As audio producers, one of the most fun things we get to do is bring the soundscape of a novel to life — cue the monsters, the storms, the footsteps of a creature emerging slowly from the ocean. So that’s what we’re bringing you today: Great writers, epic sound design.

Original Air Date: July 03, 2021

Guests:

Nnedi Okorafor — Neil Gaiman — Lidia Yuknavitch — N. K. Jemisin — Ann Patchett — Richard Powers — Pattiann Rogers — Lorrie Moore — Kelly Link — Mark Sundeen

Interviews In This Hour:

Nnedi Okorafor's Alien Invasion of Lagos — Neil Gaiman Brings Us To The End Of The World — Lidia Yuknavitch’s Dream World: How Dreams Shaped Her Dazzling Speculative Novel — A Not So Distant Future in the N.K. Jemisin's 'Broken Earth' Trilogy — Ann Patchett on 'State of Wonder' — Richard Powers on Writing the Inner Life of Trees — Pattiann Rogers on Bee Poetry — Lorrie Moore on Bringing Characters To Life With Brevity — Kelly Link on 'Pretty Monsters' — Mark Sundeen on 'The Making of Toro'

Africans are moving into cities in unprecedented numbers. Lagos, Nigeria, is growing by 77 people an hour — it's on track to become a city of 100 million. In 30 years, the continent is projected to have 14 mega-cities of more than 10 million people. It's perhaps the largest urban migration in history.

These cities are not like Dubai, or Singapore, or Los Angeles. They’re uniquely African cities, and they’re forcing all of us to reconsider what makes a city modern. And how and why cities thrive.

To find out what's going on, we go to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to talk with entrepreneurs, writers, scholars and artists. In this hour, produced in partnership with the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes (CHCI) — a global consortium of 270 humanities centers and institutes — we learn how the continent where the human species was born is building the cities of the future.

Original Air Date: December 14, 2019

Guests:

Dagmawi Woubshet — Julie Mehretu — Emily Callaci — James Ogude — Ato Qyayson — Teju Cole — Meskerem Assegued

Interviews In This Hour:

Rediscovering the Indigenous City of Addis Ababa — 'People As Infrastructure' — A Tour Of The Networked City — 'I Am Because We Are': The African Philosophy of Ubuntu — How Pan-African Dreams Turned Dystopic — Decoding Global Capitalism on One African Street — Life in the Diaspora: How Teju Cole Pivots Between Cultures — Can Artists Create the City of the Future?

Further Reading:

CHCI

If you look at a mountain, you might see a skiing destination, a climbing challenge, or even a source of timber to be logged or ore to be mined. But there was a time when mountains were sacred. In some places, they still are. What changes when you think of a mountain not as a giant accumulation of natural resources, but as a living being?

Today’s show is part of our project on kinship with the more-than-human world — produced in collaboration with the Center for Humans and Nature, and with support from the Kalliopeia Foundation. You’ll find more information about the project at ttbook.org/kinship and humansandnature.org.

Original Air Date: July 24, 2021

Guests:

John Hausdoerffer — Regina Lopez-Whiteskunk — David Hinton — Lisa Maria Madera

Interviews In This Hour:

What Do You Owe The Mountains Around You? — 'These Are Live, Active Places': A Ute Activist Fights To Save The Bears Ears National Monument — A Poet Finds Life Lessons on Hunger Mountain — 'I Was Born To Volcanoes'

What does it take to win Olympic gold? To become "the world's fastest human"? This hour, Olympic fame, the politics of sports, and the science of running.

Original Air Date: July 31, 2021

Guests:

John Carlos — Gretchen Reynolds — Mark McClusky — Michael Powell

Interviews In This Hour:

The Fist and the 1968 Olympics — Walk, Run, Swim Or Bike — The Most Important Exercise Is Merely Movement — Faster, Higher, Stronger — The Magic of 'Rez Ball'

One of the toughest things about trying to understand climate change – arguably the most important story of our time - is wrapping our minds around it. To even imagine something so enormous, so life-changing, we need a story. Some characters, a metaphor, and even some lessons learned. For that, we turn to the novelists and journalists telling the story of climate change – as we – and our children – live it.

Original Air Date: August 14, 2021

Guests:

Alice Bell — Lydia Millet — Lidia Yuknavitch — John Lanchester

Interviews In This Hour:

The Climate Change Stories We Need To Hear — The Climate Crisis Gets Biblical — Lidia Yuknavitch’s Dream World: How Dreams Shaped Her Dazzling Speculative Novel — A Climate Dystopia Of Cold, Concrete, Wind and a Wall

Over the past decade, plant scientists have quietly transformed the way we think of trees, forests and plants. They discovered that trees communicate through vast underground networks, that plants learn and remember. If plants are intelligent beings, how should we relate to them? Do they have a place in our moral universe? Should they have rights?

Human identity cannot be separated from our nonhuman kin. From forest ecology to the human microbiome, emerging research suggests that being human is a complicated journey made possible only by the good graces of our many companions. In partnership with the Center for Humans and Nature and with support from the Kalliopeia Foundation, To The Best Of Our Knowledge is exploring this theme of "kinship" in a special radio series.

Original Air Date: December 19, 2020

Guests:

Robin Wall Kimmerer — Matt Hall — Monica Gagliano — Brooke Hecht

Interviews In This Hour:

We've Forgotten How To Listen To Plants — We Share This World With Plants. What Do We Owe Them? — Guided by Plant Voices — The Botanical Medicine Cabinet

Not everyone has a nice, big yard to stretch out in while sheltering in place from COVID-19. But maybe you don't need one. People are using virtual spaces to live out the real experiences they miss — like coffee shops, road trips, even building your own house on a deserted island, or Walden Pond. In a world where we're mostly confined to our homes and Zoom screens, does the line between virtual and real-life space mean much anymore?

Original Air Date: May 16, 2020

Guests:

Mark Riechers — Tracy Fullerton — Simon Parkin — Jane McGonigal — Donald D. Hoffman — Suzanne O’Sullivan

Interviews In This Hour:

There's No Pandemic In Animal Crossing — I Went To The Woods To Level Up Deliberately — The Most Boring Video Game Ever Made — Want to be Happier? Turn Everyday Tasks Into a Game — How We Fool Ourselves With The Concept of 'Reality'

Further Reading:

NYAS: Reality Is Not As It Seems

Before the time of commercial flights and road trips, we traveled to far off places without taking a single step. All you had to do was open a book. From Africa to England, to a kamikaze cockpit, and to realms of fantasy. Books aren’t just books. They’re passports to anywhere.

Original Air Date: March 14, 2020

Guests:

Philip Pullman — Ruth Ozeki — Robert Macfarlane — Petina Gappah

Interviews In This Hour:

Philip Pullman on 'The Pocket Atlas of the World' — 'His Dark Materials' Author Philip Pullman On The Consciousness Of All Things — A Diary Becomes A Time Capsule — Ruth Ozeki on 'Kamikaze Diaries' — Petina Gappah on 'Persuasion' — The Empire Writes Back: Author Discusses Explorer David Livingstone's Complicated Legacy — Robert Macfarlane on 'The Living Mountain'

For all the commentary, the sorrow and rage, all the second-guessing about everything that followed, it’s still hard to fathom what happened on 9/11. Photographer James Nachtwey was in New York that day, and he took some of the iconic photos of the Twin Towers as they crumbled. "I’ve actually never gotten over it," he says. On the twentieth anniversary of 9/11, Nachtwey reflects on his life as a war photographer, and we consider the deep history of war itself. We also examine a very difficult question: Is war ever worth it?

Original Air Date: September 11, 2021

Guests: 

James Nachtwey — David Shields — Leymah Gbowee — Margaret MacMillan

Interviews In This Hour: 

Remembering 9/11 Through The Lens Of A Photojournalist — War is Beautiful? — Humans Have Gotten Nicer and Better at Making War — Is War Inevitable?

Using a complex network of chemical signals, trees talk to each other and form alliances with fellow trees, even other species. In fact, whole forests exist as a kind of superorganism. And some trees are incredibly old. Did you know a single bristlecone pine can live up to 6,000 years? And the root mass of aspens might live 100,000 years? We explore the science and history of trees and talk with Richard Powers about his epic novel "The Overstory."

Original Air Date: April 28, 2018

Guests: 

Mark Hirsch — Richard Powers — Suzanne Simard — Amos Clifford — Daegan Miller

Interviews In This Hour: 

A Year In The Life Of A Tree — Listening to the Mother Trees — Richard Powers on Writing the Inner Life of Trees — Bathing in the Beauty of the Trees — General Sherman, Karl Marx, and Other Aliases of Earth's Largest Tree

The women of Afghanistan are elected officials, school teachers, actors, TV contest winners, ancient rug weavers, and whisperers of forbidden poetry. The Taliban are starting to put down their thumb. But these women want you to know they are more than the timid victim under a burqa.

Original Air Date: October 02, 2021

Guests: 

Humaira Ghilzai — Eliza Griswold — Anna Badkhen — Rafia Zakaria

Interviews In This Hour: 

What's the future of culture in Afghanistan? — For Afghan weavers, the world is a carpet — Generations of Afghan women sharing the landay — How Afghanistan became America's 'first feminist war'

Music crosses boundaries between traditional and modern, local and global, personal and political. Take jazz — a musical form born out of forced migration and enslavement. We typically think it originated in New Orleans and then spread around the world. But today, we examine an alternate history of jazz — one that starts in Africa, then crisscrosses the planet, following the movements of people and empires -- from colonial powers to grassroots revolutionaries to contemporary artists throughout the diaspora.

This history of jazz is like the music itself: fluid and improvisatory.  

In this hour, produced in partnership with the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes (CHCI) — a global consortium of 270 humanities centers and institutes — we hear how both African and African-American music have shaped the sound of the world today.

Original Air Date: July 04, 2020

Guests: 

Meklit Hadero — Valmont Layne — Gwen Ansell — Ron Radano

Interviews In This Hour: 

How Meklit Hadero Reimagined Ethiopian Jazz — So You Say You Want A Revolution — Reclaiming the Hidden History of South African Jazz — 'We Are All African When We Listen'

Further Reading:

CHCI Ideas from Africa Hub

If you had to travel 500 miles across country, on foot, with no map, no GPS, without talking to anyone — to a destination you've never seen, could you do it? It sounds impossible, but millions of creatures spend their lives on the move, migrating from one part of the Earth to another with navigation skills we can only dream of. How do they do it — and what can we learn from them?

Original Air Date: July 25, 2020

Guests: 

Moses Augustino Kumburu — David Wilcove — Stan Temple — David Barrie — Sonia Shah

Interviews In This Hour: 

The Serengeti's Great Migration, Up Close — Why Do Animals Migrate? — Sandhill Cranes Make The Long Journey South — The Greatest Navigators on the Planet — The High Costs — And Potential Gains — Of Migration, Both Animal And Human

Rustling of leaves, sploshing of water, birds calling, bees buzzing. Wherever you live — city or country, East coast, West coast, or in between — we share common, contemplative experiences on our walks outside. In this hour, we assemble a sonic guide to finding solace in nature.

Original Air Date: May 09, 2020

Guests: 

William Helmreich — David Rothenberg — Laura Dassow Walls — Robert Moor — Nate Staniforth — Andreas Weber

Interviews In This Hour: 

The Great Urban Nature Explorer — Why The Walden Pond Experiment In Self-Reliance Is More Relevant Than Ever — The Wisdom of Trails — Lose Yourself In The Sky — Finding Love In The Ecosystem

As a culture we’ve long been fascinated by witchcraft, with witches through the ages practicing magic and making spells. Even through the spread of misinformation, and when they’ve been hunted and silenced. We take you from the 17th century to the online witch communities of today.
 

Original Air Date: October 30, 2021

Guests: 

Honey Rose — Rivka Galchen — Chris Gosden — Quan Barry

Interviews In This Hour: 

WitchTok, the super-connected coven — Are you now, or have you ever been, a witch? The witch hunt of Kepler's mother — From alchemy to internet witchcraft — the thousand-year history of magic — Spellcraft, field hockey and Emilio Estevez — the girl power of novelist Quan Barry's teen witches

Colonization in Africa was much more than a land grab. It was a project to replace — and even erase — local cultures. To label them inferior. Music, arts, literature and of course language. In other words, it permeated everything. So how do you undo that? How do you unlearn what you’ve been forced to learn?

In this hour, produced in partnership with the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes (CHCI) and Africa is a Country — we learn what it means to decolonize the mind.

Original Air Date: March 20, 2021

Guests: 

Adom Getachew — Simon Gikandi — Ngugi wa Thiong’o

Interviews In This Hour: 

Reckon with the Past To Decolonize the Future — Reclaiming the Hidden History of Blackness — Never Write In The Language of the Colonizer

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After a pandemic year of social isolation, we knew loneliness would be a problem. But public health officials have been warning for years that in countries all over the world, rates of loneliness are skyrocketing. How did loneliness become a condition of modern life?

Original Air Date: April 10, 2021

Guests: 

Jason Rohrer — Samantha Rose Hill — Claudia Rankine

Interviews In This Hour: 

My Friend Samantha (The A.I.) — How Loneliness Can Lead to Totalitarianism — Being Black and Alone in America

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We’re in the holiday season of the worst pandemic of our lives. Canceling our gatherings is the safe thing to do. But, how can we still — creatively and safely — connect with the people we love? Maybe there are some opportunities for us this year, too.

Original Air Date: November 28, 2020

Guests: 

Priya Parker — Stanley Weintraub — Peter Reinhart — Helen Macdonald — Gregg Krech

Interviews In This Hour: 

A Pandemic Holiday Season Offers Opportunities For Community, Too — Stanley Weintraub on the World War I Christmas Truce — Peter Reinhart on the Spiritual Importance of Bread — Helen Macdonald On 'The Dark Is Rising' — How to Cultivate Gratitude

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Whether you know it or not, your closets are filled with personal information. About your identity, your values, your personality. And every day, you wear it all right out the door for the whole world to see.

Do you think about what are you saying with your clothes?

Original Air Date: March 16, 2019

Guests: 

Angelo Bautista — Avery Trufelman — Carolyn Smith — agnès b. — Jo Paoletti

Interviews In This Hour: 

Finding Yourself By Finding Your Style — From High Fashion to Heather Gray T-Shirts, Choosing Your Style Is A Privilege — A Year Of Wearing Clothing Only Made By Hand — How Blue Became 'Boy' And Pink Became 'Girl' — The Fashion Icon Who Despises Fashion

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Remember when reading still felt magical? When a book could sweep you off your feet into another world? It might be that the best way to find your way back the magic is through a kid’s book. We talk to authors about Wonderland, magic wands, unicorns and other children's stories that inspire.

Original Air Date: May 01, 2021

Guests: 

Katherine Rundell — Quan Barry — Enrique Salmon — Ebony Thomas — LL McKinney — Lulu Miller

Interviews In This Hour: 

Why A Pandemic Is The Perfect Time To Read Children's Literature — Quan Barry on 'White Fang' — Enrique Salmon on 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' — Is Hermione Black? The Answer Depends On How Old You Are — Alice The Doomslayer Rises In L.L. McKinney's Reimagining of 'Alice In Wonderland' — Lulu Miller on 'The Search for Delicious'

Further Reading:

Bookmarks Hub 

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Ever want to quit your job, leave the rat race behind, and head back to the land? Buy an old farmhouse or build a solar-powered home and live self-sufficiently on a few acres of your very own? Generations before you have shared that dream. The reality is more complicated. Even owning your own land is an ethical minefield. 

Original Air Date: December 18, 2021

Guests:

Makenna Goodman — Simon Winchester — Hayden King

Interviews In This Hour:

Can you live off the land and still live ethically? — What does 'owning' land actually mean? — How the Land Back movement is reclaiming land stolen from Indigenous people

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What if the most unselfish thing you could do was to pursue pleasure? To look for delight? To feel joy? We make the case for the transformative power of joy, pleasure and delight.

Original Air Date: October 12, 2019

Guests:

Ross Gay — Kathryn Bond Stockton — Laurie Santos — Lynne Segal

Interviews In This Hour:

365 Days Of Delight: A Poet's Guide To Finding Joy — A Queer Theorist On Ecstatic Kissing — Laboratory of Joy: A Psychologist On The Science of Feeling Good — The Revolution Will Be Joyful: Feminist Lynne Segal On Fighting Power With Pleasure — The People Power Of Happiness

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Clocks and calendars chop time into increments – minutes, hours, days, years. It’s efficient, and it helps us get to meetings on time. But when we invented artificial time, we gave up natural time, and a deep sense of connection to the larger universe. What does time feel like when you stop counting it?

Original Air Date: January 04, 2020

Guests:

Alexander Rose — Douglas Rushkoff — Wade Davis — Brian Swimme — Laura Williams — Rachel Sussman

Interviews In This Hour:

Alexander Rose on The Clock of the Long Now — Reclaiming Time — The Eternal Moment — Brian Swimme on Organic Time — Laura Williams on a Tidal-Powered Moon Clock — What It Looks Like To Live For 600K Years

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The pandemic has made it clear that parents are walking a tightrope with no safety net. We talk to parents about how they want to change the system, what it's like to raise black boys in a time of racial injustice, and how we might learn from ancient cultures to improve our parenting skills.

Original Air Date: May 22, 2021

Guests:

Alissa Quart — Brittany Powell — Michaeleen Doucleff — Amaud Jamaul Johnson — Cherene Sherrard

Interviews In This Hour:

A Parenting Movement Emerges From the Pandemic — Modern Parenting Tips From Ancient Civilizations — Two Poets On Raising Black Teenage Boys In America

Further Reading:

Economic Hardship Reporting Project

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Sharing of personal pronouns has become standard practice on resumes, business cards, email signatures and more. And that’s just one sign of an increasingly widespread shift in how we think about gender. So what’s next? And what would it take to actually celebrate gender freedom? To have trans joy?

Original Air Date: January 15, 2022

Guests:

Jules Gill-Peterson — Big Freedia — Torrey Peters — Akwaeke Emezi

Interviews In This Hour:

The Long History of the Trans Child — A Diva's Oasis? Bounce Music — 'Detransition, Baby' author Torrey Peters on life, love, gender and parenthood — Many Identities, One Spirit

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When things don't go the way they're supposed to — viruses, star systems, presidents, even fish — we're often desperate to explain the chaos. In this episode, we search for order in the universe.

Original Air Date: August 08, 2020

Guests:

Patrik Svensson — Lulu Miller — Alexander Boxer — Margaret Wertheim — S. James Gates Jr.

Interviews In This Hour:

The Weird World Of Eels — We Call Them Fish. Evolution Says They're Something Else. — The Original Algorithm Was Written In The Stars — Seeing The World With A Mathematician's Eyes

Further Reading:

Nautilus: Eels Don’t Have Sex Until the Last Year of Their Life—NYAS: The Mystery of Our Mathematical Universe

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Is there a better way to talk about death? And to grieve? So many people have died during the pandemic — 4.8 million and counting — that we're living through a period of global mourning. And some people — and certain cultures — seem to be better prepared to handle it than others.

Original Air Date: June 19, 2021

Guests:

Heather Swan — Gillian O'Brien — Charles Monroe-Kane — Gabe Joyner — Rafael Campo

Interviews In This Hour:

The Barred Owl Who Came To Visit — How The Irish Talk About Death — How To Remember A Beloved Brother? A Memorial Tattoo — A Physician-Poet Bears Witness to the Pandemic's Lost Voices

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The bond we share with dogs runs deep. The satisfaction of gentle head scratches or a round of playing fetch is simple and pure, but in other ways, the connection we have is truly unknowable. How do dogs make our lives better? How do they think? And how do we give them the lives they deserve?
 

Original Air Date: February 05, 2022

Guests: 

Blair Braverman — Quince Mountain — Donna Haraway — Sarah Miller

Interviews In This Hour: 

Adventure, goofiness and trail snacks: Stories from the dog musher's journal — Getting inside the mind of a dog — Nothing makes losing a dog easy. But a bridge dog can help. — Joy and peace, high up on Dog Mountain

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We take a look at the romantic tropes of modern love and how they’re changing. Do the old dreams of true love and happiness ever after fit our new lives and new identities?

Original Air Date: February 13, 2021

Guests: 

Logan Ury — Angelo Bautista — Jane Ward — Angela Chen — Bara Jichova Tyson

Interviews In This Hour: 

The New Coffee Date: COVID-19 Pushes The Dating World To Zoom — Are Straight People Okay? — Love Without Touch, Desire Without Sex — Learning To Believe In Monogamy 

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Jane Goodall has seen wild chimpanzees dance and bristle with excitement around roaring waterfalls — and she thinks it’s an experience of awe and wonder — and possibly a precursor to animistic religion. 

But can we ever know why our ancient human ancestors developed spiritual beliefs? Can evolutionary science uncover the roots of religion?  

At some point our ancestors went from admiring waterfalls to worshipping them - and all kinds of spirits and gods. They developed sacred rituals and turned stones into totems. And then came the Battle of the Gods. 

This was produced in partnership with the Center for Humans and Nature, an organization that brings together scholars from a diversity of disciplines to think creatively about our relationships with nature and each other. What do you think evolution can tell us about love and morality? Share your thoughts at humansandnature.org. This episode was made possible through the support of the John Templeton Foundation.

Original Air Date: May 14, 2017

Guests: 

Jane Goodall — Laura Kehoe — Frans de Waal — Barbara King — Ara Norenzayan — Jeff Schloss — Andrew Newberg

Interviews In This Hour: 

Do Chimpanzees Have Spiritual Experiences? — How 'Big Gods' Transformed Human History — An Evolutionary Biologist Searches for God — What Bliss Looks Like In Your Brain — Are Morals a Part of Our Evolution?

Further Reading:

Center for Humans and Nature

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“I had 911 on the phone, and fully expected to find a-a dead body there in the parking lot. Her body was broken and bruised and-and just not laying in a normal way, I thought there is no way that anyone would ever be able to get up and walk from something like this ever again. It was just the most traumatic thing I've ever seen in my life.”  On September 13, 2011, Eddie Wilson was returning to work after a walk on his lunch break, as he approached the building something caught his attention...

We all want to be connected with people, and most of us desire connections that cultivate deep, heartfelt engagement. How is it possible to create relationships that bind us together and also withstand the differences in our identities? How can we move beyond superficial encounters in order to form meaningful harmonies that outlast the discordant pressures of our society? In my new book, The Influential Christian: Learning to Lead from the Heart, I suggest that practices of empathy are our...

PROBLEM-SOLVING Dr. Don Colbert is known for helping people live a healthy lifestyle by following the Ketogenic diet. As a medical doctor who has treated over 50,000 patients, he says the answers to people's ailments are almost always linked to what they eat.  Unexpectantly, Dr. Colbert noticed many people who said they were on the Keto Diet, including some of his patients, were placed on statins for high cholesterol. Some were also suffering from joint pain, muscle aches, fatigue, gut issues,...

“I have autoimmune diabetes, and my blood sugar was high and I couldn't get it down,” says Shanequa. On Sunday November 22, 2020, Shanequa Deas began having problems with comprehension. “I was sending texts to my medical director that I worked with and also a coworker that worked in Dallas asking, 'Why did I have to work on Sunday? And what presentation was I supposed to give?' And both of them were like, 'You don't work on Sunday and there's no presentation,'" said Shanequa. Mary, Shanequa’s...

It turns out mom was right! As I’ve matured, I’ve come to that realization repeatedly. How about you? As it turns out, it really does save time to do something right the first time. We absolutely should be kind to others. And... we can’t keep burning the candle at both ends—at least, not forever.   That last one is what popped into my mind as I was reading Numbers 29. Now, I’m the first to admit that I groan a little (forgive me, Lord) when anything from the book of Numbers is in my Bible...

It was early in the morning on July 15th, 2020 when Ailyn Tan was awakened by her husband, Jim, who was making strange noises. Ailyn recalls, “So, I nudged him, and I said, ‘Hey, you didn't wear your CPAP.’ And there was still no response.” That’s when Ailyn, a critical care nurse for 26 years, pulled open the curtains to check on him. She says, “He was mildly purple. His eyes were open, darted to the upper left-hand side, and he was foaming in the mouth. And so, I gave him a quick slap on his...

Monday, November 25th promised to be a fun evening for pastors Glen and Deborah Berteau. It was Deborah’s birthday and her prayer group had planned a party for her at church. She recalls, “I was happy my husband was with me. Lots of times he stays home because he's very tired after preaching three times on the weekend. But that night he came with me because of my birthday party.” Deborah had no idea it could be the last birthday they’d ever spend together. They had arrived early and were...

Jeff Blackwell has been a beloved on-air talent for Catholic Community Radio in Baton Rouge for many years, but in 2020, Jeff was in a fight for his life. After going to dinner with his wife Diane, he became violently ill.   “I knew I was sick,” Jeff says. “I had never felt that bad before in my life. I couldn’t hold anything down. I finally told my wife, ‘I've got to go to the ER. I can't handle it.’"  Jeff was then admitted to a local hospital. He was later transferred to ICU where his...

“I was terrified, the thought of her dying in an hour's time, it is something to be concerned about,” said Kay Gwinn.   Her husband Dwayne, their daughter Tonya, and her husband Paul Morrison, have been attending church together for years. That Sunday, their pastor had an unusual and ominous message for Tonya. Pastor Walter George recalls, “Suddenly the Spirit gave me Tonya's name and said to Tonya, 'The Lord was holding her in the palm of His hand. She was going to face some problems in her...

LONGER LIFE EXPECTANCY  People are living far longer than they did in decades past. Dr. Roizen says life expectancy in the U.S. has increased 2.5 years every decade for the last 170 years. For example, a woman who was expected to live to age 42 in 1850 is now likely to see age 80. One reason for this, he points out, is better sanitation, public health measures, and vaccines which produced an increase in the survival and health of the young in the first half of the 20th century. In later years,...

Have you ever made a decision you regretted later?  Maybe you decided to do something that would offer a moment of pleasure, but the end result wasn’t so pleasant. For example, have you ever been thirsty, and instead of reaching for a bottle of water, you chose a soda or coffee, or even a milkshake?  Or have you ever been hungry, but instead of getting a healthy meal, you chose fast food? We all know what the better choices are. However, we sometimes accept less than the best and pay for it...

THE GAME CHANGER Kim grew up dreaming of being on magazine covers. She plastered her bedroom walls with covers of Glamour and Sports Illustrated. The models were taller and thinner; Kim was shorter and thicker. By the time she was 13, Kim had an unhealthy self-image and dieting became a regular part of her life. Growing up in a dysfunctional home and her battle of losing weight and keeping it off led her to dark places. Then after her father, 47, had a stroke, Kim, 30, committed to get fit. ...

PROBLEM-SOLVING Dr. Don Colbert is known for helping people live healthy lifestyles. As a medical doctor who has treated over 50,000 patients, he says the answers to people's ailments are almost always linked to what they eat. Growing up, Colbert’s father began showing signs of dementia in his mid 50s. He was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in his 60s and it progressed into severe Alzheimer’s. He lived in a nursing home for over 10 years before he died at 80.  His mother, who worked in a bank full-...

MASTERCHEF  “My dear friend Maryann sent me a flyer one morning telling me to apply to be on Fox’s TV competition MasterChef,” Lexy explains. “I loved to cook, and loved the show, but I never ever thought my two minutes of spontaneous boldness would lead to all of this. My time on that show was challenging. I was six weeks pregnant with my third child upon arriving in Los Angeles and morning sickness took full effect as soon as I stepped into that amazing kitchen. I was stressed every day,...

WHAT IS METABOLIC FLEXIBILITY? While most people have heard the term metabolism, the majority of them likely can’t explain what it means, Dr. Ian says. “Your metabolism is the collective effort of billions of cells in your body that are carrying out chemical processes (work) every second of your life – even when you’re sleeping -- that allow you to live and function and be who you are.”   Dr. Ian says metabolism basically involves the breakdown of food into small, simple nutrients, and the...

BURNED OUT  Burnout can occur for many reasons, and is common in certain professions, including the military, clergy, and healthcare. As a busy physician with young children, Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith was a prime candidate. She remembers the day her chaotic life simply stopped her in her tracks: “So I did what any burned-out human would do after picking up the kids from day care. I set them in front of the TV with a snack, and I lay on the floor.” She remained there for quite a while. “The smile...

I love food—all kinds of food, and I especially enjoy an array of colors on my plate. I was born and raised in Mexico, and I'm not alone in believing that Mexico has some of the world’s best cuisine. So, yes, food is important to me.  In the past, I never paid much attention to what food really did to my health. Instead, I just enjoyed the amazing satisfaction of trying new flavors and eating whatever I wanted—things like chocolate. I joke sometimes claiming myself to be a chocoholic. I love...

AGING NATURALLY AND GRACEFULLY  Now in her 60’s, Kim is determined to age as naturally and healthfully as possible, and to help others to do likewise. Through personal research, she’s learned a lot about what’s beneficial to put in and on our bodies, and what’s not. For example, she’s decided not to color her hair, use fillers (e.g. Botox), or have plastic surgery. Kim believes we can all age more naturally through daily choices about food, avoiding toxins, exercising, and educating ourselves...

GUT HEALTH  Dr. Don Colbert maintains that people can take control of their health. As he likes to put it, “Your genetics may load the gun, but lifestyle pulls the trigger.” Our choices can change our genetics, he adds. Dr. Colbert is often asked why the gastrointestinal (GI) tract is so important. He says it’s because it’s considered the “second brain” due its complex neural network. “The gut-brain axis is a fascinating and intricate connection that highlights the two-way communication between...

Haley Erickson had long lived by the motto: “eat clean, train mean,” but it eventually took over her life. “I was mentally enslaved at that point,” she recalled. Haley had never been happy with her body, or her weight, something she picked up from her mom. “I saw my mom always dieting and talking about what her body looked like and needing to change her body. So as a young girl that really looked up to my mom, I thought that I needed to look a certain way to also be loved and accepted by others...