Posts Tagged With ‘ Dr. Ron Kaiser ’

Exercise is in fashion these days.  When I was growing up, the only gyms that I knew about were in schools or community centers.  They tended to be large rooms with very little equipment, no weights, and generally designed for team sports such a basketball, volleyball, or dodgeball.  Nowadays, if you live in a city there’s a good chance that you are in walking distance from a gym, and it’s often just a short commute to a gym if you live in a suburban or rural area. Although gyms vary in quality and cost, almost all of them have a range of equipment that provides cardio, weight... Continue Reading

When psychologists speak of assertiveness, they typically are referring to being able to express your thoughts and feelings honestly while not impacting on the rights of others.  Unassertive people are easily taken advantage of because they don’t stand up for their own rights – and they may make purchases that they don’t need or work overtime at the workplace while co-workers who asserted themselves go home on time.  There is an internal price to pay for lack of assertiveness in addition to often also paying a financial price by being talked into an unneeded purchase.  Some... Continue Reading

It’s been said that the best way to earn $2,000,000 is to take $1,000,000 and invest it safely and wisely – and in a few years you will have $2,000,000.  The only problem with that idea is that you must have $1,000,000 in order to implement it. Similar advice might apply when it comes to achieving good health in older adulthood.  While it’s never too late to accrue health benefits that come from quitting smoking, losing excess weight, or starting to exercise, the benefits will be greater if you have begun exercising healthy habits before you enter life’s second half-century. ... Continue Reading

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Willingly or unwillingly, most of us have had the experience of taking a geometry class and learning about such things a circles, trapezoids, and tangents. They are necessary components of the subject and help to build a foundation for advanced math and science applications. The tangent is a particularly interesting concept. It is a straight line that just touches a circle or curve but does not penetrate it and, instead, it goes off in its own direction. As such, it has taken a meaning outside of geometry to describe a thought that starts in one place but then takes off in a totally... Continue Reading

The year 2019 will soon be upon us. As happens every new year, gyms will get temporarily more crowded, cigarette sales will drop a bit, some bars will temporarily sell a little more tonic water and a little less alcohol, and more people will start eating primarily plant-based diets, at least for a little while. And some people will work at being more thoughtful to their families and friends. I’m certain that you recognize that these behaviors result from New Years resolutions. I’m certain that you also know that many of these resolutions won’t last more than a few days or a... Continue Reading

When working with people to help them change habits for the betterment of their lifestyles and health, I’m often met with a response on the order of, “I really want to – but it’s hard.” It seems like an acceptable excuse for not going on a diet, not implementing an exercise program, not going back to school to learn a new skill to make you more competitive, or not risking embarrassment by approaching someone to whom you are romantically attracted. It seems like an acceptable excuse – until you start thinking about it. Think about it. Was learning to read easy? Was adolescence... Continue Reading

This blog is being written at the end of Thanksgiving weekend in America. I hope that you had a chance to celebrate with family and friends, and I hope that you all found lots of reasons to feel grateful and give thanks. I started thinking that I may never have adequately given thanks to those who follow me on my website and/or social media. I want to take the opportunity to do so now, and I hope you will recognize how much I appreciate your positive outlooks and your commitment to the principles of The Mental Health Gym. Over the past several years, I’ve gotten to know many of... Continue Reading

The more that I got used to drinking water, the better it tasted to to me – and now I almost always choose water over a sugary drink. The more that I ate salads, the more it became my preferred lunchtime meal (and often my preferred dinner too), and now – despite living in Philadelphia – I really can’t handle eating a cheesesteak for lunch. While I always played sports, for many years I rebelled against the notion of exercising on a regular basis to stay in shape, but now I feel much worse if I don’t don’t go to the gym on one of my regular exercise days. Like many people,... Continue Reading

I don’t consider myself to be a guy who scares very easily, but there are two kinds of people who scare me – not because I consider them to be dangerous to me but rather to themselves. The first type are the ones who don’t know how to say “No” whenever they are asked to do something – whether they want to or not, whether they feel competent to do so or not, and whether the task is meaningful to them or not. As a result they subject themselves to overload, burnout, and eventually low self-esteem because they wind up being unable to accomplish all that they set out to do. The... Continue Reading