Is Sitting BAD for My Back?

25 Sep

A major manufacturer of workstations reports that 86% of work computer users have to sit all day, and when they do rise from sitting, more than half (56%) use food as the excuse to get up and move. In addition to sitting at work, for meals, and commuting to/from work, 36% sit another one to two hours watching TV, 10% sit one to two hours for gaming, 25% sit one to two hours for reading/lounging, and 29% use their home computer for one to two hours. In summary, the average American sits for thirteen hours a day and sleep for eight hours. That’s a total of 21 hours a day off their feet!

The manufacturer’s survey also notes 93% of work computer users don’t know what “Sitting Disease” is but 74% believe that sitting too much can lead to an early death. “Sitting Disease” represents the ill-effects of an overly sedentary lifestyle and includes conditions like “metabolic syndrome” (obesity and diabetes), which is rapidly becoming more prevalent, especially in the young – even in adolescence and teenagers! Recently, the American Medical Association (AMA) adopted a policy encouraging employers, employees, and others to sit less citing the many risks associated with sitting including (but not limited to): diabetes, cancer, obesity, and cardiovascular disease. Standing is SO MUCH BETTER as it burns more calories than sitting, tones muscles, improves posture, increases blood flow, reduces blood sugar, and improves metabolism. Standing is frequently overlooked as “an exercise” and it’s both simple and easy to do!

So, what about the low back and sitting? You guessed it – sitting is hard on the back! The pressure inside of our disks, those “shock absorbers” that lie between each vertebra in our spine (22 disks in total) is higher when we sit compared with simply standing or lying down. It’s estimated that when we lay down, the pressure on our disks is the lowest at 25mm. When lying on one side, it increases to 75mm, standing increases disk pressure to 100mm, and bending over from standing pushes disk pressure to 220mm. When we sit with good posture, our disk pressure may reach 140mm but that can increase to 190mm with poor posture. To help relieve the pressure on our disks, experts recommend: 1) Getting up periodically and standing; 2) Sitting back in your chair and avoiding slouched positions; 3) Placing a lumbar roll (about the size of your forearm) behind the low back and chair/car seat; and 4) Changing your position frequently when sitting.

Because certain low back conditions “favor” one position over another, these “rules” may need modification. For example, most herniated disk patients prefer low back extension while bending over or slouching hurts. In those with lumbar sprain/strains, bending forwards usually feels good and extension hurts. Modifying your position to the one that is most comfortable is perhaps the best advice.

We realize you have a choice in whom you consider for your health care provision and we sincerely appreciate your trust in choosing our service for those needs.  If you, a friend, or family member requires care for back pain, we would be honored to render our services

Can Yoga Help Patients with Chronic Pain?

15 Sep

Chronic pain is one of the most common complaints in the developed world. One of the biggest problems with chronic pain is its effect on the brain, both physically and emotionally. “Psychic exhaustion” is a term often used to describe this crippling effect. In fact, a study done at the Stanford University School of Medicine identified a set of changes in key parts of the brain that may explain chronic pain’s capacity to stifle motivation. Dr. Robert Malenka, the co-director of the Stanford Institute for Neuro-Innovation and Translational Neuroscience writes, “With chronic pain, your whole life changes in a way that doesn’t happen with acute pain. Yet this absence of motivation caused by chronic pain, which can continue even when the pain is transiently relieved, has been largely ignored by medical science.”

Dr. M. Catherine Bushnell, a scientific director at the National Institutes of Health notes, “Imaging studies in multiple types of chronic pain patients show their brains differ from healthy control subjects. Studies of people with depression show they also have reduced gray matter, and this could contribute to the gray matter changes in pain patients who are depressed. Our research shows that gray matter loss is directly related to the pain when we take depression into account.”

So, what does yoga have to do with chronic pain? Dr. Bushnell adds that studies show yoga practitioners have more gray matter than non-yoga practitioners in multiple brain regions, including those involved in pain modulation. She adds, “Some gray matter increases in yogis correspond to duration of yoga practice, which suggests there is a causative link between yoga and gray matter increases.” If further research confirms yoga benefits the brains of people who already have chronic pain, someday doctors may prescribe yoga to this class of patients as part of their overall treatment strategy.

Natural Weapon Against Urinary Tract Infections

14 Sep

If you suffer from a urinary tract infection (UTI), especially a drug-resistant UTI, this information may be very helpful. Doctors and researchers have known for quite some time that bacteria evolve and become resistant or “immune” to treatments such as antibiotics. One of the most commonly known and dangerous is Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA), which is an infection caused by a strain of staph bacteria that’s become resistant to the antibiotics commonly used to treat ordinary staph infections. Urinary Tract Infection (UTI) is one of the most common extra intestinal bacterial infections and the second most common infectious disease encountered in community practice. UTI alone poses a serious health problem affecting about 150 million people each year around the world. Antibiotics have revolutionized medicine in many respects and their discovery was a turning point in medicinal history. Regrettably, the misuse of these wonder drugs has been accompanied by the rapid appearance of resistant strains.

Because of the emergence of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria, there is an urgent need to explore alternative non-antibiotic treatments to help effectively manage these infections. Garlic (Allium sativum) has been traditionally used for the treatment of different diseases since ancient times. Researchers from the University of East London took aqueous extracts of allicin, a compound found in garlic, and formulated a simple cream. When the cream was applied to vast swathes of the so-called “superbug” MRSA (methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus), it eliminated them. In a study conducted at the Birla Institute of Technology and Sciences in India, researchers found that “even crude extracts of [garlic] showed good activity against multidrug resistant strains where antibiotic therapy had limited or no effect.” This provides hope for developing alternative treatments which may be of help in fighting the menace of growing antibacterial resistance around the world.

Bringing Happiness One High-Five at a Time!

10 Sep

Life is tough. Every day is a grind. It is almost impossible to “get ahead.”

If you believe those three things, it is very easy to become overwhelmed, quit trying, and settle for a miserable life that is barely worth living.

Thankfully, those three statements could not be further from the truth, especially when you understand what will be revealed in the next few paragraphs.

But first, you must be introduced to the work of a revolutionary person who passed away in 2009. His name was Jim Rohn, and he was known for many things. One was his “rags to riches” story that is way too long to tell here. The short version is: Jim grew up working on a family-owned farm in Idaho. He started his professional life by working as a stock clerk for the department store Sears. In 1955, Rohn went to a lecture on direct selling, and he jumped in with both feet. To make a long story short, he became tremendously successful in several businesses, which led him to teach personal development seminars all over the world.

Many of today’s huge success stories were people Rohn mentored including Tony Robbins (way back in the 70s before anyone knew his name), Mark Victor Hanson, and Jack Canfield (Chicken Soup for the Soul).

One of Rohn’s books, Five Major Pieces to the Life Puzzle, published in 1991, describes what he considered the five components of success: Philosophy – how you think; Attitude – how you feel; Action – what you do; Results – measure often to see if you are making progress; and Lifestyle – the kind of life you make for yourself out of the four pieces.

This quote from Rohn’s book is particularly profound: “It seems that every life form on this planet strives toward its maximum potential … except human beings. A tree does not grow to half its potential size and then say, ‘I guess that will do.’ A tree will drive its roots as deep as possible. It will soak up as much nourishment as it can, stretch as high and as wide as nature will allow, and then look down as if to remind us of how much each of us could become if we would only do all that we can.”

Clearly, we all need something from time to time to remind us how much we COULD become if we would do ALL we can and not just put in the minimal effort.

What does all this have to do with bringing happiness one high-five at a time?

Here is what… Rohn also said, “Effective communication is 20% what you know and 80% how you feel about what you know.” Clearly Rohn believed and taught that attitude, and how you view things has a major impact of your level of success and how happy you are in life.

A great example of this is a video on YouTube that went viral with over two-million views. In the video, filmmaker Meir Kalmanson ran around Park Avenue in New York City giving a friendly gesture to unsuspecting people trying to hail a cab: a high-five.

The 24-year-old told the New York Daily News he was walking around Manhattan one day when he saw a person with his hand in the air. He told a friend he would try to give the man a high-five and pulled it off. He later decided to try to create a video about the concept.

His high-fives seemed to instantly change the attitudes of the people he gave them to. While most people see hailing a cab in the crowded streets of New York as a miserable chore, he was able to instantly turn it into a pleasurable experience.

How many “miserable” things in your life can instantly be turned into a pleasurable experience by simply changing your attitude about them? How much success and happiness might that bring you? The only way to know for sure is to do it.

We love helping our patients and their friends and relatives through their tough times and getting them feeling better! We are here to help you stay feeling better and looking younger!

Don’t be a stranger. You really can afford Chiropractic care! Don’t wait until you can no longer move!

Some Physical Activities Help You Sleep Better and Some Can Keep You from Getting a Good Night’s Rest…

9 Sep

Do You Know Which Are Which?

Are you tired? Do you wake up more exhausted than when you went to bed? Do you gulp down coffee just to try to make it through the day?

If you do, you are not alone. In 2009, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) collected data from 74,571 people and found: “35.3% reported <7 hours of sleep during a typical 24-hour period, 48.0% reported snoring, 37.9% reported unintentionally falling asleep during the day at least once in the preceding month, and 4.7% reported nodding off or falling asleep while driving at least once in the preceding month. This is the first CDC surveillance report to include estimates of drowsy driving and unintentionally falling asleep during the day. The National Department of Transportation estimates drowsy driving to be responsible for 1,550 fatalities and 40,000 nonfatal injuries annually in the United States.”

Not only that, experts from the CDC report that people experiencing sleep insufficiency are also more likely to suffer from chronic diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, depression, and obesity, as well as cancer, increased mortality, and reduced quality of life and productivity.

There has been quite a bit of debate as to how many hours of sleep the average person needs. Some people need relatively little sleep while others need much more.

What Is the Optimal Amount of Sleep for You?

That is not an easy question, and it cannot be answered here. But here is something that can help you…

There is no doubt quality of sleep is more important than quantity of sleep. In other words, great sleep for a relatively short time can be much more beneficial than longer periods of poor quality sleep.

Waking up exhausted or even more tired than when you went to bed, even when you “slept” for eight to nine hours, is a perfect example.

Let’s face it, it’s easy for someone to give you advice to get more sleep. In reality, life just doesn’t work that way. There are only so many hours in the day.

That’s why maximizing the QUALITY of the sleep you get is so important. A new study sheds some interesting light on this…

Researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania found that physical activities such as walking, aerobics/calisthenics, biking, gardening, golfing, running, weight-lifting, and yoga/pilates are all associated with better sleep habits. In contrast, the study shows that activities like household chores and childcare are associated with an increased likelihood of poor sleep habits.

This information is important because “physical activity” has long been touted as beneficial to sleep. But now, according to this study, not all activities are equal and some, in fact, have a negative impact on sleep. Dr. Michael Grandner, an instructor in Psychiatry and member of the Center for Sleep and Circadian Neurobiology at Penn adds, “Although previous research has shown that lack of exercise is associated with poor sleep, the results of this study were surprising. Not only does this study show that those who get exercise simply by walking are more likely to have better sleep habits, but these effects are even stronger for more purposeful activities, such as running and yoga, and even gardening and golf. It was also interesting that people who receive most of their activity from housework and childcare were more likely to experience insufficient sleep – we know that home and work demands are some of the main reasons people lose sleep.”

The study did not discuss WHY these different activities affected sleep so differently, but here is one possibility that might help you get better sleep…

Most people don’t have the option of skipping on doing housework or caring for their children. But, it is distinctly possible that the mental aspect of these activities is what’s causing the problem.

In Other Words: Stress

Prolonged stress is, without a doubt, a killer. In a pinch, the stress response can save your life. But if you’re stressed all the time, it can have a detrimental effect on your body. Stress can increase your risk for obesity, high blood pressure, headaches, digestive problems, depression, anxiety, drug and alcohol abuse, cigarette smoking, and more. It can also cause you to lay awake at night staring at the ceiling.

Going for a walk, practicing yoga, and playing a sport are enjoyable, mentally relaxing activities. Childcare can be very stressful, and quite frankly, for most people, housework is not the most fun!

Here are two things you can do… The first is to stress less when doing those activities. Once again, easier said than done.

That’s why this second approach is probably more realistic: Start doing one or more “positive sleep activities.”

It is easier to find the time for a 20-minute walk than it is to find and extra two to three hours to try to sleep. Walking is one of the best things you can do for both your physical and mental health.

Because having back pain, neck pain, headaches, and other forms of musculoskeletal pain can make physical activity more difficult, if not impossible, seeking treatment from a doctor of chiropractic may help reduce your overall stress levels and help make exercise easier, both of which can help you sleep better.

Don’t forget, if you ever have any questions or concerns about your health, talk to us. Contact us with your questions. We’re here to help and don’t enjoy anything more than participating in providing you natural pain relief.

The 13 Simple Words That Can Have a Greater Impact on Your Life Than Everything on the Internet COMBINED

8 Sep

Little hinges swing big doors.  In other words, small concepts, strategies, beliefs, or actions can have massive and long-lasting results.  Many times, these outcomes are much greater and far-reaching than expected, even in your wildest dreams.

One simple, yet powerful principle is to just do the right thing without expecting anything in return.  When you do, you’ll leave more little hinges (that can swing open large doors of massive opportunity) everywhere you go, increasing your odds for lasting success.

Now, for the 13 simple words that may be the most powerful “little hinge” in your life.

“Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live.”

That is a quote by Jim Rohn, and it goes hand-in-hand with this quote by Eubie Blake:

“If I’d known I was going to live this long,  I’d have taken better care of myself.”

When we are young, we think we are indestructible and that our bodies will always be that way.  Well, I’m sure you know how wrong that belief is.

Fortunately, your body is amazing and can recover from many things such as back and neck pain.  It is never too late to start laying those little hinges that can open big doors and have a big impact on your life.

Understanding that your body is something you must actively take care of is vitally important.  No one wants to live in pain, and the best way to avoid pain is to take the small steps to, “Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live.”

Sincerely, Dr. Binder

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