{"id":7562,"date":"2009-03-16T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-03-16T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2009\/03\/16\/thoppukaranam-by-any-other-name\/"},"modified":"2009-03-16T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-03-16T12:00:00","slug":"thoppukaranam-by-any-other-name","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2009\/03\/16\/thoppukaranam-by-any-other-name\/","title":{"rendered":"Thoppukaranam By Any Other Name&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"source\">HPI<\/p>\n<p class=\"summary\">A simple devotional action performed by Hindus in front of Lord Ganesha from time immemorial is now being researched and enthusiastically promoted in the West as &#8220;Super Brain Yoga.&#8221; Students, Alzheimers patients and adults trying to stave off memory loss are saying it has improved their mental faculties.<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Eric Robins, a medical doctor in Los Angeles, calls it &#8220;a fast, simple, drug-free method of increasing mental energy&#8221; and prescribes it for his patients. He speaks of one student who raised his grades from C&#8217;s to A&#8217;s in the space of one semester.<\/p>\n<p>Denise Peak, a high-school teacher of students with learning disabilities, including autism and Aspergers Syndrome, has had very encouraging results.  She says, &#8220;I think this might be the key to help unlock these children.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Occupational therapist Raina Koturba says the effect on one autistic seven-year-old boy was immediate and dramatic. Before learning the exercise, the boy had frequent episodes of violence, including kicking, biting, punching, and head-butting; &#8220;but since he started the exercise, he has not had one outburst.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Yale neurobiology researcher Dr. Eugenius Yang, Jr. says the practice stimulates neural pathways in the brain by activating acupuncture points on the earlobes&#8211;and synchronizes the right and left hemispheres of the brain, as demonstrated by EEG (electroencephalograph) scans.  &#8220;I do it every day,&#8221; he says.<\/p>\n<p>A Hindu family notes, &#8220;We do this front of Sri Ganesha. We used to do this as kids&#8230;as prayer or even as punishments. &#8230;. countless times!  We called it &#8216;thoppukaranam&#8217; . Today they call it &#8216;brain yoga&#8217;&#8230; why not? Our ancestors did not know marketing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>For the experts&#8217; comments on &#8220;Super Brain Yoga,&#8221; please view this clip:<\/p>\n<p>http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=KSwhpF9iJSs<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>HPI A simple devotional action performed by Hindus in front of Lord Ganesha from time immemorial is now being researched,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7562\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}