Health Problems Are Insidious

In November we discussed how the nervous system is connected to your overall health and well-being, based on four fundamental principles:

1. Your body is a self-healing, self-regulating organism. It is designed to heal itself.
2. Your nervous system is the central computer system which runs the body.
3. Any interference to the nervous system would then necessarily cause malfunction and ill health.
4. The role of chiropractic is to restore law and order.

The question then arises, “What causes interference to the nervous system?” Well, simply put, your nervous system, being really soft and delicate needs to be protected by something hard, like a suit of armor. The brain is obviously protected by the skull. The spinal cord is, of course housed in and protected by the spine. But since the spine is made up of several individual movable bones, if one of those bones loses its normal motion and position, this can cause big problems with the delicate nerves which exit the spine at that level, and hence resulting in malfunction (and pain!) to the organs and tissues supplied by that nerve.

Well then, how does the spinal bone (If you’re into doctor talk, they’re called vertebrae.) lose its normal motion and position? This is where the confusion arises. Most people associate spinal health problems with injuries: car accidents, work injuries, sports injuries, bad falls, etc. And although there are clinics that specialize in treating such injuries, as a generally practicing family chiropractor, only a small percentage of patients come to me with these types of problems, probably around 2 per cent.

The overwhelming majority of new patients tell me that they’re complaint seemed to materialize from thin air! “I didn’t do anything”, they state. “It just seemed to come on by itself!”

Well in fact, the problem didn’t just come on by itself; it was caused by something. That something is the little stresses that we all experience in life. The little bumps and falls, the emotional stresses, etc. This is why spinal and nervous system health problems more often than not arise insidiously and without warning.

It’s just like your teeth. Most dental issues (cavities, wear and tear, mal-alignment, etc.) do not arise from a sudden injury to the mouth! They’re innocuous, developing over many months or years. This is why we think nothing of having a dental problem fixed, even in the absence of symptoms. We go for regular dental check-ups, and take our kids along, even when there’s no toothache. It’s funny how we all take this proactive approach for our teeth, yet for the rest of our body, we have to virtually be on death’s door before we’ll do something about it! It doesn’t make much sense, does it?

Your spine is no different, and the problems that arise need to be handled the same way.

That’s it for this month (and this year!). I’ll be very much looking forward to speaking with you again in 2011.

In the meantime, have a wonderful holiday, enjoy yourself, but don’t eat too much. Yeah, right!

In October we discussed the five essential areas that you need to address if you want to achieve and maintain optimal wellness: Nutrition, Exercise, Adequate rest and relaxation, a positive mental attitude, and a nervous system which is free of interference. It’s this last component that I want to address this month.

So, what does your nervous system (brain, spinal cord, and all the branching nerves) have to do with health. Well, from the chiropractic perspective your health is based on 4 fundamental principles:

1. You are a self-healing organism. Your body is designed to heal itself. Think about this for a moment. If you get a simple cut, it usually heals in a few days all by itself. On the other hand, even the most expensive and finely tuned car won’t do this. If you scratch the paint on your Bentley, Lamborghini, or whatever, that scratch will remain unless you take it to the shop to have the scratch repaired. But what about more serious injuries? Even a broken bone heals by itself. The cast may provide the proper alignment and immobilization during the healing process, but it’s the bone that does its own healing. This is remarkable! Did you know that you get a new stomach lining every 5 days and a new set of taste buds every 11 days? Incredible! When you remove your clothes before going to bed tonight, thousands of tiny skin cells float to the floor, and then you vacuum yourself up in the morning. Were you aware that 98% of the dust in your house is you?! You are a very dusty person!

Think of yourself as running on “auto-pilot”. Your body performs this self healing function in addition to all the myriad of self regulating functions (digestion, immunity, temperature control, etc.) without your conscious control or even awareness. In order to perform all these amazing tasks, your body must follow a very exact program.

2. Your nervous system is the “thing” which oversees and runs this program. It’s like a central computer command centre which runs you. So long as your nervous system can communicate with every organ, cell, tissue, and every nook and cranny of you, you will be functioning with optimal health. This, in fact, is what “normal” is (or what it should be!).

3. Obviously then, if there is any type of interference with the function of the nervous system, your body won’t do what it’s designed to do, it will do it’s own thing. This is definitely not okay!

4. The purpose of chiropractic is to locate and correct these areas of interference and restore law and order to the system. Hence, my patients and I are like the new sheriffs in town!

Does this all make sense?

Next month we’ll talk about what causes this interference, some of the real effects, and what you can do about it.

Till then, cheers!

Dr. Paul is the owner of Weber Chiropractic Clinic and Wellness Centre in Port Hope. He can be reached at 905-885-9306, or you may visit his website http://www.drpaulweber.com/.

Five Components of Optimal Health

Last month we talked about what being healthy really means (or more accurately, what it doesn’t mean). We learned that focusing on the mere relief of symptoms while ignoring the underlying cause of the problem is a misinformed approach which serves us poorly.

We also discovered that true optimal health and wellness exists far beyond the point at which diseases develop and symptoms occur.

Okay, Dr. Paul, smarty pants, know-it-all, how then do we achieve optimal wellness?!

Essentially, there are five fundamental areas which you need to address in order to be optimally healthy:

1. Nutrition. This is an obvious one. It’s also an enormous topic which is too big to get into in this short article. Perhaps I can address certain aspects of good nutrition in a future column. I should say, at least, that the quality of our nutrition has declined alarmingly over the past 50 years especially.

2. Exercise. Again, another obvious one, and a topic for another day. I can certainly tell you, though, to get at least get 30 minutes of vigorous exercise three times per week.

3. Adequate rest and relaxation. This not includes quality sleep, but taking time to re-charge your batteries throughout the day, regular vacations, etc.

4. A positive mental attitude. Once more, this is a very expansive area of discussion, but suffice it to say that no matter how well you eat, how regularly you exercise, or how much rest you get, you cannot be optimally well if you’re unhappy in your job, have family troubles, or are angry all the time. Of course, emotional stress is impossible to avoid. It can, however, be managed in an effective and positive way.

5. Finally, Number 5. When I’m teaching my patients, and asking them to name these five components of optimal health, they usually get the first three (sometimes the first four) without too much trouble. But it’s this last one that stumps everyone, despite the fact that dealing with problems related to this final component is precisely the reason they’re coming to see me as a chiropractor.

So, what is this mysterious final element of optimal wellness…(drum role please!)…A nervous system which functions free of interference.

So, you may now be asking, what the heck does my nervous system have to do with my overall health? Well, guess what. You’ll have to come back next month to find out, same bat time, same bat channel (I’m really dating myself here!). I’ll see you in November.

Dr. Paul is the owner of Weber Chiropractic Clinic and Wellness Centre in Port Hope. He can be reached at 905-885-9306, or you may visit his website http://www.drpaulweber.com/.

 

So What is This Health Thing Anyway?

Health: It’s something that’s very important to all of us. Yet many, if not most, of us tend not to think about this profoundly important aspect of our lives until we lose it. And therein lies the problem.

The average earthling gets up in the morning, and if he can walk around, wiggle his toes, scratch his tummy, yet doesn’t feel any troubling symptoms and can seemingly function okay, he pronounces himself…HEALTHY!

But a closer look at this approach shows that it really doesn’t make sense.

You see, we’ve been trained all our lives that “good health” is synonymous with feeling good. We’ve been taught that we can simply live our lives, and so long as we feel okay, we’re doing just fine.

Of course, if we’re not feeling fine, our typical response is to go get some medication to relieve our symptom so that we feel better. Or, if things are bad enough, we may have to get a prescription for something more potent.

This is certainly not to say that medication is never necessary, however, the use of drugs to relieve our symptoms while ignoring the underlying cause of those symptoms is like putting the cart before the horse. It’s like turning off the fire alarm instead of putting out the fire!

And as a society we have become obsessed with the idea of treating disease instead of regaining health – not a good idea.

When I explain these concepts to my patients, everyone seems at least to get it. But if none of this makes sense, then why do we do it? Well, just look at all the ads you see on television, in magazines, etc. that offer relief for this, that, or the other. With this constant bombardment of such an erroneous message, no wonder we tend to think this way!

But that is not health, and it’s not wellness. Wellness is not about how you feel; it’s about how well your body is functioning, even in the absence of symptoms.

True optimal health is a state of well-being far beyond that at which diseases develop or symptoms occur.  Makes sense?

Next month I’ll reveal the five components of optimal wellness that you need to address in order to maximize your health potential and live life with maximum pizzazz!

Dr. Paul is the owner of Weber Chiropractic Clinic and Wellness Centre in Port Hope. He can be reached at 905-885-9306, or you may visit his website http://www.drpaulweber.com/.