"The only real education comes from what goes counter to you."

Andre Gide

 

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September 2006

Contents

1. How well is Your Body Adapting to Stress?
2. Question of the Month
3. Fitness Corner
4. Health News
5. Office Happenings 

How well is Your Body Adapting to Stress?

The pace of life continues to speed up. Another summer has gone by in the blink of an eye. More demands are placed on us. For some, it is a new school year and the challenges of balancing your family’s activities with everyday life. For others, the heated economy is increasing stress levels as one person tries to do the work of three or four people. How can we keep up?

Each person deals with stress differently. Some people need “down time” to recharge their batteries. Others use activities like exercise or being active to balance out the strain placed on them by stress. While our responses vary, each individual has the opportunity to handle stress more effectively. It is possible to live during these times and not feel overwhelmed and burned out.

The key to living a happier, healthier life is awareness. It’s the knowledge that you live your life through your nervous system. How we see and react to what is going on around us is one of the main functions of the nervous system. All that busy-ness that happens everyday is perceived by it. Whether that stresses us out or we can see it as a positive challenge is determined by the nervous system. Ultimately, it determines how we adapt to stress.

If you want to increase your quality of life, increase how well your body adapts to stress. A healthier nervous system will help you accomplish that. Chiropractic care offers the quickest, easiest and most effective way of improving your nervous system. It is the doorway to leading a more balanced life. Take action today to improve your ability to adapt to stress.

Question of the Month

Could you give some guidelines for backpacks for children?

As your kids return to school, there are some important points to remember. The first one is that the backpack and its contents should not weigh more than 10% of the child’s body weight. For example, if your son or daughter weighs 60 pounds, their loaded backpack shouldn’t weigh more than 6 pounds. To help with this, choose a backpack that has a small carrying capacity. Another point to consider is the straps. It should have wide shoulder straps (and the child should use both at all times) and a belt strap as well. This helps distribute the weight more evenly. Always pack the heavier items towards the bottom and close to the child’s spine. This will helps the body take on the weight more evenly. Good luck on going back to school.

Fitness Corner

Are you looking to improve your health and fitness this fall? Subscribe to Scott McDermott’s free newsletter to receive the latest information on how to accomplish your goals. Send an email to mybestbody@shaw.ca to improve your speed to a healthier you!

Health News

It takes nerves to tell T and B cells what to do

This study, from the Journal of Leukocyte Biology, demonstrates a direct connection between the brain and the immune system. It shows how the peripheral sympathetic nervous system regulates the immune response in the body. In other words, your ability to fight disease is directly influenced by your nerves. Read more: http://www.jleukbio.org/cgi/content/abstract/79/6/1093

The most exciting part of this study was this comment. “Disregulation of the line of communications between the nervous and immune systems might contribute to disease development and progression.” So if your nervous system is interfered with, it affects your overall health. This is what a chiropractor looks for! We check to make sure your spine doesn’t affect the quality of communication on your nervous system. This is a perfectly good reason to get checked by a chiropractor today. 

The big business of diagnosis and disease

Wow, this is an incredible and expansive look at how changing diagnostic criteria for diseases creates huge markets and profits for pharmaceutical companies. What happens when the hypertension threshold is lowered by 10 points or the guideline for obesity is lowered by 5 pounds? Or if pharmaceutical firms have commandeered the process by which diseases are defined? Or how some diseases have been radically redefined without a strong medical basis? More: http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=sickintro26m&date=20050626

This is a series of articles that are well worth reading. Click on the links below the first picture you see to read about the impact both financially and health-wise these changes have brought. It is a frank and open discussion about the devastating effects this type of thinking has brought to “health” care.

Office Happenings

1. Wellness Orientation Workshops. A lot of our health is influenced by our knowledge of it. Expand that knowledge and you have a greater possibility of experiencing a higher quality of life. Do that by attending one of our September workshops. They are scheduled for Wednesday September 13 and Monday September 25. They start at 5:30 pm here in the office. Bring a friend!

2. Scheduling Appointments. Our office policy is to be as accommodating as we can in regard to appointments. Scheduled appointments are taken first and walks-in are given priority after the scheduled ones. Our goal is to get you on your way as quickly as possible. However, with new patients more time is needed to properly care for them. Therefore an advance booking is needed and about 1 hour of their time. Please consider this when recommending us to others. 

3. Office Hours. Here are our office hours: Monday, Wednesday and Friday 8:00 to 12:30 and 2:00 to 5:30, Tuesday 8:00 to 12:30 and Thursday 1:00 to 7:30 pm.

4. Office Closure. The office will be closed on Monday September 4 for Labour Day. We will re-open Tuesday morning for our regular hours. Have a great long weekend.