My goal is to present an education for holistic health to increase longevity and quality of life (heathspan), that brings awareness to these time-proven methods. With an intent to de-mystify and simplify explanations, hopefully, more people can come to realize that we are all accountable for our own well-being.
I teach and offer lectures about holistic health, physical fitness, stress management, human behavior, meditation, phytotherapy (herbs), music for healing, self-massage (acupressure), Daoyin (yoga), qigong, tai chi, and baguazhang.
Please contact me if you, your business, organization, or group, might be interested in hosting me to speak on a wide spectrum of topics relative to better health, fitness, and well-being.
I look forward to further sharing more of my message by partnering with hospitals, wellness centers, VA centers, schools on all levels, businesses, and individuals who see the value in building a stronger nation through building a healthier population.
I also have hundreds of FREE education video classes, lectures, and seminars available on my YouTube channel at:
Glutamate – the most abundant excitatory neurotransmitter in your brain plays a major role in shaping learning and memory.
Glutamate, also known as glutamic acid, is an amino acid and is a major excitatory neurotransmitter. Excitatory neurons release neurotransmitters that initiate an action potential into postsynaptic neurons. Glutamate originates from glucose and is found in the central nervous system (CNS) including the brain and spinal cord. Glutamate is thought to be an important component of long-term potentiation, which is the process of neuronal functioning that changes and regulates some types of learning and memory. Recent research shows that learning and memory formation can be improved by pharmaceuticals that assist in glutamate activity. Monosodium glutamate (MSG) which is often used as a food additive for flavoring, contains glutamate. Consuming foods containing large amounts of MSG may induce dizziness and numbness, while possibly inhibiting learning and memory. These symptoms are likely due to the overexciting of glutamate neurons with excessive amounts of glutamate (Ettinger, 2018).
(Happiest Health, 2023)
Glutamate can over-excite neurons until they commit suicide, in what is called excitotoxicity. This glutamate imbalance is thought to be involved in some degenerative brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease). Excessive brain glutamate levels may cause numerous symptoms, including hyperalgesia (pain amplification), anxiety, restlessness, and ADHD-like symptoms such as inability to focus. A glutamate deficiency in the brain is thought to cause symptoms such as insomnia, concentration problems, mental exhaustion and low energy (Role of GABA and Glutamate in Fibromyalgia and ME/CFS, 2022).
I teach and offer lectures about holistic health, physical fitness, stress management, human behavior, meditation, phytotherapy (herbs), music for healing, self-massage (acupressure), Daoyin (yoga), qigong, tai chi, and baguazhang.
Please contact me if you, your business, organization, or group, might be interested in hosting me to speak on a wide spectrum of topics relative to better health, fitness, and well-being.
I look forward to further sharing more of my message by partnering with hospitals, wellness centers, VA centers, schools on all levels, businesses, and individuals who see the value in building a stronger nation through building a healthier population.
I also have hundreds of FREE education video classes, lectures, and seminars available on my YouTube channel at:
Often people feel that they have no choices regarding their own health. This is true for some people, but mostly I see people having choices that they don’t like. An individual may have little control or lose their ability to take personal responsibility for their own health, due to that individual’s unique set of circumstances. Children are often subject to the habits and actions of their parents until they learn about nutrition, fitness, and wellness. Those who suffer from mental illness or are injured may be unable to take control of their own health, where others or government agencies are needed to intervene. Those in prisons are also not really in much control of what they consume, physical activity, and violence that may affect their health and well-being. Some individuals have their own unique socioeconomic factors that may affect or lead to their inability to have proper nutrition or access to healthcare and fitness options. I think this is where society needs to make a distinction between providing help to those who cannot take care of themselves and those who choose not to take care of themselves.
We live in a time where behavior contradictions abound. Such as taking the time and effort to buy and prepare their own foods of a healthier variety; fast food is often cheaper and tastes better they may justify. Or people will have no budget for nutritious foods or a gym membership but will visit Starbucks daily for $5.00+ sugar-loaded coffee drinks. Despite this current mentality, some with little resources still may find time to walk, run, swim, practice calisthenics, or watch free YouTube exercise classes for almost every type of exercise method. These options are available for free, but many choose not to exercise or pursue a healthy diet. We as a society need to get past looking at health and well-being as a luxury, privilege, or commodity. Rather we can see health, fitness, and wellness as basic life skills that need to be taught at the grade school level, so we can become a better nation. Become healthy.
From a holistic health point of view, everything influences and affects healthy or unhealthy behaviors. What we think, what we eat, and how we move, are what I see as the root components of our health and wellbeing. Everything else basically branches off from these factors. If I must pick one aspect of behavior that is most important, I will highlight personal responsibility. Over many decades, our American society has gradually eroded from people feeling and being responsible for their own health and well-being, to that where many people feel that it is the government, their doctors, their employers, and everyone else’s responsibility to keep the individual healthy. The state of Vermont has implemented a program called the Vermont 3-4-50, which offers the potential for people to become more self-empowered to seek out the resources to become better educated regarding better nutrition, physical activity, and mental health (HealthVermont, 2019). The program seems to be based on politicians, employers, and schools all promoting the program. The key component here is that schools need to play a major role in teaching the youth how to live a healthy lifestyle. It is so cliché, but the youth of today are indeed the leaders of tomorrow. There has been much media attention in the last year on how the recent generation, or Gen Z, is now being labeled as the “anxious” or “depressed” generation. This program and mindset are exactly what is needed not just for Gen Z but for people of all ages. Hopefully, the 3-4-50 program can spread more awareness and become implemented on a national level.
Make good choices. Be wise in your decisions, as your life and those you care about are most affected by your thoughts and actions.
I teach and offer lectures about holistic health, physical fitness, stress management, human behavior, meditation, phytotherapy (herbs), music for healing, self-massage (acupressure), Daoyin (yoga), qigong, tai chi, and baguazhang.
Please contact me if you, your business, organization, or group, might be interested in hosting me to speak on a wide spectrum of topics relative to better health, fitness, and well-being.
I look forward to further sharing more of my message by partnering with hospitals, wellness centers, VA centers, schools on all levels, businesses, and individuals who see the value in building a stronger nation through building a healthier population.
I also have hundreds of FREE education video classes, lectures, and seminars available on my YouTube channel at:
You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice
You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill
I will choose a path that’s clear, I will choose Free will
-Rush
Free will is defined as “the assertion that our choices and actions are not caused by antecedent events, but emerge spontaneously from the mind” (Ettinger, 2018). Freewill is a topic that I have delved into many times throughout my life. When I was much younger, immature, and naive, I found it easier to relinquish my free will and blame or even empower others or other circumstances to determine my actions. With time and real-life experiences of our own choice, we hopefully acquire life knowledge and/or wisdom. Over my lifetime and relatively gained experiences, I have come to learn that we are very much in control of our own thoughts, emotions, and actions. This is not to say, that as part of the human condition, we are not subject to others, our environment, and other circumstances that present themselves. Obviously, some people may not have this control due to illness, injury, or other congenital issues.
I have heard an explanation of free will, as that our lives can be viewed from the perspective that we are all on airplanes. We choose to travel in specific directions, towards a specific destination. Once we are on a particular plane that we choose, we are somewhat free to move about the cabin, albeit relative to what we can accomplish within the vessel we willingly entered into. So, while we may have free will, we still may be limited by our resources of time, finances, status, location, and other natural resources. Along with free will comes the consequences of cause and effect. I may be free to play in the Florida sun all day, but I will inevitably suffer the consequences of sunburn and heat exhaustion. I am free to shout “fire” in a crowded movie theatre, but again I am subject to the consequences of my actions if there is no fire.
I have read articles on free will that address more the physiological aspects of how humans behave, rather than the circumstances that might determine why we behave a particular way. An example would be where test participants have predictable reactions during a controlled experiment, which attempts to show that the participants had no free will. The experiment demonstrated that brain activity before the physical action of pushing a button was responsible for the choice of when and which button to push (Ettinger, 2018). Not mentioned, were other details of the experiment, such as if the participants were made aware of the purpose of the experiment and if they were able to retry the experiment after knowing so. Both variables might have changed the outcome of the experiment.
(Braun, 2018)
I think the concept of free will can branch out into many different directions such as mental diseases, habits, or addictions and their relationship to free will. Relative to drug addiction, perhaps an addict’s free will can be seen as weakened due to the chemical interactions with their physiology which can affect thoughts, emotions, and relative actions (Monterosso & Schwartz 2020). Or even the belief that we have free will to not believe that we have free will, can be debated and discussed. Additionally, if we have free will to choose only between given options, do we really have free will to choose other options (Reeve & Middlebrooks, 2021)? Similar to the concept of “Sophie’s Choice” where no outcome is preferable over the other, or maybe the “lesser of two evils” as many feel we experience with politics, healthcare, as well as societal and cultural issues.
References:
Ettinger, R. H. (2018). Psychology: The Science of Behavior (6th ed.). BVT Publishing.
Monterosso, J. R., & Schwartz, B. (2020). Addiction science and the perception of freewill. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 50(3), 373–390.
Reeve, D., & Middlebrooks, D. (2021). MISUNDERSTANDING FREEWILL: (Which We Don’t Have). Skeptic (Altadena, CA), 26(4), 54.
I teach and offer lectures about holistic health, physical fitness, stress management, human behavior, meditation, phytotherapy (herbs), music for healing, self-massage (acupressure), Daoyin (yoga), qigong, tai chi, and baguazhang.
Please contact me if you, your business, organization, or group, might be interested in hosting me to speak on a wide spectrum of topics relative to better health, fitness, and well-being.
I look forward to further sharing more of my message by partnering with hospitals, wellness centers, VA centers, schools on all levels, businesses, and individuals who see the value in building a stronger nation through building a healthier population.
I also have hundreds of FREE education video classes, lectures, and seminars available on my YouTube channel at:
Definitely! I have seen this occurring many times over my 60 years. Very evident in today’s events, is that of social media. Innovators such as Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), Jack Dorsey (Twitter), Elon Musk (Twitter now X, Tesla, Space X), and others have been at the forefront of using modern technology and social media to help evolve cultures worldwide. History will later determine if these innovations have been positive or negative additions to our societies. Innovators are individuals who bring discoveries or inventions to awareness, usage, and acceptance within particular groups (Conerly, 2021). Social media was nonexistent before the usage of smartphones became mainstream and now is often viewed globally as a necessity. Some societies have suggested that cellphone accessibility has become a basic right as a means to communicate and gather information (Writer, 2009). Currently, social media can be considered as low as well as popular culture, as its usage transcends almost all levels of social status.
I think there are many examples all throughout history, with religious or spiritual figures such as Jesus Christ, Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha), Mohammed, Confucius, and Lao Tzu. These individuals literally defined new perspectives on culture, for which religion or spirituality is but one subgroup of culture within a society. I have found that one person’s culture may be seen as another’s cult. These figures are often debated and even labeled as either cultural or cult leaders (Conerly, 2021). All of these spiritual leaders affected the values and beliefs of their relative groups for many years after their lives. This can be readily seen in many ways, but more specifically in the many symbols associated with each of these cultures.
I think that for culture to change, it needs to become a ripple effect starting with one individual or one event that is the spark. Like a fire, where the wood, gas, fuel, etc. has the potential to become fuel, a fire cannot grow until the spark ignites the fuel and may remain dormant. Jesus Christ was a spark, but if he had no followers, it would have just been his beliefs and teachings. I think of the old cliche, if a tree falls but nobody hears it, did it indeed produce a sound? The debate produces circular logic where perhaps no one answer is correct or absolute.
Sometimes making a difference does not have to be seen as changing society or culture, but rather an individual. Drew Dudley explained the “lollipop moment” as an event, conversation, or experience that fundamentally changes another person for the betterment of their life (TEDx Talks, 2010). I have been part of a healthcare subculture, (and even sometimes a counterculture) as a teacher of holistic health practices, tai chi, and qigong for over 40 years. I have effectively taught or conversed with thousands of individuals. A large percentage of my students have been senior adults, who have aged and consequently passed away. I have been invited to numerous funerals or celebrations of life, by members of their families. I was personally told by some of these members how I had had a profound effect on their loved one’s health, but also their happiness and quality of life. This has come through not only from my instruction but also from the social setting in which I am a catalyst. It is in these moments of self-realization that I confirm my true meaning and purpose of being a teacher and sometimes a healer.
To speak a bit more spiritually and philosophically, I have found that we earn our life, through our service to others. What holds some people back from sharing the importance of these lollipop moments with others, I feel is a humbleness to not want to draw attention to oneself. In our current society, there exists so much egocentrism where many seek to be something different, something bigger or better than the rest. We can experience some level of ego-death, where we can realize that the universe does not exist for us, but rather we exist as a small part of the universe. To relate this back to the question of one person being able to make a difference to change society or culture? Yes, we all can have this ability, albeit some with better or less success. One step at a time, one person at a time, and one day at a time.
I teach and offer lectures about holistic health, stress management, qigong, tai chi, baguazhang, meditation, phytotherapy (herbs), music for healing, self-massage, and Daoyin (yoga).
Please contact me if you, your business, organization, or group, might be interested in hosting me to speak on a wide spectrum of topics relative to better health, wellness, and fitness.
I look forward to further sharing more of my message by partnering with hospitals, wellness centers, VA centers, schools on all levels, businesses, and individuals who see the value in building a stronger nation through building a healthier population. I also have hundreds of FREE education video classes, lectures, and seminars available on my YouTube channel at:
United Martial Arts Association 