 A brand new year is here! I want to share some of the best tips you can do for your body to keep healthy and happy in 2021!
Hello everyone! It's Dr. Bob Salamon with Lowcountry Chiropractic. Welcome back to the blog and a very Happy New Year to you! I hope you're staying safe and well out there, and I hope you're taking care of yourselves! Welcome to 2021! I think we are all very happy to see it here, and we are all happy to get out of last year and all of its craziness. With a new year comes resolutions to work out, eat better, and be healthier overall, right? Sadly, these resolutions usually only last for a short time. In honor of that and in honor of 2021, I want to help you achieve your goals. So, I wanted to share a list of things with you that you'll be able to stick with and make part of your everyday life, to make sure this year and beyond are the healthiest they can be. If you do everything on this list that you're about to read, you will get healthier without question. It's a simple list, but I won't lie to you; it won't be easy. Each of the listed items takes effort on your part to incorporate them into your lifestyle. I personally have nothing to do with this list, outside of providing it for you, except for the last point we will talk about today. Let's kick off this new year and jump into this list to start on a healthier and happier you! #1 Go Green! I'm not talking about saving the earth, I'm not talking about saving trees from getting cut down, and I'm not talking about global warming. I am talking about eating healthy and eating green things. Some of the best ways to eat green are by eating things like salads, fruits, and vegetables. It's not only about eating green things but also about eating multicolored things. They call this kind of diet "eating the rainbow" because those are the things that have a lot of phytonutrients and antioxidants in them like berries, nuts, peppers, romaine lettuce, and much more. I eat a lot of my green food raw. I eat salads a lot, but at night I'll have a piece of fish with green beans and the green beans will be raw, because when you cook food it tends to remove the nutrients from it. When I say "go green" I really mean that you need to get away from eating food that's white or brown, and you need to eat colorful things that come out of the ground or grow on trees. Eating this way will help you become much healthier! Another reason to eat green is that they are alkaline in nature and not acidic. You'll find acidic elements in starches, bread, pasta, candy, and sweets. Fruits and veggies will make your body more alkaline. This is so important because diseases like cancer thrive in an acidic environment, and you don't want that! #2 Refine Your Life! What do I mean by this? I'm talking about refined sugars. You want to try to eliminate eating foods that have unnaturally occurring sugars in them and replace them with foods that only have natural sugars. Unfortunately, almost all the products you see on the shelves of a grocery store have a ton of refined sugars in them. Why do we want to avoid refined sugars? There are a lot of reasons, but the two most important are as follows:
#3 Get a Supplemental Plan! I'm not talking about a medicare supplement for insurance. I'm talking about health supplements to the foods that you eat. We are not going to get 100% of everything we need from the food that we eat every day. To help with this, you want to try and supplement your intake with various items. I take Juice Plus+, which is whole foods in capsules. If I'm not getting 100% of all my fruits, vegetables, and berries every day this supplement helps to bridge the gap between what I am eating and what I should be eating for a healthy body. In terms of supplementation, I take fish oil and coconut oil which are huge anti-inflammatories. You might want to consider adding one or more into your diet. Another supplement you should look into adding that I always talk about is vitamin D3. It is an extremely great and inexpensive supplement to boost your immune system. Boosting your immune system is so important when we are already dealing with COVID, the flu season, and more. You want your immune system to be working at 100% so it can defend itself against some of these dangerous things that are out there. I recommend most people take between 3000 to 5000 IUs of D3. I'm taking 10,000 right now during the pandemic. I will say that I haven't felt anything in terms of a sniffle or a sore throat since this pandemic has started, so I know it's doing something good for me! #4 Don't Be a Couch Potato! We've had a lot of couch potatoes in 2020 and so far into 2021 because a lot more people are working from home and they're not as active as they should be! You need to incorporate exercise into your routine. You need to add not only cardiovascular exercises like running, walking, swimming, or biking, but you also need to add in cross-training with weights, high-intensity interval training, and more to trick your body (in a good way!) to keep improving. If you do the same workout every time, your body gets lazy. You have to mix it up, which is why I do Crossfit. Every class is different, incorporating different body parts every session. Don't be a couch potato! You have to get up and start a habit. It takes three weeks to make or break a habit, so let's do this! #5 Rest and Relax! This means getting enough sleep every night, and that means at least 7-8 hours, which is recommended by the experts. The primary reason to get enough sleep is that during your REM stage of sleeping, your body is taking the time to repair itself from all the work you've done throughout the day. The neurons, synapses, the coverings and linings of your organs, your blood vessels, and your whole body heals and repairs itself when you're sleeping. #6 Don't Worry - Be Happy! What does this mean? Experts say about 95% of what we worry about is either really not important or is never going to happen, so we really shouldn't be worrying about them. We spend too much time worrying about things that aren't going to occur or even impact us. What I would challenge you to do this year is to take a more positive approach to life if you're not already. Try to look at the glass as being half full instead of half empty, and look at the blessings you have in your life instead of the negative things. Put a list together if you have to, but we all have many things we can be grateful for in life. This can give you a little joy and optimism as you go through this year. #7 Get Connected This is the one thing on the list that you need me for! I'm not talking about getting connected on social media (shoutout to Creative Consulting for doing an amazing job!). No, this is getting your brain and body to talk to one another. This is the only way your body is going to stay optimally healthy. There is a little thing called the spinal cord that connects the brain to all of your body parts, along with the nerves that go out from your spinal cord. If you don't take care of your spinal cord and the spinal nerves, your brain (which makes all of your body's decisions and sends out all the messages out to your body) will be sending those messages out, but they will reach their destinations improperly. So, the body is not going to be effectively doing the work that the brain wants it to. Also, if those nerves aren't working properly, the body can't communicate back to the brain. The brain will then not know what decisions it should really be making. How do you keep this connection working properly between your brain and your body? Go to a chiropractor! I am trained to remove subluxations of the spine, which are conditions where the vertebrae are irritating a spinal nerve and interfering up the conduction of mental, electrical and chemical impulses from the brain to the body. I and my fellow chiropractors are trained to remove those subluxations from your body and allow your brain and body to communicate as they should! It's amazing what benefits you'll see when your body is free from subluxations. By removing subluxations, your body can experience:
I don't want you to stress out and think that you have to do this list perfectly. You just need to follow it fairly well, because if you're not doing any of them and you implement even some of them into your life, you'll see a huge improvement in your health this year. You'll lose the weight that you want to lose, you'll build muscle mass, you'll sleep better, you'll have more energy, you'll have better focus, and you won't get sick as often. The real important thing on this list, outside of the essential chiropractic care, is nutrition. Nutrition is the most important thing you can do for yourself in 2021, but of course, I want you to do this whole list! I hope this helps and gives you a little encouragement for the new year. This is going to be a better year for you but you have to want to make it better! ! If you need any help with the items on this list, we do offer consultation on each of these topics. Come see me, call me, or email me to get started. Remember, I am Dr. Bob and I've got your back covered. See you next time, readers. Stay safe out there and Happy New Year!
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 With the change of seasons at hand and the ongoing COVID pandemic, one of the most important things we need to be aware of is how to make our immune systems as strong as possible!
Hey, everybody! It's Dr. Bob Salamon here with Lowcountry Chiropractic. I hope you're all doing well out there! Today we are going to be discussing the immune system. This is the important system in your body that keeps you healthy against colds, flus, COVID, allergies, and all sorts of other ailments. I want to talk about how, practically speaking, you can keep your immune system healthier so you can defend yourself against some of these outside agents that are floating around in the air and that can make you sick. With COVID, everyone has been talking about washing your hands, wearing masks, and practicing social distancing. This is all great to do; however what I think is missing in this equation is a message from the surgeon general that we need to be proactive about increasing our individual immune function. This will help you defend against COVID and anything else out there. How do you keep your immune system strong and powerful? That is what we are going to be talking about today! #1 - LET'S EAT! Let's start with the basics that you need to be doing to keep yourself healthy and your immune system strong. The first step you need to be thinking about and putting effort into is your diet and what you're putting into your body every day. You need to be eating properly. If you're not eating right every day, your body isn't getting the correct amount of nutrients that it needs nor is it getting the correct energy source it needs to keep your body functioning at its highest capacity. If you aren't getting the proper nutrients, your body won't be able to defend itself well. A poor diet will impact your immune system very negatively. #2 - TUCK IN! You have to get enough sleep at night. It’s a must. When you sleep, your body is repairing itself. All the systems in your body need time to heal from all the work they do throughout the day, and those 7-8 hours of sleep every night are crucial for that healing. If you don't give yourself enough sleep, all of your systems will be affected, and you will be more susceptible to getting sick. #3 - PROPER SUPPLEMENTATION! We've talked about this many times and people still think I'm crazy! If you're not currently taking any supplements, you need to start thinking about adding vitamin D3 to your diet. Vitamin D3 is an essential vitamin, which means you can't get this supplement naturally from the foods you eat. The only way to get vitamin D3 naturally is to be out in the sun, and most people can't be out in the sun all day because they're inside working, at school, etc. Vitamin D3 is incredibly important because it boosts your immune system. It gets your body working better and defends it against outside agents. I am a strong proponent that everyone should be taking this vitamin. It's going to help you fight against colds and the flu, allergies, and even COVID! If you get your body working better and you get your defenses on the attack, when any virus or outside agent tries to come into your body, your white blood cells are geared up to go attack it and kill it! If your immune system is not working right, that's when these viruses and opportunistic diseases can take up a home in your body, and wreak havoc on you. I take 5000 International Units (IU) of D3 every day, but during the pandemic, I have doubled my daily dose to 10,000 IU! As a general rule of thumb, you want to take 1000 IU for every 35 pounds of body weight. If you're not taking this vitamin, you will need to get some natural sunlight every day to replace it, at least 15 to 20 minutes of full-body exposure to be exact. A lot of people don't want to do this because of the associated skin cancer risk. The easiest and safest thing to do is just to take the vitamin. #4 - CHIROPRACTIC! The next important step to keep your immune system strong is chiropractic! How does chiropractic help with your immune system? Well, your brain, spinal cord, and all of your nerves that come off your spinal cord regulate every single function and system in your body. The brain is the master controller; it regulates every other system in the body. The immune system, of course, is one of those important systems. If your nervous system is not working at 100%, your immune system will not be working at 100% either. When your body isn't working at its full capacity, you are leaving your health to chance. How does chiropractic help with building up your immunity? Let's talk about it! Your spine is very complex; it is a series of bones called vertebrae. Each vertebra is separated by a disc which is flexible but very strong. In between each bone is an opening (foramen) and a spinal nerve comes out of that opening. The spinal nerve comes off the spinal cord, which is an extension of your brain. Every one of your spinal nerves relays information from the brain to your body and vice-versa. In a perfect world, your vertebrae are lined up, the openings for every nerve are open, and there is no irritation on any of the nerves. This allows your brain to communicate perfectly with the body, and the body can communicate perfectly back to the brain. When this happens, all functions of the body are working optimally, including your immune system. But, life hits us; we get into a car accident, we fall, we pick something up that's too heavy, we sleep wrong at night, we eat the wrong kinds of foods that negatively affect our muscles, or we carry emotional stress. All of these factors affect our body, our spine, and our nerves. This stress can cause the vertebrae to shift out of place. When the vertebrae get shifted out of place, the nerves can get irritated and pinched (subluxated), often causing some pain. More importantly, once this subluxation has occurred, the communication between your brain and the rest of your body is not working as it should. All the systems at the end of that pinched nerve are going to be affected negatively. It could be a muscle, an organ, blood vessels, a gland, or a critical system that is affected by this strain or pinch. The nerves in the upper neck specifically play a huge part in your immune system. When you free up your nerves from subluxations, your body gets to go back to work and do what it's there to do to keep you healthy. That is how chiropractic care can help enhance your immune function. If you can incorporate all of these changes into your life, you are going to be much healthier as we go into cold and flu season with COVID, and you're going to be much healthier in general. You're not going to get sick as much, you're not going to feel run down as much, and you're going to be able to be the best version of yourself. My goal is to educate as many people as possible and to show everyone that your health is in your hands. It's not in a doctor's hands, it's not in a pill or prescription, and it is not in a potion that comes off the shelf. The doctor is inside of you, and you have the responsibility to take care of that! These are some of the best ways to take care of your body effectively and to stay healthy. I hope all of this information helps. If you or anyone out there is suffering, if you're getting sick all the time, you're having sinus issues, allergies, or you're just feeling run down, come and see us! All of these issues can be corrected with chiropractic care and all the other steps I have mentioned in this blog today! Remember, all of these steps are also all-natural ways of taking care of your body. I look forward to the next blog and seeing you soon. Take care! |
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