Healthy life through Nutrition, Function and Lifestyle

Healthy life through Nutrition, Function and Lifestyle

In addition to eating a variety of healthy foods for proper nutrition, there are many other aspects of self care that help support and maintain a healthy diet over the long term. Amongst these are function and lifestyle.

A nourishing diet calls for a wide array of nutrients and vitamins. It provides many benefits, such as helping attain and preserve a healthy weight level and providing one with enough energy and strength for daily exercise. It’s also very important to create a balanced lifestyle.

Drink Plenty of Water

 It is extremely  essential  to drink plenty of clean, filtered water as part of a healthy diet to nourish the entire body, which is made up of about 60% to 70% water. Drinking water to stay well hydrated helps  nutrients move  to the major organs in the body, assists with waste removal,  and helps protect joints and organs.

Water is also essential for the spine and back. Intervertebral discs consist largely of water, so keeping the body well hydrated by drinking water regularly is important to nourish the spinal discs and help keep them healthy.

It is usually recommended to drink at least 8 large glasses (2 litres) of water each day as part of a healthy diet. In addition, it is important to drink water continuously through the day.  Drink in between meals and only small amounts during meals. Drinking enough water to stay well hydrated also helps with maintaining optimal weight or achieving weight loss.

Exercise Regularly

 Getting enough exercise is very important. When it comes to the spine, exercise provides the benefits of helping problems heal more quickly and helping prevent a recurrence of the pain. Movement through gentle, controlled exercise stimulates a flow of nutrients within the spinal structures that helps with the healing process. Physical activity causes the intervertebral discs to swell with water and then squeeze it out, a process necessary to allow the exchange nutrients between the discs and other spinal structures. If one lives a sedentary lifestyle is , the spinal discs are deprived of the nutrients they need to stay healthy and functional.

Most exercise programs include a combination of stretching, strengthening and low impact aerobic exercise. For those who do not have back problems, exercise is very important in order to reduce the risk of developing back problems in the future.

Avoid Smoking

 There are substances that harm the body and are damaging to overall health. In particular, smoking (nicotine) is harmful in more ways than just to the lungs. When it comes to back problems, smoking  could damage the vascular structures of the discs and joints in the back, causing weakness that leads to low back pain.

Avoid Excessive Alcohol Consumption

Alcohol acts as a depressant, which can add to feelings of depression and chronic pain. Ongoing pain and depression are interrelated and each can aggravate the affects of the other. Alcohol lacks nutritional value and adds unnecessary sugar to the diet, which can contribute to weight gain.

If I eat properly and exercise regularly, why would I need a Chiropractor?

When we discuss health, we often leave out several crucial components. Proper balance, healthy spinal motion and a resulting healthy nervous system are important to health. The missing piece  in the picture of health is a healthy spine and nervous system.

During exercise, it is important to have your spine moving properly and having a balanced body. If your spine is imbalanced, the physical impacts of exercise will actually wear it out faster and cause further issues in the body. Something that could start in your ankle, could lead to concerns in the knee and hip as the body will try to compensate, creating an imbalance.

Eating well and exercising do not replace the need for chiropractic. Many of the professional and world class athletes get adjusted on a regular basis. They use chiropractic not only for aches and pains, but to get that extra edge, and to consistently perform.

My back doesn’t hurt… Do I need an alignment?

Can you feel your liver working?  When you eat, do you know how much insulin to secrete to store the sugar in your body?

There are millions of processes occurring in the body every second. If these processes are not working properly, over time, disease will manifest. If we wait for a disease to manifest and try to deal with it at that point, it is way more difficult to deal with. The other option is to ensure that our life energy is communicating with all the parts of the body, thus continuing to constantly create our bodies in a healthy manner.

Relying on pain to tell you when there is a problem is not a healthy way to live. Heart disease, cancer, diabetes and arthritis have usually been manifesting as poor physiology in the body for a long time before they come out as a physical disease.

Most people know they have heart disease when they have a stroke, or have a heart attack. This is not the best time to identify lifestyle choices which could benefit you. If this does happen, it doesn’t really mean that all hope is lost, it just becomes much riskier, more invasive and much  more complex. This could be prevented through proper care and maintenance of the body.

I feel fine, so why should I see a Chiropractor?

The most important thing people need to understand about health is this:

*Health is about how well your body is functioning*

By the time you feel physical diseases such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease or arthritis, they have been manifesting for a very long time in your body.  In most cases of cardiovascular disease, the first symptom is either a heart attack or death.

People with heart disease and diabetes may feel fine and not even know it, but their bodies are not functioning optimally.  This is also the case with your spine and nervous system. This is where chiropractic comes in. We can assess the function of your body, primarily your nervous system.

The nervous system heals, controls, regulates and coordinates the function of your entire body. Therefore, it is crucial that it is working properly. Even though you may feel ‘fine,’ a chiropractic assessment can identify areas of subluxation, or decreased brain/body connection, so we can help  these areas to function properly.  Subluxation is when the bones of your spine (vertebrae) move out of position and create pressure on, or irritate spinal nerves.

Will I need adjustments for the rest of my life?

If you started to exercise today, how long would you need to continue exercising in order to maintain a good fitness level?

If you started to eat healthy now, for how many years would you need to continue to eat well to maintain a healthy body and healthy digestive system?

Is it necessary to keep brushing and flossing your teeth for as long as you live? Not unless you care to keep your teeth!

The answer to this question must come from each individual’s decision on whether or not they feel it is an important part of their healthy lifestyle. That decision is ultimately up to you.

In order for you to be stronger and healthier, chiropractic adjustments are a regular part of your healthy lifestyle. And, just like the other lifestyle choices mentioned, the more consistent and committed you can be, the better the health outcomes

We are only as healthy as your spine and nervous system. What spine would you like to have in 5 years from now? 10 years? 25 years?  This is ultimately up to each of us….

Stresses that affect the body

Physical Stress

Injuries from slips, falls, car accidents, trauma,  poor posture, computers, couches, driving, etc. Toddlers  learning to walk, fall an average of 37 times per day, straight on their bum! The forces would be enough to break an adult’s hips. Then they play sports, fall off their bikes and swing sets, scrape knees, etc. You can see why it would be important to ensure the proper functioning of an infant’s spine. Many symptomatic problems we have as adults start in infancy, and could have been prevented with chiropractic care.

Emotional Stress

Imagine you are  driving a car on a wintery Canadian highway. The roads are pure ice and you can’t see more than a car length in front of you. After a few hours of this tense driving, how does your body feel? Stressed? Tight neck, possible headache, possible nausea, tight shoulder blades, low back aches… a large list of PHYSICAL symptoms, yet nothing physical has actually happened.

We respond to emotional stress by asymmetrically tightening our spinal muscles, releasing many hormones, breathing shallow breaths, increasing blood pressure, increasing cholesterol,  and a long list of other physical changes. These changes, by the way, are the perfect response to a stressful encounter with a grizzly bear. It is called the fight or flight response.  You can see how emotional stress affects our physical body.

Emotional stress has become a chronic, long term problem. The grizzly bear is now replaced by traffic, meetings, finances, relationships, negative media, and our busy lives. We get stuck in the fight or flight mode and the physiological changes get labeled as “disease”. Hypertension (high blood pressure), hypercholesterolemia (high cholesterol), diabetes, obesity, decreased immune function, cancer, etc. These are diseases of lifestyle. These affect spinal integrity, nervous system function and health.

Chemical Stress

Toxins in our food, water and air supplies, and pollution are damaging to our health and the environment. We have a constant stress to our bodies in the form of these chemical stresses. Just like emotional stress, chemical stress will eventually create a physical symptom.

The need for chiropractic care has never been greater. Even if you are very healthy, feeling amazing, active, etc., your everyday life exposes you to continual stresses that have a great effect on your spine and nervous system.

Chiropractors assess the function of your body and not only treat the symptoms, but help ensure that your body’s life energy is flowing fully, allowing every part of your body to be connected and functioning at an optimum! That is what true health is all about!

So in essence, it’s important to view your health from 3 areas.  These are: Nutrition,  Function and  Lifestyle.

Call the Center for Healthy Living to determine which areas we can help you!

Phone: (403) 769-0093

6105 – 873 85 Street Southwest

Calgary, AB, T3H4C8

http://www.CenterForHealthyLiving.ca