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I just finished a busy weekend at the Maple Ridge Home show.  We had a booth set up, and I met hundreds of people with a list of physical and mental symptoms like you wouldn’t believe, and all of them are under the care of a medical physician.   “My doctor knows about all of this, and we’ve been trying to deal with it for a very long time.”    Some would even tell me “he told me to stay away from Chiropractors.”

“And what is he/she doing for you?”

The response is always invariably “he’s sending me for an x-ray”, or “the x-rays came up negative, so we’re looking into an MRI”.  Each one left the office with a prescription for painkillers or something else.  In fact, if I was to show you how many people walking around are taking some sort of pill for one or more of their conditions, you’d be alarmed.  It’s official:  We are an overdosed, overmedicated society, and the saddest part is that we think it’s making us healthier.

I completely understand… growing up, every single time I would have an ache, pain, or a sniffle, my mother would take me to the Doctor.  Funny how most of us grow up with the perception that the Doctor will have “the cure”.   If the doctor can’t figure it out, then there’s nothing anyone can do.  This is the feeling I was getting from hundreds of (overmedicated) people this weekend.

It was an interesting observation for me that it seems that people equate going to the doctor with becoming healthy. Another interesting observation I made when it comes to most people who go to the doctor, I wanted to share with you because it could mean the difference between you taking control of your own health vs. you leaving it in the hands of someone else.  Let me explain.

It’s all about the diagnosis, baby!

To medicate or not to medicate? That is the question.

When seeing a patient, the Medical Doctor is concerned FIRST with coming up with a diagnosis.  Doctors spend years learning about patterns of symptoms that they can group together and come up with a label for your condition called a “diagnosis”.  From there, they are taught in medical school which course of action to take.  In the field of MEDICINE, what is usually the first line of defense?  MEDICINE.  Their focus is entirely on the disease and how to fight disease.

The main tools that are taught in medical school are Medicine and Surgery.  That’s why all the people who I saw who are still suffering despite our “free” medical system here in Canada have started out with Pharmaceuticals.  And it’s making us sicker and sicker as a society.  It’s all in the focus:  Focus on fighting disease, and you create more disease, the same way that focusing on fighting terrorism brings about more terror.  Deaths from adverse drug reactions are among the leading causes of death in the world.

How we view the body is important

The reason why I’m so dead against starting with Pharmaceuticals first is because of the fundamental way that I view the body.  And I’m on a mission to teach this to the world:   Instead of being a weak and stupid, I see the body as a wise, intelligent group of cells that are energetically bound together and created to function at a high level, provided we give it the essentials in movement, in nutrients, water, in a balanced mental focus, and a clear nerve system.  If we started with that, Drug companies would go bankrupt.

The problem with most people walking around with a diagnosis is that instead of using it as feedback for how we’ve been eating, moving, thinking, or how out of balance we are so we can make the changes, people wear their diagnosis as a badge or label and they remove all personal responsibility.  They make statements like:

“I can’t work because of the Fibromyalgia”

“I took 3 weeks off because of the Anxiety Disorder I have”

“I can’t exercise because of the Diabetes”

“My doctor says I have Arthritis”

“I was diagnosed with Osteoporosis”.

Each and every time I hear someone say something like that, I can’t help but cringe.  While the symptoms may be real– people are completely in the dark about how they got there in the first place.  They think it’s a disease they caught because of bad luck or bad genes.  Chances are, it’s not.  That’s why I created “What your doctor won’t tell you about your symptoms” class to shed light on why your body speaks out to you in those ways and what you can do about it.

In the mean time, all I can do is to help show people a different way.  It first comes with a different way of looking at yourself and the amazing way your body responds and reacts to the crap you are throwing at it.

The simple-yet-effective way to start your journey towards health (notice the focus is on HEALTH not the disease)

The way that you remove disease is the same way it’s been done for centuries… it’s the same way you remove darkness from a room.  I’ve dedicated my life to taking my patients and clients through a journey of healing with 3 simple steps:

1) Clear the Nervous System of interference.  Depending on how imbalanced you are, this could take days, months, or even years.  While we do that it’s important to add in step number 2…

2) Feed the body with essential raw materials, nutrients, water, and REAL food, while curbing your food cravings and addictions slowly to help detoxify your cells which make the building blocks of who you are, and if the client is up for the most difficult, yet most critical component of the healing journey….

3)  Taking charge of your emotional health.  Our resentments, fears, guilts, or incomplete emotions from the past and our inability to deal with adversities of the present prevent us from truly being healthy in the mind and body.  As Hanz and Franz of Saturday Night Live fame used to say… “HEAR ME NOW AND BELIEVE ME LATER”.  At the root cause of almost every single chronic illness is an emotional charge that hasn’t been properly dealt with.  This is not up for debate any more.  Period.  You hear me?

It’s my mission to tell people the truth about why they are sick and in pain in the first place, and what they need to do to become healthy.  Something that isn’t available in a pill form:  Health from within.  I’m sure that if we start with this approach FIRST, we’d be able to save many more lives, reduce our debt and dependence on the medical system.

After meeting hundreds of people this weekend who are walking around with a dark cloud of pain, resentment, fear, and who simply aren’t living to their potential, I can see I have a lot of work to do.  I’ve decided:  I’m bringing healthy back.

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Every day, because of the choices we make in our thoughts, our foods, and our activities, our bodies are either getting stronger or weaker. Over a lifetime of poor choices, our bodies accumulate stress, toxins, and deterioration and start aging faster than they actually should. We have been trained to see a medical doctor in those cases where the body breaks down due to poor lifestyle choices. While extremely important in emergencies, medical care doesn’t solve a problem caused by our choices of thoughts, foods, and activities, and a poorly functioning Nervous System.

Here are some testimonials of how people can recover back to their natural state of health, simply by changing what they put into their bodies, how they move their bodies, how they think and what they believe about their health, and most importantly clearing their Nervous system interference through wellness-oriented chiropractic care. These are true stories. These people are not actors and they have not been paid to give their testimonial. If you’ve been told that you have “_______” (enter diagnosis here), and “there’s nothing that can be done for you, “you need to take these pills”, “go do physio” you DO have another option. If you’ve been scared away from seeing a chiropractor, you’re not alone. Several of our patients report being discouraged from seeing a chiropractor by their GP or specialist. At the same time, we get many referrals from medical doctors who have been keeping current with the research supporting chiropractic care.

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Thanks to Science and Technology, we have made some incredible advancements in the field of Medicine. We have scans and tests that can see through the body and detect serious or fatal illnesses, acute overwhelming infections, and allow for the skilled physician or surgeon to make interventions that SAVE LIVES. Medicine’s genius is in it’s Emergency Care of extremely sick patients. But it’s becoming increasingly clear that science and technology has gone too far. We have put the medical system on such a pedestal that we have neglected to realize, as a society, that medicine DOES NOT CREATE HEALTH– and that we ourselves are responsible for it.

“Diseases of Civilization” which used to be unheard of are on the rise each and every year, and they are not due to a lack of medical science, technology, drugs and surgery. They are simply caused by making poor lifestyle choices as our collective health continues to decline and become a burden on financial system.

Today, our disease-focussed “health care” industry has come to the point where we are being marketed (literally to death) to “ask your doctor about” a new pill that is designed to manage symptoms created by our poor lifestyle choices. And more and more people die each day because of adverse reactions to PROPERLY prescribed drugs which don’t make you any healthier. Enough is enough. It’s time for the pendulum to swing back in balance. Even MD’s are speaking out about this: There IS a science to being well that doesn’t involve drugs and surgery. It all comes down to questions we ask ourselves, and the choices we make each day in our thoughts and beliefs, our nutrition, our physical activity, and how well our brain and body communicate with each other through our spine. I share these tools knowing full well I am likely going to be criticized and labelled an “unscientific quack” for doing so.

I am not bashing medical doctors. Many of my family members are MD’s and I love them all dearly. My goal is to help you win the health game by STAYING OUT OF THE MEDICAL SYSTEM and using medicine as a LAST RESORT rather than turn to pills and surgery FIRST. It is my mission and purpose to create a Wellness Centre where people can come for safe and effective alternatives to dangerous drugs which only mask problems, and MOST IMPORTANTLY to learn tools to get healthy, stay healthy, and to move towards getting off their medications that have been proven again and again to wreak havoc on the human body and mind.

There is no quick and easy fix to health problems and being healthy takes a some time and effort. I intend on sharing my research on mind and body health by teaching people to become an active participant rather than only a passive recipient, and taking control of your thoughts, your actions, and your nutrition. Health does not come from a pill, and it never has. Don’t let anyone tell you that you have to take a pill for the rest of your life. For more information or to register for upcoming workshops, classes and courses offered at Westgate, please log onto http://www.westgatewellness.com, or go tohttp://www.drnima.com/workshops and if you want to learn some health tips and learn about other crazy stuff on my mind, feel free to sign up for our newsletter/blog update.

I am greatly indebted to Dr. James Chestnuthttp://www.thewellnesspractice.com, Dr. Kevin Donka http://www.kevindonka.com, Dr. John Demartini http://www.drdemartini.com, and Dr. Bruce Lipton for who’s thoughts, ideas, and research I have taken from and integrated to form my own. I stand on the shoulders of giants.
-Nima

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Do so many things that fall onto your lap each day seem like hurdles, or am I the only person who sometimes feels that it’s an upstream battle?

Upstream or Downstream?

When you are the owner of one of Greater Vancouver’s Largest Alternative Healing Centres, there are many opportunities thrown your way to divert you from your high-priority activities.

My favorite, high priority things to do:  To adjust and consult my patients, to teach educational classes, workshops, and courses, to research natural thought and lifestyle strategies on getting and staying well in the mind and body, to exercise and to spend time with my wife, my dog Lucy, family and friends.

For the most part, I try to do ONLY those things.  I run a busy chiropractic practice seeing patients, I sign around 20 paychecks, I have coaching clients, I teach classes every month in posture, Exercise, Nutrition, Stress, Law of Attraction, and teach a course 3 times a year on Personal Transformation.   I research, write,  dance (not as much anymore ), and on top of all those responsibilities, I’m renovating my office.  These are all things I love to do–but each day, I have more lower priority stuff I gotta take care of to make sure all that stuff above gets done.  Luckily, my amazing staff takes care of most of it, but there are always decisions to be made and fires to be put out.  I could easily get stressed every moment of every day– somedays I even do– you can’t help it sometimes, with computer crashes, phone lines down, equipment issues, etc…

Luckily, I have learned some amazing tools that enable me to step back from my life and take account of my thoughts each day for the type of day I’m having.  With these tools, I can make mid-course corrections and end my day the way I am inspired to live…

But I can see how not having this awareness can cause some serious trouble.  You can turn a temporary sad situation worse, and allow it to escalate into weeks, months, sometimes years of hopelessness and self-neglect.  Anger, frustration, anxiety, and depression could result from not coming to terms with the accumulation of these stresses and upstream battles.

When these repressions compound and overlap one another, it’s easy to see how we can get illnesses of the mind leading to the body, and vice versa.  Anxiety, Bipolar Disorder, Depression, to name a few, can be reversed if the desire is there.  You can only do so by first turning downstream.  It can be the result of the study of healthy thinking, healthy eating, healthy balance of movement and rest.  And it helps to have a clear neurological connection between your brain and the 100 trillion cells of your body.  Without that, successful, happy living is impossible.  And you’re at the mercy of a pill to make you calm, content, and peaceful.

Here’s a little something to try today.  Watch this video and just try to keep in mind the simple analogy.  It’s by Esther Hicks.  You may have a problem with how she refers to herself as “We” in the third person, or how she believes that the Prophet Abraham speaks through her.  I agree with you—it’s a pretty weird and tough one to put aside.  Just give it a chance… This chick is right on the money with this analogy.  This stuff actually works.

Enjoy.

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“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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Our system in crisis can be broken down to the choices we make every single day as individuals

President Obama has one heck of an uphill battle to fight.  I really wouldn’t want to be in his situation.  Everyone has their own vested interests in the “health care reform” debate.

Doctors don’t want to get paid any less, heck I don’t blame them, I wouldn’t either.

Insurance companies don’t want their profits cut by generic drugs coming across international borders…I don’t blame them either.

People who are faced with life threatening illness don’t want to be turned away from the BEST POSSIBLE CARE because of a lack of funds.  I don’t blame them either.

As a Chiropractor in Maple Ridge, British Columbia, Canada, who’s services are not covered by any governmental assistance (except for those low income who get a small $230/year to go towards their choice of Chiro, Massage, Optometry, Podiatry, or Physical Therapy, Acupuncture, or Naturopathic Care), I see too often how people who are in need of my care can’t afford to have their families come in and get checked on a regular basis for wellness (some call it preventative) care, and opt to go to a medical doctor instead and take pills, or even elect for surgery, because it’s “free”.  These patients don’t end up getting to the root cause of their problems:  Poor lifestyle choices.

It hurts for me to see all this around me, because I see all to often that it’s a lack of understanding of who they are, what their bodies and minds genetically REQUIRE to perform at optimum levels.  And this lack of understanding and ignorance of their lifestyle choices in how they eat, move, think, along with a poorly functioning nervous system over a period of decades leads to major health problems, which become a burden on society.  Of course these sick people need the best care available to them, but look at what these lifestyle choices are costing us.

Our “health care” system is far from “free”.  42% of all provincial taxes goes to fund our system under crisis.  The British Columbia Government’s website says that the spending in this province has gone up to 15.72 billion this year, up from 9.36 Billion back in 2001– which is an increase of 70% in less than ten years.  They’re projecting it should go up to $17.51 billion in 2010/11.  We’re spending more on “health care” and we’re getting sicker.  And what are the main conditions people are seeking medical treatment for?  Obesity, Heart Disease, and Diabetes, Cancers, digestive disorders, mental disorders, and a handful of other chronic illnesses that are becoming more and more common.  And now that our Government is proposing to raise taxes by implementing a new “Harmonized Sales Tax” totaling 12% for all purchases, restaurants and many services, people are getting extremely angry.  My question to those people:  What the heck do you expect?  How are we going to pay for the declining health of our society and the increasing costs?  Do YOU have a better solution?

Deepak Chopra, who is a Harvard-graduated physician, writes a lot about this dilemma that’s happening as we speak to our neighbors in the US.  While he applauds Obama’s desire for change, he’s quite skeptical about how raising taxes and throwing more money into a system that isn’t working won’t really change the state of health of nation who’s health is already on the decline.  While it’s much better to take money that the Bush Administration threw into war and put it back into the well being of the country, his article tells us why Obama’s system won’t reform our health unless Americans take responsibility.

The best, most “funny cuz-it’s true” article in response to all the people demanding the government pay for healthcare is from Bill Maher.  Not very politically correct at all, but you really can’t deny the validity of his sarcastic take on the debate.  Michael Moore should really pay attention to this one.  It’s called “New Rule:  You can’t complain about Health Care Reform if you’re not willing to reform your own Health”.  It’s a gem.

With all the debate, I present you with 3 simple videos that, if properly understood and embraced, and taught to young children in schools, we could raise a new generation of people who take responsibility for their own health, reduce the burden of the tax payer, and take our health and health care system to the next level.

The first is quite an inspiring story of what proper lifestyle choices can do to add a higher quality of life.

It breaks my heart to watch that video, because I see that my grandmother is only a few years older than this woman, but because she didn’t have the same lifestyle choices, she looks and feels much older, is at the doctor’s office every two weeks, has had surgeries and I painfully watch her health decline.

This next story I suggest you take the time to watch was inspired by a book by Dr. John Ratey, MD– who happens to be a psychiatry professor at Harvard.  I’m right in the middle of his fascinating book called “Spark–The revolutionary new science of exercise and the brain”.

A teacher in Saskatchewan with students who had “oppositional defiant behavior”, who half the class was labelled “Attention Deficit Disorder” and put on Ritalin, read this book and decided that before class she was going to put these kids on a treadmill for 45 minutes.  The results were miraculous.  These kids started learning, behaving, became happier, and went off the Ritalin.  Everyone knows exercise is good for you and helps your mental alertness, but when a Harvard Psychiatric professor publishes research on it– now the implications are HUGE, especially now when we are faced with a health-care crisis, which also includes medical treatment of mental disorders.

Click Here to watch Brain Gains

And this documentary is a must watch.  It’s called “Food Matters”. Here’s the trailer.

So it’s pretty clear.  I know.  The debate will continue.  People will get sick, the pharmaceutical industry continues to rake in massive amounts of money hoping that you don’t catch on to what I’m trying to tell you:  You are responsible for your own health– not your doctor.  It is not his job description to teach you how to be healthy.  His concern is more about what he has been trained to do:  To take your symptoms, and categorize them, label them and to come up with a diagnosis.  Often, to help him/her, expensive tests are performed, all to determine which drug/surgery to administer.  This is the nature of our “sick care” system, and as long as you are in that system, you will never result in a higher level of health.

As my mentor, Dr. James Chestnut states, Eat Well, Move Well, Think Well.  I would add that you must make sure you have a clear neurological connection between your brain and body.  If we all just put our focus on these simple solutions, our country would not be under the crisis that it’s in.  I’ve spent countless hours researching ways to help the body not only stay youthful, energized, balanced in mind and body, but to actually “cure itself” of many mental and physical ailments that most people think are only managed through drugs and surgery.  I’ve dedicated my life to helping to educate the world on these methods that the drug companies don’t want you to know about.  Stay tuned for more.

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Inspired some dude to start stretching one day. Now we have a big industry to help teach you how to live to your potential. Thanks sparky!

Dogs and other animals intuitively know that when they wake up, they need to stretch the muscles which haven’t been in motion for several hours.  Quite intelligent little critters.  Are you that smart?

Even though I’ve caught my little Lucy doing some profound stretches,  I want you to watch some pretty smart dogs.

What inspired this blog is a string of patients that have come through my door recently… men and women in their 40’s to 60’s who have very limited range of movement, who are chronically stiff and sore, never been to a chiropractor, never maintained their spine, and are hoping for me to pull off a miracle overnight to fix their problems created by toxic and deficient movement lifestyles.  Good luck!

Chiropractic care is about one thing, and it’s really quite simple:  Creating sufficiency of movement in the spine to allow for a clear neurological connection so the brain and body work in harmony.

When the spine doesn’t move, chaos will ensue.  Compound that each day, each week, each year, each decade.  Congrats! You now have a “bad back” that’s “a genetic problem” because your mom and dad had the same problem, and so do all your siblings.  ”There’s nothing anyone can do about it.  You might need surgery, or you’ll end up in a wheelchair,” is what one of my patients were told by their GP.

Those are the people who have completely ignored the symptoms all their lives, and treated it by taking medications and not listening to their bodies.  I feel sorry for them.  My heart bleeds, because now they are having surgeries, and spending a great deal of money at my office (which is worth every penny by the way and all of this was preventable by stretches, exercise, and regular maintenance chiropractic adjustments.

Don’t let anyone convince you it’s out of your control and it’s genetic, nothing will work and take drugs and surgery.  Get moving, and get assistance with a chiropractor that you trust.  AND GET YOURSELF MOVING.  Here’s where you begin.

One of the things I teach my patients is to take an active role in their recovery, rather than be a passive recipient.  Stretching is the most important way to help us both on the road to recovery, and for maintaining the health of your brain/body connection.

What stretches can I do to help keep my spine moving correctly?

First of all, get started on yoga.  Check with your chiropractor to see if you are clear to go.  Your joints might be so stiff you’ll need a few weeks of movement-corrective care before you’re ready.

If you insist on not doing yoga, and you want to continue to be sedentary, at least you can get started with these few stretches to help you.  Go at your own pace (and at your own risk!)  Remember to listen to your body.  Go easy.  Start slow.

The Downward Dog

Try it… but keep in mind a couple things:  Be relaxed in your arms and between the shoulder blades.  Let your neck hang. Lift your hips skyward until you feel the achy goodness in your lower lumbar spine.  Heaven and hell, all packed into one beautiful pose.

The Cobra

One of my favourite yoga instructors, Islena Faircrest of Newport Yoga, gave a great description in one of her classes of what you should be imagining and emulating:  ”Imagine your body as a curved cylinder, and your intention is to elongate that cylinder.”  Poetic.  You have no idea what this stretch, when done on a regular basis, can do to slow down the aging process in the spine.  ”Osteoarthritis” and “Degenerative Disc Disease”is a reality for everyone… you can’t escape it.  But you can sure keep it at bay for a lot longer than your average middle aged guy.  Just make sure you watch out for the “turtlehead”.  Keep your shoulders back, and your neck sticking out.

The QL stretch

Another great one. Work on expanding to that feeling of feeling it from your fingers to your toes.

Perform this one, and develop it slowly.  Let go, and go to your limit.  Work on expanding that limit.  P.S.  You can always improve on this stretch.  You never “really” get there.  You can always be more calm, more extended, more present and aware of every muscle.  That’s the cool part of yoga.  It’s like golf if done properly.  You can always improve in those ways.  You can have an off day, too when your mind isn’t clear.

There’s a whole bunch more, but I hope you’re getting the point.  You don’t have to be a yogi to learn to appreciate the art, science, and spiritual aspects of stretching.

Make it a part of your life.  Don’t think you can live a near normal, healthy, and active life if you don’t make stretching a part of it.  Don’t let my little Lucy make you look dumb!

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By the time 8-9 pm rolls around, the majority of people are looking for an answer for their insane food cravings.  We are desperately looking for something to chase away the junk food monster.  Desserts, chocolate, chips, cheesies, and fast foods all do the trick… temporarily, then you finish an hour later feeling tired, sluggish, indigestion and heartburn.  Where does it all begin?  Well, it’s quite simple.  We’re being marketed at a very young age, where our behaviors and food choices are rooted.  Check out these commercials:

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with a junk food company wanting to make a profit.  That’s the nature of the capitalist, free-market system.  But buyer beware.  If you are living unconsciously, like over half the North American population, you can understand why we are the sickest species on the planet, obesity, cancer, chronic illness are all on the rise, and our health care system is under crisis.  But when you first become aware, you then have the foundation to change.  Without this awareness, you have no chance.

Sugar is more addictive than Cocaine

According to a recent study from the University of Bordeaux, An astonishing 94 percent of rats who were allowed to choose mutually-exclusively between sugar water and cocaine, chose sugar. Even rats who were addicted to cocaine quickly switched their preference to sugar, once it was offered as a choice. The rats were also more willing to work for sugar than for cocaine.  The authors also suggest that the reason why is because our taste buds have not adapted from ancestral times when refined sugars were not available.  

Another study from Princeton observed that when they removed the refined sugar from the diets of lab rats, these poor little animals experienced teeth chattering and increased anxiety levels– kinda like a junkie coming off heroin.  Make no mistake, this stuff is addictive, and it all starts with the formulas and processed stuff we feed our infants.  

Sugar stimulates reward centers in the brain, much like hard addictive drugs, alcohol, and nicotine.  My personal opinion is that we are a society that is addicted to sugar.  Not just refined sugar.  I’m talking about other forms of sugar as well that are just as harmful…white flour, carbs, grains, like rice and potatoes… These are also full of sugar, and our ancestors didn’t use them!   If you don’t believe me that you could be possibly addicted to sugar… try going off sugar, carbohydrates, and white flours/pastas for 10 days.  Bet you can’t do it.  It’s so difficult to find food without it as well– they’re even salad dressings, canned beans, mayo, pickles and ketchups.  

I recently went to a theme park in California on a holiday.  As I looked around and saw obese people all around me, I realized why–there was nothing available to eat that wasn’t full of grease, carbs, and sugar.  The entire family was obese, and all were walking around with huge soda containers.  (They probably blame it on genes, so choices don’t matter).  Even though it’s not politically correct to say, I felt so bad, because I couldn’t find anything to eat that was actually REAL food– fruits, veggies, salads… stuff that our bodies were designed to digest.  These poor people don’t have too many choices and they don’t even know it.  (The average North American eats in excess of 10 pounds of sugar each month.)

Why is that?  Because the theme park owners are geniuses… They know everyone’s addicted, so what’s the best way to keep them happy, spending money, and coming back for more, all the while making sure their costs stay low?  Easy… sugars, fats, and grease.  All processed foods that store well, that are the cheapest to buy, and keep people temporarily happy (while we die slowly).

I’ve found some neat ways to moderate my sugar cravings, and I would love to share them with you.  It’s not easy– nothing worthwhile ever is.  But the more you know, the more you research, the easier it gets.  You can get started with a few of these tips:

1) DO NOT DEPRIVE YOURSELF.  This may sound counter-intuitive, but think about your last attempt to stop eating those foods.  Didn’t last too long, did it?  That’s because your guilt feeds your cravings.  Guilt in general is caused by a negative memory of the past–  That in itself is a stressor, which lowers dopamine and serotonin levels, which causes us to panic and look for a quick fix… So you binge, which leads to another guilt, and the cycle repeats.  Don’t deprive.  Give yourself permission by having one day a week that is a “cheat day”.

2) Before you consume your guilty pleasure, eat something/do something that moves you in the direction of balance.  Have an apple, fruit salad, tossed salad, pushups, crunches, 30 minute walk.  Anything that is a healthy activity.  Do it FIRST.  I recommend this to all my patients who are trying to transform their food intake.  This helps to lower stress hormone levels, which is one of the underlying cause of you going after those foods in the first place.

3) Exercise.  Exercise has been shown to lower levels of Leptin, a hormone which has been found in excess in obese people, and shown in studies to cause appetite gain.  Sorry guys. You gotta get out exercise.  If you are sedentary, start by walking at least a half hour a day.  Exercise also lowers stress hormone levels, which are another reason why you crave fat and sugar.

4) Start adding in more raw stuff and healthy snacks. Believe it or not, there’s some amazing tasting stuff that is healthy.  You just have to look.  Buy a high powered blender and snack on smoothies, full of fiber and natural sugars.  Here’s just one of many websites which give you great recipes that actually taste good.  When you are at the supermarket, go one week without buying any of the junk.  Don’t have it in the house, and stock up and snack on healthy snacks, dehydrated fruit, and smoothies.  Increase the content of your raw, whole foods, and eat them first.  You’ll notice your waistline start to trim down within 4-6 weeks.  I now eat 50% raw as opposed to 10% a few months ago.

5) Cut out your soda.  Seriously.  After a month of going off it, you realize you didn’t need it in the first place.  A can of soda contains 8-10 teaspoons of sugar.  Would you put all that in your mouth in a single sitting?  Well we do it every day, and we’re getting sicker because of it.  Imagine feeding that to your dog.  You wouldn’t do that, would you?  Why?  Because the dog will get sick.  Well so are you… you’re slowly getting sick on that stuff.  Check this out.  Here’s a young lady who’s helping people change their eating habits.  I’m on her side.

 

And by the way… side note.  Artificial sweeteners like splenda and other products containing aspartame are worse.  There’s enough research out there to show unequivocally that they are toxic and should be avoided at all costs.  It’s actually better to have sugar than those products.  Stevia is a great alternative… but after you’ve gone off, you’ll see that you don’t really NEED it.

Good luck, and happy healthy eating.  Any other ways that have worked for you to overcome your cravings?  Please don’t hesitate to share.  I recently saw a bunch of people who I haven’t seen in months… They all asked me how I got so much trimmer.  I was sharing with them all this information, so I decided to blog about it.  Hope it helps you become healthier and live longer.

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Lately, I’ve been seeing a lot of people in my office come in with severe pain caused by injuries while working out.  Others come in with huge postural distortions, especially in the upper back and chest, all attributed to 2 main problems:

1) Working out with a spine that doesn’t function properly

2) Not being aware of the correct stretches and exercises to correct your postural distortions.

I’ll address #2 first.

Look at this picture:

observe how upper back is hunched rounded and head is leaning forward.

I had a patient come in yesterday who has a similar posture to this photo.  Does this look familiar to you?

He has had a 5 year history of burning pain in his upper back and neck.  He was hoping I could fix it.  We talked about exercise, and he said he worked out religiously.  Hmmm.  Interesting.

I asked him what exercises he did.  Can you take a wild guess what exercises he’s been focussing on?  The classic ones people do when they haven’t really had the training to know what to be working on.  Chest ,arms, and abs.  That’s about it.

As a result, his pecs are strong and tight, and his scapular muscles in his upper back (rhomboids, levator, traps) are loose and weak.  Result?  Well. Just look at the picture.  Or maybe look in a mirror.  I would say that 90% of people who don’t exercise or live consciously are to some degree in the same boat.  Why is this?

Simple:  Lifestyle.  In school, we sit 8 hours a day in a chair.  Not exactly what our bodies were designed to do.  Our Ancestors sure didn’t sit in chairs the way our children do.

The main cause of chronic spinal problems. Look at how you are sitting right now. Looks familiar, doesn't it.

Then, we finish school.  We go to work.  Most of us sit again, on our commute to work, then we sit at work, commute back home, and then sit again in front of the TV.  When we are living these movement-deficient lifestyles, our spines, which house our central nervous system gets stuck, and mal-aligned.  This puts a great strain on our discs, nerves, and muscles.  Slowly, as we deteriorate, our bodies fatigue and start to scream at us in the form of pain, numbness, tingling, and dis-ease.  Slowly, as a result of this lack of motion, arthritis sets in, and so does degenerative disc disease, all are which use up our health care system dollars by being “treated” with drugs and surgery.  Since our parents lived the same lifestyles and developed the same conditions, we can easily be convinced that our problems are “genetic”.  I see so many patients who consult me as a last-ditch effort after they have been convinced by another health professional that they developed this problem from their parents, it’s almost like a broken record when I see them.  

Solution:

When working out, focus more on doing rowing and upper back exercises to counterbalance the effects of gravity and poor posture.  

focus more on resistance training with rubber bands and pulleys that

These exercises are also to be done in combination with stretching your pectoralis muscles to assist in loosening them up and bringing the shoulders back.

This exercise I showed him, using a simple rubber band he could use at the office, holding the bands on both ends while pushing it against  the soles of his feet, all the while sitting at his desk.  You pull on the rubber bands or the pulley at the gym so that your shoulder blades pinch together like in this picture.

(Note, an advanced version of this exercise can be done with dumbells while leaning forward with a straightened lower back, pulling the shoulder blades back)

This must be done consistently, and to a greater degree than his chest exercises.  I then showed him a stretch he could do in a doorway, by leaning forward through the door while his arms and elbows leaned against the door frame:

These two together, done consistently each day (back exercise every other day) will bring your posture back to normal within a short period of time, especially when performed in combination with chiropractic care.  I have now put my patient on a 6 week exercise program, combined with a game plan of weekly Chiropractic care to get him there quicker.  Spinal adjustments help by loosening up the stuck (subluxated) joints in the upper back so the joints and muscles can move more freely and hold in the correct position easier.  Not to mention re-connect his brain and his body again.  His pain will be gone within the next 4 weeks.  

Can I just correct my spine with exercise?

Last week, a lady came in from an injury sustained while doing yoga.  While I’m a huge proponent of yoga, I send you to Yoga with a warning.  If you try to bend, twist, or move in any direction on a spine that doesn’t function properly, you could be in trouble.  I’ve seen it too many times… People wanting to “fix” themselves with exercise end up injuring themselves.  Remember to keep this in mind while exercising:

Your entire spine needs to be moving freely, especially one vertebrae with respect to another.

Can you imagine trying to do exercise on a spine that is stuck out of alignment? OUCH.

Look at this picture.  The model on the left shows a normal spine.  The one on the right shows a subluxation– a joint in the spine that has a deficiency of movement.  Subluxations are interesting in that they both cause injuries, and injuries/overuse can cause subluxations.  Please note, this picture is an exaggeration for illustration purposes.  Subluxations are often more subtle than this.  God forbid, if you allow yourself to get to this point, there’s no way you’ll be exercising.  You’ll be flat on your back.

They can be both excruciating, and more often than not, painless.  Either way, subluxations disrupt the normal functioning of the body.  Subluxations are an interference to the brain’s attempt at communicating with the body.  

Your body is composed of over 50 trillion cells, and health can be considered as all these cells working harmoniously together in concert.  Your brain is the conductor.  How does your brain do the conducting?  Through the nervous system.  

Exercise is critical to keep you healthy… and you also need to maintain a healthy lifestyle– eating real, whole foods that are more alive than dead, maintaining a positive focus in all areas of life, to grow, to learn, to expand your consciousness in some way, to make a contribution to the world, and to make sure you are getting plenty of rest, and healthy movement in the form of exercise.  Just make sure you’re doing them properly, focusing on the right areas mentioned above.  

Keeping a clear neurological connection between the brain and cells of your body is critical to ensure that each and every day you are growing stronger rather than weaker, and you are able to get the most out of your healthy lifestyle choices.   It takes time, effort, and a deliberate focus to be healthy with correct posture.  It’s not luck or genes that determines your health!

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Headaches vary from a small nuisance to a debilitating problem that gets in the way of you living your life to the fullest and doing what you want to do. The prevailing belief you will hear from pharmaceutical ads is that headaches are an unwanted, unnecessary part of life you can simply sweep under the rug by popping pills. So you pop in a pill and voila! If you’re lucky, the headache is gone. Some people repeat this process over and over again, until they find themselves popping 3-5 pills per week!

According to an article in 2001 in the New England Journal of Medicine, those who took aspirin or Tylenol at least twice a week for 2 months — were two to three times more likely to have the beginning stages of chronic kidney failure, compared with individuals who did not use these painkillers on a regular basis.

Whatever your reasons for taking over-the-counter or prescription pain killers, they NEVER treat the cause of your pain. They work to silence the body’s attempt to wake you up to your toxic or deficient lifestyle. To let you know that the way you have been living isn’t right, and needs to change or else further damage will ensue.  We treat pain like it is a nuisance rather than a wise message.  Here are the most likely reasons I’ve found that my patients will present with headaches: Which one applies to you?

1. Tension headaches are the most common type of headache. Tension headaches result from muscle tension, usually in the neck muscles. These can be thought of as neck headaches. Tension headaches are often correctly diagnosed by your doctor. Their solution will most likely be a pill. The cause is not a lack of pills in your system. The cause of this headache is from improper posture, stress, resulting in lack of motion in the upper back and neck joints in the spine.
2. Migraine headaches are commonly diagnosed. However, I find that they are often over- diagnosed. That is, patients often don’t have migraines when they have been told they do. Additionally, many patients diagnose themselves with migraines – often incorrectly.  A few key symptoms (not all the symptoms) that help to diagnose migraines are: Pain occurs on one side of the head (most migraines are only on one side of your head at a time), light and sound sensitivity (i.e. you want to go into a dark room with no sound), or an aura (a sensation that you are about to get a headache) that lasts for 10–30 minutes. These key symptoms can be accompanied by non-specific symptoms of nausea, vomiting, or anorexia (loss of appetite), and they can be excruciating.
3. Sinus headaches are commonly self-diagnosed – and usually incorrectly. A sinus headache is caused by pressure built up in the sinuses. This happens when you are sick — specifically, with a sinus infection. You will have a runny nose, postnasal drip, and pressure. It will seem as if you have a very bad cold. I can’t tell you how many people have no sinus or cold symptoms – none – yet think that they have a sinus headache.So what kind of headache do many of these non-sinus or non-migraine sufferers have?
4. TMJ headaches. TMJ stands for tempormandibular joint (the name of the jaw joint). The condition is called TMJ dysfunction or TMD (tempormandibular dysfunction). Basically, your jaw apparatus is out of balance and the jaw muscles are in spasm. TMJ headaches are a type of muscle-tension headache. If you have temple headaches you probably have TMJ headaches. I don’t care how many people (or doctors) tell you that you have migraines. TMJ headaches are misdiagnosed most of the time!!! (You can have both types of headaches as well.) The good news: you can find a very effective treatment for TMJ headaches and other headaches if you read further.

There are more uncommon types (cluster headaches, etc) but these are the ones you will most likely encounter.

Think about a smoke alarm going off. When you hear this signal, it’s purpose is to let you know to take action to correct what’s causing the alarm to go off… Put out the fire! What if you pull the plug on the alarm so you don’t hear it anymore? Is the problem solved? No—your house will eventually burn down.

That’s what we are doing when we silence our body with pain killers. The headache goes away and we assume we’ve successfully eliminated it. WRONG!!!! The cause is still there.

So what can you do?

This is a great stretch for those who chronically wear their "shoulders as earrings".

Heat, stretching the neck muscles, getting a massage, relaxing, dealing with your stress, and correcting your sitting posture do help.

But the spinal joints that are stuck are STILL STUCK! Chiropractic care works to correct “stuck joints” (called Subluxations) and get them moving again through the adjustment process. On a daily basis we see chronic headache sufferers find the relief they are looking for—a relief of the cause.

Part of your care is also stretches and exercises and advice on how to prevent them from coming on in the first place. An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure…. And the most important part of prevention is to get a grip on why you are stressed in the first place.  Resentment, anger, frustration, fear, anxiety… all underlying causes of your stress.  Find ways of coming to terms with it, otherwise every single treatment you do is just a band aid.  Always remember that your body speaks out to give you messages about how you have been thinking, moving, and eating.  Appreciate the messenger!  

Think right, eat right, and move right, and maintain a clear neurological connection.  It really doesn’t have to be more complicated than that.

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