Tag: Happiness

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Be Your Own Guru

When it comes to your health and happiness, YOU know best.

We often forget this especially when it come to our health – turning to every expert we can to find the answers. But remember, we are all born with an innate ability to heal. In fact, that’s what chiropractic was founded on back in 1895 – the idea that your body needs no help, just no interference to it’s own healing ability. In short, that we all are designed to function, heal and re-create from the inside out.

Today that interference comes from many sources: external stressors (physical, chemical, emotional), poor nutrition, lack of movement, environmental toxins to name a few.

So what can you do? Look at all aspects of your lifestyle.

Are you getting enough sleep? Is your work fulfilling and do you have time to relax, or are you stressed out and overworked the majority of the time? What foods may be causing an imbalance? Are you moving your body enough each day or are you sedentary for endless hours?

You’ll be surprised at how quickly you can diagnose yourself and prescribe positive changes that will lead you towards optimal health.

Nowadays, there are so many books and blogs and supplements. Too often we get caught up in rules and restrictions that leave us unable to follow our own body’s wisdom. Teachers, guides, mentors, they’ve all got value – so yes – by all means, focus on the teachings – but not so much the teacher.

At True Health – we want you at your best. Engage with us (read our blog, like our facebook page / instagram page /twitter page for health tips and articles) and we will walk you down the path to your best life. It is only getting better and better.

And remember, the greatest guru is your inner self.

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Anti-Hustle for Your Health

Passion, goals, and a desire to better yourself are all good things. But the reality is constant hustle can be exhausting, stressful, and downright damaging to your health. Plus, the more we glorify the hustle, the more we feed the beast of busy –  and the more we praise the pursuit of personal goals above all else. We’ve talked before about the downside of multi-tasking, which has seemingly morphed into this grind, attack it, hustle mentality that is all the rage.

The problem with this mentality is that everything begins takes on the harshness of the hustle – not just your work, but your food, your self-care, your hobbies, your relationships. We rush until we wear ourselves down.

What if betterment means listening to your body more, like going for a walk outside at lunch instead of answering emails or returning calls. After all, what you don’t get done today can always happen tomorrow.

As another Monday arrives, remember – the best kind of hard work comes from a healthy, well-rests place. That’s healthy hustle.

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Healing Takes Time

With time comes progress, even if it doesn’t feel like it sometimes.

And the truth is, healing — change of any kind — isn’t linear. Whether it’s quitting smoking, starting an exercise routine, or leaving a toxic job or relationship, positive transitions are full of setbacks. Physical healing is no different.

Sometimes, a setback happens because of something external – as in something happens to re-aggravate an injury or condition. Often times patients will rush the healing process and do too much, too soon. But it’s also an inherent and important part of the healing process itself. We often see healing occur in alternating cycles of repair and recovery, and it’s common to see symptoms flare up during these cycles.

Occasional visits back to the old pattern are actually a normal and important part of healing that helps solidify the new, healthier pattern. Reversing structural abnormalities using specific customized chiropractic care gets to the underlying cause of many conditions – but it also takes time.

It’s also really important how you handle setbacks. 

Take this as a time to step back and focus on you. Often times when we begin to get better we forget about self care. Let’s remember that true health isn’t just by design – it’s also by choice. Caring for your adjustment is not just your chiropractor’s job. You, too, need to take responsibility and do what you can to maintain the adjustments you receive. Doing so will help expedite the spine’s retraining process, but it’s also just good practice for your body.

After all, a backbone and spinal cord that are in the proper position provide optimal performance for your entire body, enabling you to live a healthy, happy, pain-free and productive lifestyle.

Take note of what might have triggered the setback, so that you can understand and avoid what may aggravate your condition. In addition, sometimes when symptoms are milder and more intermittent, it’s easier to notice what provides some relief. Put that in your set of tools for the future, so you can continue learning how to recover more quickly and completely when you do have setbacks.

This is also a good time to keep the lines of communication open with your health care provider. Together, we might decide together to change your care or increase frequency for a while, to support your healing. Often a visit at the first sign of a flare-up can help stop you from going all the way down that path again.

Keep in mind, it’s only a matter of time before your body begins healing properly and true health and vitality can be achieved. Once the foundation has been fixed, then we’ll teach you how to keep it that way through customized recommendations designed for your spine, so the problem does not come back.

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Simplify Your Family’s Health

Life is not complex.  We are complex.  Life is simple,
and the simple thing is the right thing.
– Oscar Wilde

Minimalism can provide many benefits to your life, be it less stress, more money or more time. What many people don’t realize is that it also applies to your family’s health and well-being. We are often told we couldn’t possibly figure out how to improve our health on our own, that it is a very complicated process. The truth is – it isnt.

If you follow these simple yet essentials tips your family’s health will improve, without leaving you overwhelmed (or broke!).

Move your body in a way you enjoy.

Traditional “exercise” is not mandatory. Sure, you can join a gym if you’d like but it’s not necessary – and the downside is your children can’t exercise with you. So, instead – why not walk more?

It’s that simple. Move your body way more than you currently are and your health will improve. Walking is a refreshing alternative to complicated aerobic routines and overpriced gym memberships –  it’s free, enjoyable and already a part of your everyday life. Plus, the whole family can be involved – even the dog!

The benefits of walking are endless – so let’s just name a few: it helps prevent and reduce the severity of chronic disease (like high blood pressure and diabetes), it also improves mood and mobility. The best part about these benefits is that it doesn’t take much time from your day to achieve them. Thirty minutes a day is where we see start to see great health benefits.

Besides these health benefits – there’s also quality and uninterrupted time as a family: Being outdoors and breathing fresh air promotes a sense of calmness that can lead to bonding time and better conversations. In addition, you’re leading by example -setting a great example by modeling good healthy exercise habits that can reap future benefits in a child’s attitude towards exercise and fitness.

If walking isn’t your thing – do something else. Hiking, pillow fights, dancing to music, bike rides, jumping on the bed, whatever your kids enjoy – anything to get your family moving.

Eat Clean

This one truly is simple – research has proven what matters most: make sure your diet consists mostly of real, minimally processed foods.

To successfully implement this into your life remember we often eat what’s convenient, and if you buy it and keep it in the house, you’ll eat it – so don’t buy it in the first place. The following are some basic ground rules to follow when eating clean. Eat more organic and/or local fruits and vegetables, and remember the fresher the food, the more potent the nutrients. Drink more pure filtered water (Divide your weight by 2, aim to drink that number in ounces). Eat a handful of raw nuts/seeds everyday. When it comes to meat and dairy – choose products where animals live as close to their natural state as possible -free-range, cage-free, grass-fed, raw milk etc.). Lower your intake of inflammatory/mucus producing foods (dairy, sugar, wheat) and instead aim to eat more raw foods that contain powerful enzymes and phytonutrients (try juicing).

You can even involve your children by letting them help make a green smoothie; this can be any combination of several greens, avocado, coconut oil, and a little fruit. They deliver great nutrient-dense antioxidants and phytonutrients from vegetables with the fruit added to sweeten and lessen any bitterness from the chard, kale and spinach. They taste great and your children will learn about new foods and become more comfortable in the kitchen. Just remember the 3 main ingredients should be plants, fat, and protein (not all fruit/sugar).

Make Sleep a Priority

Sleep is often the single most undervalued behavior in our lives—and yet it is the one with the most immediate power to improve our lives in every waking moment. Getting a good night of sleep is one of the cornerstones of health, your body needs this time to repair and heal. Research shows that inadequate sleep can have disastrous effects on your weight loss efforts, impair your concentration, and weaken your immune system.

When it comes to bedtimes – the earlier is truly the better. Now, I know early bedtimes may not be possible with some families’ schedules, which is totally understandable. But for those who can do it – I strongly urge you to try.

Research consistently shows that putting kids to bed early is beneficial for their physical, emotional, and cognitive development. Not only do kids tend to sleep more when the lights go out sooner, but they also may get a greater proportion of restorative sleep, too. Early kid bedtimes are also great for parental sanity. Sipping a glass of wine in silence? Snuggling up with your spouse to watch a grown-up movie for once? It’s really quite lovely.

In addition- sleep that happens earlier in the night tends to be more restorative than sleep that takes place later at night and in the early morning. So putting your kid to bed early may ensure that a higher proportion of her sleep is the extra-restful kind. And well-rested kids behave quite differently than sleep-deprived kids.

When kids (and adults) are sleep-deprived, their bodies release hormones including cortisol, adrenaline, and noradrenaline, which give them a second wind at bedtime and also make it harder for them go back to sleep early in the morning.

If sleep is an issue it’s worth noting – if you follow the other tips we mention here (walking more, eating cleaner, and getting adjusted) – your sleep will most definitely improve.

Remove Interference

Chiropractic care can literally change your family’s life, and enable you to live a pain-free life full of energy and vitality. That’s because chiropractic adjustments help reduce or eliminate pressure on your nerves—the same ones responsible for your everyday bodily functions. Chiropractic will help eliminate pain and inflammation, reduce fatigue, and restore normal balance and nerve flow to all your organs, giving you the energy, drive and peace of mind to go out there and live life the way it was meant to be lived.

Your child’s spine is affected by a multitude of things: starting with birth, leading to crawling/walking and slips and falls, to backpacks, texting, and computers as they grow older. If statistics are what motivates you – consider this – in the US alone, over 200,000 children are taken to hospital each year to have playground injuries assessed. Other likely times that our children will become misaligned include learning to ride a bike, sporting activities or hobbies, and minor or major car accidents.

The expertise of the chiropractor is in checking the child’s spine for misalignments that impair nervous system function therefore affecting overall body function. By removing the interference to the nerves, many of these conditions can improve and/or resolve naturally – without drugs or surgery. Regular chiropractic check ups are a key component in growing healthy kids.

Focus on the lifestyle, not the goals.

Strive to make eating well and moving your body in an enjoyable way part of your family’s daily life. Enjoy the journey and do these things for the right reasons – and you’ll improve your health, fitness and quality of life.

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How to Avoid Chronic Inflammation

inflammation

Our lifestyle is so far off track – particularly from a dietary perspective -that nearly all people today are living in a state of unhealthy, chronic inflammation. It’s no wonder that we’re seeing ever-increasing rates of inflammatory related conditions and diseases. Chronic inflammation is an issue because it results in putting our body into a reactive mode sustained over time that results in destructive physiology. In other words, chronic inflammation could be described as being sick all the time, throughout the body.

The good news is that it’s almost always caused by our lifestyle choices. There are a number of choices that we can make (or not make) that will result in an inflammatory response within the body.

Foods That Cause Inflammation

  • Processed Vegetable Oils: These are some of the most chemically altered foods in our diets, yet they get promoted as healthy. They cause disease, and they’re in everything (think soybean, corn, sunflower, safflower, etc)
  • Grains: Bread, cereals, pasta, pizza, bagels, crackers – aka the foods most people eat on a daily basis.
  • Sugars (and foods that act like sugar): Our bodies are not meant to break down as much sugar as we consume. (think bread, cereals, pasta, pizza, bagels, crackers – got it?)

How Our Lifestyle Contributes To Inflammation

Stress is also a major contributor to chronic inflammation for many people; stress results in a cascade of metabolic responses within the body, lead by cortisol, the chief stress hormone. Stress creates a perfect storm of disease-producing reactions, lead by an inflammatory response – causing increased blood pressure, heart rate, blood fats, insulin resistance, along with decreased immune function, digestion, reproductive hormones, and serotonin.

There are times when the body’s stress response is appropriate or healthy; for example, a normal or healthy stress response occurs when we stress our bodies during exercise, or get chased by a mountain lion; the body is designed to endure or cope with these relatively brief periods of stress. It becomes inappropriate or unhealthy when the stress is induced from unnatural things (bad foods, stress from bad relationships, bad jobs, lack of sleep, etc.), and/or when stress occurs over sustained periods of time (i.e. long-term stress from our hectic, over-scheduled, digitally demanding, sedentary, debt-laden, traffic-stuck lives).

How To Avoid Chronic Inflammation

  • Significantly reduce your intake of processed foods. By avoiding processed foods, you get extreme benefits because you avoid processed vegetable oils, sugar, and flour, ALL of which promote inflammation in the body (along with directly or indirectly causing obesity, diabetes, cancer, heart disease, autoimmune, and dementia disorders).
  • Stop eating sugar and foods that act like sugar
  • Stop eating grains (grains present a triple threat – in addition to promoting inflammation, grains promote high insulin levels and intestinal permeability or leaky gut syndrome, which leads to a whole host of conditions)
  • Eat lots of organic plant foods (aim for more vegetables than fruit each day)
  • Eat pastured animal proteins (not feedlot, grain-fed meats)
  • Eat healthy fats – this includes coconut oil, raw nuts, avocado, butter from pastured cows, meat from pastured animals, wild-caught fish.
  • Exercise regularly and to the point of exertion. BUT when going for exertion, short-interval, high intensity is what you’re after, not sustained endurance exercise – meaning functional training type of exercise such as CrossFit or hour-long Bootcamp classes are what’s recommended, not training for marathons, or going to the gym for 90 minute sessions on a treadmill or bike.
  • Supplement with a high-quality omega-3 fish oil which helps to balance the critical omega-6 to omega-3 ratio in the body (people today get too much omega-6 from vegetable oils, grains, and grain fed animals; and disruption in the omega-6:omega-3 ratio leads to inflammation, disease, etc.).