According to a newly-released study, those crazy people who regularly rise perkily, happily, and unfathomably early in the morning might just do so due to a genetic mutation.  No, really!  We’re not making this up, we promise. The esteemed publication Science Journal is reporting that the varying amounts of sleep that different people require is most likely linked to a genetic cause, and that rising early and shorter sleep times are correlated with specific genetic mutations:

And now they say they have found the first genetic mutation in humans that appears to affect sleep duration rather than sleep timing. The mutation lies in DEC2, a gene that codes for a protein that helps turn off expression of other genes, including some that control circadian rhythm, the internal clock that regulates a person’s sleep-wake cycle.

We think it’s wonderful that 6:30am yoga classes like Mysore-Style Ashtanga exist for the mutants out there , but for our part, we’re thankful that afternoon and evening classes are offered as well!

[Science Journal]

It’s wonderful that many of us (yogis and otherwise) are hip to the food activist cause, but today we’re celebrating the fact that the venerable mainstream news establishment TIME Magazine just published a lengthy five-page article about the reality of the industrialized food system. TIME Magazine, guys! This is big-time. From the article:

The U.S. agricultural industry can now produce unlimited quantities of meat and grains at remarkably cheap prices. But it does so at a high cost to the environment, animals and humans… Add to the price tag the acceleration of global warming — our energy-intensive food system uses 19% of U.S. fossil fuels, more than any other sector of the economy.

And perhaps worst of all, our food is increasingly bad for us, even dangerous….

Some Americans are heeding such warnings and working to transform the way the country eats — ranchers and farmers who are raising sustainable food in ways that don’t bankrupt the earth. Documentaries like the scathing Food Inc. and the work of investigative journalists like Eric Schlosser and Michael Pollan are reprising Sinclair’s work, awakening a sleeping public to the uncomfortable realities of how we eat.

Click below to read the full informative article!

[TIME Magazine]

1) You know how so many people in the yoga community love attending live kirtans (call-and-response chanting concerts in the Hindu tradition) at their local yoga studios?  And you’ve noticed how American kirtan musicians with adopted Indian names (Krishna Das, Jai Uttal, etc.) have become household names among yoga students across the U.S.?  Well, how interesting would it be to read an article about the popularizing of kirtan in America from the perspective of the Indian community?  To find such an eye-opening piece of writing, you need look no further than August 4th’s issue of the Wall Street Journal (American’s New Idol?)

2) Could it possibly be? Has a new study revealed the true connection between yoga and thinness?  Although it’s an intriguing idea, we’re kind of skeptical.  Although yoga and thinness have a correlational relationship, we’re not so sure that it’s also a causal one.  But here’s a quick excerpt from the LA Times article (The Real Reason People Who Carry Yoga Mats Always Look Thin) to give you the gist of the argument:

Mindful eating helps people to stop eating once they are full, even if delicious food remains on their plates. They try not to let tempting advertisements lure them to food; they avoid eating while they are distracted by a TV show or other diversion; and they don’t eat to distract themselves from emotions like stress or sadness….

The mental focus required to hold a difficult yoga pose could also help people avoid “eating more even when the food tastes good” or “eating when you’re not hungry,” he said in a statement.

We agree that mindful eating is an essential aspect of healthy living, and we would even concede that a consistent yoga practice definitely teaches one to “tune into” one’s body on a subtle level.  But we don’t think this is explanation can be applied to the entire population of thin people who practice yoga.  There’s got to be some other factor at work there as well…  Any ideas, guys?

3) Both the Atlantic Monthly (Will Uncle Sam Pay for Your Yoga?) and Time Magazine (Americans Spending on Yoga, Echinacea, and Acupuncture) wrote about some recently-released data regarding Americans’ out-of-pocket spending on health care.  Apparently, our country spent about $34 billion on “complementary and alternative medicine” in 2007, and both magazines pondered how this fact might play into the health care debate which has been cycling through Congress lately.  The answer is that it probably won’t impact the current debate much, if at all. But hopefully such data will make a difference a little further down the line as the scope of medicine in our country changes in the coming years.

4) Remember the whole “state licensing of yoga studio” fiasco which has been taking place in the great state of New York over the past few months?  Well, apparently a New York law firm is offering to file suit against the state on behalf of the yoga studios affected by the New York government’s recent actions, and they’re doing so on a pro bono basis.  Their suit will ask for an official declaration that the licensing of yoga teacher training programs is unconstitutional.  If you’re a New York yoga studio who received one of those scary cease-and-desist letters back in May, you might want to consider jumping on board here!  Click here for more information.

5) Michael Pollan, everyone’s favorite food writer (okay, maybe he’s not everyone’s favorite food writer, but he’s probably everyone-who’s-not-part-of-the-industrial-food-industry’s favorite food writer), just published a fascinating piece in the New York Times about the famous Food Network, home to many a celebrity chef and quite a few competitive cooking shows, and whether or not this food-oriented television channel truly ends up helping people cook at home.  It’s an admittedly lengthy article, but it’s well worth a thorough read if you can spare a few minutes.  (Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch)

**We felt like this was a particularly good issue of “Interesting News Items You Might Have Missed”, didn’t you?  The variety of topics discussed here was interesting, and each individual piece was quite compelling.  Bye now!

We’d like to direct your attention to a little discussion taking place on one of our favorite blogs, Yoga Dork.  The backstory here involves Tara Stiles, a New York-based yoga teacher about whom we’ve written here on our blog before, and American Apparel, the famous (or infamous, depending on how you look at it) purveryor of both trendy and basic clothing.  You see, Tara, who is a professional model in addition to being a yoga studio owner, recently posed in an ad for American Apparel – and that’s where the trouble started.  In the most basic of terms, Tara Stiles is generally considered to be cool, whereas American Apparel is sometimes viewed by more than a few people to be uncool.

Well, to be fair, American Apparel is viewed as both cool and uncool, depending on who you’re talking to.  The reasons they’re considered cool are that they manufacture their clothing in the U.S. (as opposed to overseas) and that they treat their factory workers fairly.  (To be honest, we personally feel that “treating workers fairly” is pretty much a bare minimum requirement when it comes to being a respectable company, and it’s really not that hard to pull off, especially when the standard you’re comparing yourself to is a sweatshop.  The fact that American Apparel loves to self-congratulate itself for these reasons kind of makes us cringe sometimes.)  The reasons that American Apparel are considered uncool are that they run offensive ads which objectify young women and their CEO and frontman Dov Cherney has been sued for sexual harassment by multiple ex-employees.

ANYwho, we’re not here to make a judgment call on the ethical character of American Apparel (but maybe we kinda did just a teensy weensy little bit…)  Our point here was really to direct your attention to a highly interesting “comment section conversation” taking place on the Yoga Dork blog about Tara Stiles’ American Apparel ad.  At the time of this writing, there are 30 comments (and counting!), and a couple of them are from Tara herself defending her choice to model in this ad.  You might even see a comment or two in there from Drishti, because we do happen to know a little bit about the yoga clothing world ourselves, you know?

Check out the conversation (and contribute if you feel like it!) here.

The New York Times just ran an article titled “Where Thin People Roam, and Sometimes Even Eat“.  Apparently, a new study which utilized body-mass index data found that the borough of Manhattan houses the thinnest people in all of New York City.  In fact, people in Manhattan are thinner than the collective body mass indexes of both New York state, and surprisingly, the entire nation of the U.S.!  (To clarify, this doesn’t mean that Manhattanites are the thinnest people in the country – it just means that if you compare the average body mass index of the population of Manhattan to the same figure for the country as a whole, Manhattanites are thinner.  But is this really a surprise?)

The NYT article offers a few possible explanations for the thinness of Manhattan:

First and foremost, they said, Manhattan is a place where people walk. Even subway riders need to climb stairs. Storefront yoga studios, parks and pedestrian-friendly streets make working out relatively easy.

Note the plug of our favorite lifestyle activity, yoga!

The article goes on to interview several Manhattan residents about their methods for staying thin.  ($300 workout coaching methods are mentioned, and one interviewee exclaims, “Look at my cute little triceps!”  Ahem.)  Through these mini profiles, readers are left with the distinct impression that Manhattan as a whole is… oh how shall we put it… quite superficial?

Anywho, reading this article reminded us of another interesting piece we read just last week in one of our favorite magazines, The New Yorker.  This piece was titled “Why Are We So Fat?“, and it was penned by writer Elizabeth Kolbert.  It’s basically a survey of several books published in the last few years about the enormous weight gain our country has experienced since the 1980s.  Many of the hypotheses posited in these books are not new ideas to us, but one segment in particular caught our eye.  Kolbert relays a brainstorming session which took place during the early days of McDonald’s:

Customers were purchasing a burger and perhaps a soft drink or a bag of fries, and then leaving. How could they be persuaded to buy more? Wallerstein’s suggestion—a bigger bag of fries—was greeted skeptically by the company’s founder, Ray Kroc. Kroc pointed out that if people wanted more fries they could always order a second bag.

“But Ray,” Wallerstein is reputed to have said, “they don’t want to eat two bags—they don’t want to look like a glutton.” Eventually, Kroc let himself be convinced; the rest, as they say, is supersizing.

Wow, we had never thought about the role that social pressure might play in the realm of the human appetite.  Fascinating!

In this article we also learned about a burgeoning (and somewhat questionable) academic field called “fat studies” (along the lines of “black studies” or “women’s studies”…)

The movement known variously as “size acceptance,” “fat acceptance,” “fat liberation,” and “fat power” has been around for more than four decades…  According to the authors of “The Fat Studies Reader,” the real problem isn’t the sudden surge in obesity in this country but the surge in stories about obesity. Weight, by their account, is, like race or sex or bone structure, a biological trait over which individuals have no—or, in the case of fat, very limited—control…  Undeniably, the fat—the authors of “The Reader” are adamant advocates for the “f” word—are subject to prejudice and even cruelty.

Overweight people in America are certainly subject to discrimination.  But the concept of “fat studies” departments at universities and the idea that undergraduates could choose to major in “fat studies” at college is kind of mind-bending!  Kolbert goes on to elegantly outline some appropriate criticisms of the field:

But, just because size bias exists it doesn’t follow that putting on weight is a subversive act. In contrast to the field’s claims about itself, fat studies ends up taking some remarkably conservative positions. It effectively allies itself with McDonald’s and the rest of the processed-food industry, while opposing the sorts of groups that advocate better school-lunch programs and more public parks. To claim that some people are just meant to be fat is not quite the same as arguing that some people are just meant to be poor, but it comes uncomfortably close.

Anywho, it seems to us that ‘fat’ is a becoming a bit of a buzz topic at the moment.  We wonder which other media outlets will join the discussion?

[New York Times]

[The New Yorker]

1) The esteemed New York Times just can’t seem to stop writing about the yoga world!  It must be inherently fascinating to them.  (It certainly is to us!)  A few weeks ago they discussed the topic of OM-ing during yoga class in one of their advice columns. A couple of weeks later, they published an article on the hot topic of state regulation of yoga studios.  (We discussed both of these NYT articles here on our blog when they were first published.)  And just the other day, they ran a feature piece on the recent upsurge in popularity of yoga retreat centers’ work-study programs.  Apparently the dismal economy has inspired a significant number of yogis to take refuge at well-known yoga retreat spots like The Himalayan Institute in Pennsylvania and the Satchidananda Ashram in Virginia.  In exchange for daily chores like chopping vegetables and making beds, these work-study students receive free room and board and a relatively small amount of money.  Sounds like a potentially favorable deal, right?  Check out the article to find out more.

2) You’ve probably heard about it (and we wrote about it here on our blog awhile back), but the Wanderlust Festival, the first-ever combination music-and-yoga festival is taking place this weekend in Lake Tahoe, California!  (Think Coachella, but with yoga teachers headlining alongside musicians.)  We’re super curious about this festival: what the vibe will feel like, how many people will attend, how the music and yoga will be coordinated around one another, etc.  Many yoga-based outlets have been promoting Wanderlust, but we noticed that the established entertainment magazine Variety mentioned the innovative festival – that’s sure to gain the event some attention!

3) A new UCLA study suggests that meditation encourages brain “growth” and can result in superior emotion regulation.  Coolness!  From the article: “Push-ups, crunches, gyms, personal trainers — people have many strategies for building bigger muscles and stronger bones. But what can one do to build a bigger brain?  Meditate.  That’s the finding from a group of researchers at UCLA who used high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to scan the brains of people who meditate.”

4) NPR’s Morning Edition featured a great story on diaphragm breathing and the benefits of conscious breathing in general.

5) We personally enjoyed this helpful article entitled “The 10-Ingredient Shopping List” and we thought you might, too.  It was written by Mark Bittman, one of our favorite food writers.

6) Due to the regular workshops and teacher trainings that she holds at Santa Barbara Yoga Center, many SB yogis are familiar with the widely-respected yoga instructor Sarah Powers.  Sarah has been teaching yoga since long before the current yoga mainstream madness, she holds workshops nationally and internationally, and she also stars in an awesome yoga DVD which we carry at Drishti.  (In fact, Jenni, the owner of Drishti, took an 11-day teacher training course with Sarah several years ago at SBYC!)  Anywho, all of that interesting information is leading up to the fact that Sarah was just featured on the cover of the well-known Buddhist magazine Shambhala Sun!  You can check out Sarah’s profile article and cover photo here.

7) Here’s an important question for all of you bicyclists out there (ourselves included!):  Is bicycling bad for your bones?  Well, according to a recent New York Times article, the short answer is (drum roll please)… no, not really. But why don’t you take a look at the article for the full, enlightening, informative answer?

To be honest though, the study didn’t really turn up anything especially damning about reusable bags (but we’re sure its sponsors would have liked it to!)  Funded by the Canadian Plastics Industry, the research basically found that if a small amount of water sits at the bottom of a folded reusable bag for an extended amount of time, certain types of bacteria could develop, some of which could be harmful if they were to come in direct contact with food.

In teenager speak, “Um… no duh!  Did it really take a specially-funded scientific study to discover this?”

In short, to be super safe, clean your reusable bags from time-to-time!  Just like you would your yoga mat – another surface which could potentially accumulate harmful bacteria if moisture remains trapped inside a rolled-up mat for a certain length of time.  Hey, maybe someone should sponsor a study about the scary risks of yoga mats!  Hello, Pilates Mat Industry?

[NewsDay]

Check out this New York Times article for more information about “Food, Inc”, which opens soon!

Related… Some Cool Food Tidbits

Thankfully it’s cool now to be healthy. Organic shopping, cooking at home and with friends, yoga, hiking, walking, biking are all activities that awesomely cool people do. It’s not cool to complain too much about life, job, weight and overall happiness. We all know there is plenty available to do about it. Get to a yoga class, go for a run, ride your bike, eat healthy foods. When you live healthy you feel great – both while you’re doing it and the next morning too. You stop fighting against yourself. You have all the tools you need to shape your life how you want it to be.

We’re happy to report that according to Tara’s list, we partake in several activities that “awesomely cool people” do. Do you? And more importantly, do you agree with Tara’s assertion that it’s cool to be healthy again? We doubt that any of you reading this blog post wouldn’t count living a health-focused lifestyle as one of your core values. Yoga and health are practically inseparable concepts, after all.  But do you think that being healthy has become particularly stylish and hip as of late? And if so, to whom? To Americans as a whole, or just to certain subsets of Americans – urban progressive yoga types, for example? (Is it uncool of us to typecast people as ‘urban progressive yoga types’? Are we asking too many questions here? )

Lastly, when Tara states that “it’s cool to be healthy again“, we wonder when in the past it was ever especially cool to be healthy, and when this trend ended.

Regardless of whether Tara thoroughly explains her assertion in this article, we can personally proclaim that being healthy is definitely cool in our book.  Check out her article here, and take a look at the impressive 149 reader comments at the bottom (as of this writing)!  This topic is clearly an intriguing one to many people.

[Huffington Post]