How To Spend Less On Upper Cervical Care And Chiropractic Care

Editors note: Today's post comes straight from our good friend Dr. Adam Tanase.  We are also big advocates of doing the right things so that you do not have to come in and get adjusted  anymore often than you choose to.  Also to the list below of what to do I would also include looking into Foundation Training (Dr. Tanase also mentions it in the stretching section) it is a great workout and I have seen it make big improvements in patients' spinal health.

How To Spend Less on Chiropractic Care

BY DR. ADAM TANASE

I might be a chiropractor, but I’m also a chiropractic patient… And the notion of having to get adjusted every week (or every month for that matter), really irks me. It’s time-consuming and costly when you have to get adjusted that often.

Fortunately there are things we can do, and not do, to reduce the need for frequent/excessive adjustments. I call it spine management. So if you’re interested in decreasing the number of trips you make to the chiropractor’s office, while increasing your overall quality of life in the process, take these tips into consideration.

Activities and behaviors that stress, strain, or wear down the spine in an untimely manner can be considered “bad” spine management.

Examples of Bad Spine Management

• Poor general posture (slouching)
• Non-ergonomic work space
• Sedentary lifestyle (hours of daily couch-time)
• Spending too much time in front of a computer
• Hunching over a smartphone playing games or texting all day
• Not exercising for at least 20-30 minutes daily
• Not walking enough
• Sleeping on your stomach
• Using a dated mattress that provides inadequate support
• Using an unsupportive pillow
• Not drinking enough pure water
• Failing to stretch regularly
• Neglecting your spine by not getting periodic chiropractic checkups

These habits and behavior patterns can also trigger symptomatic flare-ups and relapses. In other words, just when you’re starting to feel like things are getting back to normal, your pain comes back with a vengeance.

Here’s what you can do to help prevent that from happening:

Examples of Good Spine Management

• Periodic chiropractic checkups – Seasonal checkups are my personal recommendation for patients who practice good spine management. This helps insure your body doesn’t remain misaligned or unbalanced for too long.

• Stretch regularly - Consider how inflexible most elderly people are… how do you think they got that way? Muscles abide by the “use it or lose it” principle. Avoid this fate by isolating key muscle groups and giving them a good daily stretch (I’m a big fan of the Foundation stretches to prevent recurring low back pain).

• Proper hydration - What happens if you don’t water a plant regularly? It wilts. The same withering effect occurs internally with every organ, muscle, and tissue in your body. Your spine and its supportive structures work best when they’re hydrated.

• Daily exercise - In addition to walking at least a mile per day (after dinner is great), join a gym and treat different muscles to a daily workout. Chest, back, legs, and core are the most important. BodyRock.TV offers dozens of great free workout plans.

• Supportive sleep environment - Your bed and pillow should both help keep your body in natural alignment. Dated and flimsy mattresses stress your hips, pelvis, and back, which inevitably lead to chronic pain. Buy a quality pillow that keeps your head level, and use a good mattress that firmly (yet comfortably) prevents your spine from dipping or sagging while you sleep.

• Be mindful of your posture - This applies to whatever you’re doing, whether you’re at work, home, in the car, at the gym, or simply standing up. So sit up straight! Good posture has benefits; poor posture has consequences.
  

The bottom line is this… patients who practice good spine management get the best results with chiropractic care, and spend the least amount of money in the process.

Want More Money? Try Upper Cervical Care

13 Benefits Of Upper Cervical Care: Part 9

In 1941 Ted Williams batted .406. It took over 60 years before anyone else would batt over .400. What’s the difference between batting .400 and batting .200? It is getting just two more hits every ten times up to bat. Now that does not seem like a tremendous feat, yet a .200 hitter never makes it to the major leagues and a .400 hitter appears to be a near impossibility. What kind of salary would a .400 hitter command? Well, we know what kind of salary a .200 hitter receives. It’s a few thousand dollars a month during the six or seven months of the baseball season. It’s called the minor leagues. They never make it to the Majors and the million dollar a year salaries.

So what does baseball have to do with you? Probably not much except as a spectator. The point is that often there is very little difference between greatness and mediocrity. That is why so many athletes do so many little things just to get a little bit of an edge. Well baseball is a living, a means of earning an income, for a few, a very good income. The principle of paying attention to the small things in order to be successful can be applied to any business, job or profession. Not only is it paying attention to the small things but it includes making sure that you take care of the seeming unimportant things, the things that you think can take care of themselves.

One area that people take for granted is their health and proper function. They do not worry about it until they lose it, until it begins to affect their job, their productivity or their earning capacity. Here is a thought: feeling poorly, being sick, not having sufficient physical and mental energy, not being able to focus on your work will affect your productivity, your earning capacity and your ability to succeed in your line of work. Everyone can understand that. Well suppose you do not ever realize that you are working at less than your capacity, that you are not experiencing the mental and physical energy necessary to do your job better. There are thousands of people every week who get laid off or fired because they were not doing their job satisfactorily and they did not even know it. Maybe you are not in danger of being fired but perhaps there are things you could be doing to make you a better employee, a more valuable asset to your company, to be more productive in whatever you do. Maybe getting to bed earlier, or getting more exercise would do it. Along those same lines periodic upper cervical care also has to be an advantage. It has to make you better if your nerve system is working at a higher level because every organ, gland and cell in your body needs the vital nerve energy to do its job. If your nerve system is effectively doing its job, free of interference due to head/neck misalignment then you can effectively do your job and advance to the highest level possible. Keep your nerve system working at its greatest potential so you can work at yours, and get paid for the increased productivity.