Connection

Many people feel that our world is less connected than ever before. When you go to a restaurant it’s highly likely that you will look around the room and see multiple phones out and in use at the table. Instead of engaging in conversation, we’re looking at an electronic device. Maybe following our friend’s day, or our favorite celebrity’s current vacation. This is reality in 2017. Although, it’s up for debate about if it makes us less connected, or not. If anything, it probably makes us more connected than ever. We can pick up our device and connect with anyone in the world at any moment. There’s no shortage of options to communicate with each other and keep up on all the latest happenings. Connection is fundamental to a healthy life, in a variety of ways. The importance of connection can be found in all aspects of life, not just how we choose to interact or not at the dinner table. For example, our bodies rely on connection between the brain and body at all times. This system works by the brain sending a signal down the spinal cord, out the corresponding nerves to the location in the body that needs to perform a task. After the task is completed, the specific area of the body sends a signal back up to the brain to inform it that the job has been done. This information highway, called your nervous system, sends information back and forth each and everyday. Much like a call that has 4-bars of cell phone service, our bodies require a clear signal as well. When a...

At What Point Do You Go From Healthy to Unhealthy?

A healthy person has nothing but hopes and dreams to think about. A person who is sick and unhealthy has only one wish or dream. To be healthy again. When most people who are sick think about losing their health, they usually think back to the moment when they found out they weren’t healthy. Typically, when their doctor informed them of the results. Unfortunately, our health never changes in an instant. Truthfully, the process of going from healthy to sick takes months, and even years. In fact, the first moment someone notices a sign or symptom that they aren’t feeling “normal”, that was not the moment they became unhealthy, or sick. Symptoms can take months or years as well before they show up. Underneath the surface, the physiology was changing for a long-time beforehand. What can we do with this information? Well, the first thing would be to begin addressing our health now. Waiting till we ‘feel sick’ is not enough. As I mentioned above, if we wait that long, it’s already too late. Our body doesn’t move into a state of disease or sickness overnight. If we start to implement healthy strategies into our daily experience, our bodies will reap the benefits. These actions we take to improve our health do not need to be drastic. In fact, I highly recommend not to do a complete overhaul. Break this challenge off into bite-size pieces. Start by making a 5% change in your daily habits. Maybe you decide to have a healthier breakfast by making a green smoothie when you get up in the morning time. Or, maybe you...

The Bigger Picture

We all experience rhythms. They’re a natural part of the balance in this world. After all…without the rain, we’d have no rainbows. Without sadness, we’d have no such thing as happiness. It’s easy to look around our world today and see chaos. To some it may seem that there’s more now then ever before. This may be true. Or, it may be due to the role the media plays in our perception of reality. Regardless, there is no shortage of negativity. On the flip side, there is no shortage of positivity either. In America, we still to this day have live very fortunate lives. The opportunities are abundant here, and there is still the chance to make something of yourself. If we look around the globe, that isn’t necessarily the case. There are many countries where advancement is extremely difficult, or downright impossible. In these places they don’t worry about having enough money for Starbucks, they worry about when their next gulp of water will be. After a downturn, or negative cycle, it’s typical of us to sit in our protected homes and nice offices and wonder why our world is so horrible, or if we’ll have enough money to purchase a new car next year. Instead of pondering the negative, maybe we should compare. Compare with the other countries of the world. The less fortunate, and the so-called “industrialized” ones. It’s one thing to see our lives in the tiny bubble we habitate most days. However, it would benefit us to look outside and see what everyone else has to deal with on a daily basis. This is...

How It All Began

Many people are unaware that chiropractic has been around for over a hundred years. This month is the anniversary of the first adjustment, or, when chiropractic began. It all started in Iowa. A man named D.D. Palmer who liked to experiment with different healing modalities, originally discovered the profession. The story of how it began is actually very interesting. A janitor by the name of Harvey Lillard had been suffering from hearing loss. At his job he was constantly working bent over making him very prone to developing rounding of the shoulders, forward head posture, and a hump in his back. D.D. Palmer hypothesized that this might be problematic and asked if he could attempt to help him. What D.D. Palmer did was perform an adjustment specifically to Harvey Lillard’s neck. At that point in time, not as much was known about the nervous system as it is today. Although, they did know that the nervous system controlled everything else in the body. Immediately, after the adjustment Harvey Lillard regained his hearing. This was the moment when the chiropractic profession was born. D.D. Palmer went on to start several chiropractic schools. The original school, Palmer Chiropractic College, still bares his name to this day. From that point on chiropractic expanded and many more stories piled up telling of all the amazing testimonials similar to the one that had taken place in Iowa with D.D. and Harvey Lillard. Chiropractic focuses on the spine in order to impact and improve the function of the nervous system. Most people think of chiropractic as just a treatment for neck or low-back pain. Although,...

Reciprocity

Do unto others as you would have them do for you. Give and you shall receive. There’s no shortage of sayings like this in our culture today. They may sound cliché, but the reason they do is because they’re tried and true. Hands For Life was founded, among other things, to help those in our communities who don’t have access to doctors, get the opportunity to have natural healthcare in the form of Chiropractic. Through our giving and serving, we have been blessed tremendously in ways we could have never imagined. In the years we’ve been running Hands For Life, we’ve had people experience health breakthroughs, touched thousands of spines, created connections with leaders in various communities, and been able to watch feeble children grow into thriving teenagers. We serve out of our own abundance to those who may not be as fortunate. In return, we receive way more than we give. The friendships that have been created through our mission work in Tijuana are outstanding. The gratitude we get as doctors every weekend we go down to serve the people always inspires us to do more of the work. Positive emotions, such as fulfillment, go hand-in-hand with doing this work, and always pay us back ten-fold for any effort we put in. These experiences also create a feeling of connection that’s more powerful than any drug known to man. Reciprocity is the exchange that happens in any interaction. It can happen in the form of money, touch, energy, etc. Without it, someone feels cheated or taken advantage of. Many people are un-interested in mission work, or what some...

Chiropractic and Epigenetics

If you’re somewhat interested in health and the body you may have heard about the advancements in our understanding of Epigenetics. This is a field of study that looks at our environment and the role it plays on our health and bodies. For a long period of time, scientists and researchers thought that genes determined your destiny. In other words, if you had a certain gene for high blood pressure, then it was just a matter of time before you got it. This essentially made us victims without any control over what happens with our health. However, over the past ten-years we’ve discovered new information that proves genes aren’t the sole-determining factor in your health. In fact, they only play a minor roll. Actually, whas the biggest impact on your body and its health is the environment you’re entrenched in. This is what we call Epigenetics. For example, you could have a gene for high blood pressure, but you will also have a gene for normal blood pressure. The high blood pressure gene won’t turn on unless it’s signaled by the environment. What would this kind of signal look like? Typically, an environment that will trigger an unwanted or negative gene to express itself will be due to one or more stressors. The stressors could be, toxic air quality, fast food, lack of exercise, loss of sleep, etc. If your environment is negative and full of stress, then your chances of turning on these negative genes goes increases. The reason chiropractic plays a role Epigenetics is because of the research that shows chiropractic reducing stress in the body. Less...