Mark Robert Waldman is a therapist and an Associate Follow at the Center for Spirituality and the Mind, University of Pennsylvania, where he currently conducts research on the neurological correlates of beliefs, morality, compassion, meditation, religious experiences and spiritual practices.

He is the author of How God Changes Your Brain: Breakthrough Findings By a Leading Neuroscientist.

According to Time, Newsweek and the Washington Post, Mark is one of the world's leading experts on sprituality and the brain.

To reserve a space, sign up at the Information Table on Sundays or call the Unity Center Office, 512-836-6372

 9 Strategies for Exercising Your BrainIt takes only 5 steps to transform your thoughts to your Spiritual Authority. Discover the changes that occur in your brain as you do them. Also, Mark will count down the best techniques that science shows help to maintain a healthy brain. Smile. Relax. Yawn. Eat less. Exercise. Have intense intellectual stimulation. Compassionately Communicate with others and the best way to exercise your brain? Faith, Optimism and Hope. And never, never, give up hope in yourself…

5 Steps for Exercising Your Spiritual Brain

COST- $70 Prepaid/ $85 At Door

Compassionate Communication, Caregiving, and Your Brain:  It only takes 60 seconds to transform any conversation, with nearly anyone and in virtually any situation, into an experience that will rapidly generate inner peace, social empathy and cooperative dialogue. This lecture and experiential workshop is a core element in Mark and Andy’s current research. Compassionate Communication courses have been taught to adults, students, hospital staff, therapists, patients, attorneys, conflict-resolution mediators, and to corporate executives and administrators.

COST- $20 Prepaid/ $25 At Door

Food, Meditation, and Your Brain: Find out why the National Institutes of Health have given $1.8 million dollars to develop mindful eating programs to interrupt eating disorders and foster weight loss. Mindful eating alters the way you, and your brain, respond to feelings of hunger, fullness, and emotional satisfaction. You’ll enjoy every bite of this contemplative way to eat a meal.

In conjunction with leading researchers at universities around the country, Mark has designed one of the most effective strategies for losing weight and undermining a variety of eating disorders. You’ll learn how to retrain your brain to stay committed to a healthy diet and eating program, and you’ll learn how to lose weight safely, mindfully, and permanently. Using three university-tested programs and cutting-edge research on the neuroscience of weight-loss, you will interrupt destructive eating behaviors, learn how to cope with cravings, eliminate guilt, feel satisfied eating less, reduce anxiety and stress, lower blood pressure and cholesterol, and lower your risk to diabetes and other health problems. This is also the first program to integrate the newest findings in brain research. For example, did you know that overeaters have a different type of brain than thin people? Being overweight also disrupts the brain’s ability to judge how much food has been taken in; thus it cannot recognize neurochemical cues of fullness or satisfaction.  But the key to this program lies in this simple, surprising fact: if you briefly meditate while you eat (a well-documented strategy called “Mindful Eating”), you neurologically change your relationship to food as you simultaneously reduce stress, anxiety, and depression. Self esteem improves, and you literally train your brain to stay committed to your personalized weight loss and weight management program.

Includes Lunch

COST- $20 Prepaid / $25 At Door