Leslie Anaya , NBCT (Maintained)

Juvenile Justice Texas Model Manager #NBCTstrong | Founding Pres. @TexasNBCT | 22 #Policy #Fellow @epfptexas |'18 @region15esc #TOY | #EIE2024 Finalist

[Leslie Anaya , NBCT (Maintained) @ESC15TOY]

Thank you to All the @TexasNBCT Board Members Past , Present @everydayiteach , & Future for your continued commitment and work to Grow Accomplished Teaching in Texas💕Love Ya’ll -Virtual hugs for your kind words 🙌🏻🙌🏼🙌🏽🙌🏾🙌🏿 It truly takes a Village @NBPTS #txed #txlege

[Clint Teeples @TeeplesCY]

Someone praying for you in another building can change your brain in real time. There is a study that proves it.

Researchers at North Hawaii Community Hospital placed 11 people inside fMRI scanners, fully isolated. In a separate building, spiritual leaders who knew them personally sent focused intentions toward them at random two-minute intervals. The receivers had no way to know when. Their brains lit up at the exact moments the senders focused on them. Specific regions associated with attention and awareness activated on cue. The odds of this happening by chance were less than one in seven thousand.

Most people have never heard of this. Here are three more.

Hand-holding and pain. Researchers placed 22 couples under EEG caps. When the woman was in pain and her partner held her hand, their brain waves synchronized. The more empathy he felt for her, the more their brains coupled. The more their brains coupled, the more her pain decreased. Touch combined with focused care produced a measurable analgesic effect. The lead researcher got the idea while holding his wife's hand during the birth of their daughter.

Two brains in shielded rooms. A Mexican neuroscientist named Jacobo Grinberg ran a series of experiments at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Two participants meditated together for 20 minutes. Then they were placed in separate electromagnetically shielded rooms more than 14 meters apart. One participant was shown 100 random flashes of light. The other, hooked to an EEG with no sensory contact of any kind, registered matching brain-wave responses one out of every four flashes. Pairs who had not bonded showed nothing.

Group prayer. Andrew Newberg at Thomas Jefferson University has spent more than two decades scanning the brains of praying nuns, meditating monks, and chanting Sikhs. His imaging work shows a consistent pattern. The frontal lobes activate. The parietal lobes quiet. The effect amplifies in groups. Brains in shared prayer entrain to one another the way two pendulums swinging in the same room eventually fall into the same rhythm.

These studies measure what physically happens to the human nervous system when people focus caring attention on each other, in the same room or at a distance. The findings are consistent across labs, methods, and decades.

The basic finding, that human brains synchronize during empathic connection, is now mainstream neuroscience. Newberg alone has published more than 250 peer-reviewed papers.

People have been doing this for thousands of years and calling it prayer. Christians alone offer a window into the variety. Latter-day Saints kneel as families. Catholics pray the rosary. Protestants join hands in prayer circles.

What is actually happening when you pray? On the imaging, something measurable. On the EEG, something synchronized. On the pain scale, something diminished.

Prayer works.

[Mike Hoffmann @MikeHoffmann]

Luke Falk shared a Mike Leach story that stopped me cold:

Two kids. One rich. One poor.

Every training camp, Coach Leach told his team about these 2 kids.

The rich kid has two choices.

Get soft. Get entitled. Expect everything handed to him because he was handed more.

Or take the resources, the coaching, the opportunities, and compound them into something greater.

The poor kid has two choices too.

Say nobody gave him anything. Blame the world. Make his circumstances the reason he never became what he could have been.

Or outwork everyone in the room.

Luke said the locker room had both. Kids from wealth. Kids from nothing. Kids with every advantage. Kids who scraped for every inch.

Same choice for all of them.

Ownership or victimhood.
Fuel or excuse.

The rich kid can waste the head start or build on it.

The poor kid can drown in the deficit or weaponize it.

Greatness doesn't come from where you start.

It comes from which kid you choose to feed.

Credit to @coachlukefalk for continuing to share golden nuggets about Coach’s legacy

[Joey McGuire 🌵 @JoeyMcGuireTTU]

So proud of you @BehrenMorton #WreckEm

[Texas Tech Football @TexasTechFB]

The moment of a lifetime.

@BehrenMorton x @Patriots

[New England Patriots @Patriots]

Welcome to Pats Nation boys 💯

[New England Patriots @Patriots]

New hat looks good on you @BehrenMorton 👌

@NFL | @TexasTechFB

[Leslie Anaya , NBCT (Maintained) @ESC15TOY]

#NFLDraftpic missing out on Behr!!

[Leslie Anaya , NBCT (Maintained) @ESC15TOY]

Watching #NFLDraftPic rooting on my former students.. waiting for their Names to be called ☺️
#football #TXfootball
#NFLDraft #NFL

[Church News @the_churchnews]

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sustained 91 new Area Seventies at its April 2026 general conference leadership meeting and announced the pending release of 73 others. #generalconference
https://t.co/6B3BtBfEXf

[Kylen Mills @KylenMills]

I’ve never wanted to hug a stranger so bad before. USA’s Maxim Naumov competed in his first Olympics 1 year after losing both parents in the DC plane crash. He fell twice in his men’s final skate, but most people wouldn’t even be there in those circumstances. I hope he’s proud 🥹

[G-MA & G-PA @GPAIndiana]

Love this guy 🙏 He rewards children to study 💕💕 God Bless him 🙏 They should Tax Exempt his Business, he’s doing more for the community then any politician 🫵

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

After endless engineering calculations, the result is achieved

[Kevin W. @Brink_Thinker]

Who says classical music is boring...
It is the perfect energizer!

[National Board @NBPTS]

More Score Release joy coming your way! 🎉
Here’s a message from one of our own staff members, Dianna Minor, NBCT. Keep the celebration rolling!

[National Board @NBPTS]

A beautiful Score Release message from Kristen Brummel, 2011 Hawaii State Teacher of the Year.
Her words honor the dedication, excellence, and deep commitment shown by every newly certified NBCT.

[National Board @NBPTS]

Here’s a message from Gary Castro, NBCT, welcoming the National Board Certified Teachers Class of 2025 and lifting up every candidate receiving scores today.

[PGCPS Office of Professional Learning & Leadership @OPLLpgcps]

🎈Oh, what a feeling! We are #PGCPSProud of our New and Maintained Nationally Board Certified Teachers! @CoachKHolden14 @DrMYWilson @NBPTS @pgcps

[PGCPS Office of Professional Learning & Leadership @OPLLpgcps]

🎉We are @pgcps PROUD!! Congratulations to our newly minted NBCTs. @NBPTS @CoachKHolden14 @DrMYWilson

[Dianna Minor @diminor1]

CONGRATULATIONS! 🎉🎉🎉
#NBCTStrong
@NBPTS

[Brad Harman @BradHarman15]

👇👇👇