Scott Anderson, Ph.D.

As a teenager, I couldn’t decide if I found design or the human body more interesting. I voraciously read all the architecture books I could get my hands on, and also found movement and the human body endlessly interesting. When a high school project asked me to explore college programs in an area of interest, I sent away for information on programs in ergonomics (do you remember sending away for program information?) Along the way, I became enamored with the architect Louis Sullivan’s maxim that form follows function . I particularly loved this approach to industrial design, perhaps as a reaction to the overbuilt, suburban world of my childhood. Regardless of the motives that were behind my appreciation of a minimalist design aesthetic, I found it ironic that in my career as a Kinesiologist, this maxim flipped to be function follows form . Due to the natural variations in bony structures, some people can squat more readily than other people. In the body, the form of a structure predi

Carbs get a bad rap. Carbs are a fundamental fuel for human bodies, and can be great for your gut. The gut is the hub of human health, and nourishing the gut is my primary consideration in making food decisions. The benefits for the gut are among the many reasons I eat a carbohydrate-rich diet. Now, don’t get me wrong. Some carbs are not very beneficial, and may lead to various metabolic disorders, along with contributing to the epidemic of obesity. However, not all carbs are created equal, and far too many people throw out the proverbial baby with the bathwater when it comes to carbs. Hooray for fiber! Yesterday's high carbohydrate breakfast: whole grain bread, oats and healthy fats in the form of ground flax and chia seeds. All foods have a glycemic index, which indicates how quickly blood sugar levels rise upon consumption of the food. Some carbs spike blood sugar quite quickly – often called the simple carbohydrates. And other carbs cause a more gradual rise in blood sugar – of

  I’m a big fan of addressing root causes. While it can be tempting to focus on reducing symptoms, in 30+ years of working with bodies and minds, I’ve found that addressing causes is a much better use of time than addressing symptoms. Symptoms, however, are generally what motivate people to seek support for their wellbeing, and it’s sometimes a hard sell to shift focus from salving symptoms to addressing causes.      I find that focusing on symptoms is a particularly common approach to working with the mind. Whether one is plagued by anxiety-provoking thoughts, negative self-talk or rehashing past events, it’s normal to want those thoughts to go away. Meditation, however, is not generally about the immediate reduction of symptoms – rather, meditation is about addressing the root causes of suffering. There’s a term for this in multiple meditation traditions - pulling out the weed and its roots . In lieu of plucking off a leaf of negative self-talk here and a leaf of anxiety there, medit