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Genetic Positioning System – GPS

by admin

The Bonfire GPS, or Genetic Positioning System, refers to our genetic “hard-wiring” that is embedded deep in our cells, brain and DNA.  Throughout history our Innate drives and behaviors have been developed to insure our survival and reproduction.  Today, in modern times, it can actually set us in an unhealthy direction.  Let me explain…

Back in the old days, the really old days, when humans were primitive hunter-gatherers, before we lived these relatively safe and food-plentiful lives that we enjoy today, our safety and survival depended on many elements that became essentially instinctive.  This included seeking foods and experiences that brought pleasure; however, in those ancestral times, there weren’t pleasurable foods or experiences that led to unhealthy or dangerous life and health consequences.  Enjoying something sweet, for example, meant the rare treat of finding honey or the seasonal fruit; if there was a plentiful food supply available, there would be fewer demands for intense activity needed for survival promoting rest and relaxation.  Today, because the landscape of our lives is filled with any number of pleasurable foods, activities and experiences that yield unhealthy or dangerous consequences, our innate or genetic drive to seek pleasure and relaxation doesn’t always serve us well.

For example, the desire to eat ice cream or a donut because it tastes sweet does not serve us as well as did the desire to seek out a tree-ripened fruit.  Another illustration would be that when we have an abundant food supply, there’s no need to keep moving to hunt and gather more food – we can cross the line from enjoying intermittent rest and relaxation to developing a full-blown sedentary lifestyle.

Compounding Wellness: Understanding the Multiplicative Benefits of Healthy Lifestyle Choices

by admin

1 x 1 x 1 = 1,000

The idea that to be healthy, a person must engage in healthy lifestyle choices in the areas of eating, moving and thinking is not a new idea. Nor is the concept that we must engage is those healthy habits concurrently over time. What most people are NOT aware of is that not only are wellness lifestyle behaviors additive and therefore cumulative, they’re actually multiplicative. What this means is that instead of Fuel + Air + Spark = Health, it’s really:

FUEL x AIR x SPARK = (HEALTH & WELLNESS)3

This cannot be overstated – wellness is a compounding phenomenon which comes as a result of living healthy lifestyle choices at the same time, over time. This is what Drs. Franson, Wong and Kratka, the Bonfire founding doctors, have been teaching their patients for the past combined 54 years of practice, and also why they created the Bonfire Health Program. The results that occur when a person commits to choosing right behaviors in the areas of eating, moving and thinking are nothing short of miraculous.

Key concepts:

  • Don’t think perfection, think progression. Don’t be intimidated – you don’t have to be perfect to experience wellness. The goal is constant improvement over time.
  • Being “good” in one area (eating, moving or thinking) doesn’t make up for deficiencies in other areas. Example: You can’t out-train a crappy diet. Being a triathlete doesn’t mean you can eat donuts without consequences.

FUEL x AIR x SPARK = BONFIRE HEALTH

The Art of Gratitude – The Benefit of Being Grateful

by admin

Little Ronny’s initial 2nd grade report card came home today with teacher’s comments stating that “Ronny is bright and interacts very well with adults and other students, and overall is a delight to have in class. However, his written class work and homework do not reflect the level of aptitude he displays on non-written assignments.  There are a few assessments available at no charge to determine whether this discrepancy is due to a physical limitation, or if it is simply an area that needs to be given more attention.  Please call the office to set up an appointment to discuss the options.”

Though there is a very positive lead-in on the comments, the take-away impact for Ronny’s parents, the Goodwins, could be considered a challenging negative.  Since the report is coming directly from the teacher, they do not question the validity of the statements; they do not reject it on account of its source or content.  Their next decision is how to process the difficult information.

Because the Goodwins are wellness-oriented people and are tuned in to the types of thinking that go into maintaining a well person’s lifestyle, they choose to find the opportunities for growth in this situation, as parents and as people:

  • They can use the opportunity to grow closer to their son through focused attention and purposeful conversation as they investigate the true nature of his writing challenges.
  • They will gain a strength of character by weathering the storm of the possibility of a physical/mental condition while assessments are conducted.
  • They have another opportunity to encourage and support each other through the period of unknown, strengthening their relationship with one another.

The first three “rules” in Susan Jeffers’ 20 Rules for a Joyous Life revolve around decisions to notice, recognize and acknowledge the good in life.  Thankfully, the Goodwins know these rules and choose to use them, because they understand that the journey through and results of a joyous life are far better for the mind and body than the toxicity of worry.  While contemplating the difficult news, they make a conscious effort to find things to be thankful for because they understand that the attitude of gratitude will dissipate much of the stress that a potentially bad report would try to bring them:

  • Ronny is bright.
  • Ronny interacts very well with adults and other students.
  • Ronny is a delight to have in class.
  • Ronny does well in non-written assignments.
  • Assessments are available at no charge to help define the issue more clearly.

In doing so, they find that there are very real things to be appreciated and celebrated today that outweigh the possibility of a potential vision impairment, learning disability, fine motor skills impairment, or other condition that may or may not turn out to be true.  They choose to be grateful for what they have and save their response for when the condition is defined and can be addressed appropriately.

Our challenge in difficult situations:  Find the opportunities to grow, live a life of gratitude, and enjoy the happiness that comes with it.  Doing so may not completely alleviate the conditions we are faced with, but will certainly assist us with dealing with the stress that those types of situations generate.

The initial stress response to difficulty is natural.  What we do to keep it from negatively affecting our minds and bodies can be intentional – we have a choice in the matter, and for that, we can be grateful.

Economy of Time: Protect Your Most Important Currency

by admin

Well before the advent of modern technology, before agriculture, before we as humans knew where our next meal was coming from (certainly not from anywhere we couldn’t travel in a day…no jet-fresh sashimi), time was a simple concept. It was a concept that did not need to be tracked by wall clock, wristwatch, handheld device, or even sundial.  In fact, back far enough, the concept of “time” didn’t even exist.

When life’s goals consisted primarily of survival and reproduction and all activities or breaks in activity (called “rest”) were centered on those two things alone, it wasn’t hard to “manage” time.  In fact, while it was light enough to see, humans made sure they took care of their basic priorities first – eat (which incorporated physical work either hunting, or gathering…or running to avoid being eaten); teach the tribe how to eat and survive; and somewhere in the mix, on occasion, do the “work” necessary to reproduce.  The same goals and efforts would be revisited the next day with variations according to season and location changes.

Life was simpler then…dangerous and risky, but simpler. Also, the economy of time was much nearer equilibrium, even slightly in favor of human wellness than we keep it today.  There were sufficient dark hours to facilitate ample rest and repair and what needed to get done in the light did – it was a matter of life and death!

Fast-forward to modern culture (even the phrase “fast-forward” itself can create a stress response in many of us).  Everything in today’s world is moving at break-neck speed and our days are overstuffed with a myriad of things clamoring for our focus, energy, and time.  The very fact that we receive this information over excited electrons delivered via a global network of technology moving near the speed of light and making itself obsolete every eighteen months or less rather than on a handwritten document delivered personally attests to the overwhelming DEMAND placed on our time.

Compared to our ancestors’ lives it seems that each moment is immeasurably more valuable and, unfortunately, our lives are much more stressful as we strive to protect what moments are “ours” and precious.  The number of hours in a day has neither increased nor decreased, yet modern society has made the phrase “time scarcity” relevant. Nearly a generation ago the overpopulating of modern society’s 24 hours was quite evident. Today, because of the speed of our technology and not surprisingly, increasing consumerism, the imbalance of demand on our time over its supply is exponentially greater.

In a 1993 article in the Journal of Park and Recreation Administration, the author discusses how even “Leisure service agencies must respond to people’s need to save time”.  It is ironic that even organizations responsible for facilitating leisure and relaxation are required to consider at length how not to impose too much of a time “cost” to their patrons.  The opening sections of the article provide observations on aspects of modern life that have contributed to this rather pronounced imbalance in the economy of time:

• The Roots of Time Scarcity

o The Segmentation of Work and Leisure

o Standard of Living

o Information Explosion

o The Quest for Efficiency

o A Stable Work Week

• Evidence for Time Scarcity

This “perception of time scarcity” discussed is exactly that – a perception brought on by our allowing an overwhelming number of forces to bear additional (often unreasonable) demand on our finite resource of time.  Our choices in relation to how we apportion our time and manage our priorities play a large role in determining the levels of chronic, low-grade stress we bear in each minute of each day.  We are masters of our own economy of time and accordingly, how stress will affect our physiology in the long-run.

Since we are all consumers rather than producers in this economy of time, it is our responsibility to regulate the amount of demand placed on what time we are given.  Many of us need to learn the value of “No” and others of us need to simply take greater responsibility as stewards of a limited resource to make sure it’s allocated in the most healthful way possible, with little waste, keeping in mind that we are not the only consumers of the time that we have been given – family and community (the “tribe”) also rightfully place demands on our time.

Let’s take responsibility for our time “spending” and move this economy of time back toward equilibrium to minimize the stress it creates in our bodies.  Despite what it may feel like now and then, we are in control of what we allow to consume our time – it all comes down to our decision.  This is one deficit we as individuals absolutely have the power to reduce.

Holistic Living: The Whole is Greater Than the Sum of the Parts

by admin

“Man is made by his belief. As he believes, so he is.”
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Holistic living refers to making choices based on the concept of holism: that the value of the whole of an entity is greater than the sum of its parts.

Author Mark Penn (he coined the phrase “Soccer Moms”) has described our current society as one that has become more and more willing to design our personal life based on our beliefs.

There has been a continually expanding and powerful trend occurring with people looking for a more holistic lifestyle. People are looking to looking to live a fuller, more complete life.  Gone are the days of Oliver Stone’s classic movie “Wall Street,” featuring cut-throat workaholics as heroes.  Work-obsessed stock traders seem like a distant past as much as bell bottoms and disco balls.

Today, people are seeking out a more balanced success.  A positive work life with a balanced family life with personal happiness is the new goal.  And that starts with health.

Living things are holistic by nature.  The energy in a living system is not one that can be created by its parts.  Seventy percent water, 20 percent minerals, 10 percent protein, fat and nucleic acids are very difficult to cajole into a living, breathing, reproducing organism.  The power of holism is seen in the emergence of dreams and passions, of complex language and elegant movement.  The human body is a holistic entity that produces outcomes vastly beyond what could be expected from its parts and plumbing.

Holistic Living and Health
When it comes to our health, holistic living means evaluating how each choice we make in our life impacts our health.  The belief system of the medical paradigm is born out of a reductionist viewpoint.  Reductionism is the opposite of holism.  It means looking at the part, rather than the function of the whole.  Reductionist thinking has created a system of health care that is focused on treating the disease of a person, rather than helping a person get well.

The Bonfire lifestyle recommendations are holistic in that they are comprehensive.  We recommend that you purposefully evaluate all aspects of your lifestyle in how they impact your life and your health.  Your body has a broad range of specific needs, or essential elements, that it requires for health.  While people have come to understand how activity and nutrition are critical for health, this is simply the tip of the iceberg.  Human contact and social interaction, ongoing learning, and exposure to healthy environments are all examples of critical components of a healthy lifestyle.

Becoming a person that understands that humans are by nature holistic beings will lead to lifestyle that supports health rather than regularly treating the body as if it is a collection of parts.

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Roles and Goals: Define Who You Want To Be

by admin

In setting ourselves up for success, we need to understand the element of control.  We all know that we cannot control everything in our lives.  At the same time, we understand that there are certain elements of our lives that we are able to control…and still others that only we can control.  The measure of control we execute on our limited resources of time, energy, and focus and where we spend them will provide a good indication of what type of results we will have over time.  If we neglect to manage what we can, the cares of life will certainly “manage” them for us.

Answering the following questions will help us define and establish our roles and goals in relation to each Life Time Value Account (and any more that they or their answers bring to mind).  The greater definition we add to who we are today and what we want going forward in each of these life areas, the easier it will be for us to allocate our finite resources toward each of them and move toward our desired lifestyles.

Physical
Since I understand that I am wholly and solely responsible for my own wellness lifestyle and the expression of my genes, what wellness milestones do I want to achieve in the next day, week, month, and year(s)?

Spiritual
What is my spiritual orientation (if any at all), and how does it impact/influence those around me?  Is there a particular level of spiritual awareness, (in)dependence, or capability that I want in life?

Financial
What of my financial matters do I have absolute control of, and which am I dependent on others (employer, government, etc.) for?  What is a practical target for the way I want my accounts to look at this time next month/year?

Intellectual
During my “discretional” time, what would I like to achieve in my own ongoing learning and education?  What concepts do I need more understanding in that I can work on gaining if I will allocate time and energy to them?  Is there any bad information getting into my mind that I can decide to move away from or filter out somehow?

Familial
What is my position within my family?  Am I primarily the leader, a contributor, or a subordinate, and how many people in my family do I need to balance my limited resources among?  How much and what must I invest into which members of my immediate and extended family to know that I have done as much as I possibly could to arrive at the family structure and relationships that I ultimately desire?  What do that structure and those relationships look like?

Vocational
At what point in my career am I, and how much control over and derived benefit from my own time and efforts do I have?  What would I like to change, and what measure of success would I like to achieve in the short-term?  In the long-term?  Do I want to get to a point that my vocation is less necessity-driven and more passion-driven?  What is that point, and what conditions would make it so for me?

Recreational/Social
Do I know how to enjoy life both when I am by myself and when I am with other people?  Who am I within my community of peers and acquaintances?  Is that who I ultimately want to be?  And if not, how would I define the person I’d like to be for them and the type of influence I’d like to have on those around me?

Taking time out to define where we stand in these areas of life and where we would like to be gives us a distinct advantage over anyone simply moving through life without giving attention to them – we can decide more of our own journey because of an increased awareness in the power of decision.  Let’s decide now to take that time, do that assessment, and line ourselves up for progress toward our desired lifestyle.

Focus on your Vision: 3 Strategies for Managing Depression and Elation

by admin

If we imagine our lives as a many-branched highway system overlaid on the landscape of our time, we’ll notice that some roads are relatively level throughout, while others cover mountains, valleys, and a wide range of elevation differences.  From a mechanical perspective, roads that are relatively level over distance provide greater fuel economy and, in most cases, less wear and tear on vehicles than those that cross over mountain ranges and pass through deep valleys.

Elation and depression are like the peaks and valleys along life’s roadways.  Detaching ourselves from the outcome and focusing on vision and process in each of our decisions and actions will help us to avoid unnecessary emotional ups and downs.

Vision

Setting the end point, the destination, vision establishes where on life’s roadmap we want to end up in a month, a year, a decade, or a lifetime.  Great importance lies in establishing and resolving to stay on track with a clear vision – in much the same way that to depart without a clear destination leaves us at the mercy of whims and wanderings.  There cannot be much definition to successful arrival at the end of our journey without our having known first where we were going to begin.

What vision does not do, however, is determine the “how” – that piece is left for planning and executing during the journey.  Staying anchored in our vision keeps us headed in the desired direction and optimizes flexibility of method within the bounds of acceptable approach.  It helps us, for the most part, to continually see past the obstacles and detours along the way, our eyes on the prize.

Process

Process represents the most involved part of the journey from the starting line to the desired end (which vision establishes) and addresses the “How” of the journey.  The process package contains generous opportunity for learning, adaptation, growth, and application – the power output of life is applied during process.  Vision has established where to go and process encompasses the active journey between the starting gun and breaking the tape at the finish line.

Process also provides the greatest opportunity to encounter peaks and valleys of elation and depression.  Each checkpoint along the routing from where we are on our life’s map to where we want to be represents a decision – an intersection of highways.  Which option we choose to take at each checkpoint will determine the type of terrain we will encounter.  Some highways take the up-and-over approach to mountains while others take the tunnel-through approach, and still others take the go-around path.  Each has its own pros and cons and produces a particular emotional response.  Planning and well-executed decisions during process help us choose the most efficient routing and enable us to avoid the types of emotional experiences that cause us more wear than they’re worth.

Outcome

The endpoint of one of life’s segments and in most cases, the start point for the next outcome provides opportunity for assessment of results projected (by vision) versus received (through process).  A life set on manufacturing outcome without regard to vision and process (the what and how of the journey) can be full of frustration, fear, and uncertainty at best, and leaves much room for the emotional roller coaster of elation and depression.  Though the outcome is the desired end, it is only holding onto vision and growing through process that can make it happen with any measure of intent and control.

As Jack Canfield has formulated, E + R = O; that is Events + Responses = Outcome.  How we choose to respond to events we encounter along the journey of process will dictate whether we end up at the destination we envisioned and if so, how long and how much energy it will take for us to get there, as well as the severity of the ups and downs we experience along the way.

If we stay focused on our vision and, in full awareness, make wise decisions in each of our responses to events during the process, we will find ourselves achieving positive outcomes efficiently, leaving minimal room for the extreme swings between elation and depression that cause unnecessary wear-and-tear on us emotionally, mentally, and physically.

Ideal Weight: How to Achieve Your Healthiest Body Weight

by admin

Achieving or maintaining an ideal weight has become like the search for the holy grail – an almost unattainable goal. And rightly so – every age group, from the youngest children to teenagers to adults, has seen increases in weight over the last 30 years. In the meantime, the weight loss industry in this country rakes in 400 billion dollars per year. Clearly, the focus on losing weight has not been successful.

A New Goal:  Your Ideal Weight
While most people will become slimmer getting to their ideal weight, losing weight isn’t synonymous with gaining health. There are many, many ways to lose weight that will not make you a healthier person. Yo-yo diets have become synonymous with failure. Rather than focusing on weight loss, focus on gaining health. If you make the right choices in eating, moving and thinking to bring you toward health, you will also move towards achieving and maintaining your ideal weight. Following the Bonfire recommendations will move you toward a fit, lean, healthy, ideal weight.

What Does an Ideal Weight Look Like?
First, it is important to understand what an ideal weight looks like. Your ideal weight means much more than simply being at a number on the scale. Being at an ideal weight means having muscle tissue capable of supporting functional movement and activity levels. It means not carrying excess fat. It also means having a healthy skeletal system free from the ravages of osteoporosis. It means being properly hydrated. Being at your ideal weight is a component of being truly healthy, fit and functional. It is not just a matter of appearance.

While today losing weight, melting away fat, and avoiding weight gain are the hottest topics in health, historically speaking, until very recently the challenge would have been very different. It would have been finding enough food to stay alive. Our body is designed to burn energy by obtaining food that was often in small supply.

Your body has a powerful motivation to maintain an ideal weight. Hunter-gatherer populations in both ancient times, and current tribes living a genetically appropriate lifestyle, consistently show that humans maintain ideal weight levels outside of the stresses of modern life. The hormonal and nervous system control of body weight are so powerful that when allowed to function properly, your body will regulate its weight within 0.15% over the period of a year.  This means that when you consistently make genetically congruent lifestyle choices, your body regulates hunger and activity levels perfectly.  Excess weight is a sign of bad health, because a healthy body regulates ideal body weight.

Storage of excess food intake as fat was very rare. Its only purpose was to prevent starvation. Therefore, your body was never designed to carry around fat stores created during periods of excess intake. To find food, we were continuously active, almost never having periods of time when we were regularly inactive. For millions of years, finding enough food to consume to meet the demands of a high activity level was the challenge.

Continuous, incremental weight gain as we age is the result of our modern environment and lifestyle. Therefore, being away from an ideal weight is an abnormal, unhealthy stress on our body. Carrying excess fat stores is not something that our body is designed for. This excess fat, stored around our organs in our midsection, is called visceral fat, or omentum. This specific type of fat creates inflammation in your body that is linked to almost every disease process.

Keep up the right behaviors that support your health. Sometimes patience is a key virtue necessary to achieve your body’s true health. There are important reasons why your body is doing what it is doing; remember that your body is intelligent, and take care of it properly so it will take care of you.

Unconditional Love: The Chemical Benefits of Loving Others

by admin

There is a story, a very old story, about a man whose brothers were jealous of him because he was the youngest and their father’s favored son.  They filled their hearts with hatred and jealousy and plotted against their brother.  When the opportunity came, they threw their brother into a pit and sold him as a slave.  Many years later, this brother became the king of Egypt.  When a famine struck the land, those same brothers traveled to Egypt to ask the king for food.  Imagine their surprise when they found that the brother they had cast into the pit and sold into slavery was now the very man they were begging for food.  Wouldn’t you think that this brother had every right to be furious with his brothers?  This was his big chance to teach them a lesson!  He could have mocked them, cast them out of Egypt, or had them tortured and killed.  But instead, he chose the way of love and forgiveness.  He chose to welcome them with open arms and to help them.  They wept together and their family was united once again.  Unconditional love is not something that just automatically happens – it is sometimes a choice that must be made.

What would it have profited the brother to respond in hatred and anger?  The Buddha said “Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.”  By choosing the path of love and forgiveness, the brother chose the path of health and emotional well being.  As we strive towards wellness and health, we must be aware of the fact that our feelings and emotions have a direct impact on our stress and emotional well being.

One of the tenants of the Christian faith is that all Christians should love their enemies and pray for those who hate them (Luke 6:27).  Maximus the Confessor stated that Jesus commanded this “so that he might free you from hatred, sadness, anger and grudges, and might grant you the greatest possession of all, perfect love.”  Love saves us from the pain and heartache associated with hatred, sadness, anger, jealousy and other emotions that take us further from goodness, happiness and well being.

Chemical Effects of Love
We know that physical touch between two people who care for each other (friends, lovers, parents and children) has an effect on a person’s body chemistry.  At the center of how our bodies respond to love and affection is a hormone called oxytocin.  Oxytocin makes us feel good by acting through the dopamine reward system.  However, “Oxytocin does more than make us feel good.  It lowers the levels of stress hormones in the body, reducing blood pressure, improving mood, increasing tolerance for pain, and perhaps even speeding how fast wounds heal.  It also seems to play an important role in our relationships.”

Research has shown that when people feel socially isolated or cut off from familiar figures, the brain shuts off endorphin production.  Most adults feel some anxiety when separated from people they love, and some sense of increased security when their closest relationships are stable.

We also know that showing love to others in your community can provide health benefits.  “The Institute for the Advancement of Health conducted two surveys involving a total of 1,746 people who did volunteer work.  Results showed that just helping out in the community offered relief from pain related to stress-sensitive conditions like multiple sclerosis, and headaches, and lupus.  Researchers suggested effects were due to relaxation and endorphin release.”

Choosing to love someone is sometimes very easy and can even feel natural, but it can sometimes be a huge challenge.  While it might be easy to love your child, even when they make poor choices, it might be harder to love your coworker who consistently undermines you, or your annoying cousin who always drops by unannounced.  But remember that unconditional love benefits not only the person you choose to love, but yourself as well.

Challenge yourself to focus on love today.  Think about the people in your life who hold unconditional love as a core value.  Think about the people who have always shown unconditional love to you.  Note how their personal relationships are affected, and observe their stress levels and general outlook on life.  Make a decision today to move away from feelings of anger, jealousy, judgment or hatred, and move towards forgiveness, happiness and love.  Remember that you have control over how you feel, and refuse to let others bring you down.  Try to love others the way you would like to be loved.  Make small changes daily and you will find yourself feeling healthier, happier and better adjusted!

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Happy is the New Sexy

by drstephen

Happy

Want to be more attractive? Smile.

As it turns out, happy people are more attractive than sad, angry, stoic or confused looking people.

I don’t want to tell you how much money (and other resources) were invested to discover / prove this, but as it turns out, we are attracted to people who appear to be happy.

The scientist in me is compelled to double-click on the work attraction and unpack for you the logical explanation of this primal law.  I could write pages defending the notion that “happiness” conferred a reproductive or survival advantage to our ancestors…but need I?

(If you must…read here…and here)

Happiness wears many faces, but all of these faces are easy to read.

We know Joy when we see it.  We are wired to want more of it.  And we are driven to seek it’s source.

You can be its source. 

No perfume, sporty car or prestigious position can compete.

A smile is the magnet that pulls the strongest on the metal that we’re made of; but even more encouraging is the truth that smiles are always available and infinitely divisible. Give them away freely, you can always make more.

Happily (I am smiling.  I wish that I used emoticons, one would be useful here.),

SF

Dr. Stephen Franson