Archive for the ‘Health Articles’ Category
Welcome to Chiropractic Life and Wellness Center's Health Articles Archive. Here you can learn more about Chiropractic Life and Wellness Center, Chiropractic, and Dr. Brandon Chorney, today's choice for Chiropractors in New Fairfield, CT. Read Dr. Brandon Chorney's Chiropractic Health Articles for the health of it.
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by Dr. Brandon Chorney | Mar 12, 2015 | Health Articles
Healthcare in the US at the moment is in shambles. Rising costs for insurance with less and less coverage. When it comes to our health and health strategies we are being more careful and critical of our options. So what happens when you are suffering with excruciating back pain and you are offered a replacement...
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by Dr. Brandon Chorney | Mar 10, 2015 | Health Articles
In our faced pace life, the majority of us have been ignoring and pushing off our internal maintenance to fill it temporarily with a short term outside solution of caffeine and denial. Add stress and the temporary fixes no longer cover the symptoms or warning signals that your body is screaming for you to address as the stress on the system is far greater than the body can cope with. Because our bodies are so adaptable, we often manage to ignore them in spite of a growing problem that keeps nagging us. We may not even be aware or may have missed the subtle symptoms, but our capacity to adapt is diminished. Then, all it takes is a sneeze, tying our shoes or the stress of a deadline to put us over the edge and symptoms appear.
Understanding Stress
Stress can hit you from many angles, for many different reasons, mental and physical. Job security, working too hard, not working at all, commuting, relationships, illness, worry about a loved one, lack of sleep, retirement, bereavement, moving house – all can serve to create stress. A recent survey by the American Psychology Association revealed that 54% of Americans are concerned about their stress levels, and two-thirds would likely seek help for their stress.
Many people are stressed without really knowing it; it’s just the way of modern life and we get used to it. However, it still creates genuine strains on your body that are manifested as an increase in: blood pressure, heart rate, respiration, metabolism, and blood flow to your muscles. This is your primitive fight-or-flight reaction kicking in, preparing you for action in the face of a stressful situation.
Your Stress Response
Your stress (fight-or-flight) response, while useful in threatening and dangerous situations to preserve life and limb, is not healthy when it pretty much never goes away. Nowadays, it is rarely triggered in response to an aggressor who must be fought off or a predator that must be fled from; instead, as an ongoing reaction to life’s stresses, it is highly likely to be harmful to your health.
Of course, different people will react to the same situation in different ways. It is not the situation, then, as much as the individual’s reaction to it. What might stress one person may not bother another.
Your Body’s Coping System
When stressed, your pituitary gland releases a hormone called adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), which acts like an alarm system inside your brain. It instructs the adrenal glands on top of your kidneys to dump stress hormones into your bloodstream, including cortisol and adrenaline. These cause numerous physiological changes in your body, including a rise in your heart rate and blood pressure, shutting down your digestive system, and affecting your immune system. Following the panic, the cortisol and adrenaline in your bloodstream should decline to normal levels, as should your heart rate and blood pressure and other affected bodily functions.
The problem is when these levels are not allowed to reduce to normal levels, but instead remain raised due to the ongoing perceived stress of various situations. The body then never has a chance to fully recover its natural and healthful state. Long-term, this stress response can badly disrupt practically all your body’s processes. You will probably have experienced some of these effects yourself: headaches and upset stomachs are common results of stress, thanks to the effects of your stress hormones.
Stress and You
Stress is known to affect the nervous system as well, causing anxiety, panic attacks, depression and even dementia, because the chronic release of cortisol can cause damage to certain parts of the brain. It equally affects sleep patterns and sex drive. The rise in heart rate and blood pressure for the cardiovascular system is a very dangerous mix, with the potential for heart attacks or strokes.
Your immune system also suffers with chronic stress, becoming weaker and less able to fend off colds and other infections. Working well, your immune system responds to infection by releasing several substances that cause inflammation. However, when chronic systemic inflammation takes place due to stress, degenerative diseases can become the order of the day.
Chiropractic Can Help!
You may be so used to being stressed that you may miss or dismiss the signs, so it’s good to take stock and consider whether you are experiencing any of the following: anxiety, insomnia, back pain, constipation, shortness of breath, stiff neck, fatigue, upset stomach, weight gain or loss, depression, problems in relationships. Any of these may indicate you are stressed and are in need of a stress relief solution.
Chiropractic adjustments have proven to be just that solution. They have been shown in many research studies to be very effective at treating tension headaches, especially those that stem from the neck. A 2001 report by researchers at the Duke University Evidence-Based Practice Center in Durham, NC, found that chiropractic adjustments provided almost immediate improvement, with far fewer side effects and more long-lasting relief than prescription medications. The majority of cases were greatly improved by an adjustment of the upper two cervical vertebrae and the vertebrae at the junction of the cervical and thoracic spine.
Our Team is Ready!
We all have a different threshold of “body awareness.” Become more aware of your body. Take note of even small changes in your energy level, sleep habits and elimination.
If you do note any of the warning signs, take action while your body is still whispering, rather than waiting until it’s shouting for help!
by Dr. Brandon Chorney | Mar 5, 2015 | Health Articles
Are you suffering with leg pain that may burn, ache, and radiate to your knee or worse yet be felt down to your toes? The bad news is that it hurts tremendously and you have become tired with the pain of trying to "cure" the problem with your leg. The great news is that it...
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by Dr. Brandon Chorney | Mar 3, 2015 | Health Articles
Step. Jump. Leap. Balance and turn. Although these sound like dance steps, they are just some of the simple activities that our feet perform every day. Most of us are completely oblivious to the dependence that we have on our feet and until we are alerted by pain in the foot or heel. This discomfort can...
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by Dr. Brandon Chorney | Feb 26, 2015 | Health Articles
As we look in the mirror or stand on a scale, we are measuring our health on a simple measurement of visual information. All the graphs and medical journals outline our health on simple measurements and determine where we should optimally range to be considered healthy. When it comes to our health internally we no...
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by Dr. Brandon Chorney | Feb 24, 2015 | Health Articles
Welcome to February where we celebrate our healthy hearts and what we can do to help get our hearts pumping in a healthier rhythm for life!
First Step – Recognizing the Right Steps Towards Heart Disease
Our fun filled convenient lifestyle just may be marching you towards heart disease faster than you may expect.
Do you suffer with high blood pressure already? Are you overweight, do not exercise, enjoy a heavy intake of processed, fatty, calorie-laden, fiber- and nutrient-deficient foods? Add just one more – smoking and you may be a time bomb ready to happen.
Heart health is a significant topic these days for two simple reasons: First, increasing evidence suggests our poor dietary choices puts us at major risk for heart disease; and second, evidence also suggests wise dietary choices and other natural proactive measures can protect the heart and have that muscle pumping stronger than ever.
Chiropractic Care A Great Step
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, heart disease is the leading cause of death for men and women today. Although chiropractic care is mainly associated with alleviating soft tissue discomfort, the benefits of chiropractic have been proven to extend beyond adjustments of the spine. Studies have shown that chiropractic adjustments can help to prevent heart attacks, reduce heart rate, relieve chest pain, and lower blood pressure, which is all good news for your heart! An added bonus is that they specialize in the human body as a whole system and are experts in helping you put all the correct pieces together to help you achieve optimal health – from the inside out.
Understanding Heart Function
To understand how chiropractic care can impact heart health, you need to understand how the heart functions.
Let us begin with envisioning that even if all of the nerves going to the heart were disconnected, the heart would still beat. That is because it has its own ‘pacemaker’ called the sinoatrial node. The sinoatrial node maintains a heart rate of approximately 70 beats per minute in an average adult. The rhythm remains constant regardless of whether you are exercising or sleeping, stressed or relaxed.
Luckily there are nerves attached to the heart that speed up or slow down the heart rate depending on the demands of the body. The sympathetic nerves originate from the thoracic spine and cause the heart rate to speed up. The parasympathetic nerves originate from the brain and cause the heart rate to slow down. This is an oversimplification, but the bottom line is that the cardiovascular system is controlled by the nervous system. The brain receives communication from the body for an increased or decreased demand and relays that demand to the heart via the sympathetic or parasympathetic nervous system. The parasympathetic and sympathetic are also called the autonomic nervous system because this part of the nervous system works automatically. You do not have to try to make your heart speed up or slow down, the brain regulates it automatically through the nervous system communication.
Here is the Chiropractic Difference
This is where Chiropractic care can make a difference. The primary function of the spine is to protect the nervous system. When the spine gets misaligned by an injury or stress it can cause interference in nervous system communication. This area of misalignment is called a vertebral subluxation.
Chiropractors adjust the subluxation to restore nervous system communication. When the nervous system is able to communicate freely with the rest of the body, optimal health is possible. The body’s amazing ability to be healthy is called homeostasis. For there to be homeostasis in a body there must be proper communication between the brain and tissue cell. If there is interference in the communication optimal health is not possible.
We know that diet and exercise are important in helping to prevent heart disease, but without proper nervous system communication, your diet and exercise may not be as beneficial. Cardiovascular exercise is supposed to help with heart health, but if the nervous system does not have proper control over the heart function due to vertebral subluxation (communication interference), the exercise can stress the heart beyond the normally beneficial range.
Therefore, regular chiropractic adjustments should be used to maintain heart health along with proper diet and exercise. It is always easier to maintain something than it is to correct it. A chiropractor can analyze the spine for subluxations and correct them to prevent impaired nervous system control. Don’t wait to get high blood pressure before utilizing chiropractic, diet and exercise to maintain heart health. It’s always best to enable the body to use its innate ability to regulate itself rather than depending on medications. Medications to treat heart disease may have many unwanted side effects.
Ready to Help!
As February is National Heart Health Month, it’s time to utilize all of the weapons at your disposal to fight heart disease. Chiropractic care is the perfect complement to a healthy diet and regular exercise routine. You should have your spine adjusted on a regular basis because the nerves don’t just go to the heart, they help regulate every organ in your body!
