On today’s podcast, I interview Roger Joslin, an Episcopal priest in Bentonville, Arkansas. We are continuing along the theme of our last few episodes by discussing the spiritual and meditative effects of running.   While discussing these issues with one of my patients a few months ago, he recommended a book entitled Running the Spiritual Path: A Runner’s Guide To Breathing, Meditating, and Exploring the Prayerful Dimension of the Sport by Roger Joslin. I read the book and found it to be both inspirational and instructive. Father Joslin takes us on a journey along his own path over many years of dealing with emotional and spiritual issues and how his practice of meditative running has evolved.

On today’s episode, I interview Michael Sandler of www.mindfulrunning.org. Michael has been a professional athlete and has dealt with ADHD. In his search to become a better athlete while on long sessions on the bike, he began to become interested in mindfulness, the practice of awareness. The lessons that he took away from this search helped him quiet the distractions of ADHD and gave him the focus and patience to come back from several life threatening injuries.

Michael and his wife Jessica Lee live in Hawaii. They have recently produced a six-week training program teaching the process of becoming a mindful runner. The program is available through their website.

This was a very insightful and helpful interview that I believe you will all enjoy.

On today’s episode of the Running to Mental Health Podcast, I interview Marshall Ulrich. Let me list below some of his accomplishments:

Is that enough? Well, he has also raised over $839,500 for charity.

We talk about several issues. Marsh’s first wife died of cancer, so we discuss the effect of running on grief. We discuss his views on the effect of getting away from the world (particularly technology) into the natural environment and it’s effect on mental health. We finally discuss the aging process and how it affects running.

Marshall can be reached at his website, www.marshallulrich.com.   He is open to people writing him at [email protected].

Please pick up his book, Running on Empty: An Ultramarathoner’s Story of Love, Loss, and a Record Setting Run Across America.

On today’s episode, I will be talking to Dr. Jacqueline Gunn, a psychologist practicing in New York City. Dr. Gunn and I first got to know each other on the Facebook site. She wrote to let me know that she also used running in some of her treatment and was a long time runner herself. We began to talk about how running is used in therapy and the discussion turned to the spiritual effects of this discipline and how that begins to change a person in their quest to deal with psychological issues.   So, that’s the topic that we will be addressing, even though we’ll get into some other things as well.

Dr. Gunn, as well as being in private practice, is a published author. Her books include In the Therapist’s Chair and Bare: Psychotherapy Stripped.

Dr. Gunn can be reached at her Facebook site, Jacqueline Simon Gunn, and her books can be seen at Amazon.com.

Patrick House won Season 10 of the Biggest Loser. He is from my home state of Mississippi. The boy knew how to eat, like most of us, unfortunately. It’s a classic story of a very good football player, a lineman, getting injured in college and continuing to eat like he did when he was playing. Toping out at over 400 pounds, married and with children, Patrick knew something had to change. In today’s episode, we discuss what led up to the health crisis, the drastic steps to change this, and how he maintains his focus on health now.

Patrick has a new book out called As Big as a House which can be purchased on his website, biggestloserpatrick.com.

Please check your download on iTunes and leave a comment.