Michael Wood

Editor's Note: This blog post was originally published by Michael Wood as "My Why" for a National Alliance on Mental Illness newsletter in February 2025. A more detailed version was published on Medium, in August 2024, before Michael applied for the job at NAMI. At the expense of sounding corny, when I saw the job posting for NAMI’s next Chief Operating Officer, it felt like I was being called. By what, or whom, I can’t say.

Stretching warms up your muscles and prepares you for weightlifting. While some people say stretches are overrated, they make your deadlifts more effective by improving joint mobility. Which ones should be part of your routine? Forget the well-known stretches and add the following eight underrated exercises to your pre-workout list. Yoga might not be on your radar for deadlift performance, but yoga increases flexibility and balance. The discipline has numerous poses to try.

A card Mom gave me when I graduated college. I have it framed today as a reminder to always strive to be the best version of myself. To moms with mental illness, from a son Thirteen years ago on Aug. 21, 2011, my life changed forever when my 57-year-old mother unexpectedly passed away. It wouldn’t be until two days later that my brothers and I would actually find out. That week, Mom was planning to spend the weekend with one of her best friends.