Immune Resilience: Personal Protective Nutrition (PPN) & Lifestyle (PPL)

Mylene Huynh, MD, MPH, IFMCP, will provide an update on COVID-19 epidemiology and share evidence-based information, resources, and practical wisdom to maintain immune resilience. Most of us are aware of PPE (personal protective equipment) such as wearing a mask, washing your hands, and maintaining physical distance for prevention of viral infections.  For immune resilience, personal protective nutrition (PPN) and personal protective lifestyle (PPL) are critical.  Mylene will share the science of PPN and PPL and discussed why we all need to prioritize healthy nutrition and lifestyle along with PPE for Self-Care in Viral Times.

  • Host factors are critical to resilience

  • Immune resilience = PPE + PPN + PPL

  • Diseases do not occur randomly. Instead, they are the results of interactions between three factors called Epi triad.

Resilience.png

  • Chronological Age ≠ Biological Age

Reclaiming Vitality: Keys to Mental and Emotional Wellness

Lisa Jacenich,  NCS Consultant, will discuss the elements of the body of work she refers to as, "Life Hacks; The Owner's Manual". Lisa will share the underlying principles and practices to increase life force, vibrancies and energy. The keys to improving vitality and the quality of your life are within your control and are important elements in supporting a healthy immune system.

View the presentation here.

Picture2.png

Lisa Jacenich has studied human behavior since 1976. She received a BA in Psychology Pennsylvania State University. Following her service as an officer in the U.S Army Medical Service Corps she became an adjunct faculty member for George Washington University with specialties in government contracting and project management. Lisa's life path has provided the impetus to focus on personal transformation. She has founded EVOLVE and is building a body of work she refers to as "Life Hacks: The Owner's Manual" providing a tool kit to navigate a life of health, wealth, love, and perfect self-expression. Working with individuals, couples, and groups she facilities embodiment of skills and abilities to evolve and reprogram resulting in optimal quality of life. As a corporate consultant for NeuroChangeSolutions she focuses on leadership and wellness integration developing innovative training environments and collaborations highlighting creativity and (inter)personal transformations.

Supporting our Vitality with Energy Medicine: Introduction to Simplified Self-Care and Bioenergetic Devices

Shannon Goossen, AP, LMT, CMTPT, will discuss how your brain and body communicate "wellness", and why adequate energy for your cells and mitochondria support optimal immune function. She will simplify these seemingly complex subjects, and then demonstrated "energy medicine" self-care techniques that anyone can do without devices to support this communication system. Shannon will share how incorporating microcurrent devices are proving to be a valuable tool in medical care. Now more than ever, we need to take control of the important elements of self-care to support a healthy immune system, which is a natural consequence of vibrant living.

View the presentation here.

Picture2.png

Shannon Goossen, based in Jacksonville, FL, has a bachelors degree in biology, is a Licensed Acupuncture Physician, Licensed Massage Therapist and Certified Myofascial Trigger Point Therapist. As a recognized national expert in treating myofascial pain and dysfunction, she expanded her clinical practice by completing her AFMCP (Applying Functional Medical in Clinical Practice) certification through the Institute for Functional Medicine.

Shannon has been teaching how to integrate microcurrent into clinical practice for nearly two decades. Most recently, in 2018 she was the lead instructor and trainer for a 3 1/2 month demonstration study for the Department of Defense (DoD) to evaluate the efficacy of incorporating microcurrent and bioenergetic devices in hospital and outpatient settings at Nellis AFB. Shannon continues to teach for the DoD and at Air Force bases to bring forth a mind, body and spirit model to promote vibrant health and well-being.

Mindful Leadership

EMPOWER WELL-BEING THROUGH MINDFUL TRANSFORMATION 

Thursday, June 25, 2020, 4:30 PM ET 25-min ZOOM presentation

Lieutenant General, U.S. Army (Ret) Eric B. Schoomaker, MD, PhD, FACP, will guide participants to a greater understanding of leadership principles and will teach us how to lead, even where we have no authority.

***

Prior to his retirement in 2012 after 32 years of active service, Lieutenant General (Retired) Eric B. Schoomaker, MD, PhD served as the 42nd U.S. Army Surgeon General and Commanding General of the U.S. Army Medical Command.

He recently retired as Professor and Vice-Chair for Leadership, Centers and Programs in the Department of Military & Emergency Medicine at the nation’s only Federal health university, the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU) in Bethesda, MD. His principal interests are two-fold: Complementary and Integrative Health & Medicine (CIH/M) in the shift from a disease management-focused healthcare system to one more centered on the improvement and sustainment of health & well-being; and leadership education. He advocates for the incorporation of CIH/M education and training into the education of health & healthcare professionals. Doctor Schoomaker also promotes the central importance of leadership education and training for health professionals, so as to realize USU’s vision as the nation’s “health leadership academy”. These interests are reflected in his volunteer work in assisting his local healthcare system in advancing high quality community and hospital-based care and in work on healthcare futures.

Doctor Schoomaker committed his career to meeting the health needs of soldiers, their families and veterans through initiatives that Army Medicine implemented throughout its facilities in the U.S., Europe and the Pacific, focusing on soldier medical readiness, enhancing battlefield care, establishing a comprehensive behavioral health system of care, fostering a culture of trust, advancing comprehensive pain management, and promoting health by preventing combat wounds, injury and illness.

Doctor Schoomaker is an internal medicine physician with a PhD in Human Genetics. In uniform he held many assignments including command of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC, the Army’s Medical Research & Materiel Command and Fort Detrick, MD, an Army academic medical center, a community hospital, a deployable medical brigade and two Army regional medical commands.

Doctor Schoomaker is the recipient of numerous military awards, including those from France and Germany, the 2012 Dr. Nathan Davis Award from the American Medical Association for outstanding government service, an Honorary Doctor of Science from Wake Forest University, a Doctor of Letters in Medicine from the Baylor College of Medicine, and the Philipp M. Lippe Award from the American Academy of Pain Medicine for outstanding contributions to the social and political aspect of Pain Medicine.

He is married to Audrey, a former Army Nurse Corps Officer and therapeutic yoga and mindfulness instructor; they have a son in college studying to become a jazz musician/producer and two daughters—one pursuing graduate studies in middle school counseling and the other a medical student.

***

To join Thursday’s discussion, email Trupoint Health for a ZOOM Meeting Invitation.

Cultivating Our Best Selves in a Turbulent Time

EMPOWER WELL-BEING THROUGH MINDFUL TRANSFORMATION 

Thursday, June 18, 2020, 4:30 PM ET 25-min ZOOM presentation

Lois Clinton, Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker (LICSW), will use the Community Resiliency Model (CRM) as the foundation for her presentation and conversation. She will provide a brief introduction to the origin of the Community Resiliency Model and why it's important. Lois will also share her own resiliency story.

Key Concepts of the CRM:

  1. The resilient zone 

  2. Stuck in the High and Low zones

  3. Lacking safety/Stuck in fear

  4. The elegant design of the Nervous System

***

Lois Clinton, LICSW, has been practicing psychotherapy in the District of Columbia and Maryland since 1994. She is founder of Mindful Resilience, LLC. 

“My passion is to teach people, through a lens of mindfulness, how they can reach their full potential and increase their resilience. Adversity can build resilience and unleash amazing new creativity and positive change. I am continually honored to be a part of peoples’ transformation process.” 

Clinton has significant expertise in treating trauma and a wide variety of mental health issues. She believes in treating the whole person, and favors an integrative, mind-body perspective. She really listens to her clients’ needs and assesses where they are at in their readiness for change. She uses safe and gentle trauma release techniques and various wellness practices to help create capacity for growth and resilience. 

Most recently Lois worked at The Walter Reed National Military Center for nearly 10 years, treating wounded warriors with post traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury, chronic pain and other mental health disorders. She worked for five years in the Walter Reed Pain Clinic, helping to develop and implement their Mind-Body Medicine program for pain.

***

To join Thursday’s discussion, email Trupoint Health for a ZOOM Meeting Invitation.

Leading with Emotion

EMPOWER WELL-BEING THROUGH MINDFUL TRANSFORMATION 

Thursday, June 11, 2020, 4:30 PM ET 25-min ZOOM presentation

Retired Futurist Jonathan Peck will explore the context that shapes what we mean by 'leading' as each of us has different experiences which help determine our views of this meaning.  We will do a brief guided imagery exercise to share the different meanings. Peck will offer meanings from his experiences and readings about leading people in different times of history, emphasizing servant leadership. He will focus on leading with emotion, especially the positive emotions that support human cooperation and evolution.

Emotion can be approached through both personal experience and research.  The positive emotions of love, joy, hope, faith and awe have been shown in one study to be the basis for a better life as well as for human cooperation.  Another line of research argues that we use our emotions to predict responses, which may mean we have more control over the emotions we construct than many realize. Jonathan will offer ideas for how we can create social health in turbulent times by leading with emotion.

Leading With Emotion

Jonathan Peck (jonathancpeck@gmail.com)

June 11, 2020

I.               Introduction—Two talks and leadership dialogue based on guided imagery exercise

A.     Talk about leading: personal experience and key readings

                            i.     Learning from failures, colleagues and clients

B.     Book reviews:  James O’Toole Leading Change—The Argument for Values Based Leadership; Roger Fritz Nothing to Fear, Nothing to Prove; C. Otto Scharmer Theory U and (with Karin Kaufer) Leading from the Emerging Future; Plutarch Lives I Lycurgus “The Lawgiver”

II.             Guided Imagery Dialogue—Use Chat to describe the leader seen in your image

III.            Understanding Emotion—Talk about different understandings from history, psychiatry, psychology and neuroscience

A.     Martin Luther King takes leadership of Montgomery Bus Boycott: “Justice is love in calculation and justice is love correcting that which rebels against love”.  King’s friend and supporter Rabbi Abraham Heschel:  “Awe is more than an emotion.  It is a way of understanding, an intuition into a meaning greater than ourselves.  The beginning of awe is wonder and the beginning of wisdom is awe.”

B.     Psychiatrist George Vaillant provides learning from the Harvard Adult Development Study in Spiritual Evolution.  Human evolution is now a cultural rather than biological phenomenon and it relies on the positive emotions that bases cooperation on the ability to share love, joy, faith, hope and awe.

C.     Psychologist Daniel Goleman authored multiple books on emotional intelligence (EQ), including Destructive Emotions which describes the Dalai Lama’s meeting with Paul Ekman.

D.     Lisa Feldman Barrett offers a counterpoint to Ekman and mainstream neuroscience in How Emotions Are Made—The Secret Life of the Brain describes how we can deconstruct and recategorize emotions to predict internal and external responses. We can increase EQ with a larger vocabulary of emotion via the “Affective Circumplex.”

IV.            Conclusion—Mindfulness can foster spiritual, social and physical health supported by servant leaders, i.e., all of us.  Dr. King told us: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that.  Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”  We are that light.

***

Jonathan Peck worked for thirty eight years as a futurist before he retired in 2019.  The work centered on health and used forecasts, scenarios and visions to help leaders from all sectors see new possibilities.  Were all these organizational leaders—CEOs and executives from corporations, senior government officials, presidents of foundations and associations—truly leaders? 

Peck’s experience was that many titular leaders used their organization to serve self interests; they were egocentric leaders.  However, some embraced the servant leader ethic and sought to serve those who worked with them to achieve larger purposes.  Wherever he could, Peck sought such leaders out to help them develop inspired visions and strategies based on new possibilities along with enduring “tried and true” approaches.  He had some successes and many failures to learn from.

Health Coaching as a Path to Human Flourishing

EMPOWER WELL-BEING THROUGH MINDFUL TRANSFORMATION 

Thursday, June 4, 2020, 4:30 PM ET 25-min ZOOM presentation

Myndwell’s Audrey Schoomaker will discuss the ways, as wellness coach, she helps her clients develop and implement personal wellness plans

How? By…

  • accepting and meeting us where we are right now

  • guiding us in doing the mindful thinking and work to build confidence to change behaviors

  • helping us define a higher purpose for wellness and uncover our natural impulse to be well

  • helping us tap our innate fighting spirit

  • helping us set realistic goals; small victories to build effectiveness 

Audrey Schoomaker, RN, BSN, E-RYT is a Veteran Army Nurse, an experienced yoga instructor, health and wellness coach, and passionate advocate for integrating mind, body and spirit to promote health. She taught yoga as adjunct faculty at George Mason University, was a project coordinator a research study using therapeutic yoga (for managing low back pain) at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. She is the founder and CEO of Myndwell, a health optimization coaching company.  She partners with Dr. Mylene Huynh’s TruPoint Health Clinic in Fairfax, VA.

 She has presented at national conferences, including the Pain Care Initiative’s annual “Pain Care Skills Training”, the Uniformed Services University/University of Pittsburgh collaborative “State of the Science”, the Military Child Education Coalition conferences, as well as several other venues. She is mother of three children, and is married to LTG(Ret) Eric Schoomaker, former Surgeon General of the Army, who champions the use of integrative approaches for pain management.

The Gut, our Second Brain

EMPOWER WELL-BEING THROUGH MINDFUL TRANSFORMATION 

Thursday, May 28, 2020, 4:30 PM ET 25-min ZOOM presentation

In Session 3, Patricia L. Diefenbach, ND, MS,CNS®, CPT1, will explain the importance of Neuro-gastrointestinal health, healthy food for the microbiome and the practice of good eating habits.

Dr. Diefenbach is a licensed naturopathic physician in the District of Columbia and state of Connecticut. She is also a Board-Certified Nutrition Specialist® through the American College of Nutrition and a Certified Personal Trainer with the National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM). Dr Diefenbach is founder and owner of Natural Integrative Healthcare in Alexandria, Virginia. Trained as a naturopathic physician, her focus is to determine the root cause of illness with an emphasis on biochemical individuality and gastrointestinal health.

Dr.Diefenbach was a guest speaker on national radio and is co-author of “Naturopathic Medicine Approach to Pain Management: An Integrative Perspective for Virginia”. She received her Doctorate of Naturopathic Medicine from the University of Bridgeport College of Naturopathic Medicine. She has a Master of Science in Integrative Health Science; and a Bachelor of Arts in Language with concentrations in German and Mandarin from the University of York, England.

To join the discussion, email Trupoint Health for a ZOOM Meeting Invitation.

The Neuroscience of Change

Empowered Leadership & Well-being, Part II

Thursday, May 21, 2020 25-min​​ ZOOM presentation

Our guest presenter, Lisa Jacenich, will discuss why change is so hard and provide some simple steps for lasting change you can implement right now to improve your leadership skills AND boost your immune system!

On May 14th, in Part I, we learned about PPN Nutrition for heart and mind, Emotional Intelligence (EI) & self-regulation • Empowered Leadership and Well-being • Mental and Emotional Health • Why is change so hard? • Simple steps for lasting change

Why is change so hard?

  • Focus on causes / external

  • Survival mechanisms

  • Imprinting / cultural / institutional programming

  • 70% of our day is in the stress response

  • Each thought, each feeling releases chemicals / signals to the body

  • Reliance on the chemical rush

  • We operate on a memorized set of behaviors, emotional reactions, unconscious habits

  • Hardwired attitudes, beliefs and perceptions that function like a computer program

  • Hebbian Theory - Neurons that fire together .... Wire together

  • Replace old programming

  • Repeat over and over to create new neural pathways

How do we change?

Simple steps for lasting change

  • Become more aware - Metacognition

  • Don’t react (implode or explode) - shorten the refractory period

  • Make new choices leading to new thoughts, feelings, actions

  • Reset our baseline / recalibrate

  • Emotional intelligence / Self Regulation

  • Put your oxygen mask on first!

  • Be present with yourself and others (listening-self/other)

  • Use transitions (segment) intentions

    Create a new “familiar”

    • Non duality–infinite possibilities

    • Rehearse higher energy, restorative, energizing, expansive, H/B Coherence thoughts/actions/feelings

    • Utilize authentic premise (visuals, sensations, favorite videos)

    Listen to how you speak to self/others

    • Avoid catastrophic language

    • Avoid self deprecations

    • Choose “I AM” statements carefully

    • Be aware of speech patterns

    • Use self affirming/self soothing

    Let’s put practices into action

    • Keep a “Well-being” Journal

    • Listening to your subtle signals

    • track trends (time/day/anniversary/triggers/patterns)

    • Plan for known stressful events

    • Celebrate your accomplishments

CREATION = Attention + INTENTION

To join Thursday’s discussion, email Trupoint Health for a ZOOM Meeting Invitation.

The Neuroscience of Change

Empowered Leadership & Well-being, Part I

Thursday, May 14, 2020 25-min​​ ZOOM presentation

Our guest presenter, Lisa Jacenich, will discuss why change is so hard and provide some simple steps for lasting change you can implement right now to improve your leadership skills AND boost your immune system!

Lisa Jacenich has studied human behavior since 1976 / BA in Psychology Pennsylvania State University. Following her service as an officer in the U.S. Army Medical Service Corps she became an adjunct faculty member for George Washington University with specialties in government contracting and project management. As a corporate consultant for NeuroChangeSolutions she focuses on leadership and wellness integration developing innovative training environments and collaborations highlighting creativity and (inter)personal transformations.

The NCS program, Change Your Mind…Create New Results (CYM CNR) teaches how to break old habits that no longer serve and bring about significant and sustainable change – from the inside out. CYM CNR uses dynamic tools based on the concepts of neuroplasticity and Hebbian theory in a step by step approach to provide a deeper understanding of the biology and neuroscience of personal change and evolution. Humans are wired to prove what they believe so the groundwork is set by understanding intellectually how change is possible. Habitual patterns are identified that keep individuals in the stress response. The program empowers people to become more conscious of how they think, to become more aware of their subconscious habits and behaviors and to observe certain emotions that keep them connected to the past. When participants start observing themselves, instead of being focused on the behaviors and actions of others, significant shifts occur in perspectives and possibility thinking. Using the process, models and tools the brain is rewired which unlocks the potential of the new, improved future state. Changed individuals collectively form more engaged teams who are then ready to step into that new future of a transformed organization. The result? Improved health and wellbeing, improved morale, increased employee engagement, greater results through creativity and productivity. This is the “how to” of emotional intelligence and self-regulation which is restorative and regenerative. These skills increase the body’s ability to fend off disease, provides access to the creative portions of our mind and intuition, and promotes cognitive ability even under stressful conditions.

To join the discussion, email Trupoint Health for a ZOOM Meeting Invitation.