Simple Reasons Massages Help Reduce Stress

Today’s average person is stressed beyond compare. Throw in a marriage, a couple of kids, a family pet, and you have the makings for some serious problems overall. Dealing with stress is tough, and many people find themselves dealing with it in their own way. One option that you should look into is massage, as it is a sustainable and easy way to get stress reduced and alleviate tension that can manifest on the body. You will find that there are some simple reasons why this helps, especially at the biological level. 

Hormone Shifts

Cortisol has been linked to stress, anxiety, depression and other issues, and when it’s present in the body

you feel the weight of the world on your shoulders. Massage therapists focus on relieving this by introducing other hormones through their hand movements. When your body is being taken care of by a trained masseuse, you’ll find that the levels will drop and you’ll find relieve through the release of serotonin as well as dopamine in the system. These help literally lift you up, and cause you to have a fresh step moving forward.

Improving Circulation

Circulation in the body is crucial for sleep, fitness, and nearly all aspects of life. If you want to ensure that

you’re receiving the benefits of improved circulation, you should look at massage therapy. A good masseuse can help alleviate tension in the muscles, joints, and circulatory system through pressure points. When these are paid attention to, you’ll find that the body responds by circulating blood flow, energy, and changing breathing patterns to align with natural homeostasis.

Relieving Pain

Pain relief is one of the main reasons you should look into massage. It helps reduce the stress that is induced

by having to deal with inflammation in joints, muscle tissue, and even headaches. If you’re in constant pain due to arthritis, your stress levels may sky rocket. However, if you seek out the right therapy, the massage elements can help you shift the inflammation and relieve the pain, in turn giving you peace of mind. 

Relieving Chronic Pain Through Chiropractic Therapy

The human body is comprised of a lot of pieces. When you start to look at the skeleton, the joints, the muscle system, and all the components that make up a healthy individual, you will see that there are a lot of intricacies. For many people the components that make up their body can be broken, stressed, or misaligned. When these issues manifest, many have pain. Chronic pain is one thing that millions of people deal with, and while there are some severe issues that require surgery, most can be helped through chiropractic therapy. If you’re not sure how this works or if it would work for you, consider a few reasons to consider going to a chiropractor.

Aligning The Spinal Column

The spinal column is a center for millions of functions, and you may not think about them. Damage to this

arena can manifest a great deal of pain to the body. Whether you get lower back pain, or you have neck pain, or even arthritic issues, you’ll find that the spin can cause serious problems if it’s not aligned correctly. Alignment is something that can help with a wealth of issues, and more importantly, it brings symmetry to the body so that the elements can work at 100% homeostasis.

The Connected Body Elements

There are several pressure points in the human body. You may feel pain in your hands, for instance, but there may be a connection in your arm, or even chest that is the root issue. The same can be said for a number of issues that the body can face. For instance, there are individuals that deal with chronic knee pain, but the root issue is their feet. They step wrong or they are hitting a pressure point in the foot too hard and causing strain on the knee joint. Chiropractic therapy focuses on finding that issue and the other issues that could seem unrelated to where pain is coming through at, and fixes that issue. When you fix the root cause, the chronic pain dissipates for a lifetime.

Finding The Root Cause

As mentioned above, the main concern for a chiropractor is not just to fix the pain, it’s to find the root cause

and alleviate that. Most doctors will look at chronic pain through surgical lenses. They’ll try to fix the pain itself, and often times that means drastic solutions like surgery. You may not need surgery for certain issues, and that’s what chiropractic therapy tries to look at. When you visit a trained, certified chiropractic office, your pain will be alleviated through various means, focusing on the root issue and fixing that on the way to curing the bigger problem.



Dr. Nailah Smith
Full Body Rejuvenation Center

WELLNESS THERAPIES

What is chiropractic?

Chiropractic, that is, treatment that uses the hands to manipulate the body, remains one of the most widely used forms of manual medicine. (The word "chiropractic" comes from Greek roots meaning "done by hand.") Although it was formally introduced in 1895, chiropractic, along with osteopathy, follows the tradition of hands-on manipulation that dates back to ancient systems of treatment in China, India, and Egypt. Originally, chiropractic therapy focused entirely on the spine and on the notion that minor slippages (called subluxations) of vertebrae would pinch spinal nerves and lead to a variety of diseases. Although this concept is now considered incomplete and somewhat obsolete, today's chiropractors still concentrate on spinal manipulation as a means of relieving pain, including chronic low back pain, neck pain, tension headaches and, sometimes, pain in the knees, shoulders and elbows....

For more information, visit Andrew Well M.D.'s article by clicking here.

Losing Weight After The Holidays Should Start Sooner Than Later

When the holiday season hits, many people just throw the proverbial belt away. It’s a season full of treats, feasting, celebration and not dieting. If you find yourself tempted to go for it all during the holidays, take a step back and consider the effects that could result. Gaining weight during these months is common, and as they come to an end, resolutions come out and start to define a path towards fitness once again. Instead of waiting for the New Year, you could jump start your fitness regimen through simple steps during the seasons, and ensure that you are losing after these tremendous days.

Scaling Back

First and foremost, scale back a little on the feasting. This may seem like a big deal, but if you’re honest with

yourself, you’ll realize that you may not need to eat quite as much as you’d like. Instead of going all out, take into consideration the options and limit yourself here and there. There’s nothing wrong with scaling back a bit, so don’t feel that you’re going to derail the holiday season by not indulging in anything and everything.

Avoiding Temptation

There’s going to be a lot of temptation afoot during these days, and you may want to indulge in some of the decadent sweets, lattes, and more. Instead of getting into these often, try to make it a “treat” at the end of your work week, or as a small morsel here and there. Instead of going for larger sizes, try to go with a small, entry level option. This may help you not only get your taste buds enthralled with the flavors, but it will help you avoid binging.

Simple Exercise

Perhaps the best thing that you can remember is to simply do some

exercise during these holidays. Losing weight after it’s all said and done is fine, but if you never really stop the flow of your routine, you may find yourself having less to lose than others. It’s hard to do this when it seems like the whole world is engaging in all sorts of fun food activities, but you’ll thank yourself in the New Year to come when you didn’t gain a tremendous amount of weight. 

Losing Weight After The Holidays – A Simple Plan To Get Back Into Shape

When the weather starts to change and the seasonal treats start flowing, you’re going to find yourself indulging in some amazing meals, desserts, and much more. The holiday season brings about joy, feasting, and celebration, and for many, it doesn’t mean weight loss. Taking off the belt, and just letting yourself ride through the compelling opportunities to dine, and overindulge is not uncommon, but there is a bit of weight gain that will happen. If you’re not worried about that through these times, that’s ok, enjoy time spent with family, friends, and the fabulous food that comes through within this world. The New Year, however, will loom and you will want to set up a plan to lose the weight you gain during the holidays, and that’s were a few tips can help you get going and motivated.

Begin Planning Early

You don’t have to jump into a “boot camp” level of fitness as soon as the new year comes, but the planning

phase should definitely start sooner than later. If you’re going to indulge in the holiday treats, go for it, but remember to start planning your comeback in the latter stages of the events. You will want to make sure that you’re balancing out your next move and have a set plan of action moving forward. This doesn’t have to be elaborate, but rather something that is simple, and easy to move forward with. Take into consideration exercise, diet changes, and goals that you have in mind so that you are ready to take off when the holidays are over.

Find Something Fun To Do

For some people, losing weight is just not a fun thing to go forward with. Especially after a couple of months of delicious sweets, treats and more, you’ll find that this is a tough move forward. To offset the difficulty, you may want to look into something that is fun, or may thwart the notion that you have to do something mundane to lose weight. Some of the most compelling options can be to join a gym and take a class. A class may help you find a fitness routine that will motivate you to lose weight, and get moving a lot more. You’ll be surprised what is out there to test out, and you very well may find your rhythm in the New Year. 

Losing Weight and Getting Healthy Is Not Complicated – 3 Positively Easy Ways To Start

Millions of people hear the terms weight loss or healthy living and immediately scoff. They think about eating only celery sticks and carrots. Or they think that they cannot have a hamburger here and there. Too often, people take the idea of health and wellness to extremes. There’s nothing wrong with certain extremes, however, that isn’t the course of action every single person has to take. If you’re overweight, and you feel the need to lose weight in a positive manner, do not be scared by healthy living, instead, focus on how to invigorate your life with a little bit of a push. There is no need to over complicate this, or to assume you’ll be miserable, because that’s not true at all.

Start Slowly (Assessment)

First and foremost, take a moment to assess your goals. You don’t want to start day one of your new

life with thinking that you want to drop 100 or 200 pounds. Set aside extreme goals in favor of smaller steps. If you start to climb a mountain and have no background in climbing, you will fail. It’s with that in mind, that you should start slowly by assessing realistic goals. Set yourself up for success by looking at trying to lose 5 or 10 pounds over the course of a couple of months. Once you’ve hit that goal, set up a secondary goal and continue to move forward slowly with a plan of action. Don’t go extreme here, because you’ll end up miserable.

Cut Out Processed Foods

Look at your grocery list and slowly start removing processed sugars, refined carbohydrates, and other elements. Look at ingredients, and see what you can have that is made of whole grains, natural ingredients, and make sure that you can pronounce them and identify them in your mind. If you find that you cannot pronounce something or you aren’t sure what the root element is, don’t buy it. Try to look at moving away from processed box foods, microwaveable meals, and other elements that are high in salt, sugar, and fats. Again, you don’t need to go extreme, just make a better effort, you’ll get moving forward in time.

Find Something Fun To Do

For those that aren’t big on exercise, don’t worry, there are ways to do it that aren’t so tedious. In order to gain leverage here, look into finding something that is fun for you. One easy option is to buy

a jump rope. Childish as this may seem, you’ll find that jumping rope for at least 10 minutes straight, will wind even the most fit of people. Jumping rope is just an example, find another option if you must, and look for “fun” exercise to do. If you find fun, you will not think of exercise as something that is boring.

The above 3 tips are easy to implement. They do not call on superman to show up and go through the motions. Everyday life can be altered slowly and effectively if you just take simple steps towards a better future. 

Is It Better For A Chiropractor To Have An MD on Staff?

This is a tough question that many chiropractors have to ask themselves at one point or another. Is it truly better to have an MD on staff? The short answer is yes, but it’s really a matter of the goal of the practice as a whole. Exploring some of the benefits could in fact be a good thing here, which is why it’s imperative to look through several pieces of this solution before moving forward with a simple, cut and dry answer.

Without An MD

Chiropractors are able to move forward without having a doctor in

their offices. The goal remains the same, however, helping people heal through a natural manner. Doctors can stifle this from time to time, as they may not be quick to go forward with a natural component, in favor of pharmaceutical recommendations. While there’s nothing wrong with certain drugs, they should not be the focus of care up front. Some people will rely heavily on the drugs to mask the issue, rather than fix the root problem and that’s where things can become a bit difficult to manage for individuals in this medical world.

With An MD

There is something to be said about partnering up with a medical doctor, especially one that is Seeing Eye to eye with a chiropractor. By being on the same page, patient care can become streamlined. Finding the root issue and taking care of issues can become a lot easier, especially when the problems can be diagnosed within both worlds of natural and pharmaceutical solutions. This is where the emphatic yes, becomes the answer. Yes, it can be better for a chiropractor to have an MD on staff because they can diagnose further issues that may be outside of the realm of natural remedies.

The Bottom Line

At the end of the day, the answer can be somewhat difficult to answer in a black and white manner. Some will argue that it is better and others will argue in the opposite end of the spectrum. As a result, it’s important to look at elements of both sides of the proverbial coin. Some will benefit from this, but only if the doctor on staff is on the same page with the chiropractor and vice versa. When there’s arguments, or differences of opinions in regards to patient care, things can become a bit blurred.