“WORK ON YOURSELF HARDER THAN YOUR JOB.”  – Jim Rohn

I had a patient who started coming in a few weeks ago for headaches, neck pain, and low back pain.  Also, as a side note (that is not really a side note), he is taking anti-depressant medication.  His symptoms originate in the neck, move upwards into the jaw and head, and also downwards into his shoulder blade.  When the stress gets severe, he also notices it going down his arm.

I can’t tell you how common this is.  I see it almost every single day I am working in the clinic as a Chiropractor in Maple Ridge, BC.  With a good regimen of chiropractic care, the aches resolve quickly, and given the appropriate exercises, stretches, and regular checkups and adjustments, the symptoms can pretty much dissolve into nothing and stay there, but the adjustments unfortunately don’t address an underlying daily conflict:  He hates his job, doesn’t feel that he is paid enough, and the stress of it all is consuming him.

Anti-depressants are quickly becoming the most prescribed drug in North America.  According to Reuters, Since 1996 the use of psychotropic drugs like anti-anxiety and anti-depressants have gone up 73% in adults and 50% in children.  More and more I am hearing from my patients that their doctor has told them there is a “chemical imbalance” in their brains so they “have to take these drugs for life”.

My dear friends.  This is a lie.  Plain and simple.  I’m sure that if I stayed in the same work conditions, I’d have to take those drugs for life as well.  While many have allowed their frustrations/resentments/fears to slowly accumulate to the point where they are unable to function without these medications, it’s important to know something:  Our genes have not changed since our pre-historic hunter/gatherer days.  Our LIFESTYLES have.  We have been led to believe that an appropriate lifestyle is: Go to school, graduate, get a job, get married, have kids, get a mortgage and continue to work 9-5 for someone else and get paid for your time between 50-75K/year if you’re lucky, keep going until you’ve gathered enough pension and retire at 65.  Then just sit back and wait to die while playing with your grandkids.  If this is the idea of  the “American Dream”, I think I need an anti-depressant MYSELF.

Heart attacks occur most often in the morning (probably monday morning) for that reason… too often we wake up with high anxiety about the day we are about to embark upon.  Our minds have the ability to convince our bodies that we are in “Survival Mode” and it reacts accordingly with a cascade of events that take us away from balance and homeostasis.  The body then can change it’s chemistry based on our thoughts!  This is now well documented in medical literature.  It seems that the drug companies are quite embarrassed at the fact that placebo’s work just as well as anti-depressants.

More and more research is coming out demonstrating the fact that there are pro-active things we can do to help “cure” our physical and mental disorders.  If we rely on our “health care” system (which basically means “treatment of symptoms by drugs and surgery”), we are totally missing the boat on what our bodies are trying to tell us.

The majority of my patients view their work as a major stressor in their life not just because it’s hectic and demanding, but because it’s so unfulfilling and doesn’t pay what they think they are worth.

I have been working on developing myself, my mission, my voice, and my vision intensively for the past 20 years.  I can see that it is unfolding beautifully even though I’ve overcome some serious fears, anxieties, and stresses.  Do I have bad days?  Absolutely, just like everyone else.  Do I experience moments of sadness?  Yes, I do.  But luckily because I’ve been working on mastering my own emotional state despite my environment, I’m able to take a difficult event, a conflict, or a stressful encounter and change the way I think about it within a moment’s notice.  I can feel that when I make that shift, my physiology changes from “stress response—fight or flight” to “rest and relaxation, and balance”.

After working on these tools and skills for so long, I get a huge satisfaction when I share those tools with my patients and my clients.

I started incorporating them into my practice because of their amazing value in lowering people’s stress response and allowing their minds and bodies a proper environment for healing and wellness.

The first, and most challenging task is to awaken people to the fact that their “diagnosis” or “label” they’ve been given by their doctor is not necessarily true, nor does it have to be their reality.  Too often, these labels hold us back from taking responsibility to make changes.  I see how some use the label to sit back and allow their lives to be governed by others.

Only by empowering ourselves can we open the doors to changing our mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical state.  This can not be done by sitting back and waiting for change.

What can we do about some of the feedback our body is giving our mind? (otherwise known as symptoms)

Well, if you are having aches and pains… chances are that your body is telling you that you have nerve interference.  Like my patient mentioned above, get checked and adjusted right away and maintain it (shameless plug) with your Chiropractor.

What can we do about negative feedback our mind is giving our body?

If you are feeling sad, angry, resentful, depressed, anxious… then START WORKING ON YOU.  You heard me.  You’re not a label.  You have some challenges that you have to face and walk into.  Welcome to life.  And when you have overcome this particular challenge…. You’ll be happy to know that you will run into another one.  I have yet to meet a living thing that doesn’t go through this same situation.  Here’s where you begin:

• EXERCISE.  I can’t “stress” this enough.  Exercise at least 3 days a week.  Get your heart rate going.  Exercise stimulates the reward centers in you lower brain and increases blood flow to your higher brain centers.  Exercise has been shown to lower stress hormones and anxiety, reduce cravings for the substances you’re addicted to, increase mental alertness and memory, sex drive, feelings of control of environment, and ease muscle tension.  If you are depressed, take it as feedback that you probably haven’t been moving nearly enough.  Depression and anxiety are great feedback tools to wake you up to the fact that you need to be moving more.

• Start working on YOU.  Depression, fear, resentment can’t be eliminated by focusing on them.  Trust me, I’ve tried it… it doesn’t work.  Depression is not something you “catch”.  You don’t go somewhere and acquire it.  Depression creeps in when you lose touch with who you are, and you compare your current reality to someone else’s reality—someone you’ve given authority to, and you beat yourself up.  Depression can not exist in an individual who has acquired a high value of himself/herself, is clear on their values, have found themselves to be part of a cause that’s greater than themselves, feel they are contributing to society, to the economy and are getting rewarded in some meaningful way to them (financial reward, reward by recognition and appreciation).  Where can you start to build that?  Simple.  By taking the time to focus on you, your goals, your aspirations, reading, taking classes, seminars. You need to work on YOU, to “bring value to the marketplace.”  One of my hero’s Jim Rohn puts it beautifully, and I recommended this youtube video to my patient as part of his wellness plan.  He’s on the road to improving himself, and attending some classes to learn how.  I share this video with you.  To help yourself grow more value in the marketplace and in your health– a great place to learn some tips are during our upcoming “Health and Wealth” summit coming up in Downtown Vancouver on October 18th.

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