Dooley Noted: 4/28/2014 As a child, you yearned for the days of being a grown-up. But when you grew up, you may have lost sight of the important childhood lessons. You lost the ability to play in a way that benefits health. You lost the patience of earning stability before mobilizing. You used to crawl before you walked. You lost how to breathe from the belly, laughing and crying at the top of your lungs … Read more
Dooley Noted: 4/27/2014 While on a walk here in Grenada, I saw this tree. This tree survived the turmoil created by Hurricane Ivan. While it experienced some structural damage, observe how it has clung to its roots. It still grows and thrives, despite its damage. This made me think of my patients. They may have structural damage, sure. But that’s no reason to become unrooted. It’s no reason to discontinue the thriving process. This tree … Read more
Dooley Noted: 4/26/2014 While in an SGU Med faculty lecture, Dr. Bernard Moxham said the following: “I believe every thesis should have an antithesis. That way you have synthesis.” This is exactly how I feel about my time spent away from New York this past week. If New York is my ongoing thesis, then my twice yearly, 2-week trips to Grenada are the anti-thesis to create true synthesis. New York is fast and powered by … Read more
Dooley Noted: 4/25/2014 I am reactionary by nature. I am working on not being so reactionary by nurture. I have the nature of wanting to return every email, text, and voicemail as soon as I get it. Then a great friend offered his advice, moving him up to Dooley board of trustee status: “Don’t respond to non-emergency things immediately. It deflates the sense of urgency by default.” Instead of replying to everything immediately, I sit … Read more
Dooley Noted: 4/23/2014 Fitness professionals love to show their abs as a sort of motivator, I suppose. I’m not sure I get it. Then again, I am new to the fitness world. I am first, and foremost, trained as a chiropractor, specializing in movement rehabilitation and clinical anatomy. As an anatomist, the best quality abdominal muscles I see on specimens are usually on obese cadavers. These cadaver patients had to carry around much weight, so … Read more
Dooley Noted: 4/22/2014 Major relationships are making changes around me. It’s happening with the volition and determination of a freight train. I’m not referring to the dopaminergic high of new love that inevitably down-regulates. Some major relationships that have influenced my life are ending. The metamorphosis of love has always fascinated me. How can long unions end so abruptly? Was it really abrupt at all? And when do people decide to make the jump from … Read more
Dooley Noted: 4/21/2014 I ask my patients what they do to see themselves out of pain. A minute percentage never gets relief. The vast majority have a position or movement that sees them out of discomfort. They are in control of their pain perception. They may not realize it yet. Many are conditioned for some reason to make excuses that sound like this: “I can’t pick things up because it hurts.” “I can’t do exercises … Read more
Dooley Noted: 4/20/2014 I spent 21 years in Indiana. I then spent 3 more in Illinois. I then spent 4 in Missouri, to complete my doctorate. I moved to central NY to complete my masters in anatomy, in the middle of nowhere. But the universe provides what you don’t know you need. During my masters fellowship, I was shuttled to NYC for two externships. It was a city I couldn’t shake. Everyone was motivated. From … Read more
Dooley Noted: 4/19/2014 In April 2012, my dear friend Matthew Tolstoy asked me to swing a kettlebell with him. I gave him the same look most people give me, when I ask them to swing it. It’s so menacing, that cannonball with a handle. So dangerous, right? Any fine tool is dangerous in the hands of the unskilled. But Tolstoy was skilled. And I trusted him. He trusted me to listen and learn. It took … Read more
Dooley Noted: 4/17/2014 As a chiropractor specializing in movement rehab, every single day I’m asked these two questions: “What’s a good exercise for that?” And… “What exercises should I avoid?” I give the same frustrating answer: “I don’t know yet.” There are no bad exercises. This includes jogging, dips, and CrossFit. (Yes, you read those three correctly.) Good exercises also don’t exist. Even the Turkish get-up. (That was difficult to write.) Here’s the truth: I … Read more