Can Work Be Relaxing?

Not too many people would agree that "oh, yeah, my work is relaxing". Stressful work scenarios are common. If we work at a computer there are additional physiological stresses. Are there tactics we can employ at work in an overall strategy of causing our lives to be healthy, satisfying, and meaningful, as well as fun and relaxing? The answer is a resounding "yes"....

Read entire article here!

Flourishing

How do you determine whether your life is going well? Whether you're happy and fulfilled vs. merely going through the paces? Whether you're growing and developing as a person vs. merely expressing more of the same old, same old?...
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Man and Machine

Is a computer like a human brain or is a human brain like a computer? When machines allow us to extend our abilities, are we enhancing our humanness or becoming more machine-like? What are the meaningful distinctions between humans and machines and how do these impact our daily pursuits of health, well-being, and happiness?...

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Ebb and Flow

Ancient peoples closely observed and interacted with the rhythms of their immediate environment. The sun rose in the East and set in the West. Day followed night, and approximately 12 hours later night followed day. The seasons progressed through a more leisurely, although no less regular, rhythm. A season of rebirth and new growth followed a season of restriction and retrenchment.
Read the full article here 

Pathways Connect Gathering Group!

Join us for our next Pathways Gathering Group!

Tuesday, September 20th at 12:30 pm.

We will meet in the lower level of Vital Chiropractic and Wellness Center at 600 N 4th Street in Mount Vernon.

What is Pathways Connect Gathering Group?

Pathways Connect

Pathways Connect: Establishing the Wellness Community

The purpose of Pathways Connect is to provide the resources and tools to introduce and foster the family wellness lifestyle in your community.

Using Pathways magazine as the primary resource, practitioners in your community are hosting Pathways Gathering Groups in their offices so families can come together and share their experiences and visions for conscious living choices.

These Gathering Groups will be meeting monthly and parents will have the opportunity to come to discuss issues most important to their family wellness lifestyle. The practices that are hosting these gatherings will offer complimentary Pathways magazines for group discussion.

Parents, take this opportunity to meet like-minded community members and utilize these groups to build social and health connections. Attendance at the Gathering Groups does not require membership or fees of any kind...ever. Come, take some time out of your day to nourish and expand your parenting options.

Have You Been Suffering From Chronic Knee Pain?

Chronic knee pain is notoriously difficult to treat successfully. Persons with these problems often become discouraged as they shuttle from specialist to specialist, from rheumatologist to orthopedic surgeon to physical therapist to acupuncturist and back again. Lack of progress and improvement becomes understandable when one considers that typical evaluation and treatment are directed at the symptoms. But with chronic knee pain, and many other pain syndromes, actual benefits may be obtained by addressing underlying biomechanical problems.

Read the entire article here!

Could Your Lifestyle be Making You Sick?

What is your lifestyle? Not whether you are married or where you live, but rather, how are you choosing to live your life? What choices are you making to keep yourself and your family healthy and well?

It is startling to learn that some of the most prevalent causes of illness, disease, and death – including cancer, heart disease, and diabetes – are all heavily influenced by lifestyle...

Read more here!

Pathways Connect Gathering

Join us for our monthly Pathways Connect Gathering where families come together to create and support each other in the wellness lifestyle for their families. Open to everyone looking to connect and share their challenges and successes! Free.


Monday, May 16th @ 5 pm.

Topics for this month:

• The Bread Trap: Going Gluten Free
• Chiropractic Care for Families
• Pit of Despair: The Use and Overuse of Pitocin.
• What a Body Knows: Does Health Care Have Anything to do with Health?

Happy Mother's Day!

Thank you to all the mother's on this day. I hope you know how truly special your "job" is. And thank you to all the mother's who let me aid in our health and wellness for you and your family. Love and blessings today and always!

Dr. Cheryl

Everybody knows that a good mother gives her children a feeling of trust and stability. She is their earth. She is the one they can count on for the things that matter most of all. She is their food and their bed and the extra blanket when it grows cold in the night; she is their warmth and their health and their shelter; she is the one they want to be near when they cry. She is the only person in the whole world in a whole lifetime who can be these things to her children. There is no substitute for her. Somehow even her clothes feel different to her children's hands from anybody else's clothes. Only to touch her skirt or her sleeve makes a troubled child feel better.-Katharine Butler Hathaway

Check out the classes coming up at Vital Chiropractic!

We are happy to announce some incredible upcoming classes at Vital Chiropractic.

1) Pathways Connect.

Starting Monday, April 18th we will be holding monthly Pathways Connect get togethers. The purpose of Pathways Connect is to provide the resources and tools to introduce and foster the family wellness lifestyle in our community and families. We will discuss various wellness topics that pertain to current family wellness and growth. This will be a great way to gather with other families, ask questions and gain knowledge in natural healthcare!

Monday, April 18th 5 pm.
Cost: Free

2) Natural treatments and care for ADD, ADHD, Autism and Sensory Processing Disorders.

This will be an informative class on non-medical approaches to helping children with these disorders or challenges. Information will be provided that will help kids with challenges in school, socially and academically, to children with more extreme neurological challenges. Bring your questions and open mind to learn. You will leave the class with things you can start doing immediately to help.

Monday, April 25th 5 pm.
Cost: Free

3) Purification and weigh management program.

 
Purification is merely the internal cleansing and detoxification of your body. Think of it as "spring cleaning" for your insides.

Why do I need purification?

Purification, also known as detoxification, can help you remove natural toxins from your body and help maintain a healthy weight. We are exposed to external toxins everyday, including pollutants, pesticides, and chemicals. Internally our bodies produce waste byproducts as a result of normal metabolic function. Although your body is designed to rid itself of these toxins naturally, it can become overburdened. Purification offers your body additional support to expel natural toxins and minimize your weight, which is important to maintaining your health and vitality.

Toxins can contribute to a wide range of conditions:

* Stuffy head
* Fatigue or difficulty sleeping
* Digestion and other gastrointestinal problems
* Food cravings and weight gain
* Reduced mental clarity
* Low libido

What are the benefits of purification?

A purification program can have a significant, positive effect on the biochemistry of the body while allowing natural toxins and byproducts of daily metabolism to be eliminated. By participating in a purification program, you may notice the following:

* Improved weight management results
* Increased energy/vitality
* Better digestion
* Less bloating
* Clearer skin
* Shinier hair
* Better sleep
* Clearer thinking
* Disappearance or lessening of past conditions†

How is purification different than any other diet?

The Standard Process Purification Program is not a diet. It is a program that helps you live a healthier life by purifying, nourishing, and maintaining a healthy body and weight.

Our purification program emphasizes supplements and whole foods, particularly fruits and vegetables, while limiting high-calorie, refined foods and saturated fats. Nourishing yourself with nutrient-rich foods will provide the complex combination of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants that are needed to protect the body and promote optimal health.

This is a weekly program that runs for 4 weeks. The first date is Wednesday, April 27th from 5:30-6:30.

The program includes program guide, weekly contact with the doctor, all supplements and meal suggestions/recipes.

Limit is 10 participants. Call our office for more information or to sign up.

The Luck of the Draw

The Luck of the Draw

We Can Make Our Own Luck

Making your own luck with respect to good health involves taking various actions on your own behalf. In fact "luck" itself, without any help from us, only goes so far. For example, you could be lucky and blessed with a fast metabolism. That's great, you can eat whatever you want and not put on much weight. But is eating exclusively from the three main food groups of pasta, pizza, and peanut butter what you really want to do? Well, yes, but it's important to recognize that there is a down side. Eventually your metabolism will rebel against this slog-fest and betray you. You'll begin to put on weight and it may take a long time to reverse this trend, even after you've switched to a more sensible diet. Similarly, health check-ups are a smart lifestyle choice. Chiropractic check-ups help ensure your body is functioning at peak levels. If some optimizing is needed, your chiropractor will recommend treatment that will get you back to being fit. They'll also be able to answer your questions about diet and exercise, helping you plan choices and activities that will keep you and your family healthy and well.

Some people do all the right things and still develop serious health problems. Others flaunt their bad habits and are able to live long lives, dying peacefully in their sleep at the age of 95. For example, high blood pressure (hypertension, HTN) is a common chronic disease in the United States. With HTN a person's heart has to work much harder, all the time, to pump the blood needed by the rest of the body. HTN is associated with heart attacks and stroke, and hypertensive heart disease is a leading cause of death. ¹

HTN is often described as a lifestyle disease. ^2,3 Those who are overweight and/or obese (this characterizes two-thirds of American adults) are at increased risk for HTN, as are persons with diabetes. People who don't exercise regularly are more likely to develop high blood pressure, as are those who smoke cigarettes. In fact, overweight/obesity, lack of exercise, and tobacco use are the top three causes of HTN.

Obviously, achieving an average weight, exercising regularly, and stopping smoking (or never starting) are three main lifestyle actions related to decreasing one's risk of developing HTN. But some people who are slim, have exercised all their lives, and do not smoke may still develop high blood pressure. In such a case, HTN is termed "essential hypertension". The person has a very healthy lifestyle, there are no risk factors for HTN, and still they become hypertensive. That is the luck of the draw, otherwise known as a genetic predisposition to this disease.

In a contrasting example, a few people may smoke two packs of cigarettes a day since age 15, drink a quart of gin every few days, and never get really sick. They don't develop lung cancer or liver cancer and have no problems with HTN or heart disease, and live lives that fly in the face of all received wisdom in the field of public health. They continue to thrive well into their 80s and beyond and love to tell their well-meaning friends and relatives, "I've never been sick a day in my life" while lighting up another cigarette. Such persons are described by epidemiologists as outliers, those whose health parameters represent an outlying 2.5% or less of the standard values. Their luck of the draw lies in possessing an indestructible constitution.

Of course the exceptions only prove the rule. Their existence does not suggest that rules for good health should not be observed. Regular vigorous exercise and a healthful diet containing plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables are important for all of us, young and old. Chiropractic care is an important component of the lifestyle mix. Chiropractic care helps people, young and old, achieve the best health possible. This natural form of health care helps take the "luck" out of the equation. We can make our own luck and chiropractic helps us do that in the arena of health and well-being.

¹Zhang WW, et al: Hypertension and TIA. Int J Stroke 4(3):206-214, 2009
²Schmid AA, et al: Current blood pressure self-management: a qualitative study. Rehabil Nurs 34(6):223-229, 2009
³Pascual JM, et al: Body weight variation and control of cardiovascular risk factors in essential hypertension. Blood Press 18(5):247-254

Image: dan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The Natural World

Getting Healthy and Staying Healthy with Chiropractic Care

Nutritious food and regular exercise will only go so far if your nervous system is not working properly. Spinal nerve irritation can block the free flow of information between your brain and the rest of your body, interfering with healthy functioning and leading to a wide range of diseases. Irritated nerves cause too many nerve signals or too few nerve signals to flow between the brain and the body. Information transfer is either speeded up or slowed down - either situation leads to a breakdown in communication and results in various disorders and diseases. Your chiropractor is a specialist in detecting and correcting spinal nerve irritation or nerve interference. Chiropractic adjustments help restore normal nerve transmission, helping restore optimal health and well-bein

The natural world functions very well on its own. Left to their own devices, members of the tens of millions of species on our planet thrive and prosper without relying on outside agencies.

In order to grow abundantly, plants consume carbon dioxide, water, and nutrients from the soil. Likewise, herbivorous animals consume plants whereas carnivorous animals consume other animals. Insects eat a wide variety of foods, including plants, fruit, other insects, detritus (dead leaves, stems, and twigs), and even blood. Many types of bacteria and fungi recycle decomposing matter. Whales, the top predator in the oceans, may consume more than a ton of plankton per day in addition to fish, squid, and other crustaceans.

Every member of every species excepting humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) obtains everything it needs from the environment. Modern humanity is the only species for which the abundance provided by the global ecosystem is insufficient.

For instance, mountain lions, raccoons, and coyotes don't need sleeping pills. But humans spend more than $1.5 billion per year on the sleep aid Ambien. Dolphins, antelope, and bluebirds don't have problems with blood glucose levels. In stark contrast, the annual cost of diabetes medications in the United States was $12.5 billion in 2007. In the wild, oak trees, tuna, and elephants don't need nutritional supplementation. Humans, however, spend more than $23 billion annually in the United States alone. What is wrong with this picture?

As a species, humans have the unprecedented ability to manipulate and drastically alter the world in which we live. Also aside from epidemic infectious disease, there exists no natural check on human population growth. As populations expand, resources become scarce. Populations flocking to urban enclaves not only leave behind the countryside but also local sources of fresh fruits, vegetables, meat and poultry. Canning, packaging, and transportation of food over long distances become necessary to supply the energy needs of cities. But only calories and not much else are obtained by these methods. Energy is provided but food quality is substantially reduced.

Chronic disease becomes widespread. Diabetes, cardiovascular disorders including high blood pressure, heart attacks, and stroke, and obesity are all the direct result of a severely compromised food supply.^1,2,3

Our disconnect from the natural world poses many additional challenges. Our bodies were designed to meet the demanding physical requirements of a hostile environment. But for the most part we don't do physical work anymore. If we don't find satisfactory substitutes for strenuous physical activity our musculoskeletal, metabolic, and endocrine  systems easily deteriorate. The consequences include osteoporosis, chronic aches and pains, gastrointestinal problems, and anxiety and depression.

It takes a lot of effort to maintain good health when we're so far removed from the natural world. We need to make sure our diets are healthy and we need to get sufficient and regular strenuous exercise. The short- and long-term benefits include happiness, self-esteem, and ongoing well-being.

¹Kesse-Guyot E, et al: Adherence to nutritional recommendations and subsequent cognitive performance: findings from the prospective Supplementation with Antioxidant Vitamins and Minerals 2. Am J Clin Nutr Nov 24 2010 (Epub ahead of print)

²Wolfe AR, et al: Dietary protein and protein-rich food in relation to severely depressed mood: A 10 year follow-up of a national cohort. Prog Neuropsychopharmacol Biol Psychiatry Nov 22 2010 (Epub ahead of print)

³Pekmezi DW, Demark-Wahnefried W: Updated evidence in support of diet and exercise interventions in cancer survivors. Acta Oncol Nov 24 2010 (Epub ahead of print)

Let me be free!

Today's American parent has access to the best equipment, technology and information. But is it all good? Information is always good to have but be wary of the sources. Technology is always good to have but be wary of the improper use of power. Equipment is always good to have, but one should also be wary of its disadvantages.

Our bodies and minds are born to experience, create and move. When we use "advances" to avoid doing this our mind and body suffers. We see this most in infants. We now have bucket car seats, strollers, walkers, cribs, jumperoos, bumbos, etc. While these may be convenient they are not the best for baby's neurological development. Babies need to be carried, close to the body of mom or dad as infants. They need to be free to move to discover their body and build proper neurological connections between their brain and their body. If this doesn't happen, they don't properly develop and it can create a cascading effect of improper function.

My advice, let your children be "free" to explore, move and create. Love them and trust that nature know what it is doing.

Diet and Fertility.

Many women today experience troubles conceiving or carrying a baby to term. The causes of this are highly unknown and this is very stressful and discouraging to couples trying to have a baby. Some of the potential causes of infertility have pointed to stress and diet.

In one study Vitamin C supplementation found an increase in fertility in some women and a decrease in repeated miscarriages. The study suggested that vitamin C improved hormonal levels by repairing oxidative damage caused by toxins and stress, especially in the luteal phase stage of a woman's cycle. (Fertility and Sterility (2003;80:459–61))

Luteal phase defect is the cause of infertility in approximately 5% of women and in 35% of women who experience repeated miscarriage.

Foods high in vitamin C:
* Sweet red bell peppers
* Parsley
* Broccoli
* Cauliflower
* Strawberries
* Mustard greens
* Papaya
* Grapefruit
* Kiwi
* Oranges
* Cantaloupe
* Cabbage
* Tomatoes
* Raspberries
* Celery
* Spinach
* Pineapple
* Watermelon
* Tangerines
* Limes
* Cranberries
* Guava

Are you connected?

When you do a clean restore on your computer, you restore the initial factory settings. You wipe the slate clean of all the junk - unnecessary programs, spyware, and viruses that have accumulated along the way. The result is a clean, lean machine that runs faster and works much better.

Extending the connectivity metaphor, is it possible to do a clean restore on your body? In one sense, definitely not. You'd first need to backup all the things that make you who you are - the things you've learned, your experiences, your personality. The cells of your body retain these sorts of memories, too, and your environmental experiences have a significant impact on your DNA. In another sense, though, it is possible to do a clean restore, on a cell-by-cell basis. Your body's cells are constantly renewing themselves, doing their own versions of a clean restore. If you provide the appropriate inputs in the form of healthy, nutritious food, plenty of regular exercise, and sufficient rest, your new cells will be faster, smarter, and better than the ones they are replacing.

Being connected is very important in our modern world. Could you imagine how you’d feel if you left your cell phone at home? For teenagers, a cell phone is much more than a tool. For teens, cell phones are status symbols, but they also represent a connection to the tribe, a connection to their human network. For teens and adults, cell phones are lifelines. What about web connectivity? Many of us begin to experience withdrawal symptoms if we’re separated from our Internet connection for more than a hour. Others check their email every few minutes, ongoingly, throughout the day, every day.

We may feel secure if we’re well connected in the external electronic world, but it’s even more important to be well connected in the internal physiologic world. In the external world we think in terms of networks, primarily in terms of Internet connections. In the internal world networks are the key, too - neurologic networks, of which our nerve system is comprised.1,2

The nerve system consists of the brain, cranial nerves, spinal cord, spinal nerves, and miles of peripheral nerves which connect the spinal cord and spinal nerves to every other cell in the body. In the body, the rules are simple. If a cell is not connected to the nerve system, the cell's activities become disorganized and it becomes diseased and eventually dies. In a related scenario a cell may be connected, but the nerve signals it is receiving are inaccurate or inappropriate, due to problems within the nerve system itself. The results are the same - the cell's activities become disorganized and it becomes diseased and eventually dies. If enough cells are affected, the person develops symptoms and becomes sick.

"Problems" within the nerve system often result from spinal subluxations - a loss of full mobility between one or more pairs of spinal vertebras, with associated spinal muscle tightness or spasm, spinal joint inflammation, and spinal nerve irritation. The free flow of information between the nerve system and the rest of the body becomes compromised. Both ends of the network receive inappropriate, ineffective information and the result is a "system crash" in the form of symptoms and disease.

Chiropractic health care is especially designed to restore effective connectivity and communication between your nerve system and your other body systems.3 Your chiropractor specializes in identifying the spinal subluxations at the root of the problem and using gentle, safe, effective methods of care to restore proper balance to your spine and nerve system. Optimal functioning begins to be restored and improved levels of health and well-being are the natural result.

1. Coward LA: The hippocampal system as the cortical resource manager: a model connecting psychology, anatomy and physiology. Adv Exp Med Biol 657:315-364, 2010

2. Saur D, et al: Combining functional and anatomical connectivity reveals brain networks for auditory language comprehension. Neuroimage 49(4):3187-3197, 2010

3. Taylor HH, Murphy B: Altered central integration of dual somatosensory input after cervical spine manipulation. J Manipulative Physiol Ther 33(3):178-188, 2010

Adjustment of Baby Samantha

This precious little girl was adjusted at 1 day old, this is her second check and adjustment at 5 days old.