Dr. Mark and Dr. Chip's Healthy Blogs

  Hey! Have you ever had a plan that didn’t work? I went on a skiing trip to Colorado with Dr. Chip and had to stay a couple more days because a blizzard went over the airport. Quite a stressful situation that was tempting to react with negative emotions such as anger, frustration, worry, and the list goes on. I’m sure we have all had “challenges” in our life that may bring out these emotions within us. But doesn’t it always work out no matter what emotions we use? During our re-planning of our flights, we focused on the opportunity life was giving us rather than looking at this as a bad thing. So we did some more hiking trips and more skiing. We are even going to a Top Golf that I always wanted to go to. It seems that when life closes a door, a window opens. This has been the same for all of the “challenges” that I have had in my life. It may have been hard to see the window open right away, but in the grand scheme of things I was always looking out the window even when I thought...

  Hello Natural Health Family. First off I wanted to apologize for my absence this week. I intended to be back to start the week Monday. However, Mother Nature had other plans. I have not been able to get back to Quincy due to winter storms and flight cancelations. After going back and forth of what to do and finally getting a flight booked I realized (or remembered) a lesson that I wanted to share with you as it may be a good time for you too. We tend to want to control many things in life but sometimes life doesn’t work that way. This weekend I went snowboarding. I have never snowboarded in my life but have heard it is a lot of fun. I also wanted to do something new that would push me past my comfort zone. Let me tell you that the South Park Quincy hills are a little smaller than the Colorado Mountains. Every time going down the mountain is a mixed feeling of fear and fun. It seemed when I let go and trusted myself to be able to go down the steep mountain that I had more fun (a...

  Hello Everyone in Natural Health Nation -      I hope that you all enjoyed your weekend and got some of those little chores done that we need to do in Spring. It looks like we're getting some rain that we need to get the grass growing and flowers blooming. I was enjoying the warm weather but it seems more normal now with it being a little cooler, as long as we stay away from the ice and snow. I always find it interesting that I'm looking forward to that first mowing of the grass and the great smell of fresh-cut grass but then about two months later, I'm over it. It's amazing how the seasons change and as we get older, how fast they go.      As we're still in March, we're talking about diet and digestion this month. The article that  I am enclosing is looking at the hormone disrupting chemicals in our environment. People don't realize how much hormone balancing has to do with the digestive system. There are a lot of hormones t...

  Analysis by  Dr. Joseph Mercola STORY AT-A-GLANCE Endocrine-disrupting chemicals have “hijacked” human hormones, causing problems with reproduction and declining sperm counts The book “Count Down,” written by Shanna Swan, a reproductive epidemiologist, is based on her 2017 study, which found sperm counts dropped by 59.3% from 1973 to 2011 Human beings already meet three of the five criteria for what makes a species endangered, according to Swan, and endocrine-disrupting “everywhere chemicals” are a key culprit Men today have about half the number of sperm compared to their grandfathers, and a significant part of the global population may not be able to reproduce without technological assistance come 2050 EDCs interfere with endogenous hormones, and it’s been found that some effects of exposure persist in future generations, even among males that weren’t directly exposed Plastic is such a ubiquitous part of modern life that it’s hard to imagine a world without it. But in the ...

  I think it is safe to say that we all love food. We couldn't last very long without food. Just picture a time when food was scarce and we were hunting and gathering. Once we were able to eat, it probably felt like nothing else mattered. Just super grateful for being able to survive another day because no one knows when the next meal would be. Also I could see that if we had to chase down an animal, gather food for the village, or prepare the crop we were probably not relaxed. It was work that needed blood to be in our muscles to perform the task. We were more in a stressful survival state. When we come to eat, we want to be in a nice, relaxed state to eat. This will allow the blood to be in our internal organs to provide the natural state of digesting. Being grateful for our food can help us get into that relaxed state to get the most out of our meal. Gratefulness while eating has been researched to provide people in getting the most out of their food. Gratitude puts you in a par...

  Hello Natural Health Family. I hope everyone got outside and was able to enjoy the weather. Today I wanted to talk about the power of gratitude and why it’s not just something you should do as an activity but more to make it a part of your life. Of course I am not saying you have to do what I will talk about, but wanted to give some key points of gratitude or appreciation that may help someone reading this to see it in a different lens.  When we think of gratitude we may think of a feeling we get when we receive something from another person. Yes, that is one form of gratitude. However, you can be grateful for anything in your life. It may be the house you live in, the water you drink, the food you eat, etc. The feeling of gratitude is not just something that we feel every now and then. Gratitude plays an important part in the physiological aspects of the body. Studies show that when we think and feel gratitude it stimulates parts of the brain that send signals to other pa...

  Hello everyone in Natural Health Nation -      It’s so nice to have warmer weather and I hope you were able to enjoy it this weekend. The birds are chirping, the ducks and geese are flying and I've heard of flowers coming up to show the signs of spring are here. I'm sure looking forward to green grass and the smell of that first cutting. It's an awesome time of year, to watch everything coming back to life from a hard winter. I hope you are able to get Outdoors into the fresh air and sunshine and come back to life after hibernating. I think everyone is looking forward to being able to get outside.      We are working on the topic of diet in February and the topic for this week's Health shop is stomach and bowel issues. The article that I'm sending along with this email is about a “DNR” put on some folks in  care facilities. A "DNR" is a “do not resuscitate” order and the folks that had it used on them didn't even know it...