Health and Wellness
The Holistic Chamber of Commerce has been looking for a holistic-friendly solution for alleviating the costs of healthcare for many years. While, as yet, there’s no perfect solution, we’ve found an attractively-priced product that has the potential to significantly reduce total healthcare costs for those who use holistic services and elect to become members of one of these programs.
Paul Cholak, a long-standing member of the Holistic Chamber of Commerce, is a healthcare advisor to MPB.Health and a licensed agent. Working through Paul, we’re able to offer MPowering Benefits Health programs that combine medical cost sharing to mitigate and control the cost of large medical expenses with virtual care (an enhanced version of telehealth); prescription cost management; a QR life code and personal medical records vault; and personalized concierge services.
Different programs are available for individuals who are employees and want to purchase individual programs; and to employers who want to establish group plans, individual proprietors, and 1099 contractors.




Are negative thoughts weighing you down?
Specialists like Charles Lightwalker know that, at the office, stress can decrease productivity because worry wastes time better spent taking care of the task at hand.
Stress is also one of the key factors in many chronic conditions, including diabetes, cancer and heart disease. Some heart attacks have such a strong Mind-Body connection that there is a term for it: Broken Heart Syndrome.
It’s odd that I’m so in love with acupuncture as a healing and wellness technique… After all, I hate needles.
As a child, I had allergies and asthma and shots were part of my regular routine. Ugh!
Now, acupuncture is one of my favorite techniques for relieving stress, reducing pain and maintaining overall health.
The “needles” are more like fine filaments and a skilled acupuncturist can prepare you for your session with a minimum of discomfort.
Among the oldest healing practices in the world, acupuncture is one of several traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) techniques. Other specialties, such as herbs, qi gong and tai chi, are included under the umbrella of Traditional Chinese Medicine.
Like many, I had new year’s goals (yes, resolutions) that kick in on 1/1 of any year. It’s a social ritual all around the world.
This year, my list includes health-related goals: get fit, starting with weight loss. Then, maintain.
What about you? What are your goals and resolutions for 2018? Are you on your way or stuck from the get-go?
It’s easy, we tell ourselves. If so-and-so can do it, I can, too.
Did you know that certain holistic health expenses can be deducted from your taxes? IRS Publication 502 lists these allowable expenses*. They include:
- Acupuncturists
- Body Scans
- Chiropractors
- Christian Science Practitioners
- Osteopaths
- Psychologists
- Stop Smoking Programs
- Weight Loss Programs

- Financial: The ability to pay for your healthcare
- Legal: Having your health preferences approved as options for care
- Access: Being able to find your preferred product/service
While it would be easy to debate which of these keys is the most important, it is also easy to see that access is the most critical. If you are looking for breast thermographer, especially for the first time, but the closest one you can find is in another state, it will cost more to get there and take more time. How do you find one that is close to where you live or work?
In this modern era, staying healthy is key to success. When we get sick, it impacts our ability to work with others and our energy for working at today's fast pace.
Smart companies are engaging in wellness conversations to support their employees and organizations like LinktoEXPERT (LtE) and the Holistic Chamber of Commerce (HCC) are collaborating to support their efforts.
LtE and the HCC connect executives and entrepreneurs who want to make the world a better place to live, work and play. These collaborations create powerful ripple effects in communities throughout North America.

It's easy to forget. I want to forget. I remember because there are still so many people living with heartbreak and it's not the romantic kind.
Some things can't be fixed with just another pill.
Children are growing up in homes where domestic abuse, child abuse, bullying and even isolation are part of the daily dynamic. Their hearts and wills are broken before they are even teenagers. They grow up to become adults with anger and other unresolved emotional issues.
If they grow up at all.
According to a new study published in EXPLORE May/June 2016, Vol. 12, No. 3, by Debra Swedberg DeCaro, MSW, and Jodi L. Constantine Brown, Ph.D., MSW, "laughter improves physical and psychological health-related outcomes across diseases and populations. Research related to psychological outcomes is prevalent with studies showing that laughter helps with stress, mood, memory, interpersonal relationships, psychological well-being, and quality of life."
By stimulating the amygdala, laughter may be helpful for adults with Parkinson's Disease (PD) because deficits involving functions regulated by the amygdala have been implicated in PD symptoms. Laughter can create an increase in dopamine production, and thus an increase in positive mood in adults with PD, as evidenced by anecdotal accounts and new research. Laughter Yoga (LY) may be a viable intervention for adults because of these connections which impact "stress, mood, memory, interpersonal relationships, psychological well-being, and quality of life."
Moving your body is essential to staying healthy and feeling good. You may think it is too late for you, but it’s not. It’s never too late to start exercising; you just need to move!
Whether you feel as if you're too old or too overweight, it doesn't matter...
Exercise does so much good for both your body and your brain. And you know that old expression “If you don’t use it, you lose it”, well, it’s true!
To start exercising you don’t have to begin by running a marathon, you just need to move. Here are 3 easy ways to get started:
Generally speaking, we have a lot of freedom here in the U.S. and Canada. We are free to say what we want, travel where when we want, eat and drink what we want... Well, mostly anyway.
After all, there was that raid on a raw foods co-op in Venice Beach (CA) a few years ago.
At the same time, when people don't know what their options are, or how to access those options because they are off the beaten path or too far away, then how free are they to make any choice other than the status quo?

“Can I afford natural and holistic health care?” Sadly, some people aren’t even asking this question… They’re assuming they can’t.
The truth is that these types of preventative health and wellness solutions will often SAVE you money!
OMG! I can’t believe I did it! I mean, my only previous exposure to colon hydrotherapy, usually referred to as ‘colonics,’ is the Sarah Jessica Parker scene in LA Story, a movie from 1991. Her character is young and perky and yet she emerges even younger and perkier.
Several motivators finally got me in the door to try this controversial technique.
What do I have in common with Benjamin Franklin? I never would’ve guessed this one… He was also a proponent of sound therapy!
Benjamin Franklin, recognized and respected for many prominent activities and inventions, is lesser known as the inventor of the glass 'armonica.’ Not to be confused with the harmonica, Franklin’s armonica is now more commonly known as the bowl organ and is related to ‘singing bowls’ used by sound therapists.
Each January seems to bring new resolutions for most of us. Are you ready to keep them this year? That is, keep them past the first week (or month) of 2011? The best way to do that is to beat the gap between talking your talk and walking your walk!
Now that we’re half-way through the year, it’s time to consider…
According to Jerold Mitchell at WPS Payroll, “There’s not just a gap between talking and walking. There’s a chasm as big as the Grand Canyon.”