Where Does The Body Find Answers?

from the Weekly Sticky "Where the Body Finds Answers"

How much stomach acid does it take to digest a cheeseburger?  Or, how much calcium is needed to heal a broken leg?  How about a fever, how high should it reach to fight a common cold?  You don't need to surf Google for the answers, your INNATE search engine already knows.

If you doubt there's genius inside you, just consider this – the 50,000,000 cells in your body that will die while you read this sentence… your innate intelligence knows how to replace every single one of them.  The trillions of impulses coursing through your Nerve System at this moment… innate is moving them at speeds approaching 248 mile per hour.  The number of heartbeats you'll get in your lifetime… innate reserved around 3 billion for you.

Google may be the web's leading source for information, but it's got nothing over your innate intelligence when it comes to keeping you alive and well. Innate has solutions to just about any health challenge you have.  All you have to do is search within to find the answer.

(Editor's note: Remember the objective of upper cervical care is to correct head neck misalignment that is interfering with proper brain to body communication. When this is corrected the body functions at a higher level and can often correct other problems more efficiently on its own. Please do not confuse upper cervical care as a treatment for any condition, disease or symptom.)

Avoid the Flu…Upper Cervical Care Can Help

The first line of defense against the flu or any contagious dis-ease is a healthy, fully functioning immune system. The immune system is affected by the nerve system through the connections with the endocrine and the autonomic nervous system. Stressful conditions lead to altered measures of immune function, and altered susceptibility to a variety of diseases. Many stimuli, which primarily act on the central nervous system, can profoundly alter immune responses. The two routes available to the central nervous system are neuro-endocrine channels and autonomic nerve channels. Upper cervical care improves this function by removing nerve interference and allowing brain to body communication to be resumed.

We encourage you to explore the wonders of upper cervical care if you currently know little about it. Who can benefit? – Everyone, from infants to seniors, mothers-to-be, athletes, and accident victims will benefit from a healthy spine and nervous system.

A Simple Concept

Upper Cervical Care is based on the universal law of cause and effect. For every effect or symptom (physical or mental), there must be a cause. Upper Cervical doctors focus their efforts on locating and correcting interference to the nervous system and this may be the cause of your health condition. Correcting this interference can allow the body to heal itself naturally. An Upper Cervical Correction is gentle and there is no forceful pulling, twisting or jerking motion of your neck. The correction is applied using a precise and controlled touch that allows the head, neck, and spine to return to their proper positions, restoring balance to the body and removing the interference.

What Is Upper Cervical Care?

Upper Cervical care is a rapidly growing form of chiropractic that focuses on the intimate relationship between the first two bones in the neck, called the Upper Cervical spine, and a vital portion of the nervous system, known as the brain stem. This relationship is essential to the body’s ability to preserve and restore health. Think of the brain stem as the control center that extends down an opening in the base of your skull, making it vulnerable to injuries or irritation around the upper neck. The brain stem works like a telephone cable with thousands of individual wires or nerve fibers sending signals back and forth between the brain and spinal cord to every cell, organ and system in the body. Every nerve impulse between the brain and the body must pass through the brain stem. The nervous system is responsible for all communication within the body. It coordinates and maintains your immune system, emotions, vision, hearing, balance, breathing, heart rate, blood pressure, digestion, muscle tension, posture, hormones, and every other function. Irritation or pressure within the central nervous system can interrupt communication between the brain and the body, thus contributing to a variety of health problems.

The top vertebrae, the Atlas, is especially vulnerable to injury or misalignment because it is the most mobile segment of the spine. If neglected, an Upper Cervical misalignment may lead to irreversible spinal degeneration and chronic ill health. Upper Cervical misalignments can be caused by falls, auto accidents, sports, job injuries, concussions, physical or emotional stress, poor posture, or even birth trauma.

To learn more about Upper Cervical Care, please visit www.uppercervicalcare.com or www.upcspine.com.

Upper Cervical Belated Holiday Thoughts

Soon it will be that time of year again! You will see it and hear it everywhere you go. Maybe you are thinking we are a little late with our holiday edition but holly, garland and Christmas lights are not what I am talking about. In fact, just after the last bits of holiday paraphernalia are put away, another thing is sure to be seen and heard. You say you still do not know what I am talking about!!! Well, just think about it. After all the shopping and worrying-- about what to get who, will it fit, do they have one already, can we afford it; and all the visiting--your friends, your family, your in-laws, your kids; and all the partying--cookies and milk, nuts and beer, chips and pretzels, dips, vegetables, wine, cheese and crackers (all, of course, before you sit down to a big meal). And after all the last minute rushing around, lost sleep, and I got a million things to do... What on earth could possibly (and only naturally) follow all this? That’s right--the fever, chills, ache-all-over feeling, coughing, sneezing and complaining of the flu season!

Maybe you have never put these two together before but it seems to me to be more than just coincidence that “flu season” happens to occur just after we’ve basically stuffed ourselves for weeks (probably since Thanksgiving), totally stressed ourselves out, probably destroyed any semblance of what might have been regular sleeping and exercise routines and, in general, completely abused our bodies. After all, we are too busy seeing people, going places (mostly Christmas parties... more eat, drink and be merry) and getting things done to consider our health! At least we are still contributing to our health by thinking positively. During the holiday season that should be easy, unless of course you are looking for a parking space at the mall, or it begins to blizzard on your way to a Christmas party. Oh well, so much for positive mental attitude. Unfortunately, in the holiday rush, people also neglect their spines even more. Year after year in offices all over the number of patient visits drops beginning in mid-December and continues to drop until the New Year.

Now I am not suggesting that we all forego the preparation, partying or even the panic of the holiday season, but it bothers me a bit that the world would like to con us into thinking that a flu season really exists. They say it just makes sense that at this time of year with its cold weather, and what is in nature a time of lean nutrition, that an overabundance of germs would exist and cause many people to become ill. In fact, the opposite is true. The cold weather kills many germs. The flu season is more a function of a society that on the whole has let its resistance be significantly lowered and consequently, is vulnerable to disease--not just the flu but also every disease. If you want to be well, you simply must make your health a priority. Do as many of the things that contribute to attaining and maintaining your health as you can--namely make good food choices in moderate amounts, exercise regularly, get the rest you need, keep a positive outlook, and of course, have your upper cervical spine checked periodically!!!

Choices, Health And Upper Cervical Care

(Editor's note: Today's post comes from the Atlas of Life November 2010 newsletter. Click on the title below to view the full newsletter.)

YOU LOOK & FEEL HOW YOU CHOOSE TO LOOK & FEEL

By Dr. Brandon Harshe

When my kids do something wrong, such as hit or scream at one of their siblings, or they ignore instructions we give them, they will face some type of consequence. Usually, the perpetrator screams, or cries, or whines when handed his/her sentence. The one thing we almost always tell them is that they chose the consequence. By behaving badly, they reaped a negative result. I do not think they get that concept most of the time, but through repetition, they will grow up understanding it eventually.

In fact, this is something we all need to understand. Including me. I have my moments where things will happen and I get frustrated, wanting to blame some exterior source. But in reality, the true source of my problem came from me.

There is no truer example of this idea than our health. Diabetes does not happen by chance. Heart disease does not happen overnight. Cancer is not a curse of our genetics. These diseases, and really most diseases, are caused by poor lifestyle decisions, point blank. I am not talking congenital heart defects or Down’s syndrome, I am talking about diseases that develop over time.

No one held you down and shoved a Big Mac down your gullet. No one put a gun to your head and told you to eat too much pizza. No one forced me to eat too much Halloween candy out of my kids’ stash. No one tied you down and made you watch football and drink beer all day last Sunday. Those are choices we all make, and the results of those choices are our doing, not someone else’s.

How many healthy, athletic, people eating plant-based diets do you see currently diagnosed with Type II Diabetes? Personally, I have never seen one. How many calm, happy people have you met with high blood pressure? Probably not many.

I know that if I eat at CiCi’s Pizza, I will feel flu-like symptoms and an overall sluggishness the next day… Basically I feel like garbage. That is how my body responds to my choice of eating awful food. Sure it’s a cheap place to take a family of six out to eat, but is it really worth it? Instead of trying to find some kind of medication that will take away my symptoms, I choose not to eat there anymore. Problem solved.

How about contracting a cold virus, or bronchitis, or the flu? Is that not something that happens to us by chance? Sometimes, but how many of us have been stressed with midterms, finals, work deadlines, meager finances, marital issues, or the death of a loved one? Those things put us into a state of stress, and that keeps us in sympathetic mode. The sympathetic nervous system is what controls the fight-or-flight response. Once in a while, it might be needed. But on a long term basis, this is what wears our bodies down, overuses our adrenal glands, and weakens our immune system, along with being sedentary and eating junk all the time, making us more prone to contracting a virus of some sort.

Dealing with that stress properly is what will keep us in parasympathetic state, which is where we want our bodies to be most of the time. I once heard Dr. Wayne Dyer mention that stress is not a physical, tangible thing. We cannot grab it out of the air. It is simply an idea in our mind. Replacing those stressed out thoughts with positive thoughts takes some work, but once you get the hang of it, life starts getting a little better.

Knowing that, and making healthier choices with our diets and activities, maybe, just maybe we can get to that level of optimal health we all want to experience.

It just dawned on me that, outside of (getting upper cervical care), I have not been to any kind of doctor in over 12 years. I have made choices in my life that keep me from needing to go to a medical doctor for anything. I am not perfect by any means… I still have so much to improve upon (ask my wife). But at least I am ahead of the game with my physical health.

You can be too. Quit sitting around, eating junk, and watching too many reality shows. Get up, exercise, eat some fruits and veggies, think positive (and get your nerve system and upper neck checked periodically).

Immunity and Upper Cervical Care?

Skeptics of upper cervical care question how it can help the immune system in the absence of scientific studies. One could also question how physicians for the last 100 years could say to drink fluids and rest if you have the flu. Does fluid drown bacteria? Does lying down cause a virus to die? Of course not. Clearly rest and fluids do not affect the microorganisms. They are intended to help the sick person’s body, specifically his or her immune system. This helps the body fight the microorganisms and their effect. Doctors have found through common sense and experience that the ability to fight off microorganism (the immune system) is improved by resting and drinking fluids. No one had to do studies. It is a self-evident fact. (Actually when you are sick you really do not feel like doing anything else but lying down. That is the innate (or inborn) intelligence of your body saying “rest”). No one is about to suggest that doctors stop making that recommendation until a Harvard Medical School research program can be completed in which 1,000 people with the flu will be allowed to drink fluids and rest and 1,000 others with the flu will be made to walk around while deprived of fluids.

Upper cervical care is based upon the same logic. If there is an interference in the nerve system, the immune system, which is intricately linked to it, will not function properly or at least not as well as it should. If you shut down the nerve system completely (death), the immune system will not work at all. Therefore, if you interfere with its function, the immune system will work at less then 100%. It is not necessary to do studies. It would be ridiculous to demand that physicians do the study outlined above to prove the validity of rest and fluids for the flu. It is just as ridiculous to do research to prove that upper cervical care helps the immune system work better. It is a self-evident fact. If the nerve system works better, every system in the body works better, including the immune system. Notice that upper cervical doctors do not claim that their care cures the flu, the common cold or anything else. We just maintain that if there is interference in the nerve system, the immune system will not work as well as it should and if that interference is removed, the immune system will work better.

How much better? Well, we do not know. But then we really do not know how much benefit fluid and rest are for the immune system. All these individually or together could be the difference between getting well from the flu or not. The point is that we just do not know. There are a lot of things about health, the human body, proper function and human potential that we do not know. In fact, there is probably more we do not know than what we do know. That is one of the beautiful things about upper cervical care. We do not have to wait until we have proven data from research studies. We can know that upper cervical care is good based on logic, common sense and self-evident facts. That is how physicians knew that rest and liquids help people fight the flu. That is how we know upper cervical care will enable the immune system and every other system in the body, for that matter, to work better.

Flu, Vitamin D and Upper Cervical Care

I believe the article below was written by Dr Mercola. Vitamin D and a properly functioning nerve system via Upper Cervical Care is a great way to be ready for the flu, of any type.

Avoid Flu Shots With the One Vitamin that Will Stop Flu in Its Tracks

Another influenza season is beginning, and the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will strongly urge Americans to get a flu shot. In fact, the CDC mounts a well-orchestrated campaign each season to generate interest and demand for flu shots.

But a recent study published in the October issue of the Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine found that vaccinating young children against the flu appeared to have no impact on flu-related hospitalizations or doctor visits during two recent flu seasons.

At first glance, the data did suggest that children between the ages of 6 months and 5 years derived some protection from vaccination in these years. But after adjusting for potentially relevant variables, the researchers concluded that "significant influenza vaccine effectiveness could not be demonstrated for any season, age, or setting" examined.

Additionally, a Group Health study found that flu shots do not protect elderly people against developing pneumonia -- the primary cause of death resulting as a complication of the flu. Others have questioned whether there is any mortality benefit with influenza vaccination. Vaccination coverage among the elderly increased from 15 percent in 1980 to 65 percent now, but there has been no decrease in deaths from influenza or pneumonia.

There is some evidence that flu shots cause Alzheimer’s disease, most likely as a result of combining mercury with aluminum and formaldehyde. Mercury in vaccines has also been implicated as a cause of autism.

Three other serious adverse reactions to the flu vaccine are joint inflammation and arthritis, anaphylactic shock (and other life-threatening allergic reactions), and Guillain-Barré syndrome, a paralytic autoimmune disease.

One credible hypothesis that explains the seasonal nature of flu is that influenza is a vitamin D deficiency disease.

Vitamin D levels in your blood fall to their lowest point during flu seasons. Unable to be protected by the body’s own antibiotics (antimicrobial peptides) that are released by vitamin D, a person with a low vitamin D blood level is more vulnerable to contracting colds, influenza, and other respiratory infections.

Studies show that children with rickets, a vitamin D-deficient skeletal disorder, suffer from frequent respiratory infections, and children exposed to sunlight are less likely to get a cold. The increased number of deaths that occur in winter, largely from pneumonia and cardiovascular diseases, are most likely due to vitamin D deficiency.

Unfortunately, now, for the first time, flu vaccination is also being pushed for virtually all children -- not just those under 5.

This is a huge change. Previously, flu vaccine was recommended only for youngsters under 5, who can become dangerously ill from influenza. This year, the government is recommending that children from age 6 months to 18 years be vaccinated, expanding inoculations to 30 million more school-age children.

The government argues that while older children seldom get as sick as the younger ones, it's a bigger population that catches flu at higher rates, so the change should cut missed school, and parents' missed work when they catch the illness from their children.

Of course, this policy ignores the fact that a systematic review of 51 studies involving 260,000 children age 6 to 23 months found no evidence that the flu vaccine is any more effective than a placebo.

Sources:
LewRockwell.com October 3, 2008
EMS Responder September 9, 2008
WebMD October 6, 2008
Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine October 2008; 162(10):943-51