Hello!

I hope you have been enjoying these blogs, and I would like to thank you for reading along.

Many years ago when I first started as a chiropractor people engaged in a certain level of motion and activity that in my opinion was much greater than that of today.

To borrow a Movement Medicine maxim,

“Motion is the lotion!”

You get the idea that movement, motion, and activity are what keep your joints hydrated, the tissues of your body supple and elastic, and your bones full of calcium and other minerals.

“Motion is the lotion!”

Back in my early days as a chiropractor, peoples’ typical activities of daily living and their lifestyles actually kept them healthy and alive.

As an aside, I am a huge proponent of working on living and letting the body follow suit- not working on a body and hoping it will keep you alive.

I would love to talk to you about this!

At any rate, apart from Jack LaLane, who by the way was also a chiropractor, and Charles Atlas, there really weren’t a lot of gyms and exercise ideologies- certainly nothing like we have today. People simply moved to live and lived to move.

As a result, they were easier to adjust, and as a result, in my opinion, were more prepared to receive the miracles of chiropractic care.

Today, the average person spends most of his waking hours sitting and staring at a screen of some type. Even standing desks are still a form of standing immobility. Through this limited motion and stationary postures the essence of the connective tissues, which can only be described as mucous, compacts, becomes viscous, and over time plastic- no different in its ability to snap back to shape than if you took a pen in a plastic case and bent it. Sound like anyone you know?

Couple this with a poor, nutrient-lacking diet of inflammatory foods, and inadequate sleep… wow! And yet each of us is still out there doin’ it to it! Amazing.

In future blogs, I will address diet and sleep, but these are huge. I would say without truly understanding each and their importance, and more importantly, making absolutely certain each is a major part of your daily health routine- a person really doesn’t have a chance. Even the Great Dr. Dave might not be able to help!

Of sleep, 7 to 9 hours is required each night for cellular repair- especially those necessary for good cardiovascular health. In fact, less than 6 hours a night over a few-day period will reduce a person’s Natural Killer Cells- immune cells that attack and kill tumors by nearly 70%!  Seven to nine hours of sleep is necessary to remove a type of plaque from the brain that is believed to be associated with Alzheimer’s.

I’m a little off point here, but what typically happens is that a person sits most of the day causing the joints, muscles, and connective tissues to assume the shape they are being held all day long, and now the person wants to jump in his car, go to the gym and do the latest, greatest exercise program, and more than likely do it wrong for lack of proper supervision, or it is simply not a good exercise for that person, and overdo it wearing the pain and difficulty walking and bending that comes from not being too bright about exercise as a badge of honor for having had an incredible workout.  A week or so of this, and I’ve got a patient, or at least I hope I do.

Many reach for the painkillers, and they are back at it tomorrow. And this will last a week or so- requiring even stronger pain killers, or some surgery that will most likely fail.

You get the idea that most people go from 0 mph to 100 mph- 0 sitting all day to 100 with the exercise. Brutal!

At Paragon we preach gradient scales and baby steps. How often a person sits all week, and then on Saturday he goes and plays golf. Why didn’t he practice club swings in the backyard throughout the week?

Do you hike? Walk several short walks throughout the day- perhaps a few hundred yards 6 or 8 times a day to groove in the movement before you climb Camelback.

There are so many gradient scales, and we would love to teach them to you and help you succeed at enjoying life. Please let us know… WE WOULD LOVE TO HELP!!!!

Alright. That was one of those blogs we’ll call a Whitman Sampler- a little bit of a lot of things!

Take Care,

Dr. Dave

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