Van Halen is one of the Best rock and roll groups ever!!!

Okay I know not quite what you may be thinking in a health and wellness blog, but it is true none the less.

Miranda, my wife for some of you who may not know, called me last week and asked me what my favorite Van Halen song was. I thought the same as you, where did this question come from? Yes left field. She would not tell me why she wanted to know but I told her anyway. There was no thinking involved, no hesitation, DREAMS.

Awesome video and song, I know. When Miranda asked me this question I immediately went to you tube, imagine that me on you tube. As I watched the video it brought back a ton of emotions and memories for me. One is of my older brothers who steered me in the right direction of Van Halen. The other was of dreams as a young child. I would listen to this song, watch this video, read books about the Blue Angels, make models of the FA18 Hornet and so on.

You see my dream was to be a Blue Angel pilot in the Navy. That was my only dream, but as I got older I found out I had a slight astigmatism developing in my eye. I knew form talking with Navy recruiters that I need to have perfect vision without any corrections and I realized my life was not going to move in that direction.

Soon after I realized that I wanted to be a fireman, like my cousin in California. Single, nice house, able to go and do as I please. For those of you who know me, I have three awesome children and have been married for 14 years. Quite a change from my second dream and I would not change it for the world. Then came along about a bad left shoulder. Dislocated at least a dozen times form middle school to high school. That was the end of that dream.

Now my third dream came about after Miranda and I were in a car accident and we visited a local chiropractor who helped us get better and cared for our young daughter also. You can say the rest is history.

So what is the point to all this “dream” nonsense? Well I look at our dreams as our goals in disguise. Sometimes we miss our goals because we see them as dreams and not as goals. If you have a dream, write it down, create a plan to achieve it and by all means read it OUT LOUD every morning and every night.

In order to make realistic goals, we need to know how to write SMART goals. A SMART goal is a goal that is Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-framed. SMART goals can help you to better track your progress, set realistic expectations, and will help get you further along than you could have ever imagined

Believe in your dream/goal. Make it a reality.

Yours in Health, Naturally,

Dr. Ben

Week 7 This week focus on watching less television

The average American watches almost 5 hours of TV every day! Challenge yourself to watch as little as possible, see if you can watch 1 hour or less per night. Let yourself watch you favorite shows, but turn it off after that. It is amazing how the television has an ability to suck you in. Without realizing it you have been watching for hours. In many cases you start with watching a show you enjoy, then it turns into what is the best thing on after that. At the end of the night you: might be able to build a robot or remodel your house (even though you don’t own any tools), you might know everything about all the celebrities (that you will never meet), or you might now know every punch line from you favorite movie (after watching it for the 100th time.)

Television is entertainment and it is designed to keep you attention. Everything we do in life either builds us up or tears us down. Positive things build us up and negative things break us down. If you are watching a show ask yourself is this building me up? If not turn it off. Violence, drama, negativity, poor language. What are we exposing to ourselves, our kids? In addition to what the TV does to your mind, by sitting for that many hours per day and often eating while watching it is no wonder what as a society we are becoming obese so rapidly. If the average American cut that TV time is half and watched 2.5 hours and exercised the other half we would go from one of the most overweight countries to one of the fittest.

You will be amazed at how much you can accomplish by limiting TV hours. You will also start to enjoy life again, instead of getting through it.

What can you do?
• Talk to your spouse
• Play with the kids
• Read a book
• Exercise
• Find a hobby
• Meditate
• Go for a walk
• Play games
• Listen to a motivational or inspirational CD
• Volunteer
• Listen to your favorite songs
• Go to bed early and get the sleep you need

Yours in Health, Naturally,

Dr. Ben