For a lot of us, some of our earliest memories involve our mother telling us to say thank you. “What do you say?” she implored, understanding the power of those two little words. And like so many other things in life, mothers were right. But it wasn’t just because it’s polite, we now know that being grateful is actually good for us.

When my father was diagnosed with leukemia it was quite a shock. Sitting in the oncologist’s waiting room I wondered, could teaching cancer patients how to meditate, and the foundational attitudes of mindfulness, really make a difference in their lives? The answer is, yes.

I’ve written a new rock musical. It’s important. It’s about heroin.

For people in the recovery there are still too many myths about whether and when to stop smoking.  Too many believe that quitting everything at once will lead to a greater chance of relapse, when in fact, according to several studies, the opposite is true.

Can you smoke mindfully, and if so what exactly does that mean?

Now the same skills that have helped people succeed in life for thousands of years can help people quit smoking.   

“Between stimulus and response there is a space.  In that space is our power to choose our response.  In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” When Victor Frankl wrote that famous quote he did so not from a seat of comfort, but from the Auschwitz concentration camp, one of the most horrific places ever created. So then what could he possibly mean by “freedom?”

According to a recent study published in the Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) one out of three Americans are taking medication that has a side effect of causing depression. Furthermore there are millions of Americans taking anti-depressant medication with their own slew of side effects. What should we do?

The World Health Organization (WHO) recently announced they are recognizing gaming addiction as a disease.   What does this mean?   From a clinical perspective it means that gaming addiction is now on par (at least by WHO) with all other addictions, and should be treated as such.

Let’s talk about love—loving kindness. It’s one of the foundational attitudes of mindfulness and without it, well let’s face it, you might be paying attention but not with an attitude that will reduce your stress.

If you’re like most people your life is full of stress. Too much and too often we find ourselves emotionally unbalanced, over-reacting and under-producing, all because of stress. We take it out on family, friends, customers, clients, employees, strangers, pets….and oh yeah, ourselves.

Sometimes when people meditate they repeat a word or phrase to help with concentration and prevent the mind from getting lost in a myriad of wayward thoughts.   It might be a word or sound that appeals to the ear or has significant spiritual meaning.

For years, and now decades, physicians and dentists have been handing out opioids for pain relief.  Bombarded by pharmaceutical marketing, patients and providers believed completely that opioids were the only solution for severe pain.

Let’s face it, our brains are lazy.

Given the option of stopping and thinking about how to respond to a particular situation, or doing what we have done for decades, our brains are going to opt for the easy way out: autopilot. But another way of stating that is to say we are being mindless, that is the exact opposite of being mindful.