energy.