I've got the cure for the summertime blues. Or, in fact, for whenever you are in a funk. The easiest way to remember this cure is by its acronym: "D.S.F.S.Q." It stands for "Do Something For Someone Quick! New research from Harvard University shows that helping others catalyzes a "moral transformation" that makes people more …
Category: Health and Wellness Matters
What makes life worthwhile?
What makes life worthwhile? What matters to you? What counts in your life? In this fascinating TED2010 talk, Chip Conley, CEO, author and founder of Joie de Vivre Hospitality, makes a persuasive case for the reconsideration of the metrics used to guide our companies and our nation. At what point do we get off of …
Keys to Longevity
National Geographic writer Dan Buettner and his team study "Blue Zones," communities around the world that live longer and better than the average person. They found four geographic areas and studied them extensively to determine the underlying causes of their longevity. In this TED presentation filmed September 2009 Buettner reveals 9 common diet and lifestyle …
A Breath of Fresh Air
A friend and I were walking around Mackinac Island in northern Michigan yesterday morning and we both noticed something worth repeating. The island, if you've never been, is free of motor vehicles. To move about the island you have three choices: (1) walk, (2) bicycle and (3) horse drawn carriage. It is a piece of heaven, geographically …
The Power of Food: Jamie Oliver’s One Wish for Humanity
As a father, a husband and a citizen of the world, I am compelled to do everything within my power to leave the world a better place than I found it. In my life I have witnessed many remarkable changes, the collapse of one of the world's great superpowers, the invention of new modes of communication …
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Self-Determination Theory: Creating Long-Lasting Change
A long-standing central desire of mine is to help my fellows live healthier, happier lives. I do my best to center my words, my work and my living on the theme of life enhancement, yet I am often surprised by how rarely people tend to act on what they know they need to do to live healthier, more balanced lives. A circuit breaker …
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Placebos, Perception and Subtlety
I heard an interesting segment on NPR the other day entitled "The Mysterious Healing Power of Placebos." (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126802142). Jennifer Ludden interviews two guests: the first a neurosurgeon from Washington D.C. and the second, a doctor and the Director of Psychiatric Research at Brigham and Women's Hospital, who both note the power of the placebo effect. …
Music is Medicine, Music is Sanity
In a previous post we considered the fact that certain types of music help to bring order to the conscious mind. Robert Gupta, violinist with the LA Philharmonica, shares a fascinating story about an encounter he had with this phenomenon. Nathanial Anthony Ayers, a Julliard-trained violinist, was diagnosed with schizophrenia. He left school and became homeless, only to be discovered …
Ragu brings out the Italian in you!
I work in the health and wellness industry and there is no doubt in my mind that we could benefit from this type of thinking when considering medical reform. So much of medicine focuses on a "one-size-fits-all" approach and I often wonder how much more effective our health care practitioners would be if the idea of "universality" was secondary to the idea of "variability."
The Smoking Carnivore
Wellbeing is not a static state obtained through steely determination. True health is the result of constant adjustment, continual adapation to the circumstances at hand. It is not a fixed and rigid place devoid of pleasure. Neither is it achieved through gluttony and hedonism. Wellbeing is found not at the extremes, but somewhere in the middle.
Gregory Hake 