Category Archives: Mindfulness

Moments to be Mindful

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This week I would like to share a few examples of mindfulness. Goodness knows we can all use a few more.

Some of the these ideas are mine, and others come from friends, co-workers, and family members. One was contributed by our chocolate Labrador retriever (may her memory be a blessing), though it was honestly more of a demonstration.

Nourishing oneself comes in many different forms and flavors. Food is what I usually think of first when it comes to being nourished, but the truth is that we also nourish ourselves with peace and quiet, regrouping, putting away cellphones, taking our brains off the rail, being kind to ourselves, spending time alone and with people we love. Here are some of the examples I came up with, but please add your own below in the comments section. 

Being present.

Being in the moment without judgment.

Sitting on the banks of your life and watching the moments float by.

Stopping the chatter.

Clearing your mind of the detritus.

Thinking about your rib cage expanding and contracting.

Feeling cooler breath move through your nose when you inhale, and warmer breath move out on the exhale.

Being more reflective, and less reactive. 

Feeling your entire torso—front, back, and sides—grow and shrink with each breath.

Appreciating the power of stillness.

Taking the time to think before you act.

Noticing your thoughts and feelings and not identifying with or acting on them.

Being a dog.

Appreciating the rarefied air of nowhere.

Sitting in your space and taking in everything that’s going on.

Choosing to be mindful while standing in line at the grocery store.

In addition to meditative practices, you can practice mindfulness with: 

  • Massage.
  • Planting flowers.
  • Doing yoga.
  • Taking a hike in the woods. 
  • Going fishing.
  • Sitting by a fire.
  • Curling up with a good book.
  • Eating lunch outside.
  • Taking a pottery class.
  • Treating yourself to a pedicure or manicure.
  • Walking the dog.
  • Knitting or crocheting.
  • Joining a book club with friends.
  • Enjoying a cup of tea.
  • Doing a hands-on craft like woodworking or painting.
  • Going camping under the stars.
  • Writing in a journal.
  • Watching the sun rise or set.
  • Going for a swim.
  • Listening to folk music, classical music, or whatever floats your boat.
  • Sailing on the waters.

Gratitude 2026

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This week I am thinking about gratitude. That’s not hard for me. I was born an optimist; I always see the glass half-full. I always make lemonade from lemons — what else would you do with them? While it is certainly true that I have had my share of bad days, I’ll be the first to tell you that they have made me a better person. And they made me a better doctor, too. See what I mean? Glass half full. It’s a given. 

I had a personal laugh once when a friend send me a “positivity challenge.” As far as I’m concerned, it’s never been positivity that was the challenge. Nevertheless, there is so much for which I am grateful. Here is my very abbreviated list:

I am grateful for four little beings whose very existence feeds my soul in ways I find difficult to describe. I could not have predicted this. It amazes me that you have to live most of your life, or at least a good portion of it, before you are privileged to meet some of the most important people in your life. I am speaking, of course, about grandchildren. 

I am grateful for my family and our regular get-togethers. 

I am grateful for my friends, especially some of my oldest friends, whom I have known for many decades now. 

I had breakfast at a new place with a friend who has a gift for words, and she asked me all kinds of questions about a writing project I’ve been working on. Her questions are the very best. They help me to clarify, understand, and see things in my project that were invisible to me, and I certainly did not know to ask about them. 

I am deeply grateful to a family whose commitment to nutritious food and lovingkindness once allowed my child the rare pleasure of enjoying a bowl of sweet potato ice cream made with coconut and sunflower seed milks! 

I began a daily yoga and meditation practice in January 2016. This month I am proud to say that I have been practicing for ten years. I would never, ever have imagined the direction those first few days would take me. Days became weeks, weeks became months, months became years. And then a decade. 3650+ days. It would all have been much too much to try had I known where it would lead. But one day at a time it has taken me here nevertheless. I continue to practice. There is so much to learn. 

In 2026, I am looking forward to a number of speaking opportunities on health, wellness, mindfulness, nutritious food. I continue to believe that mindfulness is the most important pillar of wellness. 

I am most grateful for the fact that, for the first time in a great many years, I am not sleep deprived. I am done with multi-tasking, and so grateful for the realization.

Mindfulness for All

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A few words today on the “rest and relaxation” pillar, encouraging you to be mindful, to care for yourself, to be kind to yourself, and to help yourself remain centered, especially in the spinning vortex of ceaseless activity that continues to characterize recent weeks of change and chaos.

My word of the year is mindfulness. It’s the exact opposite of multi-tasking, which is not at all what it sounds like. To multi-task is not to get a whole bunch of different things done all at once, but rather to switch your attention incessantly from one project to another, giving none your full consideration. To multi-task is to invest heavily in attention-switching at the expense of your focus and goals. All told, it is a supreme waste of your precious energy.  Continue reading →

Your Health is in Your Heart

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Good morning, and happy Sunday. Today I am sharing a conversation I had with a patient once some years ago. She was someone I had never met before, and was, like many before her, completely flummoxed about what to try next. With a personal goal of weight loss, she had already done everything she could think of, and then some. I know you know this story. I myself have told it many times before. There is a good chance you may even have experienced it yourself. Maybe you have experimented with practically every diet, including the dreaded cabbage soup diet, denied yourself your favorite foods, carved out time you didn’t really have to get more exercise than was comfortable at the time. Of course none of this is sustainable. You can’t eat cabbage soup for breakfast forever. So what comes next?  Continue reading →

Old-Fashioned Gratitude

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Many years ago, when I was eleven years old, my parents bought a Corning Cooktop stove, a fancy new appliance whose coils remained white even when they were hot. You simply had to take it on faith — or not. No matter how long I stared at that new stovetop, I could not convince myself that the white coils were hot. And that is why I still remember so clearly, this many years later, the perfectly oval burn on the tip of my right index finger. I touched it only once, but that was enough. It was all it took. I couldn’t take anyone else’s word for it.  Continue reading →

There Is So Much You Can Do To Make It Better

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Sometimes I think this blog should have a category called “It’s worse than you think” or “I’m really not exaggerating,” or maybe just “More scary news.” Sometimes I even get the feeling that people think I may be overstating the urgency of the diabetes epidemic. So I gathered together a few statistics for you. Continue reading →

Strategies for Improving Your Blood Sugars

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This week I’d like to talk about the concept of diet-controlled diabetes. Sometimes, when a patient’s most recent bloodwork demonstrates a mild elevation in their blood sugars, their doctor offers them an opportunity to try to improve their sugars without medication. If the patient is able to bring their blood sugars into the normal range through changes in the way they eat, perhaps along with increasing their activity levels to some extent, the doctor diagnoses this patient with what they term “diet-controlled diabetes.”  Continue reading →

Mindfulness

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Mindfulness is my own personal word-of-the-decade. Mindfulness is the polar opposite of multitasking, which is not at all what it sounds like. Despite popular opinion, multitasking does not enable you to get a whole bunch of different things done all at once. When you multitask, what you are actually doing is switching your attention incessantly from one focus to another, and giving none your full consideration. To multitask is to invest heavily in attention-switching at the expense of learning. A waste of your precious energy, multitasking frazzles your nerves and impairs your ability to focus. 

The antidote to multitasking is mindfulness. Continue reading →

Meditation is My Happy Place

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Last week I said a few words about my own meditation practice, how I started with an approach that I call one-minute meditation, and how I had no idea where it might lead. I just knew that I liked listening to what regulator meditators said about their own experiences. So I thought I would try it out. One-minute meditation is just what it sounds like. It’s great for starters. It’s hardly much of a commitment. I mean, it’s one minute. You won’t be late for the sake of a single minute. Continue reading →

Words of Thich Nhat Hanh

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I have had a daily meditation practice for just over six years now. I started with one-minute meditation, which I have taught to many people over the years. I like to think of it as a good way to start. One minute is not very much time, and I have generally found that just about everyone is willing to dedicate a single minute to meditating. It’s really just a minute: you breathe in for 5 seconds, and then breathe out for 5 seconds. That’s your warmup; now do it 5 more times. That’s it. One minute. You’re done.

When I first started meditating, I did not really know the reason or the purpose. I just did it to see what would happen. I only knew that I liked listening to what people who meditated regularly said about their experience. So I thought I’d try it for myself. I don’t know what I expected. Next time I’ll talk more about how those first years went. This week I want to talk about the words of a man named Thich Nhat Hanh. Continue reading →