I’ve had the great opportunity to write guest several guest blog posts for the HuffPost.  Simply click on each link below.

Here is a link to my BIO on the HuffPost Website.  https://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/dr-michael-r-mantell

Why Manage What You Can Prevent?
When did leaders in workplace wellness become hoodwinked and duped into thinking managing something is better than preventing it? I guess they believe buying ambulances, paying for emergency room services, expensive tests, medications, and aftercare trumps a fence.

I’ll explain with a story about a little village in Switzerland. This town claimed bragging rights to the finest ski slopes in the region, a little known fact amongst many international tourists. When the word got out on social media, of course everyone and anyone with a pair of skis showed up to challenge the expert slopes. This included beginners who ignored simple warning signs and continued jumping off a dangerous ledge on the slope that led to broken bones…and worse. Click here to read the entire article

World’s Best GPS System: Gratitude, Positivity and Sensitivity
My car has a world-class GPS system in it. It’s a genuine, high-tech, (the kind I need our 13-year-old to explain), sure-to-get-me-where-I-want-to-go virtual assistant that guides me in my travels. Only problem is, I said I wanted to get to “happiness,” and it was stymied.

Some GPS system that is! I’ll rely on mine: Gratitude, Positivity and Sensitivity.
Not very high-tech, no fancy labels, no on-line FAQs, not the latest on the market, but always — ALWAYS — gets me where I want to go in life. Click here to read the entire article.

Optimal Health and Health Disparity
At the recent 33rd Annual International Convention and Trade show of IHRSA 2014 in San Diego, I urged my colleagues in a presentation I did to disrupt, lead and innovate by speeding past the current model of the gym and begin creating “Optimal Health Centers.” Here’s, in part, a glimpse why: health disparity.

In his must-read book, Next Medicine: The Science and Civics of Health, America’s leading voice in health and wellness, Walter Bortz, M.D. observed that the “Financial interests of biotech and drug companies have eroded the values of the medical profession and placed profit before human well-being.” Dr. Bortz noted, “Heart disease, for example, is widely treated with drug interventions and invasive surgery…But daily exercise and a healthy diet can help prevent heart disease and can be obtained by patients for free.”
Click here to read the entire article

Why Manage What You Can Prevent?
When did leaders in workplace wellness become hoodwinked and duped into thinking managing something is better than preventing it? I guess they believe buying ambulances, paying for emergency room services, expensive tests, medications, and aftercare trumps a fence.

I’ll explain with a story about a little village in Switzerland. This town claimed bragging rights to the finest ski slopes in the region, a little known fact amongst many international tourists. When the word got out on social media, of course everyone and anyone with a pair of skis showed up to challenge the expert slopes. This included beginners who ignored simple warning signs and continued jumping off a dangerous ledge on the slope that led to broken bones…and worse. Click here to read the entire article.

Want to Stay Forever Young?
When Bob Dylan first sang this over 40 years ago, who thought the words would mean anything? I mean, we WERE young and were going to stay that way. Who ever thought we’d be 65-years-old? And yet, for most of my high school class of 1966, that’s exactly how old we are.

Well, cosmeceuticals, anti-aging skin-care, “glycans,” spas, “clinically proven ingredients,” teas and plastic surgery haven’t done it. Perhaps if we followed Dylan’s recipe, we’d all be fit, happy and enjoying optimal health. Fortunately, many of us are. Click here to read the entire article.

The New Success: Preventive Health Coach
Defining success in life should include more than just the accumulation of money and power. How can an increased focus on your health and wellbeing through “preventive fitness” help you lead a more fulfilled life?

In a commencement address at Smith College in 2013, Arianna Huffington equated our insatiable drive to attain money and power as two legs on a three-legged stool. While you may balance on two legs for a while, a fall is inevitable. The third leg of success, Huffington argues, is our well-being. As the Senior Fitness Consultant for Behavioral Sciences for The American Council on Exercise, I can attest the importance of investing in the wellbeing of you, through eating well, exercising and taking steps to prevent illness, rather than retroactively respond to it. Click here to read the entire article.

Think You’re Boring? You Are
You and your friends go out to a local bar for some relaxation time. You are standing at the bar with your buddies whom are are all chatting away with others none of you ever met before. Then it hits you. Nobody is talking with you.

You’ve been waiting on line at the local coffee shop for what seems forever. What takes those “baristas” so long anyway? People are patiently waiting their turn by making small talk about the day ahead. You are busy looking at the food behind the counter. Then it hits you. Nobody is talking with you.
Click here to read the entire article.

‘Faggedabowdit’: Mental Health’s Best Tool
Righteous indignation. Proving your point. Being right. Holding On. Never letting go. Beating a dead horse. Having to win. Always coming out on top. Having to have the last word. Sound familiar? Then this column is surely for you.

Peace is often described as the single greatest good. Peace. You know that tranquil, serene, quiet sense of contentment… that always seems to escape you? Peace. Why is it that so many people seem to have amicable, agreeable, easygoing, friendly relationships… except for you? Peace. That still, accommodating, conciliatory, relaxed feeling… that you never seem to have. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-michael-r-mantell/faggedabowdit-mental-heal_b_4900970.html?ncid=engmodushpmg00000006

Exercise vs. Stress
Michael Mantell, PhD, would prefer that we stop talking about “managing” stress and start talking about preventing it in the first place. “For all of our expertise in managing stress, still nearly 80 percent of Americans regularly experience physical symptoms caused by stress while nearly 75 percent experience stress-related psychological symptoms,” said Dr. Mantell, who is Senior Consultant for Behavioral Sciences for the American Council on Exercise. “Extreme stress is a familiar feeling for one-third of the country due largely to job pressures, financial woes, health concerns and unhealthy relationships. These are folks who are busy focusing on managing stress, rather than having prevented it. Click here to read the entire article.

Today we’d like to introduce you to Dr. Michael Mantell.

Dr. Mantell, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
When my 8th grade teacher told my mother and I that I was not college material and ought to consider attending a vocational high school in Newark, NJ, I knew I was headed for a doctorate in some area of academic and professional studies.

I thought it might have been medicine, but when a prestigious psychology professor in my freshman year of college called me to stay after class and told me that I was the only student paying attention in a large lecture hall, and urged me to pursue psychology, I thought about it and realized it was, and is my passion.  Click here to read the entire article.

MICHAEL AND PAULA MANTELL: FIT AND FABULOUS IN THEIR 60’S
une 28, 2014 (San Diego’s East County) – How can one have a healthier and more meaningful lifestyle? The psychologist Dr. Michael Mantell likes to use acronyms when conveying his healing messages as he believes they are a helpful way for people to remember them.

For him, the acronym PERMA is an important message as it stands for positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment. Although coined by Marty Seligman, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, it is a way of life for Dr. Michael Mantell and his wife Paula, who live in El Cajon and share an office in La Mesa near Grossmont Center.

As Mantell says, “It is important in life to create positive emotion in every situation and be engaged or in the flow of whatever you are doing. Relationships are also valuable as is finding meaning in every moment and doing the best you can to accomplish and reach your goals.” Click here to read the entire article.