• … graduate training in clinical psychology with a focus on cognitive behavior therapy. This developed his skills in nonjudgmental observation, as well as his capacity to intentionally relax;
• … publishing stress management research as a psychology department faculty member at the University of Georgia. This data-oriented environment deepened his sensitivity to published peer reviewed research; and
• … avoiding commercial television programming for more than a half century. This enhanced his brain/mind’s permeability for a diversity of informational and experiential inputs.

Q1: Why might this be strategically relevant for me?

All beings, including the dharma wanderer, have been unconsciously programmed during their socio-cultural development. This insulates beings from input incompatible with the dominant cultural paradigm. This is true for all economic, political, religious and ideological “-isms”. The programming identifies desirable goals and the traditional pathways for reaching those goals.

As beings mature developmentally they have the opportunity to broaden their views and explore a wider diversity of inputs. Even so, their entertainment choices and social media algorithms tend to narrow the breadth of inputs to their brain/mind.

This narrowing of inputs affects their understanding of life and apparent reality. The result is a significant limiting of strategic alternatives. This is especially relevant for the pursuit of health, happiness and security. When inevitable dissatisfaction and suffering arises, solutions for most beings are psychologically limited to the coping patterns established by the dominant socio-cultural paradigm.

Culturally programmed limiting of strategic alternatives tends to prolong dissatisfaction and suffering.

Q2: That seems quite abstract. Can you give me some practical examples?

Sure. Let’s consider social media. Even though there are a variety of social media channels, algorithmic programming limits the audio-visual information presented to each viewer. This is based on what is selected to watch, like and share.

There are two sides to this narrowing process. Viewers can go deeper into content they wish to explore. This deepening of content is likely to reinforce views they already hold. If they continue to be dissatisfied and suffer, despite testing culturally programmed options, they are more likely to get caught in a repeating loop of behavioral choices that leave them stuck in suffering and dissatisfaction.

Q3: Huh? Still too abstract. Please make it practical.

Okay. Consider two arenas: politics and health.

Politics

The political points of view expressed by Fox and CNN are mostly incompatible and contribute to polarization and disharmony. Election cycles swing like a pendulum from one side to the other. Long term solutions seem virtually impossible. Pervasive uncertainty contributes to the perception of looming chaos. There is little to no “crossing of the aisles” at national and state levels for the generation of solutions for a variety of critical issues, especially health, infrastructure and education. The absence of enduring solutions continues. This intensifies dissatisfaction and suffering, thereby contributing further to polarization and disharmony.

Health

The baby boomer generation is in the last stage of their lives. They have been programmed to rely on their primary care physicians [PCPs] for symptomatic treatment of disease. Traditional PCPs are trained to go beyond simple blood work and use invasive procedures [x-ray, MRI, surgical biopsy] for diagnostic testing and subsequent referral to specialists for treatment by drugs, chemo and/or surgery.

These treatments can sometimes be effective, but they are in no way preventive.

What is presented as prevention by traditional 20th century allopathic medicine is actually early diagnosis, not prevention.

Pharmaceutical companies provide significant financial and educational support of medical training. This approach has not reduced the incidence and pervasiveness of disease. Instead, this has increased it.

For an alternative approach, cellular metabolic research has significantly improved over the last two decades. This has enabled a vastly deeper understanding of the conditions that contribute to disease as well as an expansion of alternatives for the promotion of longevity and healthspan.

Alternatives to 20th century allopathic medicine were kick-started in the 1970’s with emergence of the holistic health paradigm. This approach established three arenas for attention: body, mind and spirit. Optimization of these three sectors was proposed as the path to improved health, wellness and well-being. Physical exercise for the body included jogging for the heart, stress management and relaxation for the mind and emotions, plus meditation for cultivation of a compassionate open heart.

The holistic health paradigm of the 1970’s has ripened over the past half century to include high intensity intervals [HIIT], a wider variety of meditation techniques, and increasingly sophisticated cellular metabolic research. Research increasingly provides evidence for the health benefits of a variety of food, nutraceutical and meditation choices.

The dharma wanderer tends to rely on three evidence-based sources for nutrition, health and fitness information. The first two are:

• Dr. Michael Greger [MD] has curated a vast amount of research on the relationship of diet to disease as well as specific foods and nutraceuticals for disease prevention. This information is presented on two key landing pages:
  health and nutrition topics and 2) a page that covers different pathways for exploring the bulk of his evidence-based info shares – explore

• Rhonda Patrick PhD curates evidence-based nutrition, health and fitness research at
  Found My Fitness. She is a scientist and health educator recognized for her leadership in nutrition, aging, and disease prevention.

Q4: I don’t have time to go into these sites in detail. What should I do?

Ahhhh, now we get to the essential issue. How we “spend” our time can have enormous strategic consequences. We are increasingly programmed by ever changing advertisements on commercial television. YouTube and social media channels such as facebook, tik tok and instagram tend to give us snippets of information from opinion makers and influencers. These channels are designed with commercial intent to hold our attention and stimulate more clicks, thereby providing channel owners with revenue and an increasing number of followers.

A deeply fundamental question is: How do I “spend” my time and why do I “spend” it this way?

It’s important to recognize our attention is an important form of personal currency. Just like financial currency, we have a limited amount of time. Just as there are pulls and urges to spend money on specific items, there are pulls and urges to “pay” attention on items and objects in our visual world.

We can gaze at natural beauty or watch Fox and CNN. We can listen to peaceful music or scroll through facebook, tik tok and instagram. We can watch commercial television and allow ourselves to be unconsciously programmed by everchanging commercials, or…

We can carefully consider what is strategically important for us at the current stage of our unfolding lives, and then explore pathways for reaching our own strategic goals that emerge from such reflection.

After such reflection and identification of the most important personal issues for health, wellness and well-being, there is a third highly useful source of information.

Q5: What’s the third source of information you rely on?

The emergence of multiple AI [artificial intelligence] apps is enabling a massive revolution in access to useful information. The dharma wanderer regularly uses an AI app that is research focused. Perplexity.AI pro [deep research version] shares links to each information source used in response to a single query. The app’s deep research version integrates this information and generates a well crafted report.

It will be helpful to give the app descriptive information in a query that includes: age, gender, race, height, weight, typical dietary pattern and, of course, symptoms that are a concern, as well as a medical diagnosis if one is available. Blood test or other test results can also be included.

After providing relevant descriptive information, the dharma wanderer typically ends health related queries with a primary question…

For this individual, what dietary, nutritional and exercise approaches might be helpful, what are potential adverse effects and how might these be mitigated?

Narrowing the options provided in response to a query can be accomplished by submitting a follow-up query at the end of the report, such as:

Among the options identified in the above report, which ones are the most potentially helpful, how might they best be combined and what might be an optimum schedule for their implementation?

This information gathering process can be applied to virtually any life area.

A word to the wise can often be sufficient. May all who read this post consider identifying and expanding their strategic options for their health, wellness, well-being, longevity and healthspan.

🙏💕🌎