Why Not Take A Wellness Day?

I'd venture to guess that most people experience too many "Sickness Days". They deal with too much stress, bad food, not enough rest or exercise every day of their lives. And since one's life is created one day at a time, the sum of all of our "Sickness Days" is a sick life. So, Wellness Wednesday is what we call the first Wednesday of every month in our office. On those days we focus on adding in a new wellness habit and we often have our patients experience the new habit, such as tasting a new smoothie, trying out a new supplement etc. Our goal is to get people thinking monthly about what they can try that is new and different and that can move them toward a wellness lifestyle. It's a great idea I think, and our patients look forward to it each and every month to try something new. If everyone started a new wellness habit every month, our health as a nation would significantly improve over the long haul.

Recently in doing some wellness lifestyle coaching with one of my patients, I came up with a new idea. We were talking about making changes in her lifestyle to get her moving toward wellness, and I take the approach of making just a little change at a time. My purpose in doing this is to not overwhelm the patient with too much too quickly. This is important as we don't want to set a patient up for failure, and trying to do too much too quickly is sometimes too painful to be successful at, and they become discouraged and tend to quit.

Instead, we focus on baby steps. For instance, instead of trying to go out and jog for 30 minutes when they've been pretty much a couch potato, we encourage them to try walking "x" amount of time, depending on their fitness level, "x" times/week. After they get accustomed to that new habit, they are then encouraged to do a bit more, maybe increase the frequency, or the duration of their walks. That way it feels like they are only adding in a little bit more to their already established routine.

But, in doing this, I've found it takes a long time for enough new habits to build up to create significant changes. So to accelerate the process, I decided to give a new idea a shot. It's called a "Wellness Day". It consists of planning a certain day as a total wellness day. On that day, they must plan in advance what they are going to do. I encourage them to focus on all 4 of our Pillars of Wellness (eat well, move well, think well, rest well) and make sure they have plans for each area.

So in advance they plan out their meals and snacks for the day. They have to focus on whole foods (real food) with no additives. Remember my definition of real food: It either grows or had eyes at one point, otherwise it is an "edible food like substance". They need to focus on consuming plenty of water for the day, maybe some tea with lemon, or an herbal tea of their choice.

They have to plan to move more than they might normally. This may not be much more than a 30 minute walk if they are sedentary usually. If they're already active, then any sort of normal exercise program they do is acceptable, but maybe they push their duration by 10 minutes or so more. If they don't usually do any stretching, this would be a good day to start that habit too. There are many stretching sites on the net to learn from. Just always remember to be careful if you've not been active, and if you're over 40 or have a history of cardiovascular issues, get cleared by your doctor before you begin any vigorous plan of exercise.

I encourage them to spend some time de-stressing and relaxing on their Wellness Day. It's a great time to schedule a massage for relaxation purposes, or some time at a quiet spot for dinner with their spouse (eating healthy of course). Making sure they spend some time being grateful is extremely important, and connecting with their Maker on a spiritual level is vital for this special day. This can also be accomplished by whatever activities they really enjoy doing, grilling a good dinner, playing with the kids, the dog or both.

Finally, I encourage them to work on their sleep hygiene plan. I want them to get good rest that night, so nothing with caffeine after 4 in the afternoon. As bedtime draws near the need to start winding down is vital and they need a plan for doing just that; turning down the lights, quiet music, a good book, good conversation with their spouse etc.

By creating a Wellness Day, one can see what it would feel like to live that lifestyle. The first Wellness Day may be a bit tough, but it's only a day, so plan it ahead of time. If you wait til the last minute, there will be stress when you don't have all the foods that you need for a certain recipe, or when you suddenly realize that you forgot to plan out some aspect. Remember, I want you to be set up for success, not failure. And if you do fail in some aspect for that day, at least the day you had was more wellness oriented than it would have been otherwise. You can also choose to do this in community with others and discuss/plan your day together for accountability.

Once you have a Wellness Day going once/week, or even once per month if weekly is too tough, then add in "a little more", like an extra day/week or month. Soon those days will become comfortable for you and you will be able to continue adding in a day or two more. Soon the majority of your days will be Wellness Days, and you'll have much less "sickness" days.

Until next time...Be Well!

Dr. Bruce

Reversing The Happiness Formula, A 21 Day Challenge

I watched a video from YouTube this weekend, it spoke to the idea of happiness and it's role in our productivity.  One of the things it reminded me of is the fact (yes fact) that most of the world lives in a "Have-Do-Be" mode instead of "Be-Do Have" mode.  What do I mean?  Follow along.

How many times do we hear people say "I would be so much happier if I had 'x' "?  "If only I had "x' I could do "y" and then I'd be happy".  It happens all the time.  We let our outside circumstances determine our happiness in life.  Now don't get me wrong, life is NOT all about finding our own happiness, there's much more to life than being that self centered.  But no one should go through life being totally unhappy all the time either.

It's time to use the correct formula of "Be Do Have".  Decide today to BE happy, BE grateful, BE at peace. Then you will DO things that happy and successful people do, and eventually we'll HAVE some of those things that we may want.  But the focus has to be on BEING and DOING.  I'd suggest that most truly happy and successful people focus on BEing the kind of person that DOES for OTHERS and doesn't focus on one's own happiness.  To that end, the YouTube video I watched suggested a 21 day challenge. Here it is.

1.  3 Gratitudes (I preach this all the time).   Take time every day to think of 3 things you are grateful for, and don't just list them, but think of why you're grateful for them:  I am grateful for my wife because I know there is no better woman on the face of this planet to raise kids with.  There's an example. If you do this for 21 days you will retrain your brain to scan the world for the positive in life instead of the junk!

2.  Journaling:  Every day write down one positive experience you had that day.  This allows your brain to re-live the event.

3.  Exercise:   It's an essential nutrient for the body AND brain.  Do 30 minutes of exercise daily for 21 days, even if it's a casual walk.

4.  Prayer/Meditation.  A GREAT way to end or begin your day.  Spend time in prayer and meditation, it will relax your mind, help you combat stress and open your mind to possibilities.  Prayer is talking to God, meditating is listening to God.

5.  Random or conscious acts of kindness daily.This can be as simple as sending an email thanking someone for who they are and what they do.  

By rewiring our brains, this can affect not only our lives, but can create a rippling effect to change our famlies,  communities, cities, states, nations and world.  

Here's a link to the video I watched:  Reversing The Happiness Formula .

So...........Who's In with me today??? 

Do You Want To Survive or Thrive? The Innate Diet Of Grass Example

Living in the Houston area for almost 48 years, I've seen the summer weather pattern a more than a few times and am quite familiar with it. Typically, June is the wettest of the summer months here, and if it's dry in June, we're likely in for a hot dry summer.

What does that have to do with wellness? Good question of course! Have you ever noticed that when it's dry outside, when we water our grass, it does liven up a bit, and won't die off. However, when a good rain comes through, it seems the grass does even better than an equal amount of watering from our sprinklers. Why would that be? Let's look at that.

First, the innate diet of grass if you will, is rainwater. Rain, from the sky. Not water from a faucet or sprinkler. Plain old water from the clouds. The water in the pipes that feeds our grass is a bit "processed" so to speak. It contains things like chlorine among other possible contaminants (look up water contents and see what you find). So while it does feed our grass and keep it alive, it doesn't do as good of a job as the innate diet of grass. It keeps it alive, but it doesn't thrive.

So what does that have to do with us? We can choose to eat our innate diet or not. If we choose to not eat innately, then we may be choosing to stay alive, and not thrive. If we DO eat innately, then we have a better chance of thriving, and being as healthy as possible ie, living well.

The same goes for all of our lifestyle choices. How well we eat, move, think and rest affects whether or not we'll thrive or just stay alive. Which do you want?

Until next time, BE WELL!

Dr. Bruce

Every Minute.... Every Second....Counts...

....in life.

I sit here typing these thoughts down, with my heart hurting, not for me, but for people I know that are hurting from loss.  It's a reminder that, as I spoke with my pastor yesterday about, we don't know what's right around the corner in our lives.  One minute I was speaking with a young lady about her coming to work at our office today, and within an hour she's dealing with a significant loss in her life.  

It made me look seriously at my family life.  In many ways, I feel like I am pretty good as Dad, husband, friend, chiropractor, and Christian.  In many ways, I fail miserably in those roles (regularly), usually because of selfish reasons, usually when life is all about me.  I guess I feel like I can "make it up" whenever I screw up and don't perform at the levels I  know I should.  "I'll do better next time" and "I've got to get better at that" are two common thoughts I have when I've performed below standards.  Those are not inherently bad thoughts, but they assume a lot, maybe too much.

I said my normal goodbye to my wife this morning.  I said my usual goodbye to my son as I dropped him off at high school.  In a little while I'll say my routine goodbye to my daughter when I drop her off at middle school.  Not to think darkly, but my world could be a lot different by the end of this day.  I'm not guaranteed my next breath.  None are.  

Right now I want to apologize for the heaviness of this post.  But I think it's vital to think this way on occasion, to gain some perspective, and to appreciate, really appreciate what we have.  I believe that living a wellness lifestyle involves healthy relationships with those we love the most, with our co-workers, our friends, and those we serve through our respective careers.  And it shouldn't be something we put off til tomorrow.  It should start today. It should start now.  Immediately.  

I start every day with an affirmation with our team at the office that says "today I have another opportunity to fulfill our promise to our patients".  What a profound way to live, if we lived with that attitude in all that we do.  What if I said that affirmation daily, and lived it, in regards to how I treat my wife? My kids? My friends?  What if we as a nation, we as a global community began looking at life that way?  What kind of difference would it make?  What if we took on that attitude in all our roles?  I'm writing this on a Monday morning, and so many people complain about Mondays.  But what would Mondays feel like if we lived out that one simple statement?

I'm not going to presume to preach to or at anyone about this.  My thoughts are my thoughts as they apply to me right here, right now, on Monday morning.  I hope I can take these thoughts and apply them today, tomorrow, and remember them even when I'm not feeling my best, when I'm tired, when I don't even really feel like it.  

Because every minute...every second...counts.

Until next time...Be Well.

Dr. Bruce

Armed And Dangerous...Now You Know What I Know

So I had a virtual conversation with someone online this past week.  More accurately, it was an online disagreement.  I was reading a story about a chiropractor who broke the law and was punished with jail time, when in the comments section, someone went off about the "pseudo-science" (his/her words) chiropractic.  I had to laugh as I read their take.  It was sadly amusing to read their often repeated mantra of unsubstantiated rumor and how they don't "believe" in it.  Of course, when someone tells me they don't "believe" in it, I have two thoughts:  1.  It's not a religion, and 2.  I am so glad it doesn't take their belief for it to help the millions of people that benefit from it.  I mean, saying "I don't believe in it" would be the same as me saying, I don't believe in engineering, or the real estate business, or whatever.  It's not a matter of belief, it's a matter of fact, it's a matter of a science that has been wrongfully vilified, yet still survives.  It's about a form of health care that the AMA was found guilty of trying to "contain and eliminate" (their own words....  see Wilk Vs. AMA), but still thrives and serves.

It's a little frustrating (I admit it) to have years and years of success in a profession, and years and years of scientific proof, but still have the uneducated, or those people with ulterior motives, continue to spread their lies, half-truths, and rumors.  It's even more frustrating to have people, educated or not, buy into them so easily.  It will take years to overcome that.  I am actually ok with it at this point in my life.  I have no issue speaking with those who have an issue with my chosen profession and showing them the light.  It is, of course, their choice to truly see the light or ignore it (which some inexplicably do).  I've always had a rather pacifist approach to it.  Let people say with they may, and keep on doing what I do to the best of my ability.  Now my thought processes have changed.

I'm armed and dangerous.  Armed with studies.  Armed with experience.  Armed with a passion.  And very tired of hearing our profession besmirched, and the medical model of health care looked at as the gold standard, when in so many ways the opposite should be true. And tired of having patients with back or neck pain so poorly managed, to the detriment of their health.  This post will have some serious science backing it, so hold on tight, here comes truth.

Let's start back in the early 90's with the "Manga Report". Pran Manga was commissioned by the Ontario government to evaluate all treatments, mainstream and otherwise, for low back pain.  He gathered the information, and I'll share a few snippets of what he found.  "On the evidence, particularly the scientifically valid studies, spinal manipulation applied by chiropractors is shown to be more effective than alternative treatments for low back pain.  Many medical modalities are of questionable validity, or are clearly inadequate.  Chiropractic manipulation is safer than medical management of low back pain".  None of the researchers had anything to do with chiropractic, all were non-biased participants, doing a review of literature and treatment modalities. It goes on to state that spinal manipulation performed by non-chiropractors is much less safe.  To me, that's enough right there, but for some, that's "only one study".  Ok, I get that, let's move on.

How about the 2004 study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine?  It states "Systematic access to chiropractic care may not only be clinically beneficial, but may also reduce overall health costs".  Then there's the 2011 study in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine that had several interesting quotes such as "cases treated by chiropractors had less surgeries and less use of opiods" and "In addition, people who were mostly treated by chiropractors had, on average, less expensive medical services and shorter initial periods of disability than cases treated by physiotherapists and medical physicians."  Is that good or is that great??

Need more? Ok fine, there's plenty more to share, but I'll end with a study published in Spine, the premier medical journal for spinal health.  In 2011, there was a study titled "Does Maintained Spinal Manipulation Therapy For Chronic Non-Specific Low Back Pain Result in Better Long Term Outcome?".  In other words, does regular spinal adjusting really impact long term results when done on a maintenance or wellness level?  The results are impressive.  "Only the third group that was given spinal manipulations during the follow up period showed more improvement in pain and disability scores at the 10 month evaluation."  In the non-maintenance-treated group, "..pain and disability scores returned back to near their pre-treatment levels".  What does that mean?  Those with regular wellness or maintenance care continued doing better long term, as compared to those that did not receive maintenance care, and in fact the non-maintained group had pain and disability ratings very close to where they were before treatment.  A case for wellness oriented chiropractic adjustments?  You bet.

There's so much more out there to support chiropractic, but it seems only the most powerful voices are heard the most.  And for so long, we've put those voices on a pedestal, thinking they know all when it comes to health care when it's far from true.  The next post will show some of the shortcomings of their approach to health with regards to low back pain in particular.  When you're done reading both of these posts, you should have no doubt that chiropractors are the ones who know what's best for your spine!

I'm armed and dangerous, and you are now too.

Until Next Time....Be Well!

Dr. Bruce

What's The Weekend For?

Sounds like a dumb question doesn't it? I'd agree except that for many people, the weekend means different things. For many, it's a time used living in a way that we don't normally live.  Higher alcohol consumption, more dinners out, more junk food, no exercise, lots of sitting around watching sports and more.  And in moderation, that may be ok in our wellness quest.  Maybe.   

I've found when I watch my weight throughout the week, I'll consistently lose weight Monday through Friday.  But when I weigh back in on the following Monday, I'll be back up by the same amount of weight I had lost over the previous 5 days if I am not careful.  I understand that weight is not the "be all, end all" in evaluating the status of our health and well being.  But it certainly is ONE of the markers, and right or wrong,  most likely the MOST used marker.  My point is in speaking about this though is that it only takes 2 days (Saturday and Sunday) to UNDO a whole lot of good work in our lives. I find that particularly true as I get older. (old-ER, not old)

So what's a person to do?  Aren't weekends meant for down time?  Aren't they meant for renewal?  Don't you, Dr. Guillory, preach the importance of resting well?  Yes, I do preach that.  What I don't preach is overindulgence.  I think Mae West was quoted once as saying "too much of a good thing is MAAAAHVELOUS", but that's just a cute quote.  I have no issue with going out to eat a big meal.  I have no issue with watching some sports on TV Saturday afternoon.  I often do both of those.  But I think the issue is that many people totally bankrupt themselves on the weekend when it comes to health; there's NO exercise, there's way too much junk food and alcohol consumed, and entire afternoons spent on the couch.  Are you guilty of that?  (honestly, there are times when I am too).

So I think, the answer lies in one word:  Plan.  Just as I preach often, "Failing to plan is planning to fail", we need to focus that applying that to our weekends.  Realize that there will be opportunities for indulging.  But plan for a great healthy meal, replacing a meal with juicing and/or some healthy vegetables and fruit.  Plan on trying a new healthy recipe since you'll have more time to cook it up. Plan some time outdoors with your family walking, playing tennis, or if the weather is inclement, going to the gym together.  Listen to your body, and plan a nap if you feel worn down.  The key is to plan it all.  If we leave it to chance, chances are poor decisions will be made.  

So, here it is, Friday afternoon, what are your plans for the weekend?  None?  Time to PLAN it!  I just created this acrostic for PLAN:  Prepare it, Live it, Analyze it, and NEXT!  Prepare is the planning, Live is doing it, Analyze is seeing if it worked, and NEXT means to work on the next plan.  Just something to think about!

Until next time...Be Well!!

Dr. Bruce

There's No Excuse....

....for not exercising.  Well, there are very few legit excuses anyway.  Today was a perfect example of why anyone can do a workout, without a gym membership, and with little to no equipment needed.  And yes, in 30 minutes or less, you can get your heart rate up, and tone the whole body pretty darn well.

This morning, my wife and I were trying to figure out what we wanted to do for exercise.  We have a gym membership at a place 5 minutes away which offers everything we could want/need.  But today I talked her into doing my "30 Minute At Home Exercise Plan".  For her, there was no equipment needed.  For me, I used a jump rope and a 30 pound kettle bell.  Oh and we used a free app called Gym Boss Interval Timer.

Our warm up included her doing jumping jax, and me doing jump rope.  I have a timed program on my Gym Boss App that has us do 10 seconds of activity, followed by 10 seconds of rest.  Then 20 seconds of activity, 20 seconds rest, 30 seconds of activity, 30 of rest, then 20 and 20, then 10 and 10.  We then start over and go through the cycle again 2 more times.  It takes about 9 minutes total and warms up the whole body, gets the heart rate going a bit, and gets you ready for more intense exercise.

The next thing we did was a combination of two exercises back to back, with downward pyramiding reps.  She did lunges and crunches I did kettle bell swings and mountain climbers.  I started with 10 of each, then 9, then 8, then 7 (well you get the drift) with no rest in between exercises or sets.  She did her's starting with 8 reps and working her way down.  So it looked like this for her:  8 lunges on each leg, immediately dropping down and doing 8 crunches, then back up to do 7 lunges, then 7 crunches etc til we both got to 1.  This program, particularly if you do large muscle groups, gets your heart rate really going!

We then did what I call my finisher.  Again we used the Gym Boss App.  It was set to do 20 seconds of work, followed by 10 seconds of rest.  We had two exercises to use. One was what I call a skater's jump.  You start on one leg and jump to the side, landing on the other leg, and not letting the original leg touch.  Then you jump back the other way, back and forth. It looks almost like an ice skater on a long stretch where their body moves back and forth, except they're gliding and we're jumping.  I pretend I am jumping over something so I get some height, and distance to the side.  After 20 seconds of that, there's 10 seconds of rest.  Then we assume the plank position on our forearms, and when the timer beeps, we go up to a pushup position, then back down to the plank position, back and forth til the timer beeps again (20 seconds). Then there's rest and we go back to the skaters jumps.  This program is 4 minutes long, and includes 4 sets of the two exercises.

That was it.  We were done.  I had gotten my heart rate up, I had worked the entire body for the most part, and it didn't require getting ready to drive to a gym and then coming back home.  You can modify your reps, timing, exercises etc to make it work for you.  Anyone can do this (with rare exceptions, please consult your physician if you're not a regular exerciser and want to get started).  It's a great way to get some variety of exercises, in a short, compact time, that is very efficient!

Until next time...Be Well!!

Dr. Bruce