Does the Band-Aid Do the Healing??

I'm always talking about health & the amazing healing abilities of the body. So let's take a closer look at this...

What would happen if I cut my finger? And how would it look a month from now? Initially the open area might bleed. Eventually it would form a scab over the area. Depending on the severity of the cut, in a month it may be hardly recognizable as an injury.

Now...suppose I cut that finger while carrying a pile of wood and I got a sliver (or splinter) in that cut? And how would it look in a few days...or in a month if the splinter was left there? The finger would probably be a little more sore, with inflammation and redness around the foreign piece of wood under the skin. The surrounding area may become infected.

So let me ask you...would it make more sense to remove the splinter and let the area heal or to take a pill to mask the problem?

I know you chose to remove the interference to the normal healing ability of the body! When the interference is removed, the body heals itself 100% of the time!

Have you heard of children with strep throat and they were prescribed antibiotics? And some time later they developed strep throat again? You might wonder why strep throat came back again. It comes back to the self-healing mechanism within the body. You need to locate the CAUSE of the interference and remove it so the body can HEAL properly.

If there are misalignments in your spine causing irritation to the nerve signals (subluxations), your body can't heal at 100% capacity. Remove those interferences through adjusting the spine, and you'll be on your way to a stronger immune system and a healthier body!

Vomit

We've all experienced it at one time or another... We enjoy a meal out on the town and hours later find ourselves vomiting. Not an enjoyable experience, is it?

When replaying the story to our friends, family and co-workers, we typically will explain how we got "sick." But have you ever stopped to think, were you actually sick or well?

You see, it is a natural, healthy function to rid our body of any harmful, toxic bacteria or viruses that causes food poisoning. Our bodies try to get every last bit of these nasty little particles out by having the stomach contract forcefully to hurl out all it's contents as quickly as possible so that you don't have to suffer any more than necessary. Gross...I know. Painful. But just what the body needs.

So next time you experience an episode of food poisoning, be thankful for the intelligence inside your body that knows to get rid of the harmful particles that could cause much more destruction if not dealt with immediately. Know that your body is well and functioning just as it should given it's circumstances.

Golden Gate Bridge

The Golden Gate Bridge is one of the most well-known bridges in the world with nine million visitors each year. At the time of its completion in 1937, it was the longest suspension bridge span in the world. Each weekday, over 90,000 cars travel along this infamous bridge.

What has kept this magnificent structure strong for nearly 75 years? Constant maintenance! Workers are dedicated to inspecting and finding areas that need repair before it causes a major problem. Currently there are 38 people employed just to do the painting. These painters touch up areas of erosion in the vermillion orange paint daily. Preserving this bridge is a full time job.

Staying well requires constant attention too. Our bodies are not static structures, but we all requires this maintenance to stay healthy. Without maintenance our bodies would start to break down and crumble just like the Golden Gate Bridge would without the proper care it receives 365 days a year.

Regular Chiropractic care is just one of those aspects that helps keep us healthy. By removing any nerve interferences through adjusting the spine, we allow the nerve energy to freely flow though the body so that all the cells, organs and tissues can heal from the inside out.

The First Step

Change...it's a scary word to a lot of people. Why? Because it means we have to step outside of our comfort zone. There is actually a book titled Change or Die. It's sad to say but many of us would rather die than change because it just seems to painful to make a change. We become complacent and comfortable with a routine, and even the thought of putting a fork into it can paralyze us.

Fortunately, the first step is usually the hardest along the journey. Once we can wrap our head around what it is we want/need to change, the actions steps become easier with each step. For example, I recently started running again. Initially, I had to talk myself into running. Now after two months of more consistent running, I look forward to it! It's my way to unwind from the daily stresses.

How do you get over that initial hump? Tie your goal to something bigger than yourself. Many times people will set a goal and it isn't tied to anything, so after they lose the weight for the wedding the pounds eventually stack back on.

What we have found is that if you can associate that goal to something greater than yourself, it is more likely to last. Say you want to lose weight so that you can be more active and play outside with your kids or to be a role model for them. Now you have your family to help motivate you to reach that goal and to help you stick to it.

Once you've made up your mind and found a noble cause to tie your goals to, you just have to jump in and take that leap of faith. It will get easier with each step you take.

Devastation Reminds Us to Be Grateful

This morning I was looking through one of the slide shows of pictures from all of the deadly Midwest tornadoes that have happened this week. The devastation in these pictures are amazing. As my heart is sad for everyone affected, it is also a reminder to be grateful for all I have.

There are times of struggle in my day-to-day life that begin to bog me down. That's why it is so important to take time each day to think about the things I am grateful. Sometimes I get so caught up in my own problems that I need to step back and look at the bigger picture. Even when I am facing a big giant, I can find many things to be thankful for...family, friends, health, shelter, etc.

A great way to start is to begin a gratitude journal where each day you write down things you are grateful for. If you are married or have children, each night before going to bed share with each other a few reasons you are grateful for each other. It's an amazing way to end your day and enter into blissful dreams!

Burning Desire

My burning desire is for people to realize that health comes from within. You can’t get if from a pill or potion. You can’t buy it. You don’t get it from great genes alone. It is a choice each of us makes every day…actually, it is a great number of choices we make all day long.

Do you get up when the alarm goes off and eat a healthy breakfast before heading to work? Or do you hit the snooze button repeatedly and skip breakfast? When you get home at night, do you read books or articles that build you up in strong and noble thought? Or do you sit in front of the idiot box (aka TV) watching hours of mindless shows?

What’s even more important is that all of these choices we make daily are providing a blueprint for our kids to follow! When we look at the declining health and increasing obesity rates in our youth, it is sickening! It breaks my heart to see this! Last summer, I visited the Omaha Zoo and saw a scene that is way too common and it infuriated me. A young girl about 4 years old was standing with her belly hanging out of her shorts and over her jeans while this girl’s mother handed her a soda that she began chugging. The poor little girl was been trained from birth on acceptable dietary choices by her parents. Children are fast learners and these lifestyle choices are imprinted on their developing brains.

Make the decision for not only yourself but your family to choose health. Choose to be aligned in all aspects of your life: physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. Choose to eat nutritiously, feeding your body with the good stuff your body needs. Choose to think positively, with a mindset of success. Choose to feed your brain & body with movement through exercise and activity.

These simply steps can and will change your life.

Nikki L. Huls, D.C.

Awesome Website for Those Interested in Exercise & Nutrition

Yesterday, I re-discovered a website www.mapmyrun.com. When I was in high school and college, I can remember getting in the car and driving my running route in attempts to figure out the length of my run. Boy, how we have progressed. Now you can just pull up a website, enter in your beginning location and just click away along the roads or paths you traveled. It totals up not only the distance you traveled but also the elevation gains. You can then save your most common routes. You can even look up other people's routes in your community and see what they have to say about it.

In the past, that was the extent of how I used this website...but now it is really more of a social media site and a health log. I LOVE IT!! There is both a workout log and a nutrition log. So those walking/jogging/running routes you saved can be easily pulled up and you can enter your time, the weather conditions, how you felt or any other remarks. It calculates calories burned based on your height and weight. But it's not just for running. This week I logged in a Cardio Blast workout I did at Tryon Gym For Her and also a workout on the elliptical machine. Again it calculates approximate calories burned for the length of time, distance and your vital stats.

How does it get better?? It does the same thing with your nutrition! Basically you can create a food diary. It already has a lot of foods/meals pre-entered for you with calories, fats, carbs, proteins, etc. After you log in your entire days meals, you can look at how you compared to what your daily intake should be and your daily expenditure with your exercise program.

Now I've done this before...old school style with a notebook, pencil and calculator...and always thought it was so interesting. But Map My Run has made it so much easier. If you are a fitness fanatic or just looking to get into better shape here is one way you can hold yourself accountable without any added cost.

Just to let you know, I am in no way affiliated with the company nor do I get any incentives for sharing this. I found it fascinating and hoped it could help others reach their health and wellness goals.

You are who you hang out with

Have you ever heard the saying, "You are who you hang out with?" Often we hear this from a motivational speaker when talking about reaching your goals and finding mentors in life who possess qualities that you want for yourself. For example, if you are training for a marathon and all of your friends are professional couch potatoes, those friends probably aren't going to inspire you in your training as much as another running enthusiast might. In this example it would do you good to find a running club to become part of and to get that support.

This can be applied to many areas of life. This week I was reminded once again of 2 people I look up to greatly. I have always admired their relationship and their passion for family. In junior high school, I had an assignment where I was to write about a real-life experience using detailed descriptions of the scene to portray an emotion. I chose LOVE, and in an instant I knew I would write about my Grandma & Grandpa Steffl.

In my story, I recalled just one of hundreds of family celebrations where about 50 of my aunts, uncles, and cousins would congregate--that's what happens when you have 12 kids. :) It included the descriptions of the wonderful aromas of food baking in the oven, the chatter and laughter from every corner of the house and the inevitable round of hugs to every single person in the house as you enter and exit. Stepping foot into the house you could sense the love within the walls--not just for each other or for their kids, grand kids, and now great-grand kids but in everything they did.

Since doing that assignment years ago, I have always desired to be as loving as my Grandparents and also to have a relationship like their that has stood the test of time. Unfortunately, failing health led to a trip to the ICU this week. Sitting in the room with my Grandparents, you can see they're still in love many years later. Seeing them holding hands and Grandpa winking at Grandma brought a smile to my face and a tear to my eye. Living a life full of love is a life worth living.

I feel so blessed to have 2 great role models as my Grandparents. And what's even better is to see that love and those traditions being passed down the generations.

So...the moral of the story...figure out those qualities you're striving for or maybe it's something you want to do, then find a mentor who can help show you the way!

Symptoms Not That Important

Symptoms in the big picture are not as important as you might think. They are very important in that they are a warning sign that something in your body has gone wrong. Symptoms require attention, and in some instances can save your life, but in the overall picture they are not that important.

Certain diseases and conditions take years to develop in the body. For instance, cancer and heart disease may take five to ten years to develop in your body before your doctor can even detect that you have the disease. And in heart disease, 40% of the time the first symptom is a heart attack.

So, you can see that if you felt good yesterday and you had a heart attack today, that particular symptom was useless in letting you know you had heart disease. That is why it is so much more important to be healthy rather than just feel good. Healthy means everything in your body is functioning properly, while just feeling good only means that you do not have any symptoms.

My job as a chiropractor is not to treat symptoms, but to correct what is causing the symptom. Treating the symptom would be no different than giving you an over-the-counter medication. The medication covers-up the symptom but still leaves the cause. As chiropractor, we correct the cause of your condition by restoring proper spinal function. When we adjust the spinal bones to the best possible position for your body, the body is able to begin to heal itself.

Check Engine Light

You are driving down the highway, listening to the radio, obeying the traffic laws, excited to be leaving for the weekend. Then all of the sudden you hear the "dinging" noise that causes your eyes to quickly peer at the dashboard of your car. What do you see???



A mixture of thoughts come over you. What's wrong? How serious is it? Can I make it to my destination before checking it? Should I stop now? How much is it going to cost? Ultimately, what do you end up doing? Eventually you bring the car in to get checked out. After you find out what's wrong, you can then figure out what needs to be done from there.

Okay, now you might be wondering what does this have to do with wellness or chiropractic because, after all, that is what this blog is about. Well, the CHECK ENGINE light is a warning sign or "symptom" that tells you something is wrong inside the car. It's telling you that it needs to get checked and something needs to change in order for the car to run properly or optimally.

That is the same thing that happens in our own bodies. We can experience different symptoms like headaches, fever and upset stomach. As much as it is NOT fun to experience these symptoms it is a good thing that our bodies give us these warning signals. Symptoms let us know that the body is working to get healthy but something is happening inside our bodies that should be checked our and followed up with.

Now think about that CHECK ENGINE light again. What if we just took a piece of masking tape and put it over the light so we no longer would be able to see it? Is the car fixed? Is it better? Absolutely not. We just covered up the symptom and ignored the warning.

This is what happens a lot of time with people. We start experiencing a symptom i.e. a headache and instead of finding out what's causing the headache we pop a couple pills and the symptom goes away for awhile. But since we didn't look into or fix the problem, the symptom comes back again and again. It's just masking the symptom. Wouldn't it make more sense to fix the problem? Then or bodies could heal and be healthier.

So next time you experience some unwanted symptoms, decide if you want to cover them up temporarily or to fix them and move towards a healthier you. It's you choice.

Healthy Salad Recipe

If you are anything like me, you get bored with the same meals. I always like looking for new ideas, but not just new...I also want HEALTHY ones. I discovered a great resource for just that. The book is called Living in the Raw. It incorporates lots of fresh veggies and fruits in the recipes. So, today I'm sharing one of my favorites with you. It's called Cabbage Salad with Cumin Vinaigrette and is great as a side dish, or you can bring it to your next potluck as a healthy alternative to the typical high carb, high sugar potluck foods.

Ingredients:
1 medium cabbage, finely shredded
4 carrots, grated
4 green onions, finely chopped
1 C celery, finely chopped
1/2 C red bell peppers, finely chopped
1/3 C flax oil
3 T lemon juice
1 T whole cumin seeds
1 t Celtic salt
2 cloves garlic, minced

Combine cabbage, carrots, green onions, celery and red bell pepper in a large bowl. In a jar, combine flax oil, lemon juice, salt, cumin seed, and garlic; cover and shake. Pour over salad and use your hands to mix well. Let marinate for 2 hours in the refrigerator before serving.

Eat & Enjoy!!

Feeling vs. Function

A common question I hear as a Chiropractor is, "I feel good; why would I need to get adjusted?" The reason why someone would continue to get adjusted even though they aren't feeling pain is really two-fold. First off, let's start off by looking at how the body is made. There are 3 types of nerves in our body: sensory, motor and autonomic. Sensory nerves are those that "feel"--pain or pleasure--and they only make up 10% of all the nerves in our body. Motor nerves go to the muscles, autonomic nerves go to the organs, blood vessels and glands. Motor and autonomic nerves each make up about 45% of the nerves.

So, what does this all mean?

Chiropractors look for subluxations. These are misalignments that interfere with the nerve signal. When these subluxations interfere with the sensory nerves, you might feel pain, pressure, or tingling sensations to name a few. But, what happens when the sensory nerves aren't the ones involved?? You might not feel anything! For example, if the nerves going to the stomach (which are autonomic nerves) are being interfered with, a person might experience different symptoms such as acid reflux or upset stomach.

This is why it is so important to get your spine and nervous system professionally evaluated by a Doctor of Chiropractic. We are trained to detect and correct these "hidden" subluxations.

The second part of the reason to why you would want to get your spine checked/adjusted when you aren't feeling symptoms deals with being pro-active instead of reactive. In America, we are ingrained with a mechanistic model of healthcare all day long. When we turn on the TV, we see commercials for drugs that will fix any ailment you can think of. Have you opened a magazine lately? They are plastered with ads for drugs. These are all feeding on that reactive mind-set. If or when I have a problem (i.e. high blood pressure, high cholesterol), I can just go to my doctor and get a prescription for it.

But, wouldn't it be a better idea to never have to experience those problems? (And don't forget about all the chances of potential side effects from those drugs)!! Getting your spine checked on a regular basis is just like drinking clean water, eating balanced meals, and exercising regularly. These things are all pro-active and allow you to stay healthy.

What are you waiting for? Schedule your appointment to get your spine checked today before you start feeling symptoms.

2011--Starting Fresh

We are nearing the end of January now...so how are you doing with those New Year's Resolutions? If you're anything like the rest of Americans, you started out strong, determined to change or improve some aspect of yourself. Then comes life. We get busy with out families or with our careers, and those resolutions or goals of the new year start to get pushed aside. Now is the perfect time to sit down and analyze. Here are a few questions to ponder:

1. How have you done thus far? Don't get discouraged if your haven't obtained your goal in 3 short weeks. We need to look how far we have came and focus on that. For example, if you resolved to quit smoking, compare where you were at the end of 2010 to where you are now. Even if you are smoking just 1 cigarette less a day, that's an improvement! Don't beat yourself up if you're not completely done, just know there is still work to do.
2. What have you done to follow through with your resolution and how are these things working? Think about each step you've taken and where it's gotten you. Know that it's okay to change the plan. If there is something that doesn't seem to be working or helping, adopt a new strategy. A common definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. So you might need to change it up a little.
3. What's my plan from here? Once you've analyzed where you are at and how you've gotten there, you can now look to the future. Make small goals (daily, weekly, monthly) for the future and create an action plan to accomplish the task at hand.

Now you are ready to rock! Be proud of what you have done thus far and keep your eye on the prize.

Welcome

Hello and Welcome to My Blog! You will find a variety of topics including health, chiropractic, nutrition, fitness, and the mind-body connection. I hope you find it informative and entertaining. I look forward to hearing your feedback as well.