When , UCLA BS ’82, MD ’87 (RES ’92, FEL ’92) has a jam-packed day of Zoom meetings pulling him in multiple directions, he escapes, if even for just a few minutes, to his roof-deck garden. Taking a deep breath and appreciating the carefully manicured bonsai Chinese elm, leaf maple and olive trees, as well as a multitude of cactus plants, gives him a boost to get through the day.
“Taking a micro break to center myself, disconnect from work and breathe in the garden exponentially increases my productivity when I go back to work,” he says.
The art of bonsai gardening requires meticulous pruning and shaping to give the appearance of a miniature tree in a pot. The practice originated in China more than 2,000 years ago and was later introduced in Japan. While Dr. Zaragoza has collected and cultivated bonsai plants for years, he leaned into the hobby during the COVID-19 pandemic. He found that nurturing something outside of himself was incredibly healing during a time of so much isolation.
“My garden is a parade of beauty that has remained foundational to my personal well-being and my mental health,” he says.
His garden overflows with tiny greenhouses to protect succulents from the rain, hand-crafted vases and bonsai plants everywhere you turn. Dr. Zaragoza says maintaining the garden is a daily effort, but it’s part of his wellness practice to stay calm and curb stress.
The ever-changing nature of the bonsai trees and plants is one of Dr. Zaragoza’s favorite aspects of gardening at his condominium in West Hollywood. He looks forward to the mammillarias, gynocalyciums and rebutias flowering in the spring; the La’amia tree sprouting leaves in the spring and summer; and the roses’ floral aroma in the fall.
But his roof-deck garden isn’t the only hobby that draws Dr. Zaragoza’s devotion. Every Sunday morning, he teaches a virtual class in yoga to students living in Los Angeles and remote locations including Arizona, Palm Springs and China.
As a former circus aerialist, Dr. Zaragoza has had a life-long commitment to an active lifestyle. But the physical demands of performing acrobats in the air while hanging onto ribbon-like bands of silk fabric leads to wear and tear and potential for an injury, causing him to reflect on its enduring impact on his quality of life. His response was to choose to solely practice yoga. He started teaching yoga around 2017, and he underwent 300 hours of advanced teacher training in Austria.
Dr. Zaragoza, whose working hours as a diagnostic radiologist are spent examining diverse medical images from routine radiographs to PETCT looking for any anomaly that signals trouble, is a devoted yogi for the multitude of benefits the practice conveys. He enjoys maintaining his flexibility and strengthening his muscles, especially the core truncal muscles, from the pelvis to the head. He attributes maintaining a strong core to healthy aging.
“If somebody assumes a more upright dancer’s posture with the shoulders down and the heart pressed forward, that is a statement of who we are and how we feel,” he says. “And the ability to manifest these postures and these feelings really depends on how we ‘grow’ our bodies, and how we maintain our bodies over decades.”
He encourages his yoga students to not compare themselves to others, and he meets them at their skill level. Everyone was once a beginner, and it takes repetition and diligence to reach deep postures. Every acorn needs time to become a mighty oak, he says.
“We take our bodies from a place of seeing the impossible to doing the impossible,” Dr. Zaragoza says. “That’s what’s really beautiful about yoga practice; it supports us in exploring ourselves.”
Aside from dutifully taking care of oneself, Dr. Zaragoza says there’s a joyful element to teaching yoga, too. One of his favorite poses to teach is the Simhasana, in which the practitioner sticks out his tongue and roars like a lion. This playful pose releases endorphins and reminds yogis not to take themselves too seriously, Dr. Zaragoza says with a smile.
Teaching yoga and gardening ties into Dr. Zaragoza’s commitment to being a role model for patients. “As proponents of health, we can’t walk the walk and talk the talk and not do it ourselves as individuals,” he says, adding that his two hobbies enable him to be rested, prepared and adaptable to whatever the day brings him.
In his nearly four decades at UCLA Health, Dr. Zaragoza has shifted through many roles. He helped launch the Acute Care Imaging section at UCLA Health, and he now is vice chair of information technology for UCLA Health Radiological Sciences, working to sustain a state-of-the-art image-interpretation environment and to deploy artificial intelligence (AI) to process images for a speedier diagnosis. He also supports radiology IT at Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital, where he is the immediate-past chief of staff.
Whatever his professional responsibility, Dr. Zaragoza says taking care of himself is fundamental to handling his various, wide-reaching responsibilities.
“Everything is connected,” he says. “Being in the garden, practicing yoga or just being mindful and ultimately grateful for what’s been given to us plays into a state of well-being that contributes to providing excellent care to patients.”
Kelsie Sandoval is a senior media relations officer for UCLA Health. Before coming to UCLA, she was a member of the health-reporting teams for NBC News and the online news site Insider.
