It is with sadness mixed with gratitude that I share the news of Bob Duggan’s passing recently. Bob inspired me–and continues to inspire me–to make a positive difference by sharing my gifts with the world. My efforts today to complete One Breath at a Time and publish it before the end of the year are in service to everything you stood for, dear teacher. IOU big time!
We break the iron triangle with a focus on a wellness system, designed to move 75 percent of the public (a public that now repeatedly goes to disease experts) into learning wellness practices — how to breathe, how to sleep, how to exercise, and how to live well. It is a conversation about what is not insurable. Wellness must be incentivized, but we cannot insure well-living. We must figure out from a public policy perspective how to encourage young children in the first grade to breathe deeply, to get enough sleep, and to eat well. For example, rather than immediately resorting to the pharmaceutical Ritalin, we must learn how to incentivize deep breathing and exercise for hyperactive children.
-excerpt from The American Wellness System: An Alternative Way of Thinking (Statement at Hearing of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, February 23, 2009)
