Category: Healthy Living

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The Science of Laughter: A Path to Longevity and Health

Laughter is the best medicine

By Donnie Yance

Can our behavior influence disease outcomes? The answer may lie in one of humanity’s most natural expressions: laughter.

Ancient wisdom has long suggested a connection between joy and health. The biblical proverb that “a merry heart does good like a medicine” (Proverbs 17:22) finds modern validation in scientific research. Democritus, the “laughing philosopher” who reportedly lived to 109, may have intuited what today’s researchers are proving: laughter can extend and enhance life.

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Healing Foods For Brain Health and Alzheimer’s Prevention

Mediterranian Diet

By Donnie Yance

“God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December.” – J.M. Barrie

How Diet and Genes Affect Brain Health

Recent studies show that the brain strives to maintain a steady energy supply over time, a process called “energetic homeostasis.”1  This balance is important because energy metabolism affects how brain cells work, communicate, and adapt. These changes can influence thinking and memory.

What we eat plays a major role in brain function. Certain foods can have long-term effects on brain health by changing the way brain cells grow and connect. These effects happen through epigenetic regulation, which means that food can change how genes are expressed without changing the DNA itself. Eating the right nutrients helps support energy use in the brain and strengthens connections between neurons, much like exercise does. Research on brain injuries suggests that whole foods and supplements can help reduce damage to brain cells.2

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The Art of Living: Finding Balance in a Fragmented World

by Donnie Yance

In our hyper-connected yet somehow disconnected modern world, many of us find ourselves longing for something deeper—a sense of wholeness that transcends the fragmentation of daily life. We seek not just physical health, but a harmonious existence that nourishes body, mind, and spirit equally. This integration isn’t just a luxury; it’s increasingly becoming essential for navigating our complex lives with grace and purpose.

The Forgotten Wisdom of Wholeness

Ancient healing traditions from around the world share a common understanding: true wellness emerges when we honor the interconnectedness of our physical, emotional, and spiritual dimensions. From Traditional Chinese Medicine’s concept of qi balance to Franciscan spirituality’s reverence for natural harmony, these wisdom traditions remind us that fragmentation leads to suffering, while integration leads to flourishing.

The Latin root of the word “health” is salvus, which is also the root of “salvation”—suggesting that true healing involves both physical restoration and spiritual wholeness. Similarly, the words “health,” “whole,” and “holy” share linguistic origins, pointing to an ancient understanding that true wellness encompasses far more than the mere absence of disease.

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Detoxification: Everything you need to know and what to do

Foods for detox

Part Four: Lifestyle and Herbs For Detoxification

By Donnie Yance 

Life Force and Herbal Medicine

The Life Force, or Vital Force, is an innate energy that exists in all of nature. Plants are made up of highly organized molecules governed by this same Life Force with divine intelligence. Herbal medicine assists healing through the sacred human-to-plant relationship. God and nature have cooperated to create cleansing and nourishing allies throughout the plant kingdom.

Detoxification

We must consider that the creation of the universe had a purpose rather than being a mere result of chance. Plants were among the first settlers on Earth and depended on their adaptability for food and medicine. The plants learned how to convert sunlight into energy. They also learned to generate molecules to protect themselves from pollution, radiation, and predators. These molecules then become protective for us when we consume these foods and herbs. 

Human beings and plants are manifestations of creative, divine intelligence, harmoniously connected through a shared vibration. The fact that we breathe the plants’ exhaust (oxygen) and they breathe our exhaust (carbon dioxide) is an example of this harmonic relationship. 

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Detoxification: Everything You Need To Know and What To Do- Part 2: Endocrine Disruptors and the Disease Burden of Plastics and Other Environmental Toxins

Plastic detox

By Donnie Yance 

“Nature itself is the best physician.”– Hippocrates

The Costs of Chemical Exposure

Endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) are synthetic chemicals found in pesticides and some plastics that can enter the body through the food chain and interfere with hormone balance and disturb proper endocrine health. When levels go up, so too does body-mass index (obesity), as well as the risk of several cancers, fibroid tumors, endocrine-related diseases, and infertility. Breast cancer in men is becoming more and more common as a result of these hormonal toxins.1,2  

Exposure to pesticides (cloransulam‐methyl, diflufenzopyr, thiamethoxam, and trifluralin), was recently found to be associated with an increased risk of developing and dying from prostate cancer.3

EDCs, via daily use of plastics, are a major contributor to the overall disease burden in the U.S., and a large-scale analysis revealed that the associated costs to society amount to more than 1% of the gross domestic product.

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In Death and Grief We Find Love

Reflections for Easter, Passover, and Spring

By Donnie Yance

Man looking at the horizon

Just before Christmas, I lost my youngest sister Gi Gi, to a sudden accident. She was in a coma for several weeks prior to her transition. As my sister hovered between life and death, I found myself in a deep state of grief and reflection.  A reflection on birth, life, death, and the embracing of the great mystery. I choose to call the great mystery Love, or, better stated, Agape Love. 

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