How to Reduce Stress in the New Year

Bottom Line: Are you overwhelmed by stress? Well, you’re not alone. Studies show over 54% of people are concerned with the amount of stress in their daily life. Many of us carry this stress in our shoulders and neck. Muscle tension in our shoulders can contribute to headaches, neck and back pain. Chronic stress can lower your energy levels resulting in irritability, illness, and even depression. But, there is good news! A few simple changes to your daily routine can help you dramatically decrease your stress level, boost your energy, and ultimately live a healthier and happier life. Keep reading to learn how.

Why it Matters: One of the best ways you can increase your energy levels and reduce stress is with motion! Our bodies are built to move. Improving spinal motion, or segmental motion is one the ways that chiropractic adjustments help you move and feel better. Research has shown that chiropractic adjustments can significantly reduce muscle tension in the shoulders, helping reduce pain, improve range of motion, and decrease stress!

“…cervical muscle tension was significantly reduced bilaterally after (an adjustment).”
“…we observed metabolic changes in the brain and skeletal muscles, as well as reductions in subjective pain, muscle tension… (after a chiropractic adjustment)”

Next Steps: If you know someone who gets sick around the holidays it is likely due to stress. Show them you care and share this research with them. These simple tips for reducing stress will help them have a happier and healthier holiday season!

Science Source:
Glucose Metabolic Changes in the Brain and Muscles of Patients with Nonspecific Neck Pain Treated by Spinal Manipulation Therapy
Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, Volume 2017. Article ID 4345703
Central Motor Excitability Changes After Spinal Manipulation: A Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Study
Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics. Volume 25. Number 1. January 2002
Stress in America Survey. American Psychological Association. 2010

Advertisement

15 Minutes a Day

What can you do in 15 minutes that could impact your life on a daily basis?

Walk a mile

Visit your chiropractor

Fix a salad for lunch

Do your towel roll exercises

Meditate

Sit down with your family and learn about each others day

Stretch

Plan out tomorrows schedule

All of the above have a place in a healthy lifestyle, but in the American “go! go! go! culture”, we rarely sit and smell the roses.

As a chiropractor, I see the bombardment of advertisements that have permeated our culture. These products are used to overcome aches, pains, and feelings that would be alleviated by simply taking care of ourselves, slowing down, and de-stressing

The Chiropractic Adjustment doesn’t cure a single thing, but simply removes pressure on the nervous system that causes dysfunction in the communication pathways, then the body starts to react as it should and begins to adapt to its environment. As an example – take your cell phone dip it in water and see how the communication pathways in its circuit boards are interfered with… That is what you’re doing to your spine…. Now you can put your cell phone in rice and it may work again but it will never be the same, some of the function will be lost… each time it gets wet it will get worse until you have to replace it…. FYI your spine can’t be replaced!

In the end, the Go Go Go Culture takes better care of their cellphones than they do their spines.

Yours in Health,

Trace Palmer, DC

Athletes, Sports, and Chiropractic

Recently we were at Armstrong University for a high school band competition. Each high school performed its pieces with distinctive differences. Ether it was a horn out of tune or a drum out of sync, the cacophony of sounds drowned out the wonderful musicians. But the bands with the least malfunctions were able to perform a symphony of sound that were almost magical. This is also how we view an athletes performance.

Runners use their unconscious brains to perform a symphony of motion that utilizes over 400 of  the 642 skeletal muscles in the body to achieve a magical performances. Lets take you from your big toe to you shoulder – your big toe to the  foot, to the ankle, to the leg, to the knee, to the hip, to the sacrum, up the spine, to the first rib, to the sternum, and to the shoulder . How many joints did we cross? How many muscles moved those joints? And how many nerves controlled the function? In a rough guess I counted 47 and that just joints….  If just one of joints isn’t performing correctly, the body will make a compensation to try to override the lack of function.  Lack of function robs you of the ability to decrease times, finish races, and reach goals. Sports Chiropractors look at the body as a whole and do assessments looking for areas of weakness. Most nervous system and joint malfunctions are the main culprits of muscle weakness and compensation.

Like fine-tuning a race car, a pre-competition chiropractic check and adjustment of the mis-aligned vertebra can give an athlete a peak performance advantage. Notable athletes like Evander Holyfield, Brian Johnson, Jerry Rice, Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods,  Joe Montana, Usain Bolt, Keflezighi, Marlo Runyan, Alicia Shay, and Adam & Kara Goucher have benefited from chiropractic care to achieve peak performances.

Yours in Health,

Trace Palmer, D.C.

2000 Sidney Olympics – Credentialed Chiropractor

2001 CONCACAF World Cup Eliminations – Credentialed Chiropractor

2001 Copa America – Columbia – Credentialed Chiropractor

2001 Pan American Triathlon Championships – Credentialed Chiropractor

%d bloggers like this: