Its’ the month of Valentine’s Day, some love it for the cards and hearts, others just think it’s another Hallmark holiday to help someone else make their yacht payment, and yet still others are even more utterly aware of how single they are. Instead of making this month about loving someone, I encourage you to show a little love and respect to no one other than Y-O-U. Instead of hoping for your favorite carnations to show up at work, or plotting your trip to the gym that night only to gorge on fast food on your way home, avoiding a restaurant full of ‘happy couples’ (guilty). I’m encouraging you to fall in love with your health and make a difference in just one aspect of your wellness lifestyle that takes the focus off chocolate hearts and puts it into your wellbeing. This could be making the commitment to eat a healthy lunch every day this week, going to the gym and doing 30 minutes of cardio 3 times, starting a yoga class, taking time to meditate, read, spend time with your kids or spouse. Of course my favorite option is to consider seeing one holistic health practitioner to further evaluate where you are on a wellness scale and where improvements can be made. The key to making these improvements is a healthy functioning nervous system.
What controls everything in your body? Think about it. What controls how your lungs breath, allows your legs to move, causes your hair to grow? I love asking kindergarteners this question because I get a resounding, “your brain!” Well, that’s great but so what? You ask. Well, the brain does this through the very complex nervous system. Information travels from the brain down the spinal cord and out to various points of the body through nerves, whose soul purpose is to ensure that the body part of interest functions properly. So what happened? Why the headaches all the time? Why am I constipated unless I drink coffee and why do my children suffer from ADD and struggling in school? Well, when the nerve to the heart gets “pinched” the heart doesn’t function properly. This could look like arrhythmia, heart attack, high blood pressure etc. If the nerve to the intestines or stomach is interfered with, vomiting, diarrhea, cramping, bloating, IBS, and a decreased immune system could surface. My job as a chiropractor is to balance this nervous system to ensure that the body functions the way it was designed to function. Chiropractors around the globe remove these interferences called subluxation by aligning the spine that encases the spinal cord. That’s why when patients come in because of lower back pain I’ll often ask about their digestive and reproductive systems, and explain why they’ll see a change not just in their pain but also in the way their body is working.
I recently had a guy come into the office who had spent a total of $400 on migraine shots in the last week. Each shot gave him relief for about 24 hours and then the migraine would flare up again. I was delighted and a little cocky having him come to me after medicine had failed him. “Ready to try something that works now!” I thought. “Well, you’re cheaper than a shot, so I thought I’d give this a try.” Ouch! Well, instead of puffing up my wellness branded chest and telling him all about the spine and nervous system, I said, here’s a guy that wants to feel better. He wants to be able to go to work and play with his son and enjoy having a beer with his buddies. He doesn’t care about anything but the bottom line. So I checked my ego at the door (reluctantly) and said to him, “the problem is in your neck, I’m going to align the neck and you’ll probably feel a little bit better, and guess what…for $400 you could see me for the next few months all you needed and wanted.”
All the shots (and drugs) in the world will not make you better! They’ll tell your body to shut up and quit hurting and you’ll FEEL better but you won’t operate the way you want your body to work! and an even bigger kicker is that you can’t out exercise all the time you spend sitting! We have talks with patients every day about where to put their computer monitor, how to align their chair, and where to place their keyboard for the best possible posture at work. All of this is great, but guess what? If you don’t get up and move SEVERAL times during your 8-12hour shift all you’re doing is creating tight muscles that pull on the bones and interfere with the nervous system!
Well, now that I’ve completely terrified you into seeing a chiropractor (hopefully) what else can you do other than the usual, eat better, exercise, quit smoking “health talk” (they should call these sick talks instead of health talks…just saying). The very simple one thing you can do at home for free is stand up straight! Quit watching TV in bed or in the recliner with your head propped up so it’s protruding away from your body! You want your head up over your shoulders, not leaning forward and putting all sorts of unnecessary strain and torque on the spinal cord (more on that at a later date).
The bottom line is that chiropractic can help! It helps even more if you do your part of at home exercises, fixing your work station, and moving around more than the so called recommendation of 5,000 steps per day. Get a better idea of how you can operate at a higher level…and even feel better, for cheaper (gasp!)
To PEAKE Health!
