You have a new bundle of joy. You have waited 9 months for this moment, but it isn’t turning out the way you expected. Your baby just doesn’t stop crying, you are lacking sleep and you just don’t know what you can do. You are not alone. Infantile colic affects approximately 10-20% of newborns every year.

Infantile colic is categorized as excessive, inconsolable crying that lasts longer than 3 hours, for at least three days a week and for at least three weeks. The baby has an inability to be settled, intestinal problems, a strong sucking urge, flatulence and abdominal distention.

While the exact cause of colic is unknown, many all-natural approaches provide swift relief for colicky babies. Chiropractic care focuses on prevention more than cures, therefore your Doctor of Chiropractic at Neurohealth can help educate you, as parents, to help stave off colic.

1. Start with the spine and skull bones (Cranials). Here at Neurohealth Chiropractic, your chiropractors regularly care for babies with colic or irritable baby syndrome – and often see exceptional results.

Colicky infants often have subtle misalignments of the bones of their spine (vertebrae) and/or restrictions in the normal movement of the bones of the skull. These dysfunctions are called vertebral subluxations or joint restrictions. These restrictions are normally related to the upper cervical complex or the occipital bone. If these bones are restricted, they can interfere with the way the baby can suck on the nipple or bottle, causing air to go into the stomach and discomfort. They also can compress the vagus nerve, which is crucial to stomach health.

You might ask how does a newborn baby get a restriction of these bones? The process of being born can be the first instance when a baby has stress and trauma to their bodies. A normal delivery puts immense stress on the baby as they move through the birth canal. As the baby presents to the cervix, they must turn in the birth canal to help the shoulders move through. The cranial bones have the great ability to compress to help reduce the diameter of the skull to help this. Then we add onto this any intervention that was needed to help deliver the baby i.e. forceps, ventouse or vacuum extraction, the pulling of the head by the midwife/obstetrician to help the baby out, breech babies and long labor where the baby was in the birth canal for an extended period of time.

So you might think that caesarean might be better because they can take the baby straight out with the compressing. The answer is no. C-sections are major abdominal surgery, are stressful and they can still use extraction techniques. Being born by a vaginal delivery provides more health benefits than caesareans. The compression of the birth canal on the baby’s body helps prepare their nervous systems and they are able to get the good gut flora into their digestive tracts from the mother.

Many parents worry that chiropractic adjustments are ‘too rough’ for a newborn babies spine. What these parents don’t realise is that doctors of chiropractic use extremely gentle modified techniques when caring for infants. Pediatric chiropractic adjustments involve the very slightest of pressure, applied with the chiropractic fingertips. The amount of force used is the amount of pressure you can apply to your own eyeball without pain. This is less force than when a baby is lifted or gently rocked.

In the scientific department, there has been research from Denmark, South Africa that has shown some support to the link between colic and spinal health.

One survey of 132 parents of infants with colic, 91 percent reported improvement after an average of two to three chiropractic adjustments (Eur J Chiropr 1985; 33:264-5) and with another three month analysis study of 316 babies with colic, had a 94 percent benefit from chiropractic adjustments (J Manipulative Physiol Ther 1989; 12:281-8)

2. Breastfeed baby. There is much said about the benefits of breastfeeding your newborn and trying for as long as possible. But when it comes to colic, breastfed babies are less likely to experience colic compared with bottle-fed infants (Archives of Disease in Childhood 2000; 83:302-3). However, in some cases mums are told that there newborn is allergic to their breast milk. These allergies are most often caused by what the mum is eating and drinking instead of an outright allergy. See point below “watch your diet” for more information.

If you do choose to bottle-feed, choose a bottle nipple that is has a hole that is not too small that will frustrate them and make them gulp for more food, or too large, which would cause the liquid to come at them too quickly. You want to also use a hypoallergenic formula that does not contain cow’s protein. Goat’s milk does not contain the protein called casein, which is most responsible to the intolerances that we see with humans, and cows milk.

3. Baby Positioning. The position of the baby when feeding can greatly influence a newborn’s risk of colic. Holding a baby in a more upright position when feeding can help prevent the intake of air and help in the burping process. It can also help with the way the milk travels into their tummies.

Also when the baby is sleeping, having a slight angle with the head being higher than the bottom can help with this milk travelling in and then out of the stomach.

Some new mothers find great benefit from meeting with their midwife or a lactation consultant to perfect breastfeeding techniques to help with latching, and to prevent their baby from swallowing air whilst nursing.

5. The Colic Carrying position. This is where you carry the baby, chest down, on you extended forearm, with his head supported by your hand and hips either side of your elbow. This allows the person to use their other hand to provide additional support and walk around with the baby.

6. Watch your diet. As mentioned before, this is crucial for mums that breastfeed – particularly those that have a colicky baby. Research has shown that these mums should pass up specific foods. The major ones are caffeinated drinks (coffee, cola, tea), garlic, gas-producing vegetables, spicy foods and dairy products (milk, cheese, yoghurt, ice cream). Cow’s milk protein is an especially potent colic-provoking culprit.

7. Make time for massage. Massage has been shown to help newborns develop a regular sleep cycle, which means more hours of uninterrupted sleep for mothers of colicky infants (Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Peadiatrics 2002; 23:410-15). The results of this study showed a clear, and long-term effect on helping develop a circadian rhythm by the use of massage therapy.

8. Burp them regularly. Try to burp your colic baby every ten minutes during a feed. This will allow air to escape, diminishing the chances of the colic to arise.

9. Quiet down and eliminate frantic feeding. This might seem obvious but in today’s frenzied lifestyle, families can be subject to nonstop activity. The bombardment of stimuli can rub off onto the baby – triggering anxiety and colic.

Try and feed your baby before they are totally starving – if they are crying with hunger, they are more than likely to gulp air along with their feed. Feeding them in a calm environment, such as with the lights down, soft music and trying to get the siblings to play quietly (you can always hope).

As you finally get rid of the Easter chocolate that you have been working through over the past couple weeks, I thought I would introduce you to a “superfood” that will help you with those sweet chocolate fixes.

My wife is addicted to chocolate. So over the past few years she has looked for and found anyway she can to be healthy while still getting in her staple chocolate. Her answer is… “cacao”. For those of you who think that’s spelled incorrectly, it’s not.  Cacao is cocoa in it’s raw form. From the cacao bean, it is processed using heat and other manufacturing techniques into cocoa. By the time it gets to us in chocolate bars, all the yummy goodness has been processed out of it.

In the 16th century, cacao was cherished, it was actually a form of money and only the wealthiest of people actually ate it. People even had cacao gods that they prayed too.

These people knew the value of the cacao wasn’t just the bean itself, but because of the benefits of consuming this mouth watering food. One of the best properties of cacao is it’s high content of magnesium. It is said that “over 80% of the US population is deficient in magnesium” (Naked Chocolate). Magnesium supports the heart, increases brain power, helps with bowel movements, relaxes cramping during menstruation, relaxes muscles and helps build strong bones.

Studies have been done on rats to show that the effect of using cacao as a supplement to increase magnesium levels actually corrected the rats negative effects from the magnesium deficiency.

Not only does it help increase your magnesium levels but it’s super high in anti-oxidants. We all know that we want anti-oxidants to make us look and feel younger, right?

The benefits of cacao go on, but really you have to try it to believe it! Cacao tastes different to cocoa and processed chocolate bars. It’s more bitter, but still delicious.

There are so many ways to eat cacao, you wouldn’t believe me. I suggest if you want to go out and start using this “superfood”, you google it and have a look at the recipes. We make delicious smoothies, the most divine chocolate mousse, our son has it on his oats in the morning, chocolate balls… anywhere that you could eat chocolate, you can eat cacao… And then some!

Now the even better thing about cacao, is that usually what you mix it with is also packed with nutrients. In our “mousse” we use, cashews, cacao and bananas.  In chocolate balls, we use cacao, dates, nuts, etc… So all of our “treats” are loaded with good for you ingredients. I can actually feel good about giving our son chocolate treats. It doesn’t have to be a “reward”, but can be a daily occurrence.

So instead of feeling guilty about having chocolate, feel good that you are feeding yourself a nutrient-dense “superfood” and enjoy every morsel.  Oh… one other thing I love about cacao is that because it’s so rich, you won’t want to sit down and binge on it. Healthy for you and not making you fat!  Now that’s my kind of chocolate.

Here is one of our favourite cacao ball recipes.  It’s SOO easy to make!

1 cup of walnuts

1 cup of dates (pitted)

1/4 cup of cacao

a small handful of sultanas for a bit more sweetness

Desiccated or flaked Coconut

Put them into a food processor and blend together.

Roll into balls and then into coconut.

EAT!

By the way… You can get cacao at your local health food store. Make sure you note the spelling… The store can have cacao and cocoa right next to each other.

When we think of acid reflux, we often think of that uncomfortable acid burn we get in our chests or our throat, often after a rich meal. For people who suffer from reflux, often they are diagnosed with a condition known as GORD- Gastro-Oesophogeal Reflux Disorder. A fancy name for reflux that doesn’t provide any real help or solutions to the problem.

One of the most common treatments for acid reflux is to take a prescription or over the counter antacid to manage the symptoms. However, this may not be treating the cause of the problem, but perpetuating it further, in which case it is easy to get caught up in a cycle of needing stronger and stronger antacids while the condition worsens.

The sphincter around the top of your stomach that controls the passage of acid back up into the oesophagus is actually regulated by the pH levels of your stomach- that is, how acidic your stomach environment is. Ideally, the environment should be very acidic (pH 1-3) in order to help digest and absorb the bulk of our food. It is this pH that helps regulate the sphincter. If the pH is too high, (as in moving towards neutral or alkaline and hence NOT acidic), this sphincter relaxes. The lack of acidity in the stomach means that food is not digested as well or as quickly, so it ferments. This fermentation causes a lot of gas (burping, bloating, flatulence), and this gas pressure can force acid back up the oesophagus – reflux!

This unfortunately is why antacids may only have a temporary relieving effect but may be making the problem worse long term, as they are decreasing the acidity of the stomach and relaxing the gastro-oesophageal sphincter even further.

Causes of low stomach acid can be structural, nutritional or even emotional. Structurally, any fixations in the spine around the nerves supplying the stomach and digestive system can interfere with the functioning of the stomach. Also for anyone who sits for the majority of the day, the deep tissues around the stomach can get tight and compressed, binding it in a way that interferes with your digestion.

Nutritionally, a poor diet can create strain on your stomach acid. Often low stomach acid can be attributed to a zinc or B6 deficiency. These minerals can be depleted by a nutrient poor diet or high levels of stress. And of course, long term use of antacids can decrease these acid levels as well.

To find out if any of these factors are contributing to your reflux problem, we can do some quick checks and corrections using kinesiology and muscle testing.

There’s an old saying that goes when you step on a dog’s tail, it barks out the other end. In Chiropractic, that means where you hurt (the bark) isn’t necessarily where the problem is (the tail). Many times the symptom you feel in one area is due to a remote cause. For example, someone with sciatica may feel pain down their leg, but the cause of the problem is a Vertebral Subluxation in their spine.

Chiropractors know that if you address the cause of the symptom, the body will no longer have need to produce it. That’s why Chiropractors focus on fixing underlying problems and not superficial effects. Chasing after symptoms is like a dog chasing its own tail – spinning around and around until it gets dizzy, confused and frustrated.  It’s much smarter to address the underlying cause from the start.

Sounds obvious doesn’t it? But so often we mistake the sweet sugary drinks that we consume everyday as something that is helping to keep us hydrated. You may hear your chiropractor, or many other health professionals yap on and on about how you should be drinking more water. But really, we mean it!! Your body is 70% water, so what do you think is of vital importance to keep our cells running the way they need to? You guessed it! Good old filtered H2O, and plenty of it. Often problems with sore and tight muscles can be related to dehydration. If your body doesn’t have enough water to function, where do you think it will utilise what it has – the cells of your vital organs or those of your muscles?

When people ask how much water they should drink, they are usually shocked. You actually need approximately 1 litre for every 25kg of your body weight. So if you are 75kg, you need 3 litres of water every day. There is more of you, so you need that amount of water to keep your body working at its peak.

The next biggest concern people have is that they will be going to the bathroom all day. Going to the bathroom is not actually a bad thing! It means you are flushing toxins and wastes out of your system at the same rate or quicker than they are accumulating. If you pace your water over the day, this helps as well. Drinking a standard 600ml bottle around 4 times a day is much easier on your bladder and kidneys, and you will use more of the water that you drink.

Sugary drinks (yes, even juice), coffee and tea (not including herbal), and alcohol all have the OPPOSITE effect on your system, and are known as diuretics. That is, they actually leach water from your system. In the case of sugary and caffeinated drinks our body uses water to dilute them and flush it out quickly in an effort to stop your blood sugar from spiking to high and our body becoming too acidic. This counts for diet soft drinks as well, because even though they may have a lower sugar content, to still give it the sweet taste it has a higher artificial sweetener content which is just as acidic and damaging, exerting the same diuretic effects on the body. These sweeteners are commonly phenylalanine and aspartame. Both of these substances are neurotoxins in high doses – that is they excite the neurons in the brain to the point that they die off! Aspartame was originally developed as a chemical weapon, it just so happened that it also happened to make a cheap and effective artificial sweetener. This is why it is so important to keep artificial sweetener away from the fragile developing brains of our children, particularly those already experiencing learning difficulties.

Still not convinced? Here is a little bit of trivia! (Great to show the kids too next time you tell them to have water instead of a soft drink!)

Water

• 75% of Australians are chronically dehydrated. (Likely applies to half the world population)
• In 37% of people, the thirst mechanism is so weak that it is mistaken for hunger.
• Even MILD dehydration will slow down one’s metabolism by 3%.
• One glass of water will shut down midnight hunger pangs for almost 100% of the dieters studied in a University of Washington study.
• Lack of water, the #1 trigger of daytime fatigue.
• Preliminary research indicates that 8-10 glasses of water a day could significantly ease back and joint pain for up to 80% of sufferers.
• A mere 2% drop in body water can trigger fuzzy short-term memory, trouble with basic math, and difficulty focusing on the computer screen or on a printed page.
• Drinking 5 glasses of water daily decreases the risk of colon cancer by 45%, plus it can slash the risk of breast cancer by 79%, and one is 50% less likely to develop bladder cancer.

Coke

• In many states in the US the highway patrol carries two gallons (about 8 litres) of Coke in the trunk to remove blood from the highway after a car accident.
• You can put a T-bone steak in a bowl of Coke and it will be gone in two days.
• To clean a toilet: Pour a can of Coca-Cola into the  toilet bowl and let it sit for one hour, then flush clean. The citric acid in Coke removes stains from vitreous china.
• To loosen a rusted bolt: Apply a cloth soaked in Coca-Cola to the rusted bolt for several minutes.
• The active ingredient in Coke is phosphoric acid. It will dissolve a nail in about four days. Phosphoric acid also leaches calcium from bones and is a major contributor to the rising increase of osteoporosis.
• To carry Coca-Cola syrup, (the concentrate) the commercial trucks must use hazardous material place cards reserved for highly corrosive materials.
• The distributors of Coke have been using it to clean the engines of the trucks for about 20years!

Now the question is, would you like a glass of water?

Just recently Keri (my wife) and I got back from a trip to Sedona, Arizona.  It’s a magical place, filled with incredible beauty, peace and energy.  One of the things it’s famous for is having something called an “energetic vortex”.  There are numerous ones there and each is basically an area of the world where there is a “higher” energy field. It may be a bit “woo woo” for many people, but nevertheless it had us sitting and meditating as we “tapped into the energy”.

I thought I’d share our biggest lesson from the whole experience we had in Sedona.  Whether it was from the meditating to the massages that we got from a studio of one of the biggest “gurus” in my field of Myofascial Release Technique.  It is simple…

Trust yourself… Trust your intuition…

The amount of times we second guess ourselves, think we aren’t right, think we aren’t good enough, etc… is unreal.  And usually only a figment of our imagination.  The same figment, if we listened to it, could give us all the things we desire… if we just trust it.

Keri would sit in these vortexes and have these incredible “downloads”.  She wondered if she should trust what they were saying or if it was only her making things up and telling herself what she wanted to hear.  In the end, she realises that she can believe whatever she wants to believe and it will be true.

We laughed as we saw some of the things that she was “told” coming true and realising this stuff really does work.

So I thought I would encourage you to play with your intuition too.  Some tips for you…

Clear the clutter… The more clear your mental chatter is, the easier it is to hear what your intuition is telling you.  If you have a ton of stuff spiraling around in your head… write it down and let it go.

You can sit and meditate for bigger answers to questions that you intuitively know the answers to, but also start listening to the everyday stuff too.  For example:

There are days that you know you shouldn’t eat something and you do it anyway and end up feeling sick.  Listen!

Are there times when you just get a feeling that the way that you usually drive somewhere is not the right way to go?  So instead you should take a different route?  Listen!

Start with small things and giggle as you find that there was a major traffic build up the way you usually go and the route you took instead took half the time, this time.

Be willing to make mistakes on the small decisions so that you can strengthen the relationship you have with yourself.

If you start with small things and learn to trust yourself more and more then when it comes to making bigger decisions you can trust your “gut” even when sometimes, it makes no sense at the time… you just “know” it’s the right thing to do.

Then when it comes to the “bigger things” be willing to sit and close your eyes, take a few deep breathes to connect with yourself and then ask the questions you have.  Allow the answer to come… the more you trust it, the easier it will be for the answer to come.

Have fun listening to your intuition!

And like Keri said… whether you are right or wrong… you are right, if you believe it to be so.

On a recent show with personal Chiropractor and author Dr. Fabrizio Mancini, Dr. Phil touts the benefits he’s experienced from regular care. “I’ve been seeing a Chiropractor a couple times a week for the past 10 years…” And you can bet it wasn’t for a bad back. Dr. Phil knows Chiropractic care goes beyond helping aches and pains It transforms your entire health and LIFE for the better – exactly what his show is all about.

If you’re frustrated with your current level of health, maybe it’s time to get real with a new paradigm shift. As Dr. Fab says, ”we are all born with a natural ability to heal.” Chiropractic care simply brings it out. And if it’s good for Dr. Phil, it could be good for you too!

Avoid or minimise sugar. There is a growing amount of research that is supporting the theory that the consumption of sugar is a poison and that it is definitely responsible for obesity along with an array of other chronic and lethal diseases. The most recent research is showing that fructose increases taste cells in your pancreas, leading to an increase in insulin secretion and increasing your risk of type 2 diabetes. Fructose is a powerful pro-inflammatory agent that speeds up the aging process and has been shown to promote the dangerous growth of fat cells around your organs that can be a major cause of heart disease or liver toxicity.

Sugar, fructose, or corn syrup, call it what you want, is in abundance in today’s modern society. Our ancestors could only get natural sugars from fruit and raw honey and that was only at specific times/seasons of the year. Now it is in every processed food or drink you will pick up in the store. It has become too accessible and has become an epidemic causing more diseases than any communicable disease. We should try and keep our daily fructose intake consumption to below 25grams per day

Go nuts. So eating walnuts won’t make you look like a fashion magazine cover model. But it will make your heart young. Eating walnuts has been shown to lower cholesterol levels by reducing the blood concentrations of lipids that are associated with heart disease.

Almonds are also are a great source of protein and also contain the necessity omega-3 and 6’s. Good for helping weight loss and keeping your heart feeling young.

Embrace exercise. Resistance exercises, such as walking uphill or resistance training can help with slowing the aging process. This can increase your metabolism, improve cardiovascular function, and slow the decline of bone density and muscle mass, which have been linked with osteoporosis.

Try and always learn something new. Many of us are lead to believe the old adage that ‘you can’t teach an old dog new tricks’. Always try and learn something new. Yes, it might take a little longer to grasp the new ideas, but doing this keeps the neural connections in the brain active and firing. Which can help reduce dementia and memory loss. ‘If you don’t use it, you lose it’ adage applies here.

So some good exercises to keep the brain active are crosswords, suduko, scrabble, memory games, jigsaw puzzles, and make a list and then try to remember it at a later date, are just an example of a few that keep the mind active. Also take up a new hobby or try and master new skills.

Value vitamins. After the age of thirty, our body has trouble replenishing the stores of certain minerals and vitamins in our body, which help us with restoration of damaged cells. The synthesis of Co-Enzyme Q10 declines as we age. It is vital in the repair of cell membranes and works as an antioxidant. Supplement with approximately 150mg/day has shown positive effects on the nervous system, reducing the severity of migraines. It can also help with the prevention of periodontal disease and there are studies that show that it might even be helpful in Parkinson’s progression.

Vitamin D, as I have spoken before, is vital to our bodies. We can synthesis vitamin D from sunlight, but strangely enough, in summer approximately there are 60% of Australians who are vitamin D deficient, and this figure jumps to 80% over the winter months. Vitamin D deficiency leads to weakening of the bone matrix (osteomalacia), which can account for the generalised aches and pains that we sometime suffer. It has been linked with type 2 diabetes, certain cancers (prostate, colorectal, and breast) and it is also great for boosting the immune system and helping keep away or at least reduce the severity of colds and flus. During winter months it is recommended that we should consume 4000IU to help maintain healthy vitamin D levels

Take joint supplements. Unless you are going to eat all your meat right down to the bone or boil the bones of chicken, turkey or lean red meats to make a broth, you just aren’t going to get the cartilage in your diet maintain healthy joints and will be more susceptible to affects of aging, degeneration of joints and osteoarthritis. We should supplement our diets with approximately 1500mg of glucosamine sulfate and 500mg chondroitin.

Glucosamine sulfate has been shown to be effective as a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory (NSAIDs) for osteoarthritis without the nasty side effects of pharmaceutical based NSAID’s such as nurofen or other ibuprofens.

Chondroitin sulfate acts like a liquid magnet, drawing the proteoglycans that sit inside the space of the cartilage inside joints. This is important as this fluid acts as a shock absorber and helps bath the cartilage in nutrients. Joint cartilage has no blood supply, thus all its nourishment and lubrication comes from the fluid that ebbs and flows as pressure is applied and then released into the joint. Without the fluid, the cartilage would become malnourished, drier, thinner and more fragile.

Trade coffee for tea. Coffee taxes the kidneys and promotes changes in blood flow associated with several types of headaches, such as migraines and tension headaches. According to scientific studies, coffee will boost the blood flow to the brain by dilating the arteries. These arteries become accustomed to caffeine-induced fluctuations and will adjust for them in advance.

When a regular coffee drinker skips their daily caffeine fix, the arteries continue to adjust to the expected caffeine rush, restricting the blood flow and triggering a headache. This headache is called a drug rebound headache (the drug being caffeine). These drug rebound headaches are one of the several factors that make coffee so addictive and make kicking the habit so nerve wracking.

In contrast, tea – especially the caffeine-free green varieties – is a powerful antioxidant, working to keep the body disease-free and the skin smooth and youthful.

Consult your chiropractor. Aging is inevitable but aging poorly isn’t. Your chiropractor at Neurohealth can help you establish a lifestyle plan that includes strategies for healthy aging.

The saying that beauty is on the inside is true. If you are healthy on the inside, it will definitely be showing on the outside. Start by choosing the right foods, exercising and reducing stress. And most importantly, schedule an appointment with your chiropractor. After all if the spine is not healthy, the rest of the body will suffer proportionately.

At Neurohealth, we are constantly striving to provide you with a holistic approach towards your health and wellness. This is one of the major reasons I have joined the team. Chiropractic adjustments and massage therapy go hand in hand, creating an incredibly holistic approach to helping you feel your best.

When we look at both modalities individually…

Chiropractors work on your nervous and skeletal systems.

As your massage therapist, I work on your muscular and fascial systems.

The benefits of us working together on your nervous and skeletal system, as well as your muscular and fascial systems in your body creates a longer lasting benefit from the work we are doing.

If you have a massage before (or after) your chiropractic treatment, it will help to loosen the muscles, making the adjustment easier. It will also loosen the fascia around the adjustment sites, helping to prolong the effects of your adjustment. If you remember from my last article about fascia… The fascia wraps around everything in your body. So, if the fascia is bound up and your chiropractor adjusts the bones, the fascia can pull the adjustment out of whack quicker than you would like. So by releasing both the muscle and fascia you will create a longer lasting benefit from your chiropractic treatment.

Not only do your adjustments hold longer if you get a massage. It works in reverse too. Your chiropractic treatment will definitely make a massage easier and will extend the benefits of having a massage.

Both chiropractic and massage are great individually, but together they are even better!

It happens to all of us. The years go by and we turn a little bit older and hopefully wiser for the experiences of the previous years. But due to this ever increasing number (age) our bodies start to ache and pain. Our reflexes start to get slower and the ability to move becomes reduced. It feels inevitable that there’s nothing we are able to do to prevent this change. Or is there??

The world has adopted this ingrained belief that aging is a degradation of physical and mental health and it just has to be accepted. It has been shaped into our ideas and turned aging into a negative and something that we almost fear.

Here at Neurohealth Chiropractic we empower patients to fight back the years and age gracefully, or as I say ‘gain maturity instead of growing old’. We encourage a chiropractic lifestyle that focuses on spinal health, stress reduction, nutrition and dis-ease (lack of ease) prevention.

Get adjusted. Having regular spinal adjustments is crucial to spinal health. When the bones of the spine become misaligned, due to the repetitive tasks that we do each day or from poor posture or just from the sedentary lifestyle that we live (the average person will sit at least 80% of the day. Sit to work, to travel, to eat, and to relax). When the bones (vertebrae) are misaligned they cause joint restrictions commonly called spinal joint dysfunctions. These dysfunctions alter the nerve supply from the area causing muscles to spasm, and hence leading to aches and pains traditionally associated with the aging process.

These dysfunctions can be linked to a myriad of other health conditions, such as carpal tunnel syndrome, headaches, backaches and vertigo. Your chiropractor helps correct these spinal misalignments with safe and gentle maneuvers called chiropractic adjustments.

Lose weight. This is one of the best ways to beat the clock, whether you are a human being or a rat. We have seen the commercial how the ever expanding waistline affects our heart and overall health. And that by reducing the waist can help, well it also helps with the aging process. Dietary restrictions late in life can be beneficial to help retard age-related functional declines but can also help to restore functional activity.

Drink water. The importance of water as an anti-aging element is often overlooked and neglected by people. The human body is approximately 55-78% water depending on the size. We lose water through the big four, in order, breathing, sweating, extraction from the kidneys to make urine and loss through the large bowel because of inefficient water reabsorption. We also lose water through tears, mucous secretions from the nose and elsewhere such as insignificant sources like spitting.

With all this water loss, if we become dehydrated we increase our chances of dry, wrinkled, lifeless skin. It also tightens our muscles due to dehydration, affects our metabolism, and puts unwanted stress on the kidneys.

As a general rule, we should drink 2-3ltrs of water a day (take what you weigh kilograms and then divide by 30 and this will give you the amount of water you need per day i.e. weight is 70kg, water intake needs to be 2.33ltr/day). This is before exercise and activity.

Savour salmon. Fresh salmon has all the benefits of omega-3, which makes for reason why this fish is the wonder food of Neptune’s lair. The benefit of omega-3 is almost endless. It has been linked with supple skin, reduction of wrinkles and improved overall cholesterol levels. It can help with preventing obesity, breast cancer, colon cancer and rheumatoid arthritis.

Other great sources to find omega-3’s are in trout, tuna and most shellfish. But the fish needs to be fresh not from a tin and processed!

Use coconut oil. This is an excellent anti-aging. It has been known to reduce your risk of heart disease and lower your cholesterol. It can be eaten, and used in place of other oils such as margarine, butter. Also it can be used directly on your skin as a moisturizer.

Eat foods rich in antioxidants. Eating food sources that are rich in antioxidants are great ways to remove the free radicals from our body, which are responsible for altering the cell structure and causing aging of the body. Great sources are blueberries, cranberries, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, cherries, beans, and artichokes.

Stop stressing. Can be easier said than done, but trying to reduce stress levels or using coping mechanisms that can help lower stress levels can increase those years. It can help lower your cortisol levels, hence reducing the stress on arteries and heart muscles

Worry lines were so named for the root of their cause is worry. No worries, no lines. All of the face creams in the world won’t do you any good, if you still consistently sweat on the small stuff.

Mediation, prayer, yoga and silent reflection can calm even the most stressed out soul. If this doesn’t fit your cup of tea, then get in touch with a walk in nature or along a beach. Using the nature’s energy to calm and cleanse your soul. Finding the time in today’s modern society shouldn’t just be a luxury; it needs to be a necessity. The more hectic your life gets, the more difficult it may be to find a few quiet moments alone, but this leads more to the necessity that you must find and set aside that time.

Improve balance. When was the last time you tested your balance. I look at my 3 children (not yet Maylea but Isaac and Leilani) and they just can’t get enough of the playgrounds, climbing gyms and walking along walls to test their balance. Balance is crucial for our survival. If you feel unsteady on your feet it will definitely impact on your overall health. You will not want to go out anymore, your confidence will be shaken, and your overall physical and mental health will decline due to the sedentary lifestyle that you will adapt.

But in turn testing your balance system and trying to retrain this system to the way it was when you were a child can only be beneficial.

As a test, firstly stand on one leg and see if you can at least last 29-30 seconds (normal for ages 20-59 and 22.5 seconds for ages >60). Then try the other leg.  Firstly see if you can do it, then see if there is a difference between sides.

If you found this exercise easy and were able to complete it, now try the same exercise with your eyes closed. Normal for this is 21-28 seconds for ages 20-59 and 10 seconds for >60.

If you were not able to reach these numbers, then your balance needs to improve. Ask your chiropractor at Neurohealth to help you with some exercises that can help you regain this stability on earth.