Ah, the holidays.  A time of year that is supposed to be magical.  This season is typically characterized by shopping, decorating, eating, drinking, traveling, gathering, dressing up, listening to music, being with family, and making merry that starts in November with Thanksgiving (or October for Halloween, especially for young families) and runs through New Year's Day.  Popular culture with all of its hype and advertising can make us feel obligated to engage in celebratory

How do you feel when you read the following statement? We have become a comfort- and convenience-seeking society.  I realize that this assertion may elicit strong negative reactions ranging from disagreement to offense.    Allow me to explain.  I believe that, as a society, we have grown too “soft”, relying on the ease and convenience afforded by technology as well as opportunities to become as comfortable as possible at all times.  We can shop for anything online and communi

Outfitted in a sleeveless wetsuit, I stood on the eastern shore of our local inland Teal Lake and surveyed my strategy for swimming the nearly 2.5 mile length along the shoreline.  The water was cold, but at 69 degrees, much warmer than Lake Superior on this June Sunday.  I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, summoning the mindset I had cultivated during the past several months of lap swimming in an indoor pool.  I had swum this distance recently, and reassured myself that

One needs only to step outside to know intuitively that Mother Nature, in her wisdom, provides us so many of the answers we seek to achieve our highest level of peace, regulation, and health.  Indeed, she brings the best medicine for whatever ails us if we know how to access it.  Lest you say that, in your part of the world, the environment is not conducive to going outside, most of the time this is not necessarily true.  You might need to dress more warmly if you live in a c

The New Year has started, and many of us find this to be a natural time to implement much-needed changes.  We all want to move towards the healthiest, most fit version of ourselves possible.  We can ride the wave of inspiration and motivation that comes with the beginning of a new chapter.  There is a proliferation of programs and services with titles like “New Year, New You” that promise the noticeable results we seek. Technology has created an exponential increase in such p

Did you know that at least one out of four older adults has a fall each year ? This startling figure results in countless preventable emergency room visits, hip fractures, concussions, and even deaths.  Furthermore, the rate of falls per year has increased among all age groups since 1999 . As we head into the colder months of the year with their associated cold rain, snow, ice, and shorter daylight hours, it is increasingly important to be shored up on your balance skills and

It was an uncharacteristically hot late Spring day in Northern Michigan, especially for 2 people moving a truckload of furniture from a U-Haul into a storage unit.  After completing this arduous task, the couple stood on the dock at a nearby beach giggling like a couple of schoolchildren.  Hand in hand, they counted to 3 and jumped into an 8’ depth of Lake Michigan water.  They emerged simultaneously, laughing and vocalizing “WHEW!” at the shock delivered by the 53 degree wat

Think of the various activities you do throughout your day.  Consider what percentage of those activities include doing something with your arms.  Most of our activities involve the shoulders in some capacity, be it movement or stabilization.  Anyone who has suffered through a shoulder injury and/or undergone a shoulder surgery can attest to the level of debility they experienced when unable to use the shoulder without pain or at all. Pushing, pulling, reaching, and lifting a

Julie (*not her real name) was frustrated and perplexed.  At age 50, she enjoys a thriving career. Married to her college sweetheart, she is in the sandwich generation with 2 teenage kids and 80-something parents who have significant health issues.  Julie values and believes in an active lifestyle and the power of exercise.  She goes to indoor cycling and other high-intensity interval training classes several times a week and tries to run on the days she cannot make it to th

Do you own your stuff, or does it own you?    In our culture, January can be a time of year that we struggle with a collective post-holiday hangover.  It is a good time to evaluate or re-evaluate our relationship with our possessions.   Did you know that the average American household contains an average of 300,000 items ?  While there might be some gray area around what constitutes 1 item, it is clear that Americans have a disordered relationship with their things. Things ar

Perhaps the title of this post on a fitness and wellness website might lead you to believe it is about resistance training i.e., strength training in all of its variations. However, I would like to consider another type of resistance that we frequently encounter on our health and wellness journey. This is the resistance we experience to the prospect of making a change of any sort, be it starting or resuming exercise, getting to bed earlier, or shifting an old, self-defeating

Perhaps a boost of motivation has inspired you to finally start the new exercise program you know you need. Maybe you have been able to start and/or sustain regular exercise in your life in the past, but have lapsed and would now like to re-engage with exercise in a fresh, more sustainable way. The decision to support your health by incorporating an appropriate, beneficial exercise program requires just as much knowledge about the mental aspects of exercise as it does the p

Do you remember running around or just being barefoot in the grass as a child in the summer? Why did that feel so good? And what’s with this craze of wearing shoes and socks that separate out the toes? As it turns out, there are two very good reasons for these which I will outline in this post. They are related to your body’s mechanical and electrical systems. Reason #1: Barefoot Biomechanics Back in 2012, I bought a pair of the minimalist “5-finger” shoes after learning

At a hospital in 2005, I was handed a premature baby. A sacred human life to care for. Believing I should only feel grateful that I now miraculously had a real live, robust, child who was so wanted, I was also terrified that I lacked the experience and wherewithal to keep this precious being alive, especially after having lost our last baby. Over the next 17 years, I would forge a path forward, many times reverting back to the same life I had before a child. Through tria

In 2004, my husband and I suddenly and unexpectedly lost our first son, Jacob, to stillbirth. Testing revealed a congenital uterine anomaly that could not have been seen on a routine ultrasound as the cause of our loss. After undergoing 2 procedures, my now 17-year-old son, Michael, was conceived. However, I was diagnosed with a potentially life-threatening complete placenta previa , landing me in a hospital bed for the final 5 weeks of my pregnancy under strict bed-bound

Sleep is a subject about which I am very passionate. Having struggled on and off with various sleep issues at different times, I know how precious a good night’s sleep can be and how impaired one can feel when that is compromised. After having studied sleep closely over many years, I have been shocked at just how much confusion there is out there about this topic. Along with diet and exercise, sleep is one of the very cornerstones of good health. There is no good health w

Daylight Saving Time: What and When is it? Twice a year, most U.S. states and around 70 other countries change their clocks. In 2023 in the U.S., we will “spring forward” on Sunday, March 12 by turning our clocks forward by one hour and will “fall back” on Sunday, November 5 by turning our clocks back by one hour. Daylight Saving Time (DST) as an idea has been around for a very long time. There is evidence that ancient civilizations used a system comparable to the one we

By this month, the New Year is well underway. For many, this is a time of reconciliation with various health conditions in which we are generally assessing whether we feel good about and in our bodies. Capitalizing on refreshed post-holiday motivation, many of us have started or restarted our efforts to include more exercise into their routines. In this post, I will examine some of the prevailing fitness myths to help you formulate a healthful, skillful, and realistic appr

I was recently asked how health and wellness can transform someone’s life over time . Even though the answers might seem self-evident, many people are still struggling with compromised health. Clients are often at a loss because they are painfully aware of what needs to happen to improve their health, but they cannot get themselves to do it. Starting can be so overwhelming because by the time we hit rock bottom and wisely decide to ask for help, we are steeped in the patte

The holiday season is right around the corner, starting with Thanksgiving and generally running through the New Year. You need to look no further than your local grocery store to see our cultural dictate that this season is “supposed” to be happy, merry, and bright. One needs only to explore the myths around the first Thanksgiving feast being a peaceful gathering setting off a mutually beneficial relationship between the Native Americans and the pilgrims to see the historic