Proper Overindulgence Over the Holidays

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Proper Overindulgence Over The Holidays

The term "overindulgence" is probably best assessed as a red flag, especially with respect to consistent overconsumption of high-calorie comfort food and desserts during the holiday season. An overall healthier perspective could be described as "indulgence" regarding such calorie intake. Provided that we have maintained healthy lifestyles, especially regarding exercise and nutrition, during the course of the year, indulging a bit during the holiday season will likely not have a negative impact on our long-term health.

During the year, healthy nutrition is obtained by making sure to consume food from all four food groups on a daily basis: fruits, vegetables, grains, and protein. Dairy products represent an optional fifth food group. Consuming foods from all the major food groups provides a broad range of nutrients and a wide variety of phytochemicals. Phytochemicals are macromolecules that furnish protection against the development of many chronic diseases, including cancer, heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, diabetes, and arthritis. Many phytochemicals act like antioxidants and neutralize free radicals in human cells. Others have anti-inflammatory properties and help slow the aging process. Fruits and vegetables rich in phytochemicals include carrots, blueberries, apples, greens such as kale and chard, broccoli, oranges, beets, rutabaga, tomatoes, and sweet potatoes. Importantly, healthy nutrition is fulfilled by eating at least five servings of fresh fruits and vegetables every day.

Calorie consumption is also a critical factor in healthy eating.1 Consuming excess calories on a regular basis will result in these energy sources being stored primarily as fat. The best kinds of food are nutrient-dense, rather than being calorie-dense. Lean meat, fish, whole grains, high-quality dairy products, and fruits and vegetables are all nutrient-dense foods. For example, sprouted grain bread is nutrient-dense while white bread is calorie-dense. It takes a little effort to determine which foods are healthy and which are not, but once you've done your homework, it becomes easy to choose the foods that will provide valuable energy and nutrients to you and your family. As a side benefit, beginning a healthy nutrition food plan may result in weight loss and normalization of high cholesterol levels.

In addition to consuming nutritious foods, a second key component of healthy living involves regular vigorous exercise five days a week for at least 30 minutes per session. Such exercises can include yoga, strength training, walking, running, cycling, and swimming. The specific choice of exercise is less important than the consistency. Regular vigorous exercise is strongly correlated with multiple health benefits, including enhancing cardiovascular health and strengthening the immune system.

With healthy lifestyles in place over the long-term, holiday indulgence provided such indulgence is not excessive, represents a blip on the radar. With long-term habits of healthy nutrition and regular vigorous exercise, we and our families are able to tolerate minor deviations from our baseline without suffering ill consequences. In addition, including regular chiropractic care in our long-term healthy lifestyle plan adds the benefits of spinal health and a healthy nerve system, our body's master system, to assist in supporting our overall long-term health and well-being.

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Holiday Stress - Take a Deep Breath

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Holiday Stress — Take a Deep Breath

Most of us pay little attention, if any, to the daily functioning of our many physiological systems. Our hearts beat, our digestive systems digest, and our various hormones, such as those deriving from the thyroid gland, adrenal gland, and pancreas, do what they do. It's all good... until it's not.

For example, ongoing stress can do a real number on people and most of the time we don't see it coming. We get a headache, some neck pain, or back pain and keep going. But when problems persist, it's a good policy to begin paying attention. Stress can elevate blood pressure, depress the immune system, cause a person to become more susceptible to infections, and cause significant problems with the gastrointestinal system. Serious problems associated with long-term stress include type 2 diabetes, heart attack, stroke, and various types of cancer. Overall, stress directly impacts and interferes with the daily functioning of all of our body's systems.

It is well known that stress increases around the holidays. Buying presents, cleaning, cooking, and worrisome memories of what happened during past holidays all serve to ramp up one's levels of anxiety and stress. The biggest missing ingredient in our holiday rush is a sense of self. We lose sight of ourselves in the maelstrom of events and become a reactive automaton, of sorts. Go here, go there, buy this, buy that, do this or that chore around the house, and finally go to bed, only to get up early the next morning and start the whole merry-go-round again. All without taking the time to pause and locate ourselves in who we really are and what's really of value to us and our loved ones.

The good news is that there is a better way. We are the ones who get to say how our day is going to go. It is critically important to stop and take a few deep breaths, to find our center, to reconnect with our inner self, to regain the meaning and purpose of our lives. An easy way to return to one's center is to engage in a practice of daily meditation. Firstly, you don't need any equipment to practice meditation, other than a comfortable cushion or chair. All you do is close your eyes and concentrate on breathing, imagining your breath going up your spine in the back and down your spine in the front. That's all there is to it. Count your first cycle of breathing up to ten, then start back over at one. If you notice your thoughts wandering, try restarting your count back at one. The benefit is in the practice itself. By concentrating on your breathing, you regain mastery over your continual train of thought. You are placing yourself, that is, your inner self, back in control, instead of being overwhelmed by random thoughts regarding what you think you "need" to do.

One of the outcomes of such a meditation practice is reduced stress and enhanced wellness and well-being. The holidays are transformed into a time of good fellowship and loving family interactions. Regular chiropractic care provides wonderful assistance to all of us as we engage in the process of re-centering. By restoring balance to our nerve system and optimizing our spinal biomechanics, regular chiropractic care supports our present and future health and wellness, throughout the holiday season and throughout the year.

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Indoor Activities and Exercises

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How to Exercise Indoors

For those of us who live in locales such as southern California, outdoor activities and outdoor exercise are available year-round. Elsewhere, winter sets in and many people discontinue their outdoor activities until the return of spring. As it is important to maintain our fitness levels throughout the year, ongoing questions relate to the possibility of developing indoor activities and exercise programs. Fortunately, a wide range of indoor exercise activities is available when the weather gets colder to effectively replace one's outdoor fitness regime.

An indoor activity and exercise program includes the following:

Supine leg roll-overs (core)

Supine hip presses (core)

Plank (core)

All-fours leg raises (core)

Push-ups

Bodyweight squats

Bodyweight split-squat

Walking hamstring lunges

Jumping jacks

Rapid standing leg lifts

Abdominal crunches (core)

Leg raises

Resistance band seated row

Resistance band shoulder press

The only equipment you need is a 6-foot-long exercise mat and a resistance band.

You may perform the entire routine in a single session or divide the exercises into groups, such as legs and 1-2 core exercises, upper body and 1-2 core exercises, aerobic exercise and 1-2 core exercises, and perform each group on a separate day. The overall goal is to do 30 minutes of vigorous exercise five days a week. The indoor activity/exercise program incorporates strength training, aerobic exercise, and core exercise. It could even replace going to the gym when the weather is particularly unsettled.

From the perspective of an individual's and a family's health and well-being, as well as from a public health perspective, regular vigorous exercise provides a wealth of benefits. For example, diabetes, high serum cholesterol levels, overweight/obesity, heart disease, and hypertension are all lifestyle disorders. By implementing consistent lifestyle changes including exercise, nutritious food choices, and obtaining sufficient rest, we are taking meaningful action on our own behalf that will positively impact our long-term health and well-being. These lifestyle changes are important for everyone, as people of all ages, races, and genders may be affected by lifestyle diseases. For example, research has shown that lifestyle modifications accounted for a 50% reduction in mortality from heart disease. This is a significant return on investment of time and effort.

Regular chiropractic care is a key component of all exercise programs and provides support and benefit for both indoor and outdoor exercise activities. Regular chiropractic care detects and corrects spinal misalignments and sources of nerve irritation as well as helps enable your body to perform at peak capacity and function at high levels of effectiveness. In this way, by participating in regular chiropractic care, the spinal biomechanics of every family member is optimized, helping to ensure the long-term health and well-being of everyone, young and old.

1Escamilla RF, et al: Muscle Activation Among Supine, Prone, and Side Position Exercises With and Without a Swiss Ball. Sports Health 8(4):372-379, 2016

2Lorenzetti S, et al: How to squat? Effects of various stance widths, foot placement angles and level of experience on knee, hip and trunk motion and loading. BMC Sports Sci Med Rehabil 2018 Jul 17;10:14. doi: 10.1186/s13102-018-0103-7

3Beazley D, et al: Trunk and hip muscle activation during yoga poses: Implications for physical therapy practice. Complement Ther Clin Pract 2017 Nov;29:130-135, 2017 . doi: 10.1016/j.ctcp.2017.09.009

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Relationship with Self

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Relationship with Self

As we go along in life, most of us periodically encounter obstacles or other checks to our welfare and well-being that cause us to question ourselves, our values, and our life circumstances. As we inquire with ourselves, we may find that we're wanting in certain areas such as preparedness, resilience, and adaptability. If we look deeply enough, we may also discover that there is a deficiency in kindness, generosity, and empathy with others and even with ourselves. If we're not honest with ourselves, the whole process is doomed to fail. But if we are, we will eventually have an opportunity to locate a spark of hope, a brighter light that points the way toward the means of resolution, specifically, a process of self-discovery and self-healing.

This self-healing process of growth and development may take many forms. For some persons, engagement with one of the world religions, such as Judaism, Islam, or Christianity, may provide a deeply rewarding and meaningful journey of self-realization. For others, launching and maintaining a daily meditation practice provides an effective method for achieving inner growth and self-actualization. As well, others may discover timeless wisdom in the works of the great philosophers, including Plato, Aristotle, Augustine of Hippo, Thomas of Aquino, Baruch Spinoza, David Hume, and Immanuel Kant. Many persons, over time, may embrace all of these methods of participation in the life of the self and others, as one's ongoing investigations and explorations point the way to additional sources of learning and fulfillment.

Thus, there is no single and exclusive means of achieving self-knowledge. One is guided by one's instincts and inclinations, based on one's inner understanding of what is truly meaningful. What works for you, works for you, and what is of deep interest should be pursued. Importantly, none of these processes of developing a relationship with oneself is a solipsistic endeavor, that is, a process that is only directed inward. We all have a responsibility, an obligation, to know ourselves and improve our capabilities. We also have a corresponding responsibility to help further the goals of others, to assist others in achieving their dreams and aspirations.

Regular chiropractic care is a critical part of one's journey of growth and development. Regular chiropractic care improves spinal alignment and removes sources of nerve irritation, helping to further the physiological benefits of our mindfulness practices.1,2,3. In this way, by helping to optimize our health and well-being, regular chiropractic care helps to facilitate both our inner processes of self-discovery and our outer activities that contribute to the welfare of our family, community, and society.

1Zeidan F, Vago DR: Mindfulness meditation-based pain relief: a mechanistic account. Ann NY Acad Sci 1373(1):114-127, 2016

2Khusid MA, Vythilingam M: The Emerging Role of Mindfulness Meditation as Effective Self-Management Strategy, Part 2: Clinical Implications for Chronic Pain, Substance Misuse, and Insomnia. Mil Med 181(9):969-975, 2016

3Armani KA, et al: The Impact of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction on Emotional Wellbeing and Glycemic Control of Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus. J Diabetes Res 2018 Jun 10;2018:1986820. doi: 10.1155/2018/1986820. eCollection 2018

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