I fully respect the allopathic model for health which targets a specific problem area and addresses the symptoms through medicine or surgery. However, as I have gotten older my focus has been upon a holistic model for maintaining health. I consider the human being to be an interconnected system. If you change one part in the network, all parts change. The goal is to maintain balance within the whole system.

I make conscious choices of the food and other substances that I allow to enter my body. When I was a child my Mother would say "You are what you eat!" I really enjoy fresh fruits and vegetables along with fish, poultry and some meat. This is probably why I love to garden and grow my own fresh food -- it tastes so good and has no pesticides. In fact, gardening, yard work, and walking are my chief exercise routines, plus I regularly enjoy massage therapy.. I don't smoke, and also tend to use sugar, alcohol, coffee sparingly and often substitute stevia for sugar.

The importance of acupuncture as it relates to our "energy body" is just being recognized by Western medicine. I periodically use Chinese medicine involving a combination of acupuncture and herbs. The testing techniques for balance involve a form of muscle testing. This ideomotor response invites the unconscious mind to communicate its knowledge. Although these techniques may be difficult for some to accept, they are consistent with the quantum physics principle of interconnectiveness or entanglement that exists for every aspect of this universe. But being an engineer, I just accept what works -- the data will eventually produce the appropriate theory. I had a recurring skin dermatitis which my doctor said nothing in Western medicine could really cure. However, the skin problem could be suppressed using a cortisone based ointment. I chose an alternative approach consisting of acupuncture, Chinese herbs, and specific dietary shifts. The skin rash cleared in just three weeks. What I learned was that the combination of food that I ingest, although normally considered "healthy," can be adjusted and fine tuned by a knowledgeable acupuncturist/naturopath so that it helps bring me back into a healing balance.

For many years I was a science advisor at the Institute of HeartMath, an organization at the forefront of scientific research exploring how positive thoughts and emotions can affect our physical/mental wellbeing. They developed powerful training techniques for tuning our biological oscillators. Key elements of these techniques are to shift one's focus of attention to the area of the heart and to consciously experience deep feelings of love, care, and appreciation. Experimental observations of the effect of maintaining this positive attention/intention process show that the body's biological oscillators (heart rate variability (HRV), respiration, and electroencephalograph (EEG) recordings) become entrained. Our bodies are in essence a chemical factory. The HeartMath practices alter the chemical balance in our body. For example, the practices can increase the DHEA while lowering the cortisone levels. This in turn affects our health, behavior, and mental state. It can change one's state of consciousness from anxiety to inner peace. One physical manifestation was that I could significantly lower my blood pressure through these practices and meditation.

As a side benefit of consulting at HeartMath and doing their practices, I was offered a series of 24 hour halter heart tests over the years. A comparison was made by a cardiologist in Chicago between the measurements taken when I was 64 and when I was 70 years old. His report stated that: "The total number of supraventricular ectopic beats has declined from a total of 3,689 with 1,112 pairs to a total of 82 beats with 8 pairs. This decline is surprising since usually these tend to increase with time, unless you have been started on some such anti-arrhythmic agent as a calcium channel blocker." I asked my regular doctor why he was assuming that I am taking medication. My doctor said "Because based upon the data from your halter tests, you're either taking medication or your heart must be getting younger." I replied back to the cardiologist that over this six year period I had used no medication, but had used only the HeartMath practices, Sufi meditations, acupuncture and Chinese herbs. Although, when the opportunity afforded itself, I also drew upon experienced energy and spiritual healers.

The cell is the unit of life -- the simplest form of life. Each human has about 100 trillion cells. Hence, the body can be considered a community of cells that communicate with one another. We have tremendous control over all aspects of our bodies via our intention. The most spectacular demonstrations have been biofeedback studies of voluntary control of single nerve cells. Each pulse of the single-motor-unit firing was heard on a loudspeaker as a thump. People found that they could manufacture doublets, triplets, and drum rolls at will. This is why your words and thoughts can affect your body in both positive and negative directions. I "converse with" and express my appreciation to my body parts and cells every day. I believe this practice has been effective. For example, over the last four years the health of my prostate has improved. Its size has decreased as recorded via digital exams and my prostate specific antigen (PSA) has gone from 4.0 to 2.6. In fact, a leading edge in medical science is a field of study based upon the effects of various types of "focused intention" to heal the human body. This field is supported by considerable research and is known as psychoneuroimmunology (PNI).

Homeopathy, developed in the West, is an "informational" medicine that I have also used. Human beings consist of 80% water. A mysterious and controversial property of water is its ability to hold and store memory. This property underlies the healing capability of homeopathy. Homeopathy has proven to be a successful healing technique for both humans and animals that has prevailed for over two hundred years. A homeopathic solution usually in water is produced via a series of dilutions of a substance, often until effectively no atoms of the original material remain -- only an imprint or memory remains for the cure. A homeopathic solution of water when introduced into your body sends a message to your cells on how to adjust or correct for an illness. Your cells receive the message and the "instructions" are distributed throughout your body. During the Influenza Pandemic of 1918 it has been purported that homeopathy was by far the most successful treatment.

For the last five years I have been working with a Master of the Shoalin Martial Arts who has been transforming these ancient techniques into a practice for personal health. The practice optimizes the body's intuitive responses to stressors by allowing the mind-body to function without the limitations often created by mental thought and emotions. An accelerated learning process has been developed. It involves an interactive combination of physical movements and breathing, the activation of acupuncture meridians, the training of mirror neurons through visual techniques, and the transfer of information to the body's cells via encoded water. This latter is an information transfer technique with similarities to homeopathy. At my last physical, a non-serious skipping heart beat phenomenon that has persisted for thirty years disappeared. My doctor was "amazed" since this problem normally gets worse with age and at best stabilizes -- it almost never disappears. Because most of this practice focuses upon the heart meridian, I attribute the improvement primarily to the Martial Arts based techniques.