Bursts of Activity

We all know that 30 minutes per day of strenuous exercise will provide many health benefits. Recent Federal guidelines from the Department of Health and Human Services1 have even made this official. The real question for most of us is how to find the time to exercise regularly and consistently. All we have is 24 hours each day to get done all the things we need to get done. Exercising often takes a back seat to work, shopping, cooking, cleaning, getting the kids ready for school and ready for bed, and all the other million-and-one little details that demand our attention every day.

Most of us have the motivation to exercise2 - we want to do it, and we know it's important and good for us.3 But when to fit it in? A few hardy souls bite the bullet and get up at 5:00 AM - making more time in the day by getting less sleep. Others exercise at the end of a long day, but sometimes that's stressful and counterproductive. However they do it, many people make real efforts to exercise a few times each week.

Most likely - over time - our good intentions get stymied by our daily concerns. Deadlines and scheduling take precedence and the most easy-to-jettison item on our to-do list - exercise - gets lost in the process. And sooner rather than later we're back to not exercising at all. Public health experts and policymakers have been struggling, too, with this apparent no-win situation. The outcome is brand-new recommendations relating to short bursts of activity during the day. These three- to five-minute bursts have been studied and shown to provide real health benefits to real people under real-world circumstances.

Instead of taking coffee breaks at work, people are beginning to take activity breaks. Three to five minutes of climbing office building stairs or brisk walking outside the building or a quick series of calisthenics are all it takes. Six to ten such breaks fulfills the daily requirement of 30 minutes of exercise. No separately scheduled exercise time is necessary. You're already at work, you're already taking breaks. So the breaks become exercise breaks. And you get your exercise done. And you feel great for the entire day, due to bursts of endorphins occurring throughout the day.

These bursts of activity are also ideal for people working at home, as well as for school children. Studies in schools are showing increased attention spans and increased learning as a result of short bursts of intense physical activity. Everyone can do this. And finally, everyone can have a workable system for getting the exercise they need. Your chiropractor is a fitness expert and will be glad to help you design an exercise program that works for you.

Dr. Dave Edenfield, "Your Jacksonville Chiropractor," and Lakewood Chiropractic offers the most advanced treatments for back pain, sciatica, neck pain, whiplash, and headaches. They also treat auto accident victims with state-of-the-art technologies. Now accepting VA patients. For more information visit:
Lakewood Chiropractic
Jacksonville, Florida 32217
 904-733-7020

Visit lakewoodchiropracticjax.com!
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1U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans. Washington, DC, DHHS, 2008. 2Vallance JK, et al: Maintenance of physical activity in breast cancer survivors after a randomized trial. Med Sci Sports Exerc 40(1):173-180, 2008 3Heckman GE, McKelvie RS: Cardiovascular aging and exercise in healthy older adults. Clin J Sport Med 18(6):479-485, 2008

Quick tips How to avoid getting sick this winter

1. Get your vitamin D. You may be chugging orange juice to load up on vitamin C, but most people become deficient in vitamin D in the winter. Since its main source is sunlight, it's hard to load up on it in the winter. Research has shown vitamin D helps the production of T-cells that are responsible for killing harmful viruses and bacteria. Get your fix while the sun's hiding with salmon, eggs, mushrooms, and certain types of cereals and oatmeal.
2. Don't skip the workout. It's hard to stay motivated in the winter, but exercise can aid in the prevention of sickness, or decrease the severity of symptoms. Working out helps increase circulation, thereby distributing the immune system's white blood cells. 
3. Get your zzz's. The suggestion to get 8 hours of sleep each night has been advised forever for a reason. Sleep is the body's way to recharge itself. When you're overly tired, your immune system has a harder time warding off illness.

Dr. Dave Edenfield, "Your Jacksonville Chiropractor", and Lakewood Chiropractic offers the most advanced treatments for back pain, sciatica, neck pain, whiplash, and headaches. They also treat auto accident victims with state-of-the-art technologies. Now accepting VA patients. For more information visit:

Lakewood Chiropractic
Jacksonville, Florida 32217
904-733-7020

Visit lakewoodchiropracticjax.com!
Visit our facebook page!
Follow us on Twitter!

Health Care Breakthroughs - Hope or Hype?

Healthy Lifestyles

Heart disease, diabetes, and obesity - a formidable triad. These chronic disorders are interrelated, and the presence of one will often lead over time to development of one or both of the others. The good news is that, for the most part, these three entities occur as a result of lifestyle choices. This means we can greatly reduce the likelihood of developing one or all of these conditions. For example, at present more than one-third of American children are overweight or obese. These kids are very likely to develop diabetes and, later on, heart disease. So, if you're overweight or obese as a child, you can look forward to a lifetime of health problems. Why do American kids have these problems? The answer is simple - they don't exercise, and they eat large amounts of junk food. The solutions are obvious and just as simple. Developing lifelong habits of regular exercise and good nutrition begins at home. Parents who exercise regularly and provide healthy, balanced meals for their kids help their kids develop the habit of making healthful lifestyle choices, habits that will last a lifetime.

Health care breakthroughs are big business. We know this because such news is reported in the Business Section of newspapers and magazines. Discussions relate primarily to the potential impact on the company's share price and revenues. Possible benefits to patients are a secondary concern compared to the amount of money involved.

Business coverage of these issues is yet another reminder of how far health care has moved away from its original and sole focus on treatment. Sadly, the bottom line has become the bottom line. And yet, there may be real breakthroughs on the horizon. Advances in DNA analysis and nanotechnology may bring us closer to a world of personalized treatment for cancer and other disorders.

For example, university researchers have been working for years on methods to deliver cancer drugs to the actual tumor.¹ If possible, this would substantially improve on current treatment which floods the patient's entire body with highly toxic anti-cancer medication.

These new methods - collectively termed targeted cancer therapy - involve the cancer drugs hitching a ride on very small particles - nanoparticles - which are programmed to seek out and attach to the malignant tumor.² The toxic drug only interacts with the tumor cells, killing the tumor but not affecting any of the patient's normal cells. If this research pans out, meaningful progress would be made.

Early detection of disease - cancers, hormonal disorders, inflammatory diseases - is often discussed as a critical factor in the success of treatment. Recently, in the last ten years, progress in the fields of nanotechnology and DNA and protein analysis has brought us closer to real-world early detection.

Researchers are gaining the ability to analyze very small amounts of biomarkers - specialized proteins that may indicate the presence of specific diseases - in both blood and individual cells³. A lot more work needs to be done to standardize these tests and understand which biomarkers are related to which diseases - but this seems to be merely a matter time. Within ten or fifteen years, such analysis may become readily available and routine. This would be a real breakthrough.

However, rather than placing our bets on diagnostic and treatment methods that may or may not become available, doesn't it make more sense to take care of our physical health right now, today? The vast majority of diseases that affect Americans - heart disease, diabetes, and obesity - are, for the most part, lifestyle disorders. And, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that many cancers are also related to lifestyle.

Of course, lifestyle is a code word for good nutrition, regular exercise, sufficient rest, a positive mental attitude, and rewarding family and personal relationships. An important part of lifestyle is maintaining a body that works - and the best way to ensure good overall health is with periodic, regular chiropractic care.

Chiropractic treatment ensures your body is working at its optimum. Chiropractic treatment gives your body its best chance of functioning at a level of optimum health. Your chiropractor will be glad to help you learn how to achieve a healthy, vibrant lifestyle.
Dr. Dave Edenfield, "Your Jacksonville Chiropractor", and Lakewood Chiropractic offers the most advanced treatments for back pain, sciatica, neck pain, whiplash, and headaches. They also treat auto accident victims with state-of-the-art technologies. Now accepting VA patients. For more information visit:

Lakewood Chiropractic
Jacksonville, Florida 32217
904-733-7020

http://www.lakewoodchiropracticjax.com/

https://www.facebook.com/lakewoodchiropractic

https://twitter.com/AskDrEdenfield

¹Choi MR, et al: A Cellular Trojan Horse for Delivery of Therapeutic Nanoparticles into Tumors. Nano Letters 7(12):3759-3765, 2007
²Zahr AS, Pishko MV: Encapsulation of paclitaxel in macromolecular nanoshells. Biomacromolecules 8(6):2004-2010, 2007
³Favis R, et al: Universal DNA Microarray Analysisof p53 Mutations in Undissected Colorectal Tumors. Human Mutation 24:63-75, 2004

Getting a Good Night's Sleep

Ensuring Restful Sleep - Positive Self-Talk

A great way to establish the habit of restful sleep is to quietly talk to yourself a little before falling asleep. In essence you're talking directly to your subconscious mind, and the instructions you give your subconscious can go far toward ensuring a good night's sleep and a successful day tomorrow. Positive self-talk has been championed by renowned plastic surgeon Maxwell Maltz in his world-famous book, Psycho-Cybernetics, and by many leaders in the field of human peak performance, including Earl Nightingale, Napoleon Hill, and Norman Vincent Peale. You can say things like: I sleep through the night. I sleep deeply and well. I wake up relaxed, refreshed, restored, renewed, revived. I will have a great day tomorrow. I'll meet the right people and speak with the right people. Everything goes my way. I am healthy and well. I am healthy and well. Give thanks for your wonderful family, friends, and job or career. You'll notice, after a few nights of brief, quiet positive self-talk, that you're falling asleep quicker and that your days are becoming much easier, much more enjoyable. Things are flowing your way. It's quite remarkable.

Americans spend more than $2 billion each year on sleep-aiding medications. Sleep is supposed to be a natural process. What's going on? There are many issues in the way of getting a good night's sleep. Daily stresses - work problems, financial difficulties, family challenges - can all keep a person up at night.¹ We rehash what was said over and over again, or we endlessly review the problems confronting us, creating more anxiety and worry while the minutes and maybe even hours tick away.

Eating late at night - particularly fat-filled foods and snacks - may also interfere with a person's ability to fall asleep and sleep restfully. Late night meals engage all the resources of your digestive system - your body is actually doing a lot of work when it's supposed to be resting. Not good. And, of course, a lot of this late night food is stored as fat, creating additional problems.

Not enough exercise also contributes to lack of restful sleep.^2,3 When you're doing vigorous physical work, your body needs to recover. Sleep allows your body to repair and rebuild, getting stronger in the process. Regardless of one's stresses and worries, vigorous exercise makes a physical demand on your body that will put you right to sleep.
If you're not exercising regularly, this strong physiologic need for deep rest is missing, and you'll likely be tossing and turning the night away.

Old, soft, lumpy mattresses are another potential sleep-disturber. But too-firm mattresses may also cause problems. A good mattress is supportive and comfortable - it "gives" in all the right places and provides a balanced, springy platform for a restful night's sleep. The solutions are straightforward and none of them involve medication. Regular exercise is the key ingredient. With consistent exercise, your body's need for sleep will win out over your conscious mind's automatic mechanism of repeatedly processing the day's events.

Chiropractic care may be another key ingredient. Gentle chiropractic treatment ensures that all your body's systems are talking to each other and the right messages are getting through. Chiropractic treatment ensures clear communication from one body system to another. Late at night, systems shut down when they're supposed to and the result
is a good night's sleep. Your chiropractor will be glad to provide you with important information on customized exercise and nutrition programs that will help you continue to be healthy and well.

Dr. Dave Edenfield, "Your Jacksonville Chiropractor", and Lakewood Chiropractic offers the most advanced treatments for back pain, sciatica, neck pain, whiplash, and headaches. They also treat auto accident victims with state-of-the-art technologies. Now accepting VA patients. For more information visit:

Lakewood Chiropractic
Jacksonville, Florida 32217
904-733-7020

http://www.lakewoodchiropracticjax.com/

https://www.facebook.com/lakewoodchiropractic

https://twitter.com/AskDrEdenfield

¹Richardson GS: Human physiological models of insomnia. Sleep Med 8(Suppl 4):S9-S14, 2007
²Lee YC, et al: Lifestyle risk factors associated with fatigue in graduate students. J Formos Med Assoc 106(7):565-572, 2007
³Li F, et al: Tai chi and self-rated quality of sleep and daytime sleepiness in older adults: a randomized controlled trial. J Am Geriatr Soc 52(6):892-900, 2004

Your Brain and You

Complex Carbohydrates

Sugar is sugar, right? From a physiological viewpoint, blood glucose is blood glucose, right? Wrong. The source of the glucose is what counts and has everything to do with your ability to use food for energy. Complex carbohydrates - found in fruits and whole-grain cereals - are digested and broken-down into glucose - the body's usable form of sugar. This process of digestion takes time and the glucose produced is slowly released into the bloodstream, where it is transported to cells for use as an energy source. When you eat simple sugars - a teaspoon of sugar in your coffee or a sticky bun with icing - you're ingesting ready-made glucose. No digestion is necessary - the glucose is already in its simplest form and goes directly into the bloodstream. Such rapidly available glucose is probably not immediately needed for energy and therefore is stored as fat. Also, the rapid surge of blood glucose stimulates the pancreas to release insulin, setting off a whole cascade of responses. Bottom line - consuming a lot of simple sugars causes your body to store fat and ultimately impairs the functioning of the pancreas, possibly leading to diabetes. Consuming complex carbohydrates provides glucose for energy and is part of the natural pathway to good health.

You are the lucky owner of a magnificent piece of biological machinery - the human brain. Your brain is always on, performs lightning-fast calculations, and is a whiz at making connections between seemingly unrelated factors and observations. The only downside is that your brain didn't come with an owner's manual. 

Fortunately, your brain has no moving parts. All the action is on the inside - inside the black box. And, your brain is always available. It will do whatever you tell it to do. All you have to do is take care of it properly - provide it with energy, take it out for a walk, and make sure it's connected. 

The energy part could be easy, but most of us fall down on the job. Our bodies require high-quality nutrition, but mostly what they get is a poor substitute. Fresh fruits and vegetables, whole-grain cereals; complete protein from milk, yogurt, cheese, eggs, fish, chicken, turkey; and plenty of water cover daily requirements for optimum functioning. [If you're a vegetarian, make sure you get complete protein from dairy products - rice and beans do not provide complete protein!] 

A balanced food plan provides your brain with all the energy it needs ¹ - and it needs plenty of energy! Glucose is the primary source of energy for your brain - complex carbohydrates like potatoes and whole grains make it all happen.

Going for a walk - a metaphor for all kinds of vigorous physical activity - not only helps keep you in top shape but is also one of the best things you can do for your brain. So many recent scientific studies have shown that peak brain function and levels of exercise are strongly related.^{2, 3}

Physical activity causes new areas of your brain to "light up" and builds connections between areas of your brain that weren't connected before. So, you're body's getting smarter at the same time that you're getting smarter! A pretty good deal.

Finally, it's very important to make sure that all the parts of your body are talking to each other in the right way and at the right time. Your brain needs to receive the information it's supposed to receive to make good decisions, and your body needs to receive the information it needs from your brain to get all the jobs done that need to be done.

Dr. Dave Edenfield, "Your Jacksonville Chiropractor", and Lakewood Chiropractic offers the most advanced treatments for back pain, sciatica, neck pain, whiplash and headaches. They also treat auto accident victims with state-of-the-art technologies. Now accepting VA patients. For more information visit:

Lakewood Chiropractic
Jacksonville, Florida 32217
904-733-7020


https://www.facebook.com/lakewoodchiropractic

https://twitter.com/AskDrEdenfield

¹Rosales FJ, Zelsel Sh: Perspectives from the symposium: The Role of Nutrition in Infant and Toddler Brain and Behavioral Development. Nutr Neurosci 11(3):135-143, 2008

²Christie BR, et al: Exercising our brains: how physical activity impacts synaptic plasticity in the dentate gyrus. Neuromolecular Med 10(2):47-58, 2008

³Lange-Asschenfeldt C, Kojda G: Alzheimer's disease, cerebrovascular dysfunction and the benefits of exercise: From vessels to neurons. Exp Gerontol 43(6):499-504, 2008

Decompression

Decompression

Chiropractic Care Promotes Flexibility, Balance, and Coordination

Flexibility, balance, and coordination are innate human functions. These abilities add beauty to the forms of our physical actions. We instinctively admire the grace and skill of professional athletes, men, and women who have achieved very high levels of flexibility, balance, and coordination. Many of us have permanent mental images of stunning sports moments we've witnessed, when human beings have performed extraordinary feats using these inborn, yet highly trained abilities. Not all of can become professional athletes, yet we all can function at the peak of our own capabilities. Chiropractic care helps us do this. By ensuring that our central mechanism of flexibility, balance, and coordination - our spinal column and core musculature - is functioning at maximum efficiency, chiropractic care helps us achieve high performance. Overall health, creativity, and physical abilities are all enhanced by chiropractic care.

Did you know that your spinal column's spongy intervertebral discs (IVDs) comprise 25% of this segmented structure's entire length? Did you know that an adult's spinal column is approximately 24-28 inches in length? A little quick math shows that the total height of your spinal discs is approximately between 6 and 7 inches. But most of us don't get to enjoy the maximum height, springiness, or shock-absorbing capabilities of our spinal IVDs.

Why is that? Another fact known to anatomy students is that IVDs begin losing their total water content at the early age of 2. If you're a young adult, that water-losing process has been going on for 20 years. If you're older, tack on a couple of decades. But this is a natural process. Whether we like it or not, our body parts are not built to last forever. They are designed to keep us healthy and fit for about 150 years (another little-known fact). What's not natural is the sedentary lifestyle associated with living in an economy driven largely by the service sector.

Until very recently (75 years ago or so), most adults worked at jobs which required physical labor. Employment in agriculture and industry required actual work using one's body. Those jobs had a built-in exercise component, all day, every day. In contrast, 21st-century jobs require a lot of sitting. For many jobs, workers are sitting all day, every day. When you're sitting or standing in an unchanging position, the relentless force of gravity bears down on your spine at a steady, never-changing rate of 32 ft/s². The long-term result on one's spinal column is compression. Natural water-losing forces are unopposed and your spinal discs just keep getting thinner.

We need to reverse these trends. We need to find ways to pump our discs back up. We want to regain the health of our spinal discs, regain lost stature, and be able to stand up tall, achieving our full physiological height.  We need to identify and engage in decompressive activities, activities that will restore fluids to our IVDs.

Fortunately, a highly decompressive set of activities is readily available and has been in use for thousands of years. Yoga is a system of exercises that provides a broad range of health benefits including spinal decompression.^1,2,3 In fact, done correctly, all yoga exercises (known as postures, poses, and asanas) result in spinal lengthening. The key is to make the yoga posture active, constantly engaging, working, and lengthening your core muscles while you're doing the pose.

Regular yoga classes (even once a week may be sufficient) will lead to noticeable benefits, including a sense of being taller. The spinal decompression obtained through regular yoga practice will help increase your flexibility, balance, and coordination. Yoga can be done at home. The only equipment needed is a rubber mat. The long-term payoff is big, in more ways than one.

¹Jeng CM, et al: Yoga and disc degenerative disease in cervical and lumbar spine: an MR imaging-based case control study. Eur J Spine 20(3):408-413, 2011

²Williams K, et al: Evaluation of the effectiveness and efficacy of Iyengar yoga therapy on chronic low back pain. Spine 34(19):2066-2076, 2009

³Goncalves LC, et al: Flexibility, functional autonomy and quality of life (QoL) in elderly yoga practitioners. Arch Gerontol Geriatr 53(2):158-162, 2011

Conservation of Energy

Breakfast - Meal of Champions

"Eat a good breakfast!" We've heard this advice all our lives. Most of us completely ignore this ancient recommendation, rushing out the door every morning to try to avoid being late yet again for school or work.  Others, feeling guilty because they know they "should" be eating better, grab a frozen pastry or gulp a glass of orange juice as they desperately try to find where they tossed their keys last night.  In fact, eating a "good breakfast" is a sound nutritional policy. Eating breakfast restores badly needed energy to your depleted systems. Without breakfast, the needle on your internal gas tank is on "empty". you're literally "running on fumes".  Breakfast renews your resources. You have available energy to do the things that need to get done. And, it's easy to put together a good breakfast. Two pieces of whole wheat toast spread with peanut butter. Or a cup of yogurt mixed with a half-cup of cottage cheese. Or a hard-boiled egg, a stick of string cheese, and a banana.  It's so simple to eat a healthy breakfast. It takes five minutes, tops. You derive the benefits all day long.

Renewability, sustainability, and energy conservation are all over the news. Every newspaper's front page and every television nightly news program features sustainability daily. These are important issues, not only for the health of our planet but also for our physical health and well-being. 

Our physical health depends on how we maximize our available energy resources - how we use our body's stores of energy, how we replace and renew that energy, and how we practice conservation of our physical energy. 

The interaction of all the elements of human physiology is exactly analogous to the interaction of ecosystems in the global ecology. It's an interesting and powerful comparison. 

Energy resources in our body consist of nutrients obtained from food, oxygen, and stored energy in the form of sugars (glycogen) and fats. We gain energy by eating good food and balancing our nutritional choices from all the major food groups.^1,2 We gain energy by having efficient and well-toned cardiovascular and respiratory systems. We gain energy by having strong muscles. And we gain energy by getting sufficient rest. 

How we use these resources depends on instructions from the nerve system. Being able to use these resources efficiently depends on the underlying tone of our cells and tissues, which in turn depends on normal flow of information in the nerve system. 

Hyperactive nerve systems and sluggish nerve systems - due to a variety of causes - create imbalances up and down the line.³ Systems perform abnormally. Your metabolism slows down or speeds up. You don't digest your food properly. You use too many or too little resources for a given task, and the job doesn't get done properly. Muscles get tight. Joints get stiff. You have pain. You get sick. 

In these cases, you're using more energy - due to inefficient systems - than you're taking in. You're not sustaining your resources; you're depleting them. Sooner or later, your entire system will begin to break down. You have chronic pain, you're tired all the time, you toss and turn when you should be sleeping, and you're irritable during the day. 

Energy is not being renewed. Your body's out of balance, physically and metaphorically. 

Chiropractic treatment directly addresses these energy concerns. Chiropractic care is all about energy management and conservation of resources. Gentle chiropractic treatment focuses on restoring balance to nerve systems, muscular systems, and physical structure. Energy begins to flow to where it's needed most, chronic pain begins to resolve, and you begin to sleep more restfully. You have a greater focus and get done the things you want to get done during the day. Your relationships with family and friends are more enjoyable, and life itself becomes much more fun. 

Your chiropractor - your energy conservation specialist - is an important natural resource for your well-being and your family's well-being. 

¹Katona P, Katona-Apte J: The interaction between nutrition and infection. Clin Infect Dis 46(10):1582-1588, 2008 
²UNESCO, Regional Office for Education in Asia and the Pacific: Population, nutrition, and health. Bull Unesco Reg Off Educ Asia Pac 23:260-268, 1982 
³D'Melllo R, Dickenson AH: Spinal cord mechanisms of pain. Br J Anaesth April 15, 2008