Dear Sugar, WTF, WTF, WTF? I’m asking this question as it applies to everything every day. Best, WTF This is the letter that launched the “Dear Sugar” advice column on TheRumpus.net as something new and different. In an uncharacteristic style for an advice column, Sugar begins with deep personal sharing and “radical empathy.” She walks …Read More
Author: Dr. Joel Ying, MD
Physician-Educator-Storyteller. Integrating the power of story into medicine, healing sessions, workshops, speaking and performance.
Nocebo Effect and Medical Hexing
Many people have heard of the placebo effect, but fewer have heard of the nocebo effect. The Double-Blind Randomized Controlled Trial The gold standard for medical research studies is the double-blind randomized controlled trial (RCT). The simplest RCT study might take a target population (e.g., patients with high blood pressure) and then randomize them into …Read More
Poem: I Will Keep Broken Things
I Will Keep Broken Things —by Alice Walker I will keep Broken Things: The big clay Pot With raised Iguanas Chasing Their Tails; Two Of their Wise Heads Sheared Off; I will keep Broken things: The old Slave Market Basket Brought To my Door By Mississippi A jagged Hole Gouged In its sturdy Dark Oak …Read More
Kelly McGonigal: Getting Good at Stress
With so much of the country facing the stress of natural disasters, we see communities coming together and neighbors helping neighbors. However, in the face of tragedy there is also the other side of humanity. Stress brings out both the best and the worst in all of us. For years, health professionals have been telling …Read More
Reclaim Your Body Wisdom
If you’ve ever been stuck in your head (like me) with recurring thoughts racing around to create chronic anxiety, then you know that sometimes stopping to take 10 deep breaths just isn’t enough to calm the mind down. (Don’t get me wrong; it helps sometimes!) How can we align the mind and body, head and …Read More
Sonnets to Hurricane Irma
In the aftermath of hurricane Irma, this poem by Rainer Maria Rilke somehow seems fitting as we turn to the task of rebuilding. Prayers to all those that have been touched by her path. May the wings of hope hold us up and move us forward with courage, community, and conviction. Sonnets to Orpheus, Part …Read More
The Velveteen Rabbit on Being Real
What does it mean to be Real? to be seen? to belong? to connect? to be loved? to be Wholehearted? Here’s an inspiring passage from The Velveteen Rabbit, the 1992 children’s classic by Margery Williams. I recently came across the quote in Brene Brown’s book, Daring Greatly. The Skin Horse tells the Velveteen Rabbit what …Read More
Do what you love
“Do what you love or love what you do.” — Grandma Wisdom Many years ago, a friend gave me this advice from his grandmother, so I call it “Grandma Wisdom.” Prior to this, I had only heard the first part, “Do what you love.” And now I realize why it was incomplete. While sometimes I need …Read More
Millennials: Helping the next generation succeed
Are you a Millennial? Do you interact with the Millennial generation? Watch the Simon Sinek interview below to learn how to this generation can succeed. Millennials, also known as Generation Y or the Net Generation, were born between approximately 1982 to 2004. Every generation faces its own unique challenges. This generation has grown up with the …Read More
Matthew Sanford: Transcending Trauma with Yoga
“Mind-body integration is more than a personal health strategy. It is a movement of consciousness that can change the world.” ― Matthew Sanford At 13 years old, Matthew Sanford was paralyzed from the chest down in an accident that killed his father and his sister. Trauma, he says, happens not just to an individual but to …Read More