When I was quite young, my family experienced a “health revolution.” As my mother learned more about holistic health and how to take care of her body naturally, she began to change the way our family ate. We had always been an active family, so…
Last week I wrote about the tremendous jump in average human life expectancy that occurred just in the last 200 years. It went from 30-something to 70-something. The thing is, this change was almost entirely due to a reduction in child mortality. If we compare…
When I sit down to write an article, I often feel like I’m having a conversation with you, the reader. Except that it’s a one-sided conversation, in which I never ask you about yourself and I just monopolize the whole exchange. So. . . how…
In this month’s series of articles on meditation, I’ve tried to be gentle on you. They say people can be motivated by the threat of a stick or the reward of a carrot, and I really want to believe the carrot works better than the…
Once upon a time, a woman stumbled upon a tarnished bronze oil lamp in her backyard. Hoping it was one of those genie lamps you hear so much about, she rubbed it. Sure enough, a genie popped out. “Hello,” said the genie. “As you’ve probably…
In case you’re wondering what’s the cause of all the buzz around the water cooler, well, people have been talking about The Borten Principle. I introduced it in last week’s newsletter, Meditation and the Lottery. Basically, it states that your decision to act (versus not…
Oftentimes when flying, travelers may find themselves with a few minutes to spare prior to their flight, just enough time to get a bite to eat and a quick chair massage to address those shoulder knots. However, there are those *fun* times when travel plans…
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Since it seems unlikely at this point that I will achieve stardom as a professional athlete, I’ve been weighing the pros and cons of other avenues to fame. So far, I’ve ruled out supervillain, porn star, politician, and jockey. One option that seems promising, however,…
January 31st is the Chinese New Year and the beginning of the Year of the Wood Horse. In case you’ve already given up on your resolutions, you get another chance in a few days. Compared to the Year of the Water Snake we’re leaving behind,…
Most people’s health goals could be simplified to something like: a long life and the good health to enjoy it. And long life we have. The biggest-ever jump in life expectancy, which occurred from around the mid 1800s to the mid 1900s, can be mostly…
In the tropical forests of East Asia (and now Central America) grows an intensely aromatic spice in a small green pod. Let’s see if you can guess what it is. It is a key ingredient in chai and Indian cuisine. It’s used in baking in…
This is a time of year when the dream of world peace comes up more than usual. Maybe, despite the ever growing array of plastic gift options and people stabbing each other to be first in the door to Walmart on Black Friday, we still…
In parts one and two of this series (click on the links to read them), I introduced a way of understanding foods, herbs, and drugs based on how herbs are defined in sophisticated systems of herbal medicine. One end of the spectrum represents substances that are…
In Part One of this article, I introduced a system for understanding foods, herbs, and drugs based loosely on the way certain systems of herbal medicine classify herbs. In short, at one end of the spectrum are substances that are completely benign to virtually all…
Ahh, it’s that time of year again! Thanksgiving under our belts and Christmas are right around the bend, joyous time spent with family, and (hopefully) snow is in the air and presents and love abound! One thing that we don’t always look forward to this…
When my wife was a teenager, her stepmother one day advised her that if she didn’t have anything nice to say to someone, she could instead try saying, thank you. Not long thereafter, my wife directed some teenage angst at her stepmom, who got red…
One of the goals of my work is to find ways to educate people about health in really basic, intuitive ways that they’ll never forget. When I’m teaching about how we’re affected by the stuff we put into our bodies, I like to go over…
(Originally published as a newsletter for The Dragontree Holistic Day Spa) Rather than give you a nice cohesive report on a single health topic, I decided this month to write a bit about a number of different trendy foods. If you’re a foodie, a…
(Originally published as a newsletter for The Dragontree Holistic Day Spa) There is an understated yellow flower called Taraxacum – AKA dandelion – which can be found nearly everywhere in the world – Asia, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, North and South America, and southern Africa….