Guest: Brian Leaf author of Misadventures of a Garden State Yogi: My Humble Quest to Heal My Colitis, Calm my ADD, and Find the Key to Happiness.

About the book: As a college freshman business major suffering from a variety of anxiety-related maladies, Brian Leaf stumbled into an elective: yoga. It was 1989. All his classmates were female. And men did not yet generally “cry, hug, or do yoga.” But yoga soothed and calmed Leaf as nothing else had. As his hilarious and wise tale shows, Leaf embarked on a quest for health and happiness — visiting yoga studios around the country and consulting Ayurvedic physicians, swamis, and even (accidentally) a prostitute. Twenty-one years later, he teaches yoga and meditation and is the beloved founder of a holistic tutoring center that helps students whose ailments he once shared. About the author: Brian Leaf, M.A., is the author of eleven books, including Misadventures of a Garden State Yogi, Name That Movie!, Defining Twilight, and McGraw-Hill’sTop 50 Skills for a Top Score. He is the only man alive to have written both a yoga memoir and multiple test-prep guides. He is not sure if this is a noble or dubious distinction. Brian is Director of the New Leaf Learning Center in Massachusetts, where he has helped thousands of students from throughout the United States manage ADD and overcome test and math phobias. Brian graduated from Georgetown University in 1993 with a B.A. in Business, English, and Theology. In 1999, he completed a Masters through Lesley College specializing in yoga and ayurveda for Attention Deficit Disorder. Brian is certified as a Yoga Instructor, Ayurvedic Practitioner, Massage Therapist, Energyworker, and Holistic Educator, and he is an avid meditator. He has also dabbled with Bach Flower Essences, Cranio-Sacral Therapy, Reiki, Shiatsu, and Tai Chi. Can you top that? So what’s the connection between yoga and test-prep? Let’s just say that one of Brian’s first yoga teaching gigs was at the ETS corporation (Educational Testing Service) in Princeton, NJ. They’re the folks who make the SAT. So now Brian gets paid hundreds of dollars per hour to share what he learned while the test-makers were half asleep in relaxation pose.