After a lot of thought and even more debate with friends and mentors I have come to the decision that the risk of adding to your cluttered email inbox is one I must take.  I do not take this responsibility lightly having weeded (clearly I will not be a wordsmith) my personal inbox down to just these fantastic few newsletters that are essential for me:

Alison Roman
Ozan Varol  
Chris Johnson
Ooni Pizza Community

Don't judge me.

And I realize you too may just finally have a delicate hold on all the demands for your attention too.  My hope, however, is so be able to drop in your mailbox a monthly summary of physical therapy and health and wellness advice that saves you time and feels valuable.  I would love to answer questions proposed through this format by readers as well - that part would be really cool.  The selfish goal is to stay in your minds while you are healthy so you may return to us in the future!  It also saves me having to send personal emails to many of you (like Mom would do via snail mail) when I read something I think you might benefit from knowing about! 

Here is the direct link to the MailChimp signup form.
Please feel free to share it with someone who may not know us yet.

Happy Holidays! 

Finally, an article by my favorite medical science writer (Eric Topol M.D) including his perspective about why “scientists” feel “scientists” have done a bad job communicating about coronavirus.
Vaccines and prevention/protection related to COVID-19 and variants is a touchy subject not just within many (and my) families, among some (not my) friends and sadly with former (for a reason) patients.  I want to not muck it up with my additional commentary, except to say this: the fact is, there is debate where there should never have been and there is an expectation of absolutism where science never would place one. 
This is a fantastic group of panelists and really thoughtful questions about this mess are addressed.  
See what resonates for you and please share any thoughts in the comments section.

US Olympic Speed-skater Maame Biney  courtesy of Getty Images

Center of mass over the base of support is how one keeps balanced regardless of the activity. Standing from sitting or as history making Maame Biney demonstrates doing something high level where the base of support might even be the mobile segment or where use of external forces is necessary too.  Center of mass is a point at roughly about the belly button which can change based on height and/or movement in any direction. Sometimes people will ask about how to improve their balance and usually with some surface specific idea in mind: “How do I improve my balance so I’m not worried about falling on ice”?  A great question and a reasonable concern at any age, though younger, athletic people don't fear the fall, or really the landing, as much as older folks do.  Ice is a challenge because of the low friction coefficient which makes all the other skill building from balance training, mute. But there are some things you can do to help yourself. 
Here are my key points:

This article from January 19th Washington Post discussed the status of the James Webb telescope as it settles in to a resting place in space to begin sending images of the past, present.  "The Earth-sun orbital relationship produces 5 Lagrange Points which scientists have numbered L1 through L5.   Placing the telescope at L2 — in line with the Earth and Sun, where the telescope’s large shield can protect it from their glare and heat — will allow it to look farther, while also keeping its sensitive instruments at the super-cold temperatures they need to operate". 
Makes me wonder how people cannot be fascinated and extraordinarily in debt to all those minds who have studied and then proven and disproven, bit by bit, what we thought we knew about our world. From believing it flat to proving it's not and so very far beyond that 16th C  assumption. 

But then I remember the world we've been living in for the past nearly 3 years.

I started wearing an Oura ring back in May of 2020 when I couldn't check my own temperature and oxygen saturation often enough.  Since then the big value was discovering that even through the most sleepless nights of 2020 I was still able to function well and be more at ease about sleeplessness.  At one point I wrote a blog about not sleeping before I really gained insight into how sleep truly cycles and how optimal function happens with different amounts and "intensities" of sleep.  Of course the Gen3 Oura ring has many other features very similar and some better than other wearables including (SOON) measuring oxygen saturation.  What I really prefer about it though is the unobtrusive way it collects that data without the distraction other technology a phone, watch or wrist-bit might have.  More about Oura can be found here.