Strong bones are essential for overall health and well-being, and there is a lot you can do to support better bone health. Here are some simple ways we encourage patients at our clinic to help their bones be their strongest and reduce the risk of osteoporosis:
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• Nutrition & Supplements: A diet rich in whole unprocessed foods provides essential nutrients for bone health. Bone broth and fermented foods provide added benefit. Fermented dairy (yogurt and real cheeses) have been associated with better bone health while milk has not.​ Research has varied on the benefits of supplementing with just calcium. We recommend  a Standard Process supplement called Calcifood which is made from animal bone to provide a variety of nutrients and feed the whole bone complex. Vitamin D also helps your body absorb calcium and is important for bone health. Sunlight exposure or vitamin D supplements can help maintain a healthy level. Have vitamin D tested as part of your blood work to check your status.
• Weight-bearing Exercises & Vibration: Engage in activities that put healthy stress on your bones. Walking, running, dancing, and weightlifting are excellent options. These exercises help stimulate bone growth and density. Exercises that challenge balance also help reduce the risk of falls and fractures. Vibration therapy uses a special platform to increase the load on your bones as well. Non-weight-bearing exercise like swimming is great but does not help as much to strengthen your bones.
• Limit Alcohol and Tobacco: Excessive alcohol consumption and smoking can weaken bones. If you smoke, quitting is crucial for bone health.
• Use Caution with Medications: Some medications can interfere with bone health and should be discussed with your doctor. These may include steroids, hormones, acid reducers, high dose blood thinners, diuretics, and anti-convulsive medications.

By following these guidelines, you can take proactive steps to strengthen your bones and reduce the risk of osteoporosis or bone injuries.

The cold and flu season can be a miserable time, but there are several natural ways to improve immune system function and reduce your susceptibility to a cold or flu. With the weather changing, it is a good time to think about preparing to avoid the worst by improving your health habits.

1. Eat a healthy diet: Nutrient dense foods provide a variety of vitamins and minerals that help the immune system function at its best. Load up on real whole foods and avoid the processed junk that impairs immune health. Include bone broth and fermented foods in your diet for an extra boost.
2. Stay hydrated: Drinking plenty of water helps to flush out toxins and keep your body functioning optimally. Dehydration is central to common problems that arise from respiratory infections so prioritize healthy water intake.
3. Get enough sleep: Adequate sleep is essential for overall health, including a robust immune system. Lack of sleep leaves you susceptible to the next bug that comes along. 6-7 hours per night is the minimum.
4. Manage stress: Chronic stress can weaken your immune response. Practice relaxation techniques like meditation or yoga to manage stress. Time outside is another great stress reliever.
5. Exercise regularly: Physical activity helps to boost your immune system and reduce inflammation.
6. Take your supplements: Vitamin D production especially drops as our days shorten and we spend more time indoors out of the cold. Keep your D level up with a daily supplement. 
7. Wash your hands frequently: This simple habit can go a long way in preventing the spread of germs.

By incorporating these natural strategies into your daily routine, you can significantly reduce your risk of catching a cold or flu. And if you do experience a cold, these consistent health habits can ease your recovery.

Pickleball has been growing in popularity as a fun sport to play at most ages and fitness levels. It’s a great way to be active and enjoy time with others. Though pickleball tends to be relatively low impact in nature, injuries can occur, and we have seen an increasing number of these injuries in our clinic.

To minimize your risk of injury with pickleball (and improve your performance), consider the following tips:

• Warm up and cool down: Proper stretching or easy movements before and after playing helps prepare your muscles and prevent soreness. Make sure to include gentle stretches for the back, arms, and legs.
• Use proper technique & posture: Correct form is crucial for avoiding strain and overuse injuries with any sport. Avoid a slouched position that places more stress on your body.
• Wear appropriate footwear: Good shoes provide support and reduce the risk leg injuries with pickleball.
• Listen to your body: If you experience pain, rest and avoid overexertion.
• Stay hydrated: Drinking plenty of water prevents dehydration and fatigue that interfere with performance and increase your risk of injury.

Follow these tips and you can enjoy the benefits of pickleball while staying safe on the court. If you feel a little more soreness than usual, try applying ice or compression. For pains that don’t resolve within a couple days, schedule an evaluation. When injuries do occur, drug-free care like chiropractic can help you bounce back faster so you don't miss the fun!

While conservative care like chiropractic and therapies often benefit patients with new disc injuries or chronic disc degeneration, patients often ask about natural supplements that can help support spinal disc health. Glucosamine Synergy from Standard Process is our go-to supplement to help support disc or joint function in acute and chronic cases while we work to improve their condition with hands-on care.

Discs are special joints in your spine that act like shock absorbers between the vertebrae. They have an outer ring of rubber band-like fibers and a jelly-like center. Injuries often occur when the outer ring weakens or tears, allowing the center to bulge or push out creating a disc herniation. This can irritate nearby nerves, leading to pain or numbness through the spine or extremities.
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If you suspect a disc injury, early treatment is key for a good recovery. Conservative care, like chiropractic is recommended in most cases for initial treatment, and surgery can often be avoided.

Feed Your Joints & Discs to Support Repair
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Feeding the body nutrient-dense foods during the healing of musculoskeletal injuries helps give the body what it needs for repairs. Glucosamine Synergy includes nutrients designed to help feed the discs and connective tissues of the spine. Among the many nutrient-dense foods in Glucosamine Synergy, three key ingredients are included:

• Glucosamine: A building block of cartilage, which cushions your joints.
• Boswellia serrata: An herb with anti-inflammatory properties, potentially reducing joint discomfort after exercise.
• Manganese: A mineral crucial for collagen production, a major component of connective tissue.

Joint degeneration and arthritis often develop with age, making discs less flexible. It’s important to keep your joints moving well and support them with proper nutrition to maintain good function. Consider Glucosamine Synergy as one of your tools to support healthy joints.

While a single bag of chips won't kill you, research confirms a diet high in ultra-processed foods is linked to a shorter lifespan. The latest study on these modern foods found their consumption is linked to a 10% or more reduction in lifespan when eaten regularly.

Whole or minimally processed foods are easily recognizable in a state like how they were grown. Ultra-processed foods are created from mixing chemical additives and substances extracted from foods. Examples of these foods are soft drinks, hot dogs, fast food, packaged baked goods and snacks.

The top three most common types of ultra-processed foods consumed were determined to be diet soft drinks, sugary soft drinks, and refined grains (breads and baked goods). With these making up the majority of ultra-processed food intake, it’s likely they are also doing the most damage to our health.

Ultra-processed foods impair our health in multiple ways. These include causing nutrient imbalances, increasing inflammation in the body, disrupting gut health and the microbiome, and displacing healthy whole foods.

The good news? Studies show that even small reductions in ultra-processed food intake can have a positive impact on health and longevity. So ditch the processed snacks and focus on a diet rich in whole foods for a longer, healthier life.

In a world obsessed with fad products and pills promoted by the latest social media stars, Dr. Aaron McMichael's "Eat Ugly" offers a refreshing take on achieving better health. This book isn't about chasing the latest superfood, spending hours at the gym, or finding a magic pill. Instead, Dr. McMichael offers a collection of 64 simple and memorable tips that enable readers to take control of their health.

"Eat Ugly" Teaches You To Take Control of Your Health

Dr. McMichael noted, “I wanted to write a book that was an enjoyable read without the medical jargon, and could empower people to take simple steps to make a big difference in improving their health. It’s time to recognize that our genes are often not the biggest determinant of health; our lifestyle choices are more important. The research is clear but 500 pages explaining it is unnecessary.”

It's encouraging to know that your health is not predetermined by your family genetics. You can make your health better or worse, and some simple changes can have a great impact. The rules in this book are organized into 7 categories to provide a comprehensive foundation of good habits: eating, activity, posture, stress, sleep, healthcare, and your environment.

Think Different About Health With "Eat Ugly"

The title itself, "Eat Ugly," encourages a shift in perspective. Forget about picture-perfect fruits and vegetables grown in a fog of agricultural chemicals. Produce grown without these chemical inputs may be smaller or have a blemish or scar, but are loaded with significantly more nutrients. Embrace these “ugly” fruits and veggies, and you will be rewarded with more health-promoting nutrition. Other tips similarly encourage readers to think differently when making choices that affect their health.

“I hope readers take advantage of what they can learn in a day and understand they have the tools to improve the health of their whole family right now,” stated Dr. McMichael. “Research supports common sense strategies that some have employed for generations. It’s important to highlight these and make them accessible in one place. And I tried to keep it fun and memorable.”

“Eat Ugly and Other Simple Tips to Improve Your Health” is a valuable resource for anyone seeking to improve their health. Its focus on simple lifestyle changes provides a path to better health worth exploring. Find your copy on Amazon.com or stop in the clinic.

A study performed by Northwestern Sciences Health University demonstrated healthy changes for those following the Standard Process 28-day Detox Program compared to those who were only provided an educational session on healthy eating. The Standard Process Detox Program was associated with a significant increase in antioxidant activity, a decrease in oxidative stress, and improvement in scores for physical health and emotional health.

Our bodies come into increasing contact with chemicals inside and outside, which accumulate in our tissues and can contribute to health problems. Various reports have noted sources of chemicals ranging from our foods, to cosmetics and cleaners, city water, and furniture and electronic, among others. We are exposed to thousands of chemicals and many have been measured in the blood or urine of Americans. As this study states, "chronic exposure and improper clearance of these chemicals increase the body’s susceptibility to tissue injury and insufficient repair over time."

The whole food ingredients included in the Standard Process Detox Program included organic pea protein, flax meal, organic oat flour, organic pumpkin seed protein, organic buckwheat flour, organic beet (leaf) juice powder, organic buckwheat (aerial parts), apple pectin, juniper (berry) powder, organic Spanish black radish (root), burdock (root) powder, organic beet (root), calcium citrate, organic barley (grass), dandelion (leaf), broccoli (aerial parts), inositol, organic alfalfa (aerial parts) juice powder, Oregon grape (root) powder, globe artichoke (leaf), sunflower lecithin powder, milk thistle extract (80% silymarins), organic cordyceps mushroom powder, organic carrot, and organic sweet potato. Other ingredients included creatine, L-leucine, xanthan gum, L-isoleucine, L-valine, DL-methionine, monk fruit extract, and choline bitartrate.
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The researchers looked at multiple markers of improvement to determine if the Standard Process Detox Program was potentially supporting the liver's ability to detox chemicals filtered from the circulatory system. The detox program was associated with a 40% increase in total antioxidant capacity only in those completing the program. This change correlated with an observed 13% decrease in oxidative stress. The program essentially helped protect the body from damaging free radicals by increasing phase II detoxification and antioxidant enzyme activity. When tested for established physical health and mental health indexes, the detox program participants also demonstrated a small increase in these measures for general health in just 28 days for subjects that were largely healthy to begin with.

The study demonstrated benefits of Standard Process Detox Program for supporting detoxification of foreign chemicals accumulating in the body. The whole food ingredients used were shown to cause no side effects while providing these benefits. Those considering a detox program to support better health, may want to consider a program like this that used whole food ingredients.

​MediHerb Adrenal Complex​

Adrenal Complex contains Licorice and Rehmannia used traditionally to support adrenal gland function for a healthy stress response. These herbs have been recognized as helping the body adapt to the challenges of everyday life.
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While these nutritional support products can be beneficial, those with ongoing issues should also consider strategies to help reduce their chronic stress. These strategies to reduce stress include spending time in nature, performing an enjoyable physical activity, increasing quality sleep, avoiding junk food and increasing nutrient dense whole foods, taking a quiet break during the day, and spending time with those you enjoy.

Combining healthy habits with extra nutritional support can significantly help you reduce the effects of stress and make you more resilient to the challenges of life.

Aches and pains cause millions of Americans to take non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medications (NSAIDs) like Ibuprofen, Motrin, Aleve, Advil, Bayer, and Aspirin, but research links these common pain relievers to higher risks than once believed. Fortunately, there are alternatives that can reduce inflammation without the risk of side effects.

Inflammation & Arthritis Pain

Inflammation occurs when there is damage to tissues of the body. Common signs of inflammation include pain, swelling, redness, and warmth over the area of injury. While inflammation is a natural response to injury, it can become severe or chronic, contributing to significant pain and disability. Inflammation is a large component of the pain experienced by those with osteoarthritis, which affects over 30 million American adults. Controlling inflammation can help these patients control pain and stay more active.

NSAID medications are commonly used for inflammation and arthritis, but they can be hard on the digestive system, sometimes damaging organs and causing stomach upset and bleeding. The body's processing of these drugs can lead to liver or kidney damage for some patients. Others can experience increased risk of heart attack or stroke. Anti-inflammatory medications can reduce pain by blocking inflammation in the body, but this benefit may not be worth the risk for some patients.

Natural Strategies to Reduce Inflammation

Anti-inflammatory medication is not the only way to reduced inflammation. Healthy habits can help reduce inflammation in the body, and may be even more effective than medication for some patients without the risk of side effects. Try improving these habits to reduce your inflammatory aches and pains:

• Avoid inflammatory processed foods and eat more whole foods
• Drink plenty of water
• Keep up with active exercise to your tolerance
• Counteract stress with stress-relieving habits
• Ensure adequate sleep each night (6 hour absolute minimum)
• Improve your posture to reduce physical stress on your joints and soft tissues

Extra Support to Reduce Inflammation

These health habits can reduce inflammatory aches and pains in most patients, but some may need a little more help. A variety of food and herbs are anti-inflammatory and can help even more. One of our favorite supplements to support a healthy inflammatory response (especially for those patients we see with arthritis pains) is Boswellia Complex by Mediherb. This herbal supplement includes boswellia, ginger, turmeric, and celery seed, four naturally anti-inflammatory herbs. This combination inhibits inflammatory leukotrienes without interfering with other processes of the body so we don't have to worry about the risks associated with NSAIDs.

One tip when taking boswellia to help inflammatory levels, is to take it with a meal when eating healthy fats or oils. This helps improve the effectiveness. Start improving your habits today, and try Boswellia Complex if you need more anti-inflammatory support.

Evidence Lacking for Many Back Pain Treatments

The most surprising result may be the lack of evidence to appropriately evaluate many of the treatments. The researchers found a lack of quality evidence supporting medications, injections, and surgery, and were therefore unable to evaluate the benefit of these options. Evidence evaluating harm was also lacking with most of the medications studied, while serious harms have been identified for opioids and surgery.

In contrast, both spinal manipulation and acupuncture have quality evidence of benefit and low harm risk. The study authors concluded that more research is needed to further evaluate the various treatment options, but based on available evidence "acupuncture and spinal manipulation provide safer benefits than pharmacological or invasive interventions" for chronic low back pain.

 
One of our favorite types of patients to help with chiropractic care is pregnant mothers. This is because 1) they often respond well to care and appreciate the benefits of an easier, more comfortable pregnancy, and 2) improving mom's health can benefit the health of the baby at the same time.

Avoid The Need for Medications With Chiropractic

The body goes through significant changes to support a developing baby, and this can result in discomfort. Pelvic area pain is most common during pregnancy while low back pain is most common following pregnancy. Those with both pelvic and back pain lasting 3 months after delivery are at the greatest risk of unresolving pain, with 30% becoming chronic. Instead of resorting to medication, chiropractic care provides an effective drug-free option to relieve pain and improve function again.

Chiropractic care during pregnancy is a great solution to avoid medications that may be harmful to the baby or cause side effects for mom. A drug-free approach like chiropractic adjusting helps alleviate pains and improve the ability to be active without the known or sometimes unknown risks of medication. Researchers are increasingly questioning the use of even tylenol during pregnancy which has been recommended for years as a safer alternative  to other medications.

Chiropractic Adjusting for Pregnant Moms

During pregnancy, chiropractic techniques may be modified to make treatment as comfortable as possible. Special tables allow mom to lie on her stomach in a comfortable position without pressure on the abdomen. In this position, chiropractic adjustments can be made to help reduce muscle tightness, improve joint motion, reduce swelling and inflammation, and ease discomfort.

Your chiropractic physician will provide other helpful tips to feel your best and be your healthiest during pregnancy. These often include advice on exercises, posture, diet, and other beneficial lifestyle habits. The combination of chiropractic care and healthy habits results in a healthier and happier pregnancy for mom and baby. Make sure to include a doctor of chiropractic on your pregnancy care team.

When experiencing low back pain, patients have a variety of providers to choose from – primary care physicians, orthopedists, emergency medicine physicians, physical therapists, acupuncturists, and chiropractic physicians among others. Evidence-based guidelines for low back pain treatment increasingly recommend conservative care first (chiropractic, acupuncture, physical therapy), but how does the provider seen initially really effect health care and costs? Researchers looked at the records of over 3.5 million low back pain patients to find out.

Imaging (Xrays, MRI, CT)

Patients of conservative care providers (chiropractic, acupuncture, physical therapy) had the lowest rates of imaging while, patients first seeing an orthopedist had the highest rates, with imaging performed multiple times more frequently by orthopedists. For MRIs especially, this can drive up health care costs without always leading to better care.

Hospitalization & Surgery

Patients seeing chiropractors first were the least likely to be hospitalized (5.8%) and those seeing chiropractic physicians or acupuncturists were the least likely to have back surgery (0.7% and 0.5%). This compares to hospitalization rates up to 10% for orthopedists and surgery rates over 5% for orthopedists.

Opioid Use

Early opioid prescription and long-term opioid prescription was lowest for chiropractic (1.7-0.6%) and acupuncture (1.2-0.4%) patients. It was a fraction of the rates seen by Emergency Medicine and Advanced Practice Registered Nurse patients.

Health Care Costs

The total cost of care was lowest for chiropractic patients, averaging less than all other providers and about half as much as orthopedic patients.

Severe Illness Diagnosis

The researchers checked for differences in the diagnosis of severe illness or concerning red flags across providers and found that the frequency of finding these severe issues was similar across provider types and the delay before diagnosis of severe illness was similar as well.

Conclusion

Researchers concluded that health care and costs vary significantly depending on the first provider seen for low back pain. Patients seeing a chiropractor first compare favorably with less imaging utilization, less hospitalization and surgery, and less prescription opioid use, consistent with back pain treatment guidelines. Chiropractic patients also had lower health care costs, providing evidence-based care for a good value. The research supports seeing a chiropractic physician first for low back pain, or at least another conservative care provider.

Concerned parents frequently provide fever reducers like Tylenol to their children when fighting an illness, but the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends avoiding medications for fever in most cases. Two specific exceptions noted are when your child is very uncomfortable or has a history of febrile convulsions.

Why NOT Treat a Fever with Medication

The AAP notes “fever may be important in helping fight the infection.” The immune system has a number of tools to combat pathogenic invaders and fever is one of them. It basically tries to burn the infection out. Forcing the body to reduce it’s temperature may be counterproductive to ending the infection resulting in a longer illness.

​But isn’t a fever dangerous?

​The AAP explains, “Even higher temperatures are not in themselves dangerous or significant unless your child has a history of seizures or a chronic disease…If he is eating and sleeping well and has periods of playfulness, he probably doesn’t need any treatment…Remember, a fever less than 105 degrees Fahrenheit is in itself not harmful.”

What can be done for a fever instead of medicine?

The AAP offers a few suggestions:

• Keep the room cool or use a fan and dress the child lightly
• Encourage the child to drink extra water
• Avoid overexertion
• Place the child in a bath of slightly warm water 1-2 inches deep and use a sponge or washcloth to spread the water over his body, causing a cooling effect with evaporation.

It's important to note the more common risk with an infection is dehydration, so keep your child drinking frequently even if it is just sips. Allow your child to rest as much as they can. Mild fevers may actually benefit from a warm bath or steam to help the body fight infection. Keep your child eating nutritious foods like bone broth soup and they should take their vitamins to support their health. Some experts believe a fever is a sign of calcium depletion, which the body uses for more of a first-line response to fighting infections. Working on the body with adjustments and massage has also been found to increase immune cell activity.

Most important is to monitor your child and watch for sign of more serious problems.

​“No pain, no gain” is often not the best advice when it comes to exercise. Mild muscle soreness from a good work out is ok, but when an injury has occurred, aggravating exercises can make it worse or prolong healing. It is important to restore activity as soon as possible to an injured area so here are some tips for exercising when in pain due to an injury.

1. Super slow stretching – when an area has been injured, even stretches can be quite painful. One solution is to slow down, way down. Imagine stretching so slowly that someone watching you may not even see you move. Stretching this slowly gives the muscle a chance to relax into the stretch rather than wanting to tighten up and fight the stretch. How slow can you go?
2. Temporarily limit your range of motion – even when an area is injured, there is still a comfortable range in which you can move so stay within that range. If turning your head all the way hurts, turn it halfway through the normal range until you can move further without pain. Keep moving as much as your range allows.
3. Don’t move while exercising – this takes the last recommendation a step further by not moving at all. This is called isometric exercise. For example, if you can’t turn your head due to pain you may still be able to activate the muscles of neck without moving your head. Just push against your fingers or another object with the amount of force you can tolerate (starting light and increasing resistance).
4. Non-weight bearing exercises – sometimes it’s just too painful to fight gravity, so don’t. Lie down or sit for your exercises. Or hop into the pool to exercise in a weightless environment. Some of the most complicated back injuries with disc problems are those that respond best to non-weight bearing exercises.
5. Walk – if your injury doesn’t prevent you from walking, then walk. Walking is the best exercise that works the whole body. Everything benefits from walking.
6. Exercise the other side – if it’s too painful to turn to the right then start with turns to the left. Even working the opposite (healthy) limb can have a positive impact on the injured one due to effects on sensorimotor integration of the brain (how the brain senses things and moves parts of the body). Ten or twenty repetitions of movement on the left side can be enough to make those same repetitions more tolerable on the injured right side.

With all these exercise tips, remember to start light and easy. As you see improvement and the exercises become more tolerable, gradually increase them. Lying around in bed is one of the worst things you can do. If you are struggling with a lingering injury, be sure to seek evaluation and treatment starting with conservative non-drug care like chiropractic first.

Can chiropractic adjusting be performed on a joint following surgery?

We are commonly asked if chiropractic adjusting may be performed on an area of the body that has undergone surgery. It's a question that can stop  patients from even considering whether chiropractic care could be helpful for unresolved muscle and joint problems. Research estimates 35% or more of spine surgeries may not adequately relieve pain, and with these surgeries becoming increasingly common this question is being asked more frequently.

The short answer to whether chiropractic adjusting may be performed following surgery in most cases is YES! However, there are factors that must be taken into account before considering adjusting a region of the body following a surgical procedure. Here are some of the factors our doctors consider during a thorough history and examination:

• how recent was the surgery?
• did the surgery include joint fusion?
• what is the condition of the joint or region following surgery?
• why did the surgery not adequately address the problem?
• is something being missed?

Chiropractic physicians regularly work with complicated cases that have not responded adequately to surgery or that have experienced re-injury following surgery and wish to avoid additional surgery. Rather than follow pain management guidelines that recommend trying conservative non-drug treatment like chiropractic first, patients too often try chiropractic last so it is not uncommon to see very complicated cases that have been through multiple medical interventions including medications, injections, and sometimes multiple surgeries.

Joint Fusions & Joint Replacements

While chiropractic adjusting can be helpful for post-surgical patients, it's often best to modify the adjusting approach depending on the case. Fused joints should not be adjusted but working on the surrounding joints and tissues can often be beneficial. An artificial joint can be worked on with a modified approach. In some cases, light pressure adjusting is best. It is also appropriate to wait a period of time following surgery depending on the surgery performed. Keep in mind there are a variety of conservative techniques and therapies regularly used by chiropractic physicians that can help relieve pain and improve function in complicated post-surgical cases.

Don't let past surgeries or a complicated condition stop you from considering chiropractic care as a treatment option. Medical physicians are generally not trained to know the variety of techniques and therapies utilized by chiropractic physicians, so consult a doctor of chiropractic to determine what may be best in your case.

This time of year, the gyms are busy with people making a great effort to start off healthy in the new year. Just a few weeks later, our clinic is busy with those same people dealing with injuries derailing their great plans for better health. There are a number of ways to avoid this trap and enjoy injury-free exercise. Here is one simple recommendation to minimize your odds of injury.

Injury-free Exercise

The 10% Exercise Rule: When increasing your exercise routine, avoid increasing the intensity by more than 10% from one session to the next. You could increase the number of repetitions from 30 to 33, or increase the weight from 50 pounds to 55 pounds or even the duration of your exercise from 30 minutes to 33 minutes. This may seem like a very small increase, but it starts to add up very quickly and is much more sustainable over the longer term which is what we need for major improvements in health. Follow this rule and you will significantly reduce your odds of injury while making great gains in health. This is especially important for those who have already experienced significant injuries. Of course, you also want to make sure to start at a reasonable level that won't kill you with one session.

Other helpful tips to consider to further reduce your odds of injury:

1. Focus more on form than heavy weight or high reps. A few exacting repetitions with good form are much more beneficial than trying to crank out a mess of sloppy reps that will eventually cause injury.
2. Don’t forget to rest. Our body improves from a healthy stress (exercise) followed by a chance to rest and rebuild. Rotate your exercises working different body regions or take rest days in between.
3. Mild short-term muscle soreness that confirms you worked your body is fine. Longer-lasting soreness (more than a few days) or sharper pain are signs of injury or dysfunction that should be addressed.
4. Exercise shouldn’t cause enough pain to require pain relievers. If you are taking medications to block pain enough to allow you to exercise, you are likely overlooking a problem that needs addressed and setting yourself up for bigger problems. 
5. Keep your body tuned up to avoid injuries. Moving wrong, standing wrong, or sitting wrong become much more harmful when adding weight and repetitions with exercise. A doctor of chiropractic cannot just minimize pains, but improve form and function of your body to improve your odds of being active without injury.

​Follow these simple tips to make 2022 a great year for your health. Remember, you have more control over your health than your genes do.

If a bowl of candy is sitting nearby, the battle is already lost. We only have so much willpower to resist the addictive nature of these temptations within easy reach. We may succeed for a day or a week, but eventually the candy is more persistent than we are and it often wins out.

This time of year, we commit to improving our health with better diet, more exercise, and other good habits. However, an important part of making these healthy changes long-lasting is missing and they tend to be short-lived. This article is not about what healthy changes to make. It’s more about how to make them more sustainable. It's the consistency and persistence over time that really bring about major improvements in health. The longer you can sustain your improved habits, the more great health you will experience which will help you stick with it longer and experience even greater health.

The Missing Piece

Here’s the piece missing from most health improvement plans: changing your environment. This can mean a lot of different things which may be easy and some may take a little more effort, but changing your environment is key to sustainable habit changes for improved health. You must surround yourself with an environment that makes healthy choices much easier and unhealthy choices more effort. That could mean changes at home, at work, with friends and family, or with where you go and interact.
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Start to improve your health success by considering these questions and your health habits (diet, exercise, posture, sleep, mental stress):

1. Is there something in the house that encourages bad health habits? Is a tempting treat or snack always within reach? Is a source of stress right in front of you?
2. Is it easier to make healthy choices at home or unhealthy choices at home? What would make healthy choices less of an effort than unhealthy choices at home?
3. When and where are you most likely to make an unhealthy choice? How can you change that environment to make a healthier choice easier?
4. Does your work environment help you make healthier choices? If not, what could you change to encourage healthier choices?
5. Are there friends or family that are more likely to cause you to make unhealthy choices? How could you interact with them differently to avoid making unhealthy choices with them? Are there friends and family that more consistently make healthy choices that you could interact with more?
6. Are there unhealthy temptations along your usual daily path to/from work or school? Can you slightly modify your usual path in a way that reduces temptations or even encourages healthy habits (drive by a gym or park instead of a fast food place)?
7. Does your team of health care providers encourage and support your better habits or ignore your habits in favor of procedures and interventions?

Answering these questions gives you a great place to start. You may even want to list the things in your environment that lead to unhealthy choices. Then start to chip away at them. Some examples that we have seen with patients: replace the bowl of candy with a bowl of fruit you enjoy, keep a bottle of water nearby to avoid sweetened drinks, have a meal with friends that make healthy eating choices and find other ways to interact with friends that have unhealthy eating habits. Whenever possible, replace the unhealthy object or situation with a healthy object or situation. Don't leave a behind a hole or it will be filled with something unhealthy.

Keep asking yourself, what would make a healthy choice easier? We are human. We want things quick and easy, so feed that need for quick and easy. Also recognize the state you are in when making decisions. Eating or shopping hungry or feeling down is asking for trouble. Eat something healthy before the party, the store, or even the restaurant and you'll make it through in better shape. Here's to a healthy 2022 and beyond!