Barefoot Doctor's Journal

Take control of your health with this guide to natural health and healing. Get expert advice to help you alleviate pain and live healthy naturally. Access to tools, information and opportunities.

Take control of your health

For 5000 years Traditional Chinese Medicine has help people to relieve pain and achieve a healthy longevity naturally.

A comprehensive guide to natural health and healing, the Barefoot Doctor’s Journal seeks to empower it's readers to take control of their own health, find their own inspiration, help create healthier communities and share the adventure with whoever is interested. Internationally recognized experts in the fields of healthy aging and Traditional Chinese Medicine, the Living Younger Longer Institute has helped hundreds of people each year to live healthy naturally.

News You Can Use!

Providing members with the latest scientific research on the ancient healing secrets of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Get information, access to tools, and enjoyable opportunities for a lifetime of active adventure!

September 29, 2020
Joe Brady

Finding Hope

“However long the night, the dawn will break.” ~African Proverb

We spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about the future. Our hopes for creating a better future for ourselves and our loved ones goes a long way towards our sense of quality of life. When the future is uncertain as it is in the world today it can be extremely difficult to hold on to our hopes for the future. It is all too easy to fall into the idea that our happiness, our enjoyment is dependent upon forces outside of ourselves – dependent upon our families, dependent upon our incomes, dependent upon our geographical location or the circumstances of our health. Meanwhile, scientists are finding what our ancestors knew: enjoyment comes from within the individual. The elements of enjoyment are created or destroyed by our own attitude, not by our circumstances. Focussing upon circumstances over which we have no control leads to feelings of helplessness, and helplessness is  horrible feeling. The human brain is much happier when it has some sense of control over life. When you cannot control the big stuff you have to focus upon controlling what you do have control of. Athletes call it controlling the controllables.  Even during tough times we do have control of how we experience our daily lives. Taking control of our daily life, hobbies, volunteer activities, sports, games, art, music and physical activities. Enjoyable activities that enhance the quality of life can be structured in ways that enhance our enjoyment and contribute to creating meaning in our lives in the moment. If we can take control of the little stuff we can be in much stronger position to deal with the big stuff.

Positivepsychology.com is an online community of therapists, psychologists, counselors, coaches, teachers and practitioners. A science-based online resource packed full of courses, techniques, tools, and tips to help you put positive psychology into practice every day. The therapists at positivepschology.com have put together a list of the top fifteen TED talks on the subject of positive psychology. Discover what some of the most influential, well-known experts have to share on topics like grit, wellbeing, and gratitude, check out these best-of-the-best videos.

Read more and watch the videos

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September 21, 2020
Joe Brady

September is Pain Awareness Month

Pain is a common reason why people use complementary health approaches. It’s also a major focus of the (NCCIH) National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health’s research program. Here are some of the resources available:

  • Pain eBook – overview of what the science says about the effectiveness and safety of complementary health approaches for various pain conditions.
  • Low-Back Pain Fact Sheet – learn about mind and body approaches that may be helpful for low-back pain.
  • Video From NCCIH Director – in this brief video, Dr. Helene Langevin talks about ongoing research on nonpharmacologic treatments for chronic pain and opioid use disorder.

Pain is the most common reason for seeking medical care. It is also a common reason why people turn to complementary and integrative health approaches. If you are considering such an approach for pain, this information can help you talk with your health care provider.

NCCIH supports and conducts pain research at the NIH labs in Bethesda, Maryland, and by funding research and grants around the country. We also provide information for both consumers and health professionals.

Read more on the latest findings on pain relief

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September 15, 2020
Joe Brady

Keep your brain active: Adult learning online

Running out of things to watch on Netflix? Keep your brain active and try something new with these taster lectures from the University of Oxford.
What can we learn from an archaeologist about hygiene? How did Italy use product design to pull itself out of post-war economic depression? Who was King Richard II’s role model?
Find answers to these questions and many more in this library of short taster sessions, produced by tutors teaching this autumn on the Weekly Oxford Worldwide (WOW) programme.

Explore the newly refreshed Curious Minds page, with six brand new free learning resources! Today’s ‘Tutor Takeover’ is Ben Grant, Departmental Lecturer in English Literature, who recommends The William Blake Archive – an online platform dedicated to the works of William Blake.

The Economics of the COVID-19 Pandemic

A series of talks from the Oxford Martin School looking at the economics of the Covid-19 pandemic, its impact on economic activity, employment, trade, developing countries, business, and more.

https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/event-series/the-economics-of-the-covid-19-pandemic?utm_source=Curious+Minds+List+Ten&utm_campaign=ccbf9fe6ef-Curious-minds-week-10&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4aa8ad726a-ccbf9fe6ef-88163177

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September 6, 2020
Joe Brady

Culinary Medicine: Grand Rounds

Harvard Medical School’s Osher Institute for Integrative Medicine

Date: Tuesday, September 8th at 8:00-9:00 am on Zoom
Significant gaps in nutrition content exist across the medical education continuum, from new learners to practicing physicians. An emerging approach to enhance mastery of practical nutrition content is that of culinary medicine provided in the context of a teaching kitchen. Preliminary research suggests culinary medicine is an innovative active learning approach that may be an effective pedagogical option that is gaining traction in academic health institutions. At this month’s Integrative Medicine Grand Rounds, join Dr. Melinda Ring, Executive Director of the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine at Northwestern University, who will discuss her experience with culinary medicine education for health professionals. Join virtually by live stream here.
If you want to request CME credit for virtual participation, to be eligible, send an email between 8:00-8:30 am on September 8th with your full name, degree, and organization to jcantlin@bwh.harvard.edu. Submit your questions via the Q&A function in Zoom.

To Register and for more details and resources read on

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September 1, 2020
Joe Brady

Top Ten Reasons for Hope We Can Get Control of COVID

In a season that seems so dark, and bad news hitting the headlines in wave after wave, you have to look hard to find reasons for hope. Yet there is always hope and humanity has survived many a crisis by looking for a light at the end of the tunnel and making a break for it when it appears. It’s funny but since the pandemic began every article I have written here that suggested hope has received the highest numbers of unsubscribes. If you are brave enough to look for evidence-based hope, read on.

To begin, the most important scientific news we have lately is that studies from laboratory experiments, hospitals, and data from whole countries are confirming that the biggest opportunity we have to stem the tide of this pandemic is one that we all have direct control of and responsibility for. Wearing masks is turning out to be the most effective thing we can do to prevent the spread of the disease and furthermore to minimize the severity of infection in those who do get sick. According to an article by Monica Gandhi, Professor of Medicine, Infectious Diseases and Global Medicine, University of California, San Francisco recent research has confirmed that the virus is dose-related. That means the amount of virus that we get in us determines in large part how sick we get. The smaller the dose, the less sick you get, and the larger the dose the sicker you get making the difference between those that land in the hospital and those who didn’t even know they are infected. The role of viral load or dose level in the severity of a disease has been known in the west for over 100 years and in Asia since the thirteenth century when Marco Polo noticed the Chinese wearing masks during disease outbreaks.

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