Core Strength – Why Is It Important?

When you think of your core, what comes to mind? Many people think of it as having a 6-pack of abs, but it really goes much further than that says a Jamison Chiropractor . Your “core”, as its commonly called, is composed of muscles in your torso not just in the front, but the back and sides as well…your erector spinae, the bottom of your lats, your obliques, and the transverse abdominus, just to name a few! Think of it in terms of a corset – it wraps all the way around the body, and so do your core muscles. So why are your core muscles so important?

The muscles in and around your torso are essentially stabilizing your entire body. According to the best local chiropractor, keeping those muscles strengthened not only helps to improve posture, but they also help with balance as well. From the playing fields to doing regular household chores, having a strong core will reduce the risk of injury and help maintain flexibility.

Bending, rotating, lifting, and walking/running are all examples of activities that can be made easier by having a strong core, and incorporating exercises into your fitness routine can optimize those strength gains and reduce the chance of injury – especially to your lower back! According to a Warrington chiropractor, specific core exercises are often overlooked when it comes to developing a fitness program, so ensure that you are training your core as well as upper and lower body.

Since everything in the body is connected, think of your core as the chain in the middle – if that chain is weak, it’s going to eventually affect the arms and legs as well. For overall performance improvement, including improved balance, stability, and posture, remember to incorporate core strengthening exercises into your workout routine!

Strength Training Benefits

For most folks, if you mention lifting weights, they probably imagine someone doing massive amounts of bicep curls in the gym; let’s get this this image of what weight lifting might look like out of here! Multiple studies talked about by the best local Jamison chiropractor show just how beneficial resistance training can be, for both men and women. Sure, we can build muscle and strength with lifting those dumbbells…but how else can we benefit?

Putting a load on our muscles, joints, and bones is imperative for our overall health and wellness, especially as we get older; as we age, we lose bone mass, and that can lead to issues like osteoporosis, back pain and postural issues. By adding weight training into our workout programs, we can slow the process, and maintain strength in our bones! We also start to lose our lean muscle mass as we age, and strength training can minimize the losses that are inevitable.

Lifting weights also has another benefit – not only does it help maintain a healthy body weight, but muscle also needs energy, so it uses blood sugar! This is helpful, especially those folks that are at a greater risk for diseases like diabetes, as well as high blood pressure.

If you’re still iffy about weight training, don’t be! You don’t have to lift massive amounts of weight in order to see these benefits, and we are able to see improvements in strength across all ages when incorporated as part of a healthy lifestyle with your favorite local chiropractor. And even better? You can use your own body weight as resistance, so get started on some squats, pushups, and planks, and start building up those muscles!

GET YOUR FORTY WINKS

We all spend more than a third of our lives sleeping, but until recently scientists knew surprisingly little about the role that sleep plays in health. In the last few decades sleep research has been a hot topic in medicine, and it has revealed how important a good night’s sleep is to our physical and mental well-being.

There are many studies that show how a lack of sleep can play a role in chronic diseases and health conditions, and now local chiropractors are even seeing a relationship between poor sleep and pain.

A study by Esther Afolalu of the University of Warwick in Coventry, the UK, has found that poor sleepers have higher rates of chronic pain. The study, which tracked more than 60,000 adults in ten countries for four or more years, found that insufficient or poor quality sleep resulted in an increase in back and neck pain, fatigue, and poor health. When patients developed insomnia, they had double the risk of chronic pain disorders. The study’s conclusion was that sleep problems had a negative effect on a patient’s ability to process and handle pain.

Another study, by Dr. Monika Haack of Harvard, found that people who think they can make up for lost sleep by snoozing longer on the weekends are fooling themselves. Haack found that people who tried to catch up on weekends actually had more problems dealing with pain than those who got eight hours every night.

There’s no substitute for a good night’s sleep!

Local Chiropractor Offers Tips For Good Sitting

The way you sit or stand may seem like a simple matter, but it has a lot more influence on your physical and mental health than you may think. Poor posture can cause pain and soreness in your back and neck, as well as headaches, poor circulation, fatigue, and other problems. It can even affect your mental outlook, and can be a factor in low self-esteem and depression.

A chiropractor near you is well-versed in posture issues, since their main focus is on spinal health. Here are a few tips for good sitting posture, from the American Chiropractic Association.

. Keep your feet on the floor.

. Don’t cross your legs. The rule is, your ankles should be in front of your knees.

. Leave a small space between the back of your knees and the
front of your seat.

. Make sure the chair is the proper height — your knees should be at or above the level of your hips.

. If you can adjust the backrest of your chair, make sure it supports your lower back.

. Sitting is not just about your lower body. Proper sitting posture means relaxing your shoulders and keeping your forearms parallel to the ground.

. No matter how good your posture is, your best local chiropractor says it’s a mistake to sit in the same position for too long. You need to change your position or get up periodically to stimulate circulation. Besides, keeping the same posture for too long allows you to fall into bad habits, like slouching.

Pay attention to your posture — it’s important for your health!

YOGA AND MEDITATION ON THE JOB

Ask almost anyone these days how their job is going, and they'll probably tell you they're stressed. Stress levels in every area of life have increased, but especially in the workplace. In many industries and professions, people are working longer hours and dealing with increased pressure to perform well, so it's no wonder that they're feeling stressed. Stress has been shown to be a factor in many types of physical and mental ailments, so dealing with stress in the workplace has become an important issue.

Perhaps that's why a new study has revealed that more and more workers in the U.S. are using stress-reduction techniques like yoga, massage and meditation. The study, which appeared in a journal published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), found that in the group of more than 85,000 adults who participated, yoga practice increased from 6 percent to 11 percent from 2002 to 2012. During the same period meditation rates increased from 8 percent to almost 10 percent for this group. 

The other significant finding from a Jamison chiropractor was that people were more likely to practice these techniques if they had a job, which makes sense because jobs can create stress.

One of the recommendations of the study is that companies should try to provide more outlets for their employees to learn and practice these stress-reducing techniques. It could be a smart move for a company to offer classes or discounts at gyms, local chiropractic office or yoga centers where their employees could learn yoga, meditation, or other mindfulness techniques like tai chi or qigong.

Stress costs our economy billions of dollars each year in lost productivity, sick time, and other problems, so its good business for companies to make it easy for employees to do a little yoga or meditation!

Add Some Variety To Your Exercise Routine

Everybody knows that you should exercise regularly as you get older. Regular exercise has been proven to extend both the quality of our lives as we age, and the number of years we are alive. Exercise improves our physical and mental health, there's no doubt about that. However, it's not enough to just choose one type of exercise -- like running or swimming, for example -- and just keep to that same routine year after year. We all know that it's good to change our daily routines just to keep fresh, and now a Doylestown Chiropractor has evidence to prove that it's important for our physical health.

The Journal of General Internal Medicine recently reported on a 2016 study of 3,300 seniors between 1993 and 2001 who were tracked for 17 years, and the results suggested that the seniors who did multiple types of physical exercise lived longer. A warrington chiropractor says studies like that are the reason why the American College of Sports Medicine and the American Heart Association recommend at least 30 minutes of moderate aerobic exercise five times a week for seniors, complemented by twice a week sessions of muscle building and flexibility.

 

Variety is the spice of life, as the saying goes, and it’s also a way to maintain your health. It’s wonderful if you like to get out and ride your bike five times a week, but it’s even better if you pair that with seeing a jamison chiropractor and a good gym workout every few days. The way to keep yourself motivated and healthy is to add a little variety to your exercise program!

HOW TO RELIEVE NECK PAIN

Neck pain is on the rise in recent years, and it's easy to see why. If you think of how we interact with our computers and cell phones, you'll realize that these devices do not promote good posture. Most of the time when we use digital devices we're looking down at them, which puts added stress on our neck muscles. Add up all the time you spend on these devices during the day, and you'll realize why your neck hurts. Indeed, experts say that every inch you lean forward with your neck is an extra ten pounds of torque.

To relieve all the pressure on your neck, it helps to do some simple exercises prescribed by a chiropractor in Doylestown, like side-bending and head circles that will loosen things up in your neck area. Here are two particularly good exercises for your neck.

Wall Crunch. Stand close enough to a wall that your butt is touching the surface. Slowly engage your core (midsection) muscles, and pull your head back to the wall, without arching your back or getting out of alignment. Move your head back to the starting position, then repeat the exercise a dozen times.

Hanging Head. Standing straight, slowly drop your chin to your chest, till you can feel a stretch in your neck, shoulders, and upper back. Hold for at least 20 seconds, then raise you head back to the starting position. Repeat several times.

Take the opportunity during your day to gently bend and twist your neck in various directions. Don’t power through if you feel any pain, make sure you call the best local chiropractor; these neck turns should be relaxing movements that will help to relieve the stress on your neck from too much bending forward.

 

Take care of your neck — it’s under a lot of stress these days!

USE MELATONIN SUPPLEMENTS THE RIGHT WAY

Lack of sleep is a factor in many illnesses, physical and mental, and a Warrington chiropractor has warned that it can have long term consequences to our health. It’s true also that a large number of people do not get the required amount of sleep each night,

But it's not always easy to get a good night's sleep. Our hectic, stress-filled lives make it hard for us to fall asleep sometimes, and insomnia is a growing problem for many. Supplements which boost the sleep hormone melatonin have been promoted as a safe, natural way to cure sleeplessness, and millions of people use these supplements to help them fall asleep at night. However, the best local chiropractor warns that it is not good to use melatonin supplements on a long term basis.

 

 

It's not because melatonin itself is addictive; it is not physically addictive at all. However, supplements that boost melatonin levels at night can reset the body’s circadian rhythms, or “sleep clock”, and trick the body into expecting a melatonin boost at the same time each night in order to relax and go to sleep. Not only that, people who use melatonin supplements on a long term basis can develop a psychological dependence — they get anxiety if they try to fall asleep without taking their pill.

The best approach is to remember that these are supplements, and are best used an alternative solutions. If you can’t fall asleep because of jet lag, for example, or a stressful situation in your life, then it’s okay to use a melatonin supplement for a night or two. Most nights, it’s better to practice good sleep management techniques — don’t eat or drink too close to bedtime, dim your lights and turn off your electronic devices well before you go to bed, and think relaxing thoughts as you prepare to fall asleep. That’s the way to a good, restful sleep!

NATURAL ALTERNATIVES TO PAIN MEDICATIONS

Pain medications are a big business in the U.S., and millions of them are sold every year, for relief from all sorts of muscle aches and pains. Many people pop a couple of pain pills even before they experience any symptoms, perhaps on their way to the gym, to deal with any muscle soreness from their workouts. 

But even over-the-counter pain medications can have their problems. They're not addictive, like the opioid drugs that have caused such an epidemic in the last ten years, but long term use can cause heart and kidney problems. Increasingly, people are turning to herbal remedies to get relief from pain, because they can be just as effective without any of the problems associated with the standard pain medications. 

Here are a few popular herbal pain remedies.

. Arnica Montana. This formula can bring relief to arthritis sufferers, especially when use as a cream or gel.

. Capsaicin. Another topical cream formulation, Capsaicin can bring relief from neck pain, various types of arthritis, and neuropathy caused by diabetes.

. Cod liver oil. Although cod liver oil has been the butt of many jokes because of its taste, there is research that shows the omega-3 fatty acids in it can lessen some types of pain from inflammation. A local Jamison chiropractor recommends taking up to two teaspoons of it daily.

. Willow bark extract. This remedy has shown a particular effectiveness in treating low back pain.

There are other effective methods in addition to herbal remedies, including meditation and relaxation techniques, yoga, supplements, and local chiropractic treatments. 

Try considering a different approach the next time you deal with painful muscles or joins, rather than just reaching for the bottle of acetaminophen or ibuprofen.

FIVE WAYS TO REDUCE STRESS

The modern world is suffering from an epidemic of stress. According to a report shared by the best local chiropractor, three quarters of all Americans say they have had at least one symptom of stress in the past 30 days. That number represents 182 million people, and that's just in the United States!

Stress is something that is affecting the lives of more people than diseases like cancer and diabetes. It's been identified as a factor in a host of ailments and diseases, both physical and mental.

What’s causing all this stress? A Warrington PA Chiropractor says that money and job issues are stressful for 60 percent or more of Americans, while family responsibilities are stressful for 47 percent, and personal health is stressful for 46 percent.

Whatever the cause of our stress, we need to learn to deal with it in a healthy manner, or it will cause problems for us. Here are five ways to handle your stress better.

Simplify -- A complicated life is a stress enabler. Prune away the activities in your life that don’t resonate with who you are, and you’ll be more relaxed.

Pay attention to your health -- Eat a healthy diet and get daily exercise, and you’ll be able to handle stress without letting it affect you negatively.

Be here now  -- Let go of the past, and stop worrying about the future. Live in the present, and you’ll be happier.

Practice peace -- The sages had it right: maintain a peaceful attitude, don’t hold grudges, and be slow to anger.

Say thank you -- Gratitude is a great stress-reducer. Count your blessings every day, and you’ll achieve serenity.