Maybe it's because I just spent some time with family in Newfoundland, laughing and carrying on for most of every day, but laughing and smiling has been on my mind this holiday season.  Like so many age-old quotes and old-wives tales, laughter as the best medicine is being proven true again and again in today's climate of evidence-based medicine.

Although there is some controversy about what type of laugh, chuckles to guffahs, has the greatest impact on the vascular and immune systems there seems to be little doubt that a good laugh isn't good for you.  In fact, some health professionals, myself included, see laughter becoming an adjunct to prehab and rehab scenarios for patients of all types although especially for those with cardiovascular or mental stress related issues.

The bottom line is plain and simple, make some time to laugh!

Many of my clients, myself included, approach the holiday season with a bit of trepidation.

We all know that the parties and gatherings, replete with snacks, great food, treats and drinks (in alarmingly large proportions) are on their way and that often we feel like the odd one when we decline seconds or thirds.  We also know that all the running around to visit family and friends and late night festivities will strap us for time in our endeavours to stay well.  But as with everything we need to think about balance and look at the bigger picture.  I noted in a previous blog that much of what we do counts in our efforts to stay well and over the holidays, we need to appreciate those 'other' things and not dwell on the things we don't do as well.

Max Strom, a world-renowned Yoga expert hopes that we can begin to think of ourselves in different terms, terms that might help us put a less obsessive perspective on health, especially over the holiday season.  To paraphrase an interview on My Yoga Online, Strom hopes that we can begin to see ourselves not as the yolk within the whites and shell of our body but the other way around.  Our bodies become the the yolk, essential for our survival and wellness yes, but surrounded and also nurtured by the whites of our mind, our spirit or soul.

In this light, the time we spend with our family and friends laughing, smiling and enjoying living only adds to our health.  This is by no means reason to stop making efforts to indulge a little less, walk, exercise or stretch a little more over the holidays, but it is reason to enjoy the holidays with a more realistic perspective.

Think back and look forward to your holiday smiles and laughs and do the math as best you can.  Take a walk after dinner, have a good stretch when you get out of the car or before you head to bed and keep laughing and smiling all the way!

Happy Holidays!

It should never end.

Part of me would be very happy to simply move forward and practice my movement medicine as a kinesiologist and personal trainer.  But there is a deeper part that would like to make enough revenue to facilitate my ongoing education.  Presently I am working towards becoming a dietician to compliment my status as a recognized exercise medicine practitioner but from here I would love to keep studying in perpetuity.  Perhaps next it would be massage therapy, then naturopathic medicine or acupuncture.

In the meantime however, I endeavour to work with and incorporate as many of these elements into my health practice as possible, both personally and professionally and I try to learn more every day.

It is by listening and learning that we act and it should be our goal to act as the best would act in everything we do.

Select your foods like a Naturopathic Doctor or Dietician.

Manage your dollars like an accountant.

Think like a psychologist. 

Brush and floss like a dentist.

Live like an environmentalist.

Exercise like a kinesiologist.

Play like a child.

As a health practitioner, as a professional, it is my job to both practice and teach what I preach.

If you work with someone that doesn't walk the walk and leave you with at least a step of that walk when you part, find someone else.  Find someone who excites your desire to do the best you can do in each act you do for how else should you live than for your best?

Choose the best.  Choose to stay well.

Here it is, plain and simple.

It takes 300 repetitions to learn a movement but it takes 3000 to correct and improper movement. 

If you combine that with the simple fact that it takes 21 days to form a habit, then you can understand why the health care profession exists at all.

Compound this with the fact that in this day in age, from 5 to 65 years of age, we spend the majority of our days sitting or standing statically and you have the perfect recipe for poor physical health.  From joint health and arthritis to immune health and the chronic diseases that plague us at increasingly alarming rates.

Should you even choose to stay well with the likes of personal trainers, kinesiologists and other movement or exercise medicine experts, you are fighting an uphill battle against your daily routine.  But knowing is half the battle.

Commit to your goals and your efforts. Get you mind in the game and choose wisely.  Don't enter a training program unless you've been physically assessed and informed of your results because your choices are clear.

300 or 3000.

Choose to Stay Well, but Choose wisely.