What I Learned From Maria Shriver

By Dharma Singh Khalsa, MD

Last week I participated in a great webinar called Brain It On. Clever name for a very serious conference. The conference was sponsored by Maria Shriver’s organization called the Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement (WAM) and actor and comedian Seth Rogen and his wife Lauren Miller Rogen’s organization, Hilarity for Charity (HFC). 

What I covered is very important for your health and wellbeing, but before I get into detail about my presentation, I’d like to point out that 3 members of our Scientific Advisory Council played an important role in the conference that day.

Richard Isaacson, M.D., founder and director of the Alzheimer’s Prevention Clinic at Weill Cornell Medicine and New York-Presbyterian was a keynote speaker.

Additional speakers were Lisa Mosconi, Ph.D. author of The XX Brain which is about preventing Alzheimer’s in Women, as well as the Assistant Director of the same program as Dr. Isaacson, and Annie Fenn, M.D., an expert in women’s health, nutrition, and Alzheimer’s disease.

We are thrilled that your ARPF was so well represented at this very important event.

I was asked to speak as part of a panel discussion on our work on integrative medicine, our research on Kirtan Kriya memory meditation, as well as our latest published article in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease called “Spiritual Fitness: A New Dimension in Alzheimer’s Prevention.”

I discussed the key points of Nutritional Fitness, Stress Fitness, Physical Fitness, where I highlighted strength training in addition to cardiovascular workouts, as being critically important to maintain both your physical fitness and brain health.

As you’ll soon discover, I also spoke about our latest research paper on Spiritual Fitness.

The moderator, Mallika Chopra, Dr. Deepak Chopra’s daughter and esteemed author in her own right, also asked me to share our work on Kirtan Kriya, which has many positive benefits on memory, mental health, genetic enhancement, and the creation of psychological and spiritual well-being.

Your development of well-being and Spiritual Fitness is what I like to call The Evolution Revolution because it requires your commitment to living a brain longevity lifestyle, including the regular practice of meditation.

I shared something I had recently read by a great master who lived about 600 years ago who wrote, “Slowly, slowly, ever slowly, the amrit nectar trickles down.” In other words, Rome wasn’t built in a day.

It takes time and persistence to develop spirituality. But it is so worth it because as I write in my article mentioned above, people who have a religious or spiritual aspect to their lives actually have a reduced incidence of Alzheimer’s disease.

In addition, when you have a Purpose In Life (PIL), which is a key aspect of psychological well-being, you also reduce your Alzheimer’s risk. What I revealed to the audience is that we all actually have the same purpose: to rediscover our own divine spiritual essence– who we really are deep inside. This essence has been covered up by years of stress and other aspects of living and it’s awesome when we meditate, pray, attend the service of our choice, practice altruism or spend time in nature and finally say hello to that hidden part of ourself once again.

After that, whatever you decide to do will help you leave a legacy and define your destiny.

Finally, I shared our latest research project called The Pink Brain™ Project at UCLA, which is investigating how kundalini yoga and Kirtan Kriya may prevent Alzheimer’s disease in high-risk women. A high-risk woman is defined as one in menopause, who has heart disease (a risk factor) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI).

The study is concluded, the results look good, and papers will be written this summer. So stay tuned.

This was a great conference and we’re very happy to have played such an important part. The program producer was also happy to have us and sent us a very nice email after the conference. We look forward to further collaboration with HFC and WAM.

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