When you spend time in a Laundromat, as I have done for the last two years, one thing is immediately obvious: almost everyone there smokes, most are overweight, and many are eating junk food and drinking colas. The need to use a Laundromat is generally a sign of limited financial resources; the behavioral side suggests limited health literacy.
For home re-location and professional transition reasons, I coincidentally found myself in this environment to observe both. Continue Reading →
Emotive Storytelling:
Narrative is a powerful strategy for influencing health behavior.
With the increasing interest in the use of narrative communication as a strategy for influencing health behavior, there has been an effort to develop standardized protocols for creating engaging stories and to determine the successful components of an effective story. Continue Reading →
You can train and educate until the cows come home and you won’t see any long-lasting change
Education and training are the most common solutions when we run up against a performance discrepancy—a situation where we are trying to get people to perform according to a set of standards, expectations, or rules and they are failing to do so. Continue Reading →
My name is Fred, and I am a Type I diabetic. It’s been about 4 hours since my last shot of insulin. (In a 12-step parody, this is where you’d say, “Welcome, Fred.”)
I’m a grizzled veteran of the diabetes wars, having developed Type I diabetes (formerly called “juvenile diabetes,”) when I was eight. Continue Reading →
The Weight of a Costly Problem
Doctors are being asked to change their behavior toward their obese patients through guidelines developed by a group of medical organizations that include the American Heart Association, the American College of Cardiology and the Obesity Society. Continue Reading →
I would like to talk about storytelling as behavioral therapy. As we all know, post-traumatic stress disorder – PTSD, is a significant problems for many of our service members and Veterans. Continue Reading →
Soldiers Peter Nemmers, Morgan Bright and Matthew Hildebrandt from the 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division laugh while preparing to depart from Iraq at Imam Ali Base on December 17. (Mario Tama/Reuters)
The last place you would probably expect to find a standup comedian would be in an Army uniform. But there I was for the better part of a decade, trying to make one of the most dangerous chapters of my life a laughing matter. Not because I didn’t take the Army seriously, much to the contrary. I took it very seriously, which is why when the laughter stopped I was in big trouble. Continue Reading →
Kela Holmes – U.S. Army Veteran
It has been a painfully slow climb out of darkness. For a really long time, I allowed past traumas to run my life. Bad stuff happened. Years went by. I couldn’t get beyond it. That’s called stuck. And being stuck sucks. Continue Reading →
What by a beautiful moon this morning. The moon, I am inspired by how it was that we succeeded reaching it’s surface decades ago. Continue Reading →
Hi, I’m Dr. Gerard Gibbons, on-location in the Owens Valley, one of the most magnificent landscapes in the world. A good place to demonstrate how important perspective, memories and stories can be. Continue Reading →
