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Prenatal Chiropractic Care

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Pregnancy is a time of constant and exciting change in a woman’s physiology and overall life as her body prepares for the athletic event of birth. It is important for expecting moms to assemble a birth team to help guide them through these changes and optimize their experience.

In addition to choosing their birth provider, doula, lactation consultant and birth preparation classes, many women are realizing the importance of prenatal chiropractic care. Prenatal chiropractic care addresses the neuro-biomechanics of your pregnancy, which is essential for your body to be able to organically adapt to the physical and functional changes during every stage of this beautiful and natural process.

What does this mean for you?

Chiropractic checkups and adjustments, when necessary, can…

  • Balance the body and soft tissues of the pelvis, preparing your pelvis for an easier birth.
  • Align your pelvis to ensure that it is moving properly.
  • Reduce torsion and tension on the uterus and its supporting ligaments.
  • Allow for the pelvis to open wider during birth.
  • Ensure optimum nerve function.

Your nervous system controls the function of every cell in your body, including your uterus and pelvic muscles – the main muscles of labor.

Chiropractic care during pregnancy can also benefit your baby. The nervous system is the first system that forms in your baby during the 3rd week after conception. Since your nervous system communicates with your baby’s nervous system, proper function can contribute to better development. Balancing your pelvis also allows your baby the chance to have the most room to develop without physical restrictions to the growth of their cranium, spine and other skeletal structures. Also, this can help the baby move into the best possible birth position when it is their time to arrive.

All of these factors can contribute to a more natural birth as well as a significant decrease in dystocia and birth trauma caused by interventions.

Chiropractic care can help make your pregnancy and birth experience healthier and more enjoyable while helping to minimize the risk. No wonder millions of women include chiropractors as a vital member of their birth team.

Schedule an appointment for your family today.

Contributed by Dr. Emily Plasker, 100 Year Lifestyle Affiliate Chiropractor in Bend, Oregon

Longevity and Performance

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One of the biggest stories during the Super Bowl is the longevity and performance of Tom Brady. He is redefining what is possible for athletes over forty. His nutrition and fitness routines along with his utilization of chiropractic care are well documented and vital to his success.

While healthy eating and fitness seem like common sense, so is the importance of a healthy spine and nervous system. This is the reason why so many players from the New England Patriots and Philadelphia Eagles will be receiving chiropractic care all season and of course leading up to the big game.

Chiropractic care helps athletes in every sport heal quickly and optimize performance.

Many of the greatest of all time have set this precedent. Current Hall of Famers Emmitt Smith and Jerry Rice are huge chiropractic advocates. Emmitt Smith is the leading rusher in NFL history, a perennial Pro Bowler and three -time Super Bowl Champion. When he retired with over 18,000 yards, Smith said, “I thank God, my family and my chiropractor.” Chiropractic care helped speed his recovery time and function at the top of his game. His career lasted nearly six times longer than the average NFL running back.

Jerry Rice is considered the greatest receiver in the history of the NFL. His durability and work ethic are legendary. He initially sought chiropractic care following an injury on the field. After learning about the benefits of chiropractic care from his teammates he made chiropractic care a regular part of his training routine and lifestyle. He is a three-time Super Bowl Champion and today he is an official spokesperson for the Foundation for Chiropractic Progress. His high-level career also lasted six times longer than the average receiver.

Another chiropractic advocate, 2012 Hall of Fame Semi-finalist Roger Craig, was a pioneer in the NFL. He is the only player to ever make the Pro Bowl as a fullback and a halfback, the first player to rush and receive for over 1,000 yards in a single season -a feat that took 14 years to be duplicated, and he is the only running back in NFL history to ever lead the league in receptions. He is a three-time Super Bowl Champion and is the only NFL player to make the playoffs for eleven straight years.

Like many children, Roger began receiving chiropractic care at an early age and today, like the others, still receives chiropractic Lifestyle Care. In fact, Roger endorsed the #1 bestselling fitness book, The 100 Year Lifestyle Workout, which he recommends for athletes, young and old, because it stresses the importance of a healthy structure, spine and nervous system with chiropractic care as a core part of the training. This helps you maximize your performance, prevent injuries and support your longevity.

We’ve all seen videos of old time professional athletes who pounded their bodies into submission and became cripples when their career was over. This is not true for these three athletic superstars and it is no longer the norm as many professional, Olympic and youth sports programs have chosen to make chiropractic care a core part of their programs and many of the leaders of the Olympic sports medicine team today are chiropractors.

All three of these athletes took a tremendous beating over their careers which began in Little League and continued into the pros. Chiropractic care as a part of their lifestyle, training and overcoming injuries has helped show us all that you can play high-level sports and retain your health after you retire. We may even see you competing on Dancing With the Stars!

Don’t wait for an injury. If you’re an athlete or participate in an exercise program, be like these Hall of Fame and Super Bowl Champions. Make Chiropractic Lifestyle Care your top priority.

Raising Super Healthy Families

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Raising Super Healthy Families is the goal of every parent. Moms and dads innately want the best for their beloved. With the right health philosophy and action steps, you and your loved ones can enjoy an excellent quality of life together. Here’s a super healthy philosophy with some science and common sense to back it up.

Health comes from within. The moment you were conceived, one cell from your mother and one from your father united to form a unique and magnificent you. This united cell multiplied over and over again during the next nine months into 80 quadrillion cells without any help from the scientific community. Your heart, lungs, fingers and toes, were all positioned by your Innate Intelligence to develop and function properly.

As long as there is no interference to this process, everything can develop perfectly and you are prepared to be delivered into this world. This Innate Intelligence stays with you after you are born. With the nervous system as its conduit, this intelligence controls and coordinates the function of your entire body. Keeping this system free from interference is essential to a healthy life. This Innate philosophy strengthens you. It keeps you healthy in mind and body. If you teach this philosophy to your children you will raise them as strong, confident individuals who trust their body, immune system, and genetic potential. They will be “super” healthy kids.

On the other hand, teaching a drug-oriented philosophy from birth can lead to drug-dependency as an adult. Too many people buy into the philosophy that they need drugs to be healthy.

While this may be true in limited cases of extreme pain, sickness and disease, it is not true or healthy as an overall philosophy or lifestyle.

Think about the impact of a “drug first” philosophy. When your baby gets sick for the first time, you have a choice. If you do not have confidence in your child’s natural immune system, you might immediately panic and give your child a drug. In their toddler years when they get a cold or infection you may give them a drug right away so they won’t “suffer”. Each time they say they do not feel good, rather than rely on their body’s innate wisdom, do you call in a prescription or go to the store and get them an over-the-counter drug?

When your child is old enough to go to school, the teacher might inform you that they are struggling to concentrate or sit still. The child might be labeled and immediately given a drug.

What is the message that is constantly sent to a child under these “drug first” conditions? If a child is taught that they should take a drug every time they do not feel good, this drug-first behavior becomes conditioned. Is it any wonder that when this child has a minor ailment, does not make the team, or has a social conflict that they turn to drugs to “feel better?”

Your health care philosophy is your choice. The 100 Year Lifestyle and Chiropractic Lifestyle Care deliver an innate health care philosophy which is working for millions. It can also work for you and your family. Isn’t it time you begin trusting yourself and this innate philosophy and begin living the “super” healthy life that you and your children deserve?

A Picture Worth 1000 Words

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These x-ray pictures are worth 1,000 words about how people age that every person should know.

The three pictures represent neck x-rays of three different individuals who are in their mid- fifties with a very similar history of trauma over the years including mild sports injuries, car accidents, and head trauma.

The x-ray image on the left is of a person who has never received chiropractic care prior to the film being taken. The x-ray in the middle represents a person who has received chiropractic Crisis Care only at times when he was in acute pain. The person on the right has been receiving chiropractic Lifestyle Care for over 30 years. Here’s what we can learn from these images:

No Care: Notice the deterioration of the bone and the disc between C4, C5, C6 and C7. These segments look like a much older person because of the localized bone and joint decay. On the other hand, the segments above look fairly healthy as representing a much younger appearance like you might see in a healthy 20 to 30-year-old person. Yet this healthy and unhealthy appearance is within the same person who has had no chiropractic care to ensure a healthy alignment of his spine and proper function of his nervous system. At times of crisis, this person has resorted to medication and pain relieving treatments such as ice, physical therapies and exercise that masked the symptoms temporarily.

Now, unfortunately, this person has really limited range of motion and organic health problems related to the nerve deterioration and the bone deterioration in the affected areas.

Chiropractic care is providing relief and increased function and mobility, but a long-term correction may never occur. The symptom-based treatments have contributed to this person deteriorating more comfortably. It only takes one area like this to severely limit your life.

Crisis Care Only: The middle x-ray represents a patient who has had Crisis Care only. At times of injury or pain this person would mask the symptoms with medication and only go to a chiropractor to get relief from their condition that the adjustment or other modality would provide. The areas of decay are confined primarily to two segments, C-5 – C6. This person responded so quickly to his Crisis Care adjustments that he never followed through on correcting the underlying structure. This has allowed this patient’s spine and nervous system to deteriorate more comfortably over the years. The deterioration is limiting their function and can be affecting his health on organic levels even while no symptoms are present.

Lifestyle Care: This person is showing proper alignment with no decay and a near normal neck curve. This patient has no history of organ dysfunction and no limit in his range of motion or activity levels. The intensity of his Lifestyle Care varies based on the intensity of his lifestyle and can range from one visit per week to one visit per month.

We’ve known as early as the early 1900s through the Windsor Autopsy Study that spinal nerve deterioration can cause organic disease and dysfunction. We now know that the impact can be even more significant as it can affect the brain. Research has shown that 90percentsign of the stimulation to the brain comes from movement of the spine. A healthy spine and nervous system is vital to healthy aging on every level.

We are getting the advanced notice that our parents and grandparents never received that, whether we like it or not, we will probably live longer than we ever thought. Let’s learn from our grandparents’ generation and make the health of our spine and nervous system, chiropractic Lifestyle Care, a priority during every stage of life and not just wait for a crisis.

Why Posture Matters

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Did you know that your posture today can determine your future success in business, your day-to-day energy levels and how fast you age? Over the course of life, many of us can recall receiving posture reminders such as these:

A parent or grandparent admonishes, “Raise your chin up and quit slouching!”
A teacher demands, “Sit up straight in your chair!”
A drill sergeant commands, “Hold your shoulders back and chest out!”
A dance instructor reminds, “Find your center!”Since most adults no longer have someone nearby to dole out daily reminders, how does following – or not following – the instructions we grew up hearing early in life affect us in the coming years?

Success in the Business World

Harvard Business School recently distributed an article entitled, “The Power of Posture” stating that your stance, broadly speaking, signals to the world how energetic, confident, and powerful you are. Slumped shoulders, a slow pace, and a sagging belly are taken by the world to mean that you lack confidence, that you don’t have much energy, and that you are probably less important, successful, and powerful as a result. These impressions may be neither accurate nor fair, but they are the inevitable results of the fleeting impressions. Prior to your next meeting, take a couple of minutes to “power pose” by standing with your feet apart, hands on your hips, and breathe deep while you visualize a successful outcome to the meeting.

Depression and Energy

In the journal Biofeedback, a study found that simply choosing to alter body posture to a more upright position can improve mood and energy levels. The subjects walked down a hallway in a slouched position and then skipped down the hallway.

The whole group reported slouched walking decreased energy levels while skipping increased energy. The participants were also asked to rate their general depression levels. Those generally more depressed noted far lower energy levels after slouched walking than those who were generally not experiencing depression.

Rather than slouching, consciously bringing yourself upright can relieve dis-ease, low mood, and increase energy throughout the day. Try the 50/10 rule if you sit a lot at work. For every 50 minutes you sit, get up and move around for 10 minutes. Walk the halls with a colleague while discussing a project, take the stairs outside for a quick breath of fresh air or stand up and stretch while completing your calls at your desk.

Aging and Independence

Did you know that your posture can predict your future risk of disability? According to a Japanese study just published in Journals of Gerontology Series A the shape of a person’s spinal column may be an indicator of their need for home assistance later in life. If you knew you could do something now to change things down the road, would you do it? No one wants to require help with bathing, feeding, dressing, going to the bathroom and other simple activities of daily living later in life.

To check your posture or the posture of a loved one, schedule an appointment for a chiropractic examination today or contact our office and request a Posture Test form. It’s time to get your spine and nervous system checked for spine and nervous system imbalances whether you feel them or not.

The evidence is clear: If you want to live an active, healthy, long life, your ideal 100 Year Lifestyle, you’ve got to have a healthy spine and nervous system. Place your success, energy and independence at the top of your list by making your posture a high priority.

Trends, Casualties, and Control

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Longevity trends continue to show that people are living longer than ever. A recent article in The Atlantic (featured image) titled What Happens When We All Live to 100 reveals that life expectancy has increased by three months per year since 1840. If this trend continues, and it appears to be, life expectancy will be 88 by the middle of this century and 100 by the year 2100. This is a staggering statistic.

Interestingly according to The Atlantic, “the lengthening of life spans seems independent of any single, specific event. It didn’t accelerate much as antibiotics and vaccines became common. Nor did it retreat much during wars or disease outbreaks. The trend holds, in most years, in individual nations rich and poor.”
Make no mistake about it, the odds of you living longer than ever are increasing every day. This is happening whether you like it or not.

But how do you make sense of this if you or a loved one have been diagnosed with a life threatening disease or condition? We have all known someone whose life was sadly cut short because of an accident or an injury.

Sadly, there are going to be casualties along the way. Certainly there will be many people who we know that won’t make it to 100. Some people won’t make it to the age of 80. Others, tragically, may not even make it to college or even their first birthday. My father, for example, passed away at 78 after suffering from allopathic-induced Alzheimer’s for nearly a decade.

We all know people who have been casualties and passed way too soon, much younger than 100. This is a sad truth and a reality that each of us face when we are confronted with daily choices and the lifestyle that we choose to live.

This leads us to the important discussion about what we can control and what we cannot control. We cannot control when our time is up. However, for most of us, regardless of our family history, our potential is to live an active, healthy, quality life to 80, 90, 100 years and beyond. To get there in style and enjoy the journey along the way it is important that we make 100 Year Lifestyle choices.

Get Started Today

Create a vision for your extended life and make the changes that will support that vision. Develop good habits, make self-care, fitNESS and true healthcare a priority. Enjoy multiple generations and circles of people, lifelong learning, balancing your time between meaningful work and play time, make good financial choices and become more engaged and involved in the community. This whole life plan is what designing and living your ideal 100 Year Lifestyle is all about.

While the trends are likely to continue and the casualties may also affect our families, it doesn’t change the fact that you are still here and able to read this article. Of course, you can also use a little luck. You will find that the better your choices, the more luck you are likely to have.

Share this with a friend. Don’t use the casualties as an excuse to abuse yourself. Make the most of today, make healthier choices today and enjoy a sensational century!

Schedule an appointment for your family today.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/10/what-happens-when-we-all-live-to-100/379338/