Articles

Please enjoy the hundreds of articles that Dr. Borten has written over the past 20+ years. There’s something for everyone, including explorations of spirituality, learning from the natural world, exercise and stretching, nutrition, psychology, posture, breathing, pain management, Eastern medicine and philosophy, and much more.

Years ago, a woman in her 70s came to see me with a long list of health problems. It seemed there was something wrong with almost every area of her life. As I listened to sound of defeat in her voice as she described the…

The other day, an adventurous friend of mine sent me a picture of himself immersed in slurry of icy water. The photo was taken on a rooftop, on a cloudy winter day, with empty ice bags scattered around the metal tub. His eyes were closed…

When Briana and I decided to leave Oregon, I had lived in Portland for 15 years and she’d been there for 12. As we prepared for our move to Boulder, Colorado – where we knew no one – Briana was concerned that we’d have a…

For the past couple weeks, I’ve been writing about the “Chinese Clock” – a principle from Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) whereby each of twelve internal organs has a two-hour period in the day when it’s considered to be strongest. By following this clock, we can…

Last week I introduced the Chinese Clock – a principle from Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) that states that each organ has a two hour period in the day when it has an abundance of energy and does its best work. I also explained that the roles…

It’s been about a decade since I wrote a series of articles about the “Chinese clock,” and I’ve been asked about it recently by several students and patients, so I decided it was time to revisit the topic. The “Chinese clock” is a concept of…

This Saturday is the beginning of the Chinese New Year. One year ago, I remember thinking about the approaching Year of the Fire Monkey and wondering how it would play out. The monkey, much like Curious George, is known for causing havoc. And given the…

After so many newsletters about pretty deep topics, I thought I’d get really superficial this week and talk about skin. Winter’s dryness and cold plus extra clothing, obsessive handwashing, and indoor heating form a combination that can be very hard on our skin. My whole…

I bet that if I said, “Let’s start the process of dealing with your psychological baggage,” most people would tense up a bit and expect that they’re in for a “heavy” experience. It’s funny, because if we’re carrying around this baggage all the time, it…

As long as I’ve been studying health, there’s been an ongoing argument about the role of dairy products in human nutrition. If you do a quick Google search for inflammatory foods you’ll find that most of the web “experts” out there put milk and cheese…

A few weeks ago, my wife and I were discussing the differences between the two sides of the fracking issue in our county. On the oil side, there were corporations spending millions on ads to convince voters to side with them and allow minimally-regulated fracking…

During a particularly hard break-up in my 20s, a friend advised me, “The more present you are during this process, the bigger the present you’ll get out of it.” And though I barely understood what that meant, I gave it a try and an odd…

I’ve been treating people for only 17 years, but in that small period of time there has been a change in the prevalence of certain problems. Every year, I see more people with anxiety, depression, poor mental focus, and difficulty sleeping. It’s possible that the…

It fills me with gratitude to realize that this July marks 13 years that we’ve been relaxing, healing, and uplifting people at The Dragontree. Anniversaries are a thing I’ve given increasing attention to in the last decade or so – and not just because I’ve…

Yesterday was the 4th of July, which, for those of you who aren’t from the U.S., was the day we declared our independence from England 240 years ago. Our Declaration of Independence is one of those historical documents you learn about repeatedly in school but…

Statistics show that women go to the doctor, the spa, and partake in self-care activities more than men do. For their part, men are better at dying young than women. I’m not saying there’s any connection, but I think it’s important that men care for…

For anyone who’s been reading my cleansing series (you can find the first five articles on our site), sorry for leaving you hanging without this final article. The good news is: I’ve been on vacation. You may wish to do a brief happy dance on…

We’ve been covering cleansing over the past few weeks. Our discussion started with guidelines for when cleansing is and isn’t appropriate, and from there we moved on to stronger and milder ways to encourage detoxification and decongestion of the body (There are links to the…