Rejuvenation Versus Resignation
This is the time of the new year when our recently made resolutions are put to the test. Were they holiday-fueled imaginings or meaningful expressions of our heart's true desires? Are our resolutions sturdy things that will help us carry out our goals and plans for the rest of the year or are they flimsy constructs composed of hopes rather than substance? Many of us will be faced with this conundrum shortly after the New Year’s celebrations have concluded and how we respond can have a significant impact on the rest of our lives.
When it comes to resolutions to improve our health and well-being: We know we should remain committed, but problems often arise when we attempt to put this knowledge into practice. For example, many people enshrine the same health-related goals into their annual New Year's resolutions list year after year but never succeed at accomplishing what they set out to do.
New Year’s proclamations such as obtaining regular chiropractic care, losing weight, working out more, and eating better, are reasonable, appropriate, and laudable. The catch, however, is that for most of us our dedication to health-related plans doesn't last much beyond a few weeks. So how can one find the motivation to keep firm in their resolutions?
The way to succeed in your 2017 resolutions is to approach each day for what it really is - a new day and opportunity to reaffirm our commitment to the health and well-being of our families and ourselves.1,2 By recognizing that we have a daily opportunity to refresh and reaffirm our New Year's resolutions, we gain the freedom to implement our resolutions each time we get out of bed in the morning. In this way, throughout the course of the new year, we will continually rejuvenate our commitments to ourselves.
Your chiropractor can also help support your ongoing commitments to health and well-being. By detecting and correcting spinal misalignments that are sources of nerve interference, regular chiropractic care helps keep the nerve system, our body's master system, in peak condition. With a well-tuned nerve system, the rest of our physiological systems such as the cardiorespiratory, digestive, endocrine, and immune systems are themselves enabled to function at top capacity, which in turn, can help support your health and well-being resolutions this year and for years to come.
All of us have had health-related issues at some time or other. Whether it's low back pain, headaches, asthma, gastritis, an ankle sprain, or a rotator cuff injury, we've all had a health problem that ultimately needed treatment. Chronic diseases such as high blood pressure, diabetes, and various types of cancer are especially difficult and usually require interacting with multiple specialists over many years. However, regardless of our health history, it's worthwhile for all of us to stop for a bit, sit down quietly, and take stock of our current health status.
As we carefully assess our current situation and where we'd like to be, telling the truth to ourselves is very important. Remarkably, engaging in the process of such an honest overview may create an opening for a new appreciation of the personal importance of health.
It's likely that we will notice some dissatisfaction with our current health circumstances and may experience a degree of frustration, remembering a time when we were perfectly healthy. We might recall a time when we were 30 pounds lighter or when we didn't have so many aches and pains, a time when we could sleep peacefully through the night and wake up actually refreshed and recharged.
It's okay to dwell for a little while in a state of remorse concerning what we think we may have lost, but acknowledging the good news will actually provide us with much more energy and purpose. That good news consists of the awareness that our attitudes toward our health are always in our hands.
In this respect, we are in control. We may not be able to wave a magic wand and instantly heal a chronic health problem. We may not be able to magically turn back the hands of time or instantaneously decrease the readout on the bathroom scale, but all of us can forge a new attitude concerning our health and well-being. We can declare that we're in charge of how we feel and that each day we're going to take steps toward improving our overall health.1,2
This notion of ownership, of responsibility, for own health may appear variously as a little hard to achieve. But it's an everyday thing. All we need to do, is to take action today. Of course, over time these actions add up and in not too long a time we wake up to find that we really are recharged and refreshed, we really have lost some substantial weight, and/or we really have the experience that our muscles are lean, long, and well-toned. We find that we have become, thanks to our regular daily practice, a person who is healthy and well, even in the face of whatever chronic conditions may still persist.3
All personal wellness programs benefit from a holistic perspective. We don't only want to get stronger, build lean muscle mass, lose weight, or sleep better, we actually want to accomplish all of these things in a total framework of health and well-being. All these components are interrelated and work together to accomplish long-lasting wellness.
Regular chiropractic care provides the structural foundation to achieve these objectives in the areas of fitness and good health. By focusing on the nerve system, your body's master system, and detecting and correcting spinal misalignments, regular chiropractic care helps you get the most out of the time you spend in your wellness activities. By helping improve structural stability and improving nerve system function, regular chiropractic care helps us achieve our long-term health goals.
Change is an undeniable force that impacts everything. Nothing in the physical world, either on Earth or in the Universe itself, is able to resist change and ultimate decay. Supernovas, for example, are the final explosive moments of massive stars. Our own changes through life are not as dramatic, but nonetheless, they are just as meaningful, often profoundly so.
Some life cycles such as that of a leaf or butterfly are studied and appreciated as symbols of change. Yet, the physical changes we go through over the years and decades are often lamented instead of revered. We could mourn for our youthful selves, regretting our losses and wishing we could have retained what used to be, or we could return our perspective to the forces of life proceeding in and around us. In doing so, we come to realize we are not required to passively accept the march of time. In the context of physical health, we may focus our attention on the things we are capable of doing to resist the impact of the passing years and maintain and even upgrade our levels of fitness, health and well-being.
Realistically, physical structures do break down. For example, our intervertebral discs, the gelatinous shock-absorbers situated between pairs of spinal vertebras, begin to lose their maximum water content shortly after birth, owing to the ongoing effects of gravity. Thus, intervertebral disc degeneration is inevitable. But we can resist the process and slow the progression or loss, by pumping physiologic fluids back into the disc via physical activity and regular vigorous exercise. In this way, we rehydrate our intervertebral discs to the available maximum, improving our flexibility, agility and mobility as we do so.
Overall, lifestyle upgrades such as ensuring a healthy nutritious diet1,2 and engaging in regular vigorous exercise five times a week3 help us be proactive against the effects of the passage of time. Importantly, we gain critical support for these activities by going for regular chiropractic care, which is a difference-maker when it comes to enhancing and upgrading our health and well-being. By identifying sources of nerve interference and correcting spinal misalignments, regular chiropractic care helps ensure optimal functioning and performance of all our body's systems. As a result, we're better able to get the most out of our lifestyle activities.
We may not be able to run a six-minute mile at age 60, but that's not the point. What we can do is become much fitter and much healthier than we have been. We can lose weight and add pounds of lean muscle mass, sleep more restfully, have more energy throughout the day, upgrade our musculoskeletal adaptability, and improve our long-term health and well-being. We have the time that is ours to have.
When we think of healthful lifestyle choices we generally consider requirements for a healthy diet and regular vigorous exercise. We want to be sure we're eating a wide variety of foods from the primary food groups and that we’re careful to watch our daily calorie intake. In the realm of exercise, we want to do a minimum of 30 minutes of vigorous exercise five days a week. These lifestyle recommendations apply to young and older adults, older children, and teenagers, that is, the entire extended family. But many people neglect to take into account the third pillar of healthy lifestyle enhancement, that of getting sufficient rest. Obtaining sufficient restorative, refreshing sleep may be the most underrated and under-discussed lifestyle choice.1,2
The amount of sleep necessary to maintain good health varies among individuals, but the minimum requirement is most often reported as seven hours. For most of us, getting less than seven hours of sleep a night on a regular basis will likely be insufficient to support physiological functioning. For example, the great philosopher Immanuel Kant famously got up at 5 am every day. But Kant went to bed at 10 pm, thus obtaining seven hours of restful sleep per night.
Sufficient rest enables our bodies to recover from daily stresses and strains and repair damaged cells and tissues. Getting less sleep than we need, over time, results in muscle and joint stiffness and tension, otherwise unexplained aches and pains, impaired digestion with a wide range of symptoms, emotional irritability, and disordered cognitive function.3 Without sufficient sleep, people become more easily confused and forgetful. Decision-making becomes flawed. It becomes much more difficult to analyze and comprehend the big picture, whatever the undertaking. If these symptoms sound all too familiar, the source of the problem may frequently be identified as failing to get the amount of sleep you really need.
Thus, contrary to the six, five, or four hours of sleep a night that business "gurus" and "consultants" claim they thrive on, seven hours of nightly sleep is a basic requirement for the vast majority of people. Eight hours of sleep is great when you can get it. The question becomes, how in our very busy lives is it possible to get this amount of sleep? The solution lies in following, approximately, the lifestyle chosen by Kant (1724–1804), the giant of the Enlightenment who needed optimum good health in order to support a lifetime of tremendously fruitful activity. Personal discipline comes into play. For example, arising at 5:30 or 6 am might work better for us, but we would need to make sure we go to bed at 10:30 or 11 pm.
Many may find, once they've become aware of the significance of this lifestyle upgrade, that seven-and-a-half or eight hours of sleep per night works best for them. The key is to get the rest that's right for you. Over time, you and all your family members will notice the difference, as each one begins to fulfill this necessary component of healthy living. The long-term result is good health, happiness, and enjoyment in life.
How Regular Chiropractic Care can Improve the Quality of Sleep
We are not in charge during our sleep periods, that is, what happens when we sleep is not under the control of our conscious selves. All our physiological mechanisms, known as vegetative functions, proceed on their own. Just as when we're awake, our heart, lungs, and digestive organs operate independently of our conscious instructions. But if we're not controlling these life-sustaining systems, what is? The nerve system is in control, both when we're asleep and awake. As our body's master system, the nerve system makes sure that all the physiological systems are online, all the time.
But the nerve system itself requires maintenance and upkeep. That's where regular chiropractic care comes in. Regular chiropractic care detects and corrects sources of nerve interference that would degrade the performance of our body's master system. By helping to optimize spinal alignment and reducing the effects of nerve interference, regular chiropractic care helps us function efficiently and effectively. The result is good health in the present and assistance with ongoing health and well-being in the future.
We've heard a lot lately regarding how certain nations play a long game in terms of regional influence and global geopolitics. The concept of a so-called long game is interesting in that it implies a more than common degree of patience and a commitment to outcomes that are evaluated over decades and generations, rather than months or years. Importantly, strategies and tactics that produce desired results in the international arena may be applied with success to the long-term health and well-being of ourselves and our families.
In terms of good health, a person's unfolding strategy always consists of putting into place lifestyle behaviors that appropriately support the desired long-term goals. For example, eating a healthy diet and engaging in regular vigorous exercise have been proved of great benefit in the prevention and treatment of chronic diseases. The primary categories of chronic diseases include cardiovascular disorders, diabetes, overweight/obesity, and cancer. Most person's long-term health goals would naturally focus on avoiding the onset of these various disorders and diseases or preventing their progression to a chronic state. If one is late in arriving at a decision to engage in self-care, as frequently happens in our society, the good news is that lifestyle behavior change is always beneficial. What is required, for all of us, is to adopt the perspective of the long game.
For example, obtaining the necessary long-term benefits of an exercise program requires a certain amount of dedication and persistence. Any exercise is good, but regular exercise is much better. Our bodies are dynamic and adapt positively to physiological and mechanical stresses, such as the stresses imposed by an exercise program. But that same dynamism will cause a metabolic breakdown of muscle and bone if those tissues are not being worked and utilized consistently. Our bodies are very smart and are designed to work efficiently. Biochemical components of structures that are assessed to be unnecessary will be redirected to better purpose elsewhere. In other words, the "use it or lose it" principle applies. If we want to build strong muscles and bones that will serve us well and help us avoid injury over the course of many years, we need to engage in regular vigorous exercise ongoingly.
Thus, committing to the long game supports our desire for a long life of good health. There can be gaps, of course. People are very busy and there may be stretches, even lasting months, when there just isn't time enough to do necessary exercise. The solution is to minimize these gaps as much as possible, make sure the gaps don't become the new routine, and re-engage in regular exercise as soon as feasible. Adherence to our long game strategy will help achieve across-the-board wins in the areas of health and well-being.
Regular chiropractic care is an important part of the long view regarding your family's health and well-being. Even though we engage in healthy lifestyle activities, events frequently occur that have a negative impact on our health. The events themselves may be not obvious, hidden from view as a result of originating in our day-to-day environment or seemingly harmless mechanical stresses as we bump into things, trip over a crack in the sidewalk, or pick up a laundry basket filled with clothes.
But these little insults often have a cumulative effect in causing spinal misalignments and nerve interference. We're not aware of the health effects of nerve interference at the beginning. Over time, nerve irritation that results from spinal misalignments may cause neck pain, back pain, and headaches, and even problems with the digestive, endocrine, and immune systems. Regular chiropractic care, as a consistent part of your family's routine, helps prevent a wide range of problems from getting started, and helps us get better faster from the problems that may have brought us to our chiropractor's office in the first place.
High serum glucose. High cholesterol. High blood pressure. This is a trifecta you definitely don't want to have. This combination of laboratory findings is known as metabolic syndrome, a new medical term that has been in existence for less than ten years. It's well-known that there is an epidemic of obesity in America. Two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese. Thirty percent of American children are overweight or obese. The numbers continue to increase. The United States is also in the midst of an epidemic in diabetes. Eight percent of Americans over age 20 have diabetes - one in twelve people. Again, the numbers are increasing.
Recently, public health researchers discovered that people who were overweight and had diabetes also had high blood pressure - the combination of findings was termed metabolic syndrome. The implication is that if a person has one or more of these abnormal findings, he is at risk for the others.1,2,3 If a person has high blood glucose she is at risk for high blood pressure and elevated cholesterol. Being overweight increases the risk of developing diabetes and developing cardiovascular disease - heart attack and stroke.
The statistics and medical conclusions are sobering, and yet there is good news. Each of these serious disorders - diabetes, obesity, and high blood pressure - is a lifestyle disease. Lifestyle contributes significantly to developing any and all of these conditions. Making long-lasting changes in the way we live has long-lasting effects on our health and well-being. Lifestyle recommendations are not breaking news. Everyone knows about the benefits of healthy nutrition and regular vigorous exercise. Research has consistently shown that diet, exercise, and proper rest significantly improve one's health. The great challenge is to cause people to engage in these activities which are in their own interest.
An additional important lifestyle change is to engage in regular chiropractic care. Chiropractic care ensures optimal functioning of the nerve system which ensures optimal functioning of all other body systems. If the nerve system is over- or understimulated, physiology will break down in various ways and disease will result. Chiropractic care balances nerve system activity via gentle manipulation of spinal joints. Proper function of the spine results, with normalization of nerve activity. Chiropractic care enhances all other lifestyle activities. Healthy nutrition and regular exercise can have maximum benefit when your spine and nerve system are functioning properly.
1McNaughton SA, et al: Dietary patterns, insulin resistance, and incidence of type 2 diabetes in the Whitehall II Study. Diabetes Care 31(7):1343-1348, 2008
2Brunner EJ, et al: Dietary patterns and 15-y risks of major coronary events, diabetes, and mortality. Am J Clin Nutr 87(5):1414-1421, 2008
3Roman B, et al: Effectiveness of the Mediterranean diet in the elderly. Clin Interv Aging 3(1):97-109, 2008
In chess, checkmate occurs when a player’s king is under attack and has no safe place to go. The king is threatened and every possible escape route is blocked. Such an existential condition, an allegorical “no exit,” is known as checkmate.
In life, a person may be similarly threatened by a serious illness. For example, a person may receive a diagnosis for which there is no effective long-term treatment. Short-term, temporary solutions may be available, but these usually require enormous expenditures of resources, both financial and personal. Most often, when the temporary fix has run its course, the illness persists and the long-term outlook remains the same. Optimally, we would prefer to avoid such medical “checks” and avoid being faced with an untimely “checkmate.” As in chess, obtaining success with respect to our health and well being depends in large part on having a sound strategy in place.
Successful chess players think several moves ahead. High-level chess players such as grand masters have the ability to envision combinations involving ten or more future moves. Fortunately, being successful at the game of promoting personal health and well being is much less complicated. There are only a few elements involved in developing a strategy that works.
These elements are well known and include (1) regular, vigorous exercise; (2) a healthy diet1; (3) sufficient rest; and (4) a positive mental attitude. But despite being well known, only the minority of people actually implements these critical “moves.” The evidence for such lack of action may be seen in the United States, for example, where one-third of Americans are overweight and additional one-third are obese. Merely knowing something is not sufficient to obtain a result.
What is required is actual action.2 In terms of exercise, evidence-based guidelines agree that 30 minutes of vigorous exercise, done five days a week, will provide a sound foundation for health. Optimally, such exercise consists of both cardiovascular and strength training sessions, but the most important point is to do five 30-minute sessions per week. With respect to diet, all the evidence affirms that men, women, and children should follow specific calorie-intake guidelines.3 For example, a moderately active man, aged 31-50, should consume, on average, 2500 calories per day. A moderately active woman, aged 31-50, should consume, on average, 2000 calories per day. A man intending to lose weight, and then maintain an ideal weight, should take in about 1800 calories per day. A woman intending to lose weight, and then maintain an ideal weight, should consume about 1600 calories per day. Regarding daily food intake, the most important rule to follow is to consume at least five portions of fresh fruits and vegetables per day. It is also important, on a daily basis, to eat foods from all the major food groups. In terms of rest, most people require seven to eight hours of sleep a night. This may not be possible every night, of course, but over time people need to obtain the right amount of rest for them. The criterion is simple: if you do not feel rested after a night’s sleep, then you did not obtain sufficient sleep. Obtaining sufficient rest is an often-neglected component of a well-rounded health and wellness strategy.
Our strategy for helping ensure our long-term health and wellness contains only a few components, and involves many less moves than does a winning chess strategy. It should be easy to put such a strategy into place. What is required is a commitment and dedication to ourselves, our families, and our loved ones.
1Voeghtly LM, et al: Cardiometabolic risk reduction in an intensive cardiovascular health program. Nutr Metab Cardiovasc Dis 23(7):662-669, 2013
2Carson V, et al: A cross-sectional study of the environment, physical activity, and screen time among young children and their parents. BMC Public Health 2014 Jan 21;14:61. doi: 10.1186/1471-2458-14-61
3Wang YC, et al: Reaching the healthy people goals for reducing childhood obesity: closing the energy gap. Am J Prev Med 42(5):437-444, 2012
The scientific concept of complexity is only a few decades old, but like many powerful ways of looking at the world it has spread rapidly throughout the public consciousness. Anyone who has watched even a couple of episodes of "The Big Bang Theory" would have heard multiple references to chaos theory, complex systems, and emergent phenomena. Remarkably, these very interesting topics from the fields of physics, mathematics, chemistry, and biology have special importance for human health and wellness.
Examples of complexity and chaos abound in the natural world. For example, weather systems are complex systems, which is why weather is notoriously difficult to predict even in the short-term. And long-range weather forecasts are not much better than guesswork, because the basic structure of a weather pattern can change in an instant. Study of avalanches has helped to advance chaos theory. And the flocking behavior of birds, especially the well-studied starlings, represents ever-shifting outcomes of a huge number of factors.
An emergent phenomenon is one that cannot be predicted from studying the various parts that make up the whole. Emergent phenomena include flocking behavior, in which large flocks create beautiful, always varying, dynamic patterns in flight; the architecture of beehives; and the World Wide Web. Even human consciousness may, from a certain perspective, be considered an emergent phenomenon.
From a health perspective, the relative wellness of any specific individual is an emergent phenomenon.1,2,3 For example, fighting off an infection is a dynamic process with many complex and chaotic interactions taking place before the final outcome is determined. We're not aware of these specific processes per se. We are aware of how things are going, that is, the sum total of the cellular and subcellular activities, based on how well or not well we feel.
Looking at one key area as an example of flocking behavior, are our white blood cells being effective in combating the infection? Is their behavior organized? Do they know where to go to battle the invading forces? Or is their behavior random and uncoordinated and are we not well and even sick as a result?
Long-lasting good health emerges from a variety of inputs, including nutritional balance, regular exercise, and sufficient rest. These activities are known as healthy behaviors or healthy lifestyle choices. As the interactions are complex, we can never predict a specific outcome. But we can base our choices on historical data and an analysis of facts. This information tells us that the outcomes we want - health and wellness - are likely to emerge from a set of healthy behaviors, i.e., healthy lifestyle choices taken consistently over the long-term.
In the field of statistics, a five-point rating scale is commonly used to evaluate all sorts of personal responses, feelings, and assessments. This frequently used tool is known as the Likert scale, and most people have completed such a rating device on numerous occasions, most typically in consumer after-sales surveys. The Likert scale asks a person to respond to a statement such as “I would recommend this restaurant to my friends”, choosing from the predetermined answers of “strongly disagree,” “disagree,” “neither agree nor disagree,” “agree,” and “strongly agree.” The Likert scale was developed in 1932 and has been consistently validated over many decades of use. We can effectively apply this rating system to our own state of health by answering the statement, “I enjoy high levels of health and well-being.” We can than employ our truthful answers to make sound decisions on our own behalf regarding future health-promoting activities.
If your truthful response is “strongly agree,” you probably have been engaged for a year or more in a regular, vigorous exercise program and consistently follow a nutritional healthy eating plan. You do at least 30 minutes of vigorous exercise five times a week, on most weeks. You are probably at or very near your target body weight (based on a calculation of your body mass index, readily done at numerous online resources) and consume an appropriate amount of calories on a daily basis. Overall, you feel fit. You sleep well and wake up refreshed. You have abundant energy to do all the things you need to do for yourself and your family, every day.
At the other end of the Likert rating system, if your truthful response is “strongly disagree,” you probably haven’t done any form of exercise for some time. Of course, such a circumstance might be the result of a serious illness. But if your lack of engagement in regular exercise and healthy eating is related to apathy or some other form of ennui, or in itself is a personal choice, it’s useful to consider the consequences of such inaction. Or, rather, it could be personally beneficial to consider the value in taking on new habits that result in your becoming a person who responds “strongly agree” to the statement, “I am healthy and well.”
How do you get to “strongly agree”? The solution is three-fold. The first part is to make a choice that you want to enjoy high levels of health and well-being. No one is ever going to make such a commitment because someone else told him or her they should, no matter whether that someone is a spouse, other family member, or a physician. The decision must be a personal choice. The second and third components are to begin an exercise program1 and a healthy eating plan2,3. Exercise needs to be vigorous (“vigorous” is relative, based on your age, overall health status, and other considerations) and done five times per week. Healthy eating encompasses a wide range of selections and options. One of the key elements is to consume at least five servings of fresh fruits and vegetable every day.
The good news is that every person who begins and stays with such a course of healthy living will soon reap the benefits. And not too long after that, you’ll find you’ve become a person who sleeps better, has more energy, and has, day by day, more fun in living. This is what healthy eating and exercise is really all about.
1 Chilton WL, et al: Acute Exercise Leads to Regulation of Telomere-Associated Genes and MicroRNA Expression in Immune Cells. PLoS One 2014 Apr 21;9(4):e92088. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0092088. eCollection 2014
2 Michas G, et al: Dietary fats and cardiovascular disease: Putting together the pieces of a complicated puzzle. Atherosclerosis 2014 Mar 27;234(2):320-328. doi: 10.1016/j.atherosclerosis.2014.03.013. [Epub ahead of print]
3 Yoon U, et al: Efficacy of lifestyle interventions in reducing diabetes incidence in patients with impaired glucose tolerance: a systematic review of randomized controlled trials. Metabolism 62(2):303-314, 2013
