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The One Thing Deepak Chopra Wants You to Do to Be Healthier

I remember when the email landed in our inbox. Did we want to do an interview with Dr. Deepak Chopra for his signature Seduction of Spirit event in Toronto this August?

Um, YEAH. Yeah, we do.

I have been a Deepak fan for years! I started getting into the yoga and hippity stuff way back in high school and college, and Deepak’s books were some of the first I read from the whole spirtitual self-help section of the library. And I’ve been a fan ever since! I (and Tish!) do his meditations with Oprah, I have his workout DVD with Tara Stiles and I continue to read his books. The dude just preaches the truth — and totally demystifies what it is to be “spiritual.” Love him!

So, yeah, I’m still geeking out that we got to pick his enlightened brain. From details on his upcoming event, to his best advice for weight-loss to the one thing we should all be doing every day, get ready for the fit wisdom!

Interview With Deepak Chopra

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Can you tell us a little about the Seduction of Spirit event and what you’ll be speaking about there? Yes! Seduction of Spirit is a week-long meditation and yoga retreat that we have been offering at the Chopra Center for more than a decade. It’s an opportunity for both those who are new to meditation and yoga, as well those with an established practice, to share in the collective energy of peace, harmony, laughter and love that is created when a large group of people come together with a common intention for expanded wellbeing. Seduction of Spirit is one of my favorite events because if we want greater peace and wellbeing in our lives and in the world, the first step is transforming our awareness — and one of the most powerful ways to do that is by spending time in the inner quiet of meditation and yoga. At our upcoming Seduction of Spirit in Toronto, we will be focusing on the theme of creating a more peaceful, just and sustainable world. I will be speaking on that topic and sharing tools and practices that we can all use every day to move from a constricted state of stress, fear and conflict to an expanded state of balance, love and peace.

The event is being called “the meditation event of the year.” Why is meditation important and how can anyone try it today? Meditation is important for many reasons, including our physical health and vitality, emotional balance and spiritual evolution. When we meditate, we enter a state of deep restful awareness that dissolves fatigue and the accumulated stress that accelerates aging and contributes to disease. We now know that the regular practice of meditation can lower blood pressure, reduce anxiety and depression, decrease insomnia, and strengthen immune function. New studies, including those being carried out at the Chopra Center, are also finding that meditation even influences our genes, “turning off” the bad ones and “turning on” the good ones. In addition to all of these benefits, the deep state of rest produced by meditation triggers the brain to release neurotransmitters that enhance feelings of wellbeing, focus and equanimity, including dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin and endorphins. Meditation choreographs the simultaneous release of these neurotransmitters, something that no single drug can do — and all without side effects! There is a myth that meditation is difficult to learn, but that is not true. Anyone can learn to meditation and experience the benefits.

Getting healthy and losing weight is as mental as it is physical. Do you have any tips or advice for helping to get into a healthy mindset? Yes, I have just written a book — What Are You Hungry For? — that focuses on the physical, mental/emotional, and spiritual aspects of losing weight and getting healthy. It all begins with cultivating self-awareness. In most cases, when we’ve gained excess weight or are having trouble losing weight, it’s because we’re eating for reasons other than physical hunger. We may have unmet emotional or spiritual needs — such as the need for comfort, safety, love, fulfillment, creativity and so on — that will never be satisfied with cookies or potato chips. The first step to permanent weight-loss and health is to become aware of what we are truly hungry for. As we begin to satisfy our true hungers, it will be much easier to let go of old habits of overeating or eating foods that don’t nourish us.

If everyone could do one single thing to make them healthier, what would that one thing be? Meditate. Even if you just begin by spending 10 minutes a day in inner quiet, you will be amazed by how much that will help you in every area of your life.

Do you meditate? Are you a Deepak fan, too? —Jenn

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Comments

4 Comments
  1. It’s easy to forget about the mental contribution to weight loss and physical fitness. Running is like kind of meditation for me but spending 10 minutes a day in inner quiet is a much deeper type of meditation. Can’t wait to start back! Thanks for the article – inspiring.

  2. Erika says:

    I loooove Deepak Chopra! I’ve been really into his teachings since I saw him on Oprah several years ago. I would love to be able to visit the Chopra Center one day. Total dream.

  3. Mental fitness is as important as physical fitness. We can achieve a good mental fitness through meditation. Mediation helped me a lot. It increased my confidence, increased access to conscious mind, helped to control my emotions and so on. Thank you for sharing this post about the importance of meditation and Deepak Chopra

  4. In digging up secrets I came upon a lesser secret called the “lost word”. It is the sound of the cylinder, and it stirs closed circuitry in the brain that can be brought by the brain into confluency with the closed circuit that is our entity and thus almost completely undifferentiate it. It bypasses the veil that veils off the pleasure of deep sleep and other common causes of unconsciousness. This almost complete undifferentiation is experienced to be a satisfaction of all desires. Then it can be perceived that this is the inner heart of all pleasures.
    This sound of the cylinder is pronounced “eyennn”, like the German word for one, “ein”. Pay attention to this sound and you will perceive what I mean. In Hebrew this sound is the onomatopoeic word, which is spelled “aleph yod nun”, and translated into Latin script “ain”, which in Hebrew means “nothingness”, a well (a hollow cylinder), a ring, and an eye, for when meditating on it you will see a series of concentric circles, like an eye, inside your eyelids, of the rainbow of colors, with black in the center, then violet around the black, blue, green, yellow, orange, red, and dark brown on the outside.
    Soon, you may want nonexistence too, knowing that it is eternal fulfillment, especially if meditation upon the lost word is the most available form of relief available you have.

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