From a full-time MBBS doctor in India to a celebrated author and public health expert in American academia, Professor (Dr) Manoj Sharma's journey is remarkable. A distinguished graduate faculty member at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, he was recently nominated by his students and received the prestigious Harry Reid Silver Slate Award 2024 for outstanding public health research.

One popular school of yoga is Kundalini yoga. However, there is a lot of mystery, myths, misperceptions, and commercialization associated with it. Here I present a scientific demystification of this system of yoga. This system of yoga begins with the seventh limb of Ashtanga yoga, that of Dhyana or meditation. The purpose of this yoga is to purify the self and make the electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings of the brain subtler while one is awake so that one attains complete harmony with the environment.

Doug Hairgrove and Warren “Woody” Wood were together for 65 years. They met in college in 1959, worked side by side for more than three decades at a Southern California junior high school and got married in 2008 at their desert home in Palm Springs, California.

With heat waves breaking records this summer in various parts of the world, it has become imperative that we become aware of the signs of heat exhaustion and take proper steps to avoid it. Heat exhaustion occurs when the body overheats (gets too hot) and cannot easily restore its normal temperature if left untreated and the underlying conditions not corrected. A common cause is excessive physical activity or staying for prolonged periods of time in hot and humid weather conditions. During physical activity or exercise, the body starts to lose water through sweating and that can lead to dehydration which is a common contributor to heat exhaustion.

The word yoga as defined in Sanskrit is Yög meaning, ‘union.’ The word is usually used in mathematics to denote the mathematical function of addition or the summing of any two numerals. The Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary defines yoga as “a Hindu theistic philosophy teaching the suppression of all activity of body, mind, and will in order that the self may realize its distinction from them and attain liberation.” To the uninitiated mind this definition of yoga serves no purpose and, on the contrary, presents confusion to the true significance and reason of yoga.

Dr. Manoj Sharma, a Professor of Social and Behavioral Health and Internal Medicine answers queries on anorexia nervosa and how to help your loved ones.