Two Spring courses beginning in February will provide students with the tools to be able to handle stressful situations.

Continuing and Professional Education will offer the courses "Meditation: A Tool for Making a Difference," and "Meditation: A Tool for Increasing Well-Being."

"Meditation: Tool for Making a Difference," is the in-class meditation experience which will include 4 sessions throughout the months of February and March on Thursday evenings.

"This course could benefit any type of student and I am hoping those who are focused on their long term objective to make a difference in the world consider it," said Margaret Glenn, the instructor of both courses.

Each session will include basic information related to the type of meditation, body scan and breathing practice, as well as the half hour meditation experience.

"Meditation is a mind and body practice. There are many types of meditation, most of which originated in ancient religious and spiritual traditions." according to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health.

"Meditationa Tool for Well-Being," the online class, that will feature four sessions with a real time, web conferencing software. They will focus on resilience, positive outlook, attention and generosity.

In 2012, only 8 percent of adults and 1.6 percent of children in the United States meditated regularly, according to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health.

Glenn said the course would benefit students health.

"In general, a meditation practice increases brain function, particularly in creative thinking and helps with focus and attention," she said.

Glenn continued, "It decreases impulses that are triggered in many of us by reducing stress and anxiety as well as increasing happiness, and in the long termresiliency."

Glenn has been trained in Primordial Sound Meditation and is certified by the Chopra Center to be an instructor.

She has also participated in teacher-training in cognitively-based compassion training created at the Tibetan Partnership.

"There is a cost that may deter students," Glenn said.

The cost of the in-class section will be $75, the online section will be $99.

"It is not for everyone and I always encourage people to read more about the subject before they start," Glenn said.

Students may register for the course at http://continuinged.wvu.edu/.

The classroom course will be held at 6:30 p.m. on February 9, 16, 23 and March 2 in Room 414 of Allen Hall on the Evansdale Campus.

The online course begins February 20.

"After (the class, meditation) is easily accessible and basically free to practice on your own," Glenn said.

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Online and in-class meditation courses offered this semester - The Daily Athenaeum

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Follow through on your intention to learn and practice meditation at 10 a.m. on Friday, Feb.10, at at Bernardsville Public Library.

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The first meeting of Bernardsville Public Library's new inspirational workshop series, Make YOUR Difference, will be held at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 25.(Photo: ~Courtesy of Bernardsville Public Library)

Follow through on your intention to learn and practice meditation at 10 a.m. on Friday, Feb.10, at at Bernardsville Public Library.

READ:Heartbeats: Integrate meditation into your daily life

This is a guided meditation session in which different types of meditation are explored, followed by a time of sharing for those who are so inclined. First-timers and those with any meditation experience are welcome.

The group meets on the second Friday of each month. Leaders are Mary Bodenstein and Jean Leigh. There is no charge to attend the program, and no sign-up is needed.

For further information, call the library at 908-766-0118.

Bernardsville Public Library is at 1 Anderson Hill Road in Bernardsville.

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Meditation(Photo: GANNETT)

At Nyack Yoga, reaching your wellness groove can go two ways. The yoga studio has two classes that bring some fun or some peace depending on what you're looking for: Happy Hour Yoga or Floating Meditation.

I think everybody is feeling very stressed, there is nothing taught to us about how to manage stress. I think you have to look for something to help and maybe going to the bar is not working, " says owner Laura Kallen.

Happy Hour Yoga started two years agoon Friday evenings where a mix of regulars and drop-ins let off some steam with music and OMs. We decided to make it fun and rotate the teachers and theme, she says. "We dont kick anyone out right after class and they can walk up the street for a meal in Nyack after class.

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With themed-nights of jazz, beach songsto Bob Marley and George Michael tributes, the Friday night class is all about fun Vinyasa-style. Its about movement and self-expression in the 75 minute class, with low lighting, candles and an LED light show on the wall.

Some weeks there is live music or a DJ. "We encourage the musicians to bring any of their music to sell and/or information about themselves to share with our community," she says."We dont take ourselves too seriously; and we have a really welcoming community," saysKallen.

A new monthly addition, Floating Meditation, occurs on the first Tuesday of themonth. Participantsare guided through a 30-minute meditation while seated in a hammock dangling from the ceiling.

Its a different way to experience mediation because the hammock holds you; like youre being swaddled. Its soothing and very relaxing," saysKallen. She saysthe half-hour class is popular forthose looking for anevening option that is a quick stress-buster.

Using the hammock to rest in is more special than just lying on the ground because of the swaddling effect. If someone is really anxious this is very calming, she says. You are wrapped and its a gentle compression its quite delicious.

Guests are in a silky black hammock with a guided meditation coach for half- hour.

I think you can go to the gym and count calories but you need to spend the same amount of time fixing your mind. You need practices that open up that," Kallen says.

GO:Nyack Yoga. Happy Hour Fridays 6:30 p.m., Single class $20 and $15 for seniors and students. Monthly Meditation first Tuesday of the month $10, 7:30 p.m., Monthly membership $108, 42 Main St, Nyack, 845-675-7135, nyackyoga42main.com

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Try floating meditation in Nyack - The Journal News | LoHud.com

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Maybe youve noticed that a thin-skinned, pathological liar and racist misogynist with no experience or interest in government and a history of boasting about sexual assault was just elected president. You probably also noticed that he has assembled a cabinet of white nationalists, homophobes, wife beaters, school privatizers, labor opponents, xenophobes, corrupt bankers, conspiracy theorists and family members to head up agencies they seem hellbent on destroying. This man is in office because almost 63 million of our fellow citizens voted for him because they think America was great when genocide, slavery or Jim Crow was happening. Thats what were dealing with.

As Donald Trump violates laws, creates new international enemies, undoes civil rights, and generally backtracks furiously on progress, it can be hard to find the space to breathe. Thats where meditation comes in; a way to care for ourselves by briefly clearing our heads before we get back to the daily work of pushing back on everything this maniac stands for. These times call for a special kind of meditation, one that really addresses the weight that drags us all down.

Enter F*ck That: An Honest Meditation. It combines soothing music, relaxing visuals and a gentle voiceover offering the most profanity-laden guidance you have ever heard on a meditation recording. Take in a deep breath. Now breathe out. Just feel the f*cking nonsense float away, the voice suggests. And with each breath, feel your body saying, f*ck that."

In other words, its just what you need right now in this moment. Check it out in full, below.

KaliHolloway is a senior writer and the associate editor of media and culture at AlterNet.

Link:

F*ck That: An Honest Meditation for These Times - AlterNet

One of the countrys leading boarding schools is to introduce meditation sessions in an attempt to calm unsettled and fidgety children during lessons.

The initiative is part of a raft of creative learning techniques to be introduced at Brighton College following a round-the-world fact finding mission led by its headmaster Richard Cairns.

From September, all teachers in the school will be supplied with an emergency meditation kit in order to quell boisterous youngsters during class. The kit will consist of videos, audio recordings and background information on how to conduct three-minute mediation sessions during lessons.

The a 40,000-a-year co-educational schools newly appointed director of creative learning, Thomas Godber, said: Simple mindfulness techniques like asking children to feel themselves sitting in the chair, feel their feet and the sensation of their socks and shoes on their feet this will allow them to concentrate and feel more relaxed.

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Top boarding school to introduce emergency meditation to calm children during class - Telegraph.co.uk

If you are unwilling to give peace and kindness then you may leave, said Lora Sloan, a clinical psychologist and one of the instructors of buddhist meditation and other meditation classes in the Lotus Meditation Center.

Sloan said they accept all religions and no one necessarily has to be Buddhist, they just expect people to bring peace and kindness with them.

The Sitting and Walking Meditation: The Values of the Buddhist Tradition was held Sat., Jan. 28 in the Lotus Meditation Center attached to the former office of international programs.

Slowly, the building and its programs are being evacuated because the building, given as a gift to the university, is being torn down. This news is heartbreaking for all the people affiliated with the Lotus Meditation Center.

Their spacious and peaceful home will be torn down within the year. The group will be forced to move in to Swanson Halls basement.

The session started with an emphasis on finding peace, love, acceptance and generosity. These are some of the values of the Buddhist religion. The group sat on a cushion on the floor or bench.

Sloan taught the group how to comfortably sit, using the pillows to their advantage. Sloan invited the group to close their eyes. She instructed the group to not let their minds wander, to be present in the moment.

She asked for each person to use your breath as an anchor. Meaning, when the mind starts to make up stories, or starts to think of the past or future, focus on your breathing to bring yourself back to the present.

During the walking meditation, the group focused on each individual step. Making sure they feel the carpet beneath their feet and the way their toes curl while they walk.

Within Buddhism, meditation can be done at any time of the day. It isnt necessary to put yourself in a quiet room with relaxing music, like we typically imagine with the word meditation. Just keeping your mind in the present while you walk or drive, not letting your mind wander, is a way to meditate.

Sloan emphasized that Buddhists concentrate on the present and in the now. They are not interested in being anywhere other than where they are. Sloan explained how when people walk, talk, drive and sit in their day to day lives, they dont pay attention to where they are in that moment.

Buddhists try their best to avoid this and always keep their minds on the present. The group, with eyes closed, focused on the present and letting go of the past.

Toward the end of the sitting meditation, Sloan instructed the group to wish love and acceptance upon themselves, those close to them, people surrounding the place they live, difficult people and every being in our world. Buddhists value this form of thinking and practice wishing that upon other people without knowing them or their values. The Buddhist tradition focuses on making their world a more caring place and it all starts from within.

Shelby Johnson is the features editor for The Dakota Student. She can be reached atshelby.marie.johnson@und.edu

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Peace, love and meditation - UND The Dakota Student

China's newly-formed Rocket Force has conducted an exercise with advanced DF-16 medium-range ballistic missile that has a range of over 1,000 kms and could target a number countries in the neighbourhood, including India.

Significantly the People's Liberation Army (PLA), which is secretive about its weapons systems, has released a video of the recent exercise of its troops employing the advanced Dongfeng-16 medium-range ballistic missile.

First displayed at a military parade in Beijing in 2015, the missile is believed to have a range of 1,000 kilometers, putting it within striking distance of Okinawa, home to several US military installations in Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines.

The Rocket Force is a special contingent to handle range of missiles in its military's arsenal. Several 10-wheeled mobile launch vehicles carrying the ballistic missiles were seen in the footage released to show the training of Rocket Force missile brigade soldiers around the Spring Festival holiday.

The participating units handled a number of scenarios, including chemical/biological contamination, countering satellite reconnaissance and electronic jamming, state-run China Daily reported today.

The crews practised in multiple manoeuvres, such as rapid loading, redeployment and launch sequence, though the video showed no missile actually being launched.

Two types of DF-16 appeared in the exercise. The video represents the third time the DF-16 has been shown to the public.The missile made its debut at a military parade in Beijing in September 2015.

In July, a television news programme showed General Fan Changlong, a vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission, inspecting a DF-16 unit of the Southern Theatre Command.

Though the PLA has never disclosed its ballistic missiles' specifications, experts said the DF-16 poses a challenge to foreign military installations along the first island chain, which is what the Chinese military calls the series of islands that stretch from Japan in the north to Taiwan and the Philippines to the south, the report said.

(PTI)

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China conducts military excercise with new ballistic missile - WION

While controversy trails the F-35A Lightning II fighter whenever it flies these days, only contrails were visible Thursday as the cutting-edge stealth jet made one of its first appearances in the ongoing Red Flag air combat exercise at Nellis Air Force Base.

Since the years first Red Flag began Jan. 23, the F-35A the Air Force version of the $100 million joint strike fighter has been flying for the first time in tandem with the nations other stealth air-superiority jet, the F-22 Raptor, and more than 80 other warplanes and support aircraft from the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia.

So far, the Lightning II has racked up 110 missions in the exercise that ends Feb. 10 over the sprawling Nevada Test and Training Range, north of the Las Vegas Valley.

The F-35 has been in the limelight since December, when then-President-elect Donald Trump criticized the cost of the Lockheed Martin aircraft as out of control in a series of tweets and said he had asked rival Boeing to price-out a comparable F-18 Super Hornet that could perform the same mission. Eight F-18 Hornets also were participating in Red Flag.

Before his squadron departed for Thursdays war exercise, Lt. Col. George Banzai Watkins, commander of the F-35As from the 34th Fighter Squadron, declined to compare apples and oranges of the radar-evading joint strike fighters with the Navys non-stealthy F-18 Super Hornet.

But Watkins said the F-35 has been living up to what its expected to do, in the exercise.

Red Flag planners made sure that the 13 F-35s from Hill Air Force Base in Utah have had more aggressor jets than ever to counter and avoid simulated advanced missile strikes.

Meanwhile the F-35s on the friendly blue team have been successful in finding ground-based air defense sites with their high-tech sensors and taking them out with training bombs.

As of Thursday the F-35s kill ratio with aggressor jets stood at 15-1, even though the F-35s primary mission isnt air-to-air combat, which typically is left up to the Raptor.

Watkins said hes never seen a Red Flag like this where theyve put up as many advanced threats against us. If we didnt suffer a few losses, it wouldnt be challenging enough.

Members of Congress who hold the Pentagons purse strings have been paying close attention to the debate over the cost of the F-35. The unit price of roughly $100 million apiece is expected to decrease to the $90 million range as more of the estimated 150 joint strike fighters are produced for the Air Force, the Marine Corps, the Navy and allies.

Rep. Jacky Rosen, D-Nevada, a new member of the House Armed Services Committee, said she has an open mind on the presidents approach to reviewing the nations most expensive weapons system.

The president and secretary of defenses focus on tackling the cost of the F-35 is absolutely right, she said in an email via her spokesman. Costs are coming down, but I believe there are additional avenues available to continue to reduce what were paying for these aircraft.

Watkins said the F-35As debut has demonstrated that the nations newest stealth jet provides an essential complement to the F-22s.

Theyre designed for air-to-air. Were designed for the suppression of enemy air defense positions, he said. We can see the ground through the weather with our SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) mapping radar to detect a threat and take it out before its a factor to the other aircraft out there.

The Marine version the F-35B was the first joint strike fighter to fly in a Red Flag at Nellis, in July last year.

Contact Keith Rogers at krogers@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0308. Follow @KeithRogers2 on Twitter.

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Controversial F-35A warplane struts its stuff in Red Flag excercise ... - Las Vegas Review-Journal

The Indian Express

Punjab polls: Age not a bar for them to excercise their franchise The Indian Express Punjab polls: Age not a bar for them to excercise their franchise. "The standard of living has not improved in last 67 years. I have always used my right to vote but I am waiting for the situation to improve in the interiors of Punjab as well." By ...

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Punjab polls: Age not a bar for them to excercise their franchise - The Indian Express

Admiral Sunil Lanba PVSM AVSM ADC Chief of the Naval Staff embarked ships of the Indian Fleet (both Western & Eastern) over the last two days to review the ongoing Annual Theatre level Readiness and Operational Exercise (TROPEX) 2017 which is presently underway since 24 Jan 17.

The CNS was accompanied by General Bipin Rawat UYSM AVSM YSM SM VSM Chief of the Army Staff and Vice Admiral Girish Luthra PVSM AVSM VSM ADC Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Western Naval Command.

The CNS witnessed a host of exercises viz. Gunnery shoots, Surface to Air missile engagements, Brahmos firing and operations of the combined Fleet in a complex multi threat environment including sub surface and air threats.

The high-point of the exercise was Large Force Engagement (LFE) by the Fleet units against threat simulated by air element from Indian Air Force comprising AWACS, SU 30s, Jaguars and IL 78 (AAR). These threats emanated from different directions and were neutralised by using Beyond Visual Range (BVR) missile capabilities of MiG 29Ks, the integral air arm of the Indian Navy, operating from INS Vikramaditya in coordination with other Fleet units. All these exercises validated the combat effectiveness of IN platforms.

The CNS during his address to the Fleet congratulated the men for keeping the fleet combat ready at all times and executing all assigned tasks in a most professional manner. CNS also mentioned that training during peacetime has to be at par with how we would Fight during war and emphasised on taking bold decisions with due cognisance to risks involved and ensuring safety of men and material.

TROPEX 2017 is a month long exercise/ war drill, encompassing all dimensions of maritime warfare and is witnessing participation of over 60 ships, 05 submarines and more than 70 naval aircraft. It also includes participation of a large number of assets from the Indian Air Force, such as Su-30 and Jaguar fighters, AWACS, C 130J Hercules and in-flight refuelling aircraft, Infantry amphibious elements from Indian Army and ships/ aircraft from the Indian Coast.

The area of operations for TROPEX 2017 exercise spans across the vast expanse of the Arabian Sea and North Central Indian Ocean and serves as an opportunity to validate the Indian Navys Concepts of Operation.

As a part of the exercise, niche capabilities of the Marine Commandoes (MARCOs) and Army Special Forces, including Airborne Assault and Combat Free Fall were undertaken from IAF C-130 aircraft. Naval forces, while enforcing sea and airspace control all around the affected islands, undertook beaching and heli-borne operations for landing of follow-on forces. The exercise culminated with restoration of sovereign control over the affected islands, by the Armed Forces. During debrief of the exercise, CNS and COAS discussed various options to further enhance the effectiveness of the joint exercise.

TROPEX 17 assumes special significance in the backdrop of the current security scenario, being aimed at testing combat readiness of the combined fleets of the Indian Navy, and the assets of the Indian Air Force, Indian Army and the Indian Coast Guard. It will also strengthen inter-operability and joint operations in a complex environment.

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Indian Navy's Theatre Level Operational Readiness Excercise ... - Defence Aviation Post