Ease into Activity

Now that spring is upon us and the weather has turned pleasant and favorable for a more active lifestyle, there are some precautions that you should take heed of in order to protect your health and longevity.

Many of us lead rather dormant lifestyles during the winter months. The cold weather and shorter days naturally tend to lull us into a lazier, less active lifestyle.

Then the first beautiful day of spring or the opening of baseball season motivates us to get off the couch and go out and do some much needed yard work or pitch a little baseball with the kids. The catch is, however, that we are not accustomed to the strenuous activity and many of us spend the next few post-activity days or weeks suffering from aches, pains, strains, sprains, torn muscles, slipped disks – or worse, a heart attack.

To further complicate matters, we often put a lot of pressure on ourselves to get the job done in one afternoon or weekend. Slow down - the life you save may be your own! Pushing your body too much too fast could land you in a funeral home, hospital or on the bed recovering for weeks or months.

Slow and steady may not always win the race, but it may insure that you live longer and perform stronger for many races to come in the future. (Turtles usually live very long lives)!

Here are some tips to insure that you stay healthy and happy:

1.        Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate! Water is the key to life - and dehydration is a leading cause of high blood pressure, muscle aches, cramps, headaches and a whole host of other ailments. It is estimated that 90% of Americans are dehydrated daily. Coffee, soda, Gatorade, energy drinks, etc… are NOT substitutes for water – in fact, many of these “drinks” further dehydrate us. I recommend pure, alkaline, mineral rich water such as FIJI Water (click to find out why).

2.      Stretch. Our muscles and deep tissue can become oxygen and nutrient deprived due to inactivity. This deprivation combined with the decreased ability to detoxify and remove lactic acid can lead to a lot of aches, pains and more serious problems. Stretching can loosen these atrophied muscles up and get the juices flowing to prepare you for work.

3.      Get a massage: Massages and therapeutic bodywork isn’t just a luxury that rich housewives enjoy after their facials and spa treatments. Bodywork is a MUST in your pursuit for health, happiness and pain-free living. Deep tissue massage can rapidly detoxify the body and get nutrient-rich, oxygenated blood flowing to muscles, organs and tissues that are starved of life and attention. Massage can revitalize your body and make you impervious to injury and disease.

4.      Hot/Cold therapy: Visit a sauna or a hot yoga studio and expose yourself to some heat in a controlled environment. When the heat becomes too great, take a break or a cold shower and then re-visit the heat again. This will build up your tolerance and prepare you for the changing weather outdoors and high levels of internally generated heat from activity. This will also get your juices flowing and help your body detoxify – thus reducing your chances of dropping dead in the yard from heart attack or heat stroke.

5.      Interval training: Start out with some gradual physical training. Do one minute of strenuous activity followed by one minute of rest. Check your resting pulse before the activity, check your active pulse immediately following the activity, check your pulse again after one minute of rest. Your pulse should return to its initial resting rate within one minute of stopping the activity. If your pulse is not returning to its resting rate, it means your heart is “gasping” for breath – which could be a great indication of cardio-pulmonary problems. Try implementing an arginine (amino acid) supplement into your diet to naturally improve cardio health.

6.      Gradually increase activity: If your pulse returns to its resting rate within a minute, then start to gradually increase the activity periods, but still rest for a minute in between activity. Example: Two minutes of strenuous activity, one minute of rest – increasing the activity by one minute or so every day until you are ultimately working for 10 minutes, resting for one.

7.      Get a check-up: See your physician for regular physical check-ups even when you are feeling fine. Find a good physician who will devote the time to listen to you and truly care about your health and lifestyle. Interview doctors until you find the right one (your life may depend on it). Visit the right doctor regularly – not just when you are sick. Keep him up to date about all changes (for the better or worse) in your life and all medications you are taking.

8.      Chiropractic Adjustments: Your body runs on electricity. The brain communicates with the organs and every cell in the body through electrical signals sent through the spinal cord and nervous system. If your spine is out of alignment causing pressure on nerves and disks, then the body cannot function properly – leaving you susceptible to disease and injury. Chiropractic adjustments are easy, painless, affordable and essential in your quest for health and pain-free activity. Finding the right chiropractor will be an integral part of maintaining optimum health and peak performance.  

9.      Smile: The act of smiling greatly reduces stress. Stress is the number one underlying cause of all disease. If you have to do something (like cut the grass) – you might as well make it enjoyable – so smile while you are doing it! If you can’t muster up a smile for such activity, then hire someone else (or a lawn company) to do it for you. If you think the $45 for the lawn service is too much to spend – weigh the lawn maintenance cost in comparison to $45,000.00 heart surgery – followed by weeks of missed work. Maybe you can smile as you enjoy a different activity such as playing with your kids on the professionally cut lawn - knowing that you avoided a health crisis. Care for your body and use your time wisely and you will be living on Easy Street!

10.  For many more healthy tips, join us on Wellness Wednesdays at the DME BeneFitness center as we present our Peak Employee Performance (PEP) program from noon to 1pm. Inquire with the DME HR Department, Stillman Rice at BeneFitness, or Lea D'Loughy

Back on Track

Unless you have suffered from back pain or have actually been stabbed in the back with a knife, it may be hard for you to imagine how painful and debilitating a back injury can be. Every day we have so many things to be thankful for, but so often we don’t realize it and we take “normalcy” for granted – like having a healthy, normally functioning spine.

Spinal health is of utmost importance in your body’s overall health. I truly realize just how important the spine is because as I write this blog I am suffering from a pulled muscle and misaligned vertebra in my back. So as I sit here writing while wincing in pain from every deep breath I take and slight shift my body makes, I am introspectively reflecting on the importance of the spine.

The spine is the interstate or superconductor of all information (including pain) through nerves to all parts of the body. These nerves conduct the electricity that is necessary for our body’s cells to communicate. If the nerves are blocked, then the electricity or information is impeded and a traffic jam basically occurs. If nerves are pinched or injured then the result is pain – sometimes a lot of it. If information cannot flow through the body’s nerves efficiently or if it is convoluted by pain, then the result is improper organ function, suppressed immune system, digestive disorders and stress. Many symptoms such as allergies, headaches, constipation, diarrhea, nausea, ringing in the ears, fatigue and more are simply the result of spinal misalignment.

I’ve had multiple back injuries over the last ten years – none of which came from heavy exertion, accident, strenuous activity or any of the usual suspects that you would attribute to back injury. Every time I have injured my back it has been the result of a very unsuspecting incident such as: slightly leaning over the bathroom sink to spit out toothpaste after brushing my teeth, turning slightly to pick up a bag weighing less than 5 pounds at waist height, and most recently, reaching down to tie my shoe. After deep contemplation and analysis of each injury and the days and weeks leading up to said injury, I came to the conclusion that each incident wasn’t the actual cause of the injury, but rather the culmination of a series of events leading up to the incident. Each time the series of events had some common denominators such as: decreased water intake and hydration, alcohol consumption (contributing to dehydration), less activity or less intense exercise, reduced or omitted stretching, less yoga and sauna time, more stress, lack of sleep, improper posture, excessive driving, no chiropractic maintenance treatments, sitting for long periods without standing and stretching… the list goes on, but you get the point.

I take full responsibility for each injury to my back because I know that I was not doing everything within my power to avert the calamity. I know without a shadow of a doubt that if I was following my own routine to the best of my ability that the injuries would have most likely never happened. How do I know this to be true? Because the very things that I just listed as factors (or lack thereof) leading up to the injury were the things that naturally healed me each time and then allowed me to go for years on a demanding schedule and rigorous workout routine without even the slightest hint of pain or injury. In fact, I’ve even been in multiple car accidents in which I was rear-ended and walked away with no soreness or injury at all – those accidents happened when I was “on my full routine” and in what I considered peak physical condition.

Since my back injuries have always occurred during periods when I admittedly slacked off on my routine, it take that as proof positive that if you don’t use it, you lose it (or injure it)! This further validates my motto that “if you fight as if you already have a problem, then you may never get one – but if you wait until you have a diagnosis (or injury) it may be too late.”

Here are some things you can do to keep your “back on track”:

-          Sit up straight and don’t slouch or hunch over- become cognoscente of your posture at all times

-          Uncross your legs when sitting (this also causes varicose veins)

-          Don’t keep a wallet or other items in your back pocket as this can cause your hips to shift and put pressure on your back when seated

-          Bend at the knees and keep your upper body erect when lifting things

-          Sleep on your back or side instead of your stomach

-          Take occasional breaks from activities that require sitting (couch surfing, working, driving, etc) and stand up and stretch, walk, rebound from heel to toe, or just simply move a little!

-          Hydrate with plenty of fresh, clean water

-          Wear comfortable shoes

-          Visit your chiropractor for routine preventative maintenance, exams and adjustments – before you have a problem

-          Take yoga classes regularly to maintain flexibility

-          Treat yourself to massage therapy regularly

-          Avoid drugs that stop the pain, but don’t get to the cause of the problem – these can lead to further injury and much more severe problems in the body.