"People often say that motivation doesn't last. Well neither does bathing. That's why we recommend it daily." -Zig Ziglar. In life different things motivate us to do things. I really like this quote because just like exercising our muscles so that they do not waste away we need constant motivation to keep us going in an upward direction. What are some ways that we can be motivated?
External motivation is a common motivation in our lives. In the example of children, if you motivate them with candy to do a task then they are more likely to accomplish this. Also in adults, you see all these different types of life coaches, whether it is a career coach, personal trainer, a "self help" book, or even clever phrases on Pinterest.com, etc. Although these are great ways to get started with our personal development they are still rather temporary. Back to the example of giving the child candy to do something, if the candy is no longer a reward the child is not likely to do the task. So how do we stay motivated each day like Ziglar suggests?
I propose that it is internally that we must look for daily long lasting motivation. If the child in the previous example learned to enjoy doing the task for the sake of being apart of the helpers for the greater good of himself and everyone else, he would be more likely to continue doing it. Even if he does not get the reward each time, he does the task simply because it needs to get done. Like the child, we always have to find the greater reason why we need to do things. When we have the "why" then we will not drag our feet as much when we work on a task. Another thing we need, along with the "why," is a view of the bigger picture. When we understand how each task relates to a bigger picture it makes each seemingly miniscule task worthwhile. Although these understandings are vital for us to develop internal motivation, we are still missing the key that holds everything together. In order for us to be continually self-motivated we need to build ourselves up. Build our self-esteem. Simply put, We Must Love Ourselves. As soon as we awaken to the incredible being that we individually are, the easier it is to do the things that will help us live to our full potential. Yes these are great principles, but you may be asking yourself how do we apply and develop them?
Here are the keys to master inner self-motivation:
1) You have to want something. (my example: I want to help others realize and live to their full potential through NSA chiropractic care.)
2) Next you need a plan on how to get there. This is where some of the external motivators can help. They can help set goals and plan the steps of achieving the goals. (I need to complete chiropractic school, and receive all training necessary to perfect my craft. Each day I study and work hard in my classes to achieve this overall goal.)
3) You need to come with grips that you will not be able to do everything at once. You will fail along the path. That knowledge should help to empower you to continue on. You are not perfect but the potential inside you is. (I have failed tests but still pushed through and prevailed in my classes.)
4) Track your accomplishments along the way. In the process we can lose sight of the progress that we have made but if we have a record to look back on we can see that in reality we have accomplished so much. This fuels us to continue on. (I keep a list of all my classes that I need to graduate and after each quarter I check off all the classes I have completed. This helps me track my progress.)
5) Finally you need to love yourself. Every morning you need to look yourself in the mirror and say this phrase: "I love myself for who I am right now." Even if you do not believe it at first, through daily repetition and hearing yourself say the words, you will come to believe it. So get some sticky notes and put this phrase on your bathroom mirror and have it scrolling by on your screensaver. The more you see and say it, the more you will come to love yourself and be motivated to live to your full potential.
I hope that through reading this I have helped motivate you to become more self-motivated. The choice is ultimately yours, my motivation to you is temporary. I cannot force you to do these things to better your life. I can simply share my experiences and knowledge and hope that you will take the next step.
-Mike E
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Tension
Have you ever felt like your whole body is locked up? I am sure we have all felt this way at some point or another. We have that project deadline looming over our heads, we have that financial burden occupying our minds, the pressures of everyday living in this chaotic world we live in is overwhelming us, etc. What it boils down to is we have let ourselves become reactionary to our environment rather than becoming proactive towards it. This causes all the stresses to be absorbed by our body in a defensive manner causing us to tense up. Tension is what I will be discussing today.
What are the effects of tension? When we are tense, we take a defensive posture which makes us very ridged. This posture does not allow for much range of motion in our joints. Although this seems like a good defensive mechanism, and in some cases it is just what we need, it makes us more susceptible to greater trauma when our body is not free to move through its full range of motion. This is why you are more likely to sustain less injury in a car accident if you did not see it coming, rather than see it coming and tense up. In chiropractic we have a term called Adverse Mechanical Cord Tension, which is referring to the tension placed on the spinal cord. There are certain places in your spine where the cord attaches to the bones. If the bones at these attachments are out of proper alignment (usually due to a defensive posture taken by the individual), unwanted tension is placed on the cord increasing its tone and energy state. This in turn decreases the spinal cord's ability to communicate with the rest of the body. When the spinal cord is unable to communicate with or link the body and brain, all types of dysfunction can happen in the body. This is why it is very important to find strategies to overcome the things in our lives that cause tension on our bodies.
Here are some ways that I have found to cope and release tension in my body. First is through chiropractic care. When my body has a properly aligned spine, the extra stress of having a dysfunctional nervous system is removed causing greater function of all my body systems. Another way of removing tension in my body is to take that tension and focus it in physical activity. I have found that taking a walk, riding my bike, and running have helped me cope with most of the tension causers as I have traveled through my education and life. Also, when exercising, your body releases chemical hormones that trigger the happy centers of your brain so that you enjoy life more. Who does not want to have a more enjoyable life. Another great help for me has been deep breathing. This can be done anywhere, in a meeting, right before sleep, in traffic, etc. The key is to breathe deep in through the nose and out through the mouth. Network Chiropractors have developed a whole program incorporating deep breathing exercises (called somatorespiratory integration SRI) to help with the relaxation and removal of spinal and body tension. These deep breathing strategies have helped me especially as I have battled my way through midterms and my preparations for national board exams.
I hope that I have been helpful in explaining how we can all cope with tension and hopefully have a much more relaxing, enjoyable, and full life.
-Mike E
What are the effects of tension? When we are tense, we take a defensive posture which makes us very ridged. This posture does not allow for much range of motion in our joints. Although this seems like a good defensive mechanism, and in some cases it is just what we need, it makes us more susceptible to greater trauma when our body is not free to move through its full range of motion. This is why you are more likely to sustain less injury in a car accident if you did not see it coming, rather than see it coming and tense up. In chiropractic we have a term called Adverse Mechanical Cord Tension, which is referring to the tension placed on the spinal cord. There are certain places in your spine where the cord attaches to the bones. If the bones at these attachments are out of proper alignment (usually due to a defensive posture taken by the individual), unwanted tension is placed on the cord increasing its tone and energy state. This in turn decreases the spinal cord's ability to communicate with the rest of the body. When the spinal cord is unable to communicate with or link the body and brain, all types of dysfunction can happen in the body. This is why it is very important to find strategies to overcome the things in our lives that cause tension on our bodies.
Here are some ways that I have found to cope and release tension in my body. First is through chiropractic care. When my body has a properly aligned spine, the extra stress of having a dysfunctional nervous system is removed causing greater function of all my body systems. Another way of removing tension in my body is to take that tension and focus it in physical activity. I have found that taking a walk, riding my bike, and running have helped me cope with most of the tension causers as I have traveled through my education and life. Also, when exercising, your body releases chemical hormones that trigger the happy centers of your brain so that you enjoy life more. Who does not want to have a more enjoyable life. Another great help for me has been deep breathing. This can be done anywhere, in a meeting, right before sleep, in traffic, etc. The key is to breathe deep in through the nose and out through the mouth. Network Chiropractors have developed a whole program incorporating deep breathing exercises (called somatorespiratory integration SRI) to help with the relaxation and removal of spinal and body tension. These deep breathing strategies have helped me especially as I have battled my way through midterms and my preparations for national board exams.
I hope that I have been helpful in explaining how we can all cope with tension and hopefully have a much more relaxing, enjoyable, and full life.
-Mike E
Monday, February 24, 2014
Suffering
No one enjoys going through pain. We don't choose to go through times of trial but they are inevitable. One thing that is important to understand is that suffering is a necessary aspect of healing. In all reality, if we did not suffer we would not truly appreciate the good times that we experience. We cannot appreciate the brightness of the day if we did not go through the night before.
In the healing process your body is going through changes and rebuilding. For it to be able to do this effectively, your body needs to motivate us to leave that area alone. An example of this is: if you bang your little toe on the edge of a table. If you have ever experienced this, you know that it is a unique type of pain and anguish. Why do you need to have the pain? Well for starters, there has been trauma to the soft tissue as well as trauma to the bones. So in order for the inflammation and rebuilding processes to take place, no more stress and trauma should be placed on the area. In order for your body to convince you to stop putting stress on the little toe, it sends a pain signal to your brain to get you to stop using the area and let it rest. We can be very stubborn so our bodies need to go to drastic methods to get us to listen. Another example is when our body is fighting a foreign invader, like a virus or bacterium. When your immune response is in full fight mode, it requires a lot of energy which causes metabolic drain to your body. So you get a signal to your brain that says you are tired and go lay down. This is so that your body can focus on fighting to invader instead of walking, working, studying, etc... We have to rest when our body tells us to. We may think that we are suffering because our body is not working correctly or that we feel we are broken, but it is the exact opposite, your body is functioning properly if you get the signal of pain or weakness. It is communicating its needs to you.
Although it is not fun, we need to suffer to be able to heal. We can get through it and most of the time if we leave the effected area alone it will heal on its own. I am not talking about emergency situations (if you have a major problem go see the appropriate professional for help), but even in emergencies, what do ER doctors do? They patch you up so that you can heal properly on your own. We can find strength to overcome our suffering, but we need to acknowledge it as a necessary part of life and health.
-Mike E
In the healing process your body is going through changes and rebuilding. For it to be able to do this effectively, your body needs to motivate us to leave that area alone. An example of this is: if you bang your little toe on the edge of a table. If you have ever experienced this, you know that it is a unique type of pain and anguish. Why do you need to have the pain? Well for starters, there has been trauma to the soft tissue as well as trauma to the bones. So in order for the inflammation and rebuilding processes to take place, no more stress and trauma should be placed on the area. In order for your body to convince you to stop putting stress on the little toe, it sends a pain signal to your brain to get you to stop using the area and let it rest. We can be very stubborn so our bodies need to go to drastic methods to get us to listen. Another example is when our body is fighting a foreign invader, like a virus or bacterium. When your immune response is in full fight mode, it requires a lot of energy which causes metabolic drain to your body. So you get a signal to your brain that says you are tired and go lay down. This is so that your body can focus on fighting to invader instead of walking, working, studying, etc... We have to rest when our body tells us to. We may think that we are suffering because our body is not working correctly or that we feel we are broken, but it is the exact opposite, your body is functioning properly if you get the signal of pain or weakness. It is communicating its needs to you.
Although it is not fun, we need to suffer to be able to heal. We can get through it and most of the time if we leave the effected area alone it will heal on its own. I am not talking about emergency situations (if you have a major problem go see the appropriate professional for help), but even in emergencies, what do ER doctors do? They patch you up so that you can heal properly on your own. We can find strength to overcome our suffering, but we need to acknowledge it as a necessary part of life and health.
-Mike E
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Take Control of Your Life
Music is a powerful thing. It can muster up a lot of emotion inside of us and it can spark memories of times gone past. Some songs can evoke such strong emotions that it even becomes a personal anthem that we live by each day. One such personal anthem that I have adopted is the song The First of Me by the band Hoobastank.
Here are the lyrics:
Here are the lyrics:
I must make a choice
A tough decision
Listen to my voice
Should I give in
To temptation, admiration
One leads to myself
The other some one else
Just an empty shell
Just an empty shell
It's harder than it seems
When you're told that
All your hopes and dreams
Are yours to hold if
You just give them
What's expected
Something they can sell
Put upon a shelf
But I am not for sale
I am not for sale
[Chorus:]
I hear a voice inside
It's grown into a scream
I'm not the next of them
I am the first of me
'cause I can't live the lie
I am just what you see
I'm not the next of them
I am the first of me
If I can't refuse
The price they offer
I am sure to lose
And I will suffer
Sell my soul to make a profit
All I have to do
Is make believe it's true
That something I can't do
That something I can't do
[Chorus]
So when the waiting's done
It's time to face the truth
You know you're good enough
Deep down inside of you
You've finally woken up
If only just to prove
You were born to lead the way
And be the first of you
A tough decision
Listen to my voice
Should I give in
To temptation, admiration
One leads to myself
The other some one else
Just an empty shell
Just an empty shell
It's harder than it seems
When you're told that
All your hopes and dreams
Are yours to hold if
You just give them
What's expected
Something they can sell
Put upon a shelf
But I am not for sale
I am not for sale
[Chorus:]
I hear a voice inside
It's grown into a scream
I'm not the next of them
I am the first of me
'cause I can't live the lie
I am just what you see
I'm not the next of them
I am the first of me
If I can't refuse
The price they offer
I am sure to lose
And I will suffer
Sell my soul to make a profit
All I have to do
Is make believe it's true
That something I can't do
That something I can't do
[Chorus]
So when the waiting's done
It's time to face the truth
You know you're good enough
Deep down inside of you
You've finally woken up
If only just to prove
You were born to lead the way
And be the first of you
I have gone through and darkened in some of the more powerful lines of the song that touch me the most. I know that the original intention of the lyricist was to talk about selling out to give a message that you may not believe in, but I want to use it to talk about your health.
In my previous post Power Within, I discussed the power your body has to heal itself. Since our body is screaming out to be healthier we need to take that step to take control of our lives. That is why I like this song so much. The lyricist talks about selling yourself to make a dollar, how often do we give into eating that extra slice of chocolate cake or drink that extra soda or even do that drug etc. We all have our own guilty pleasure. I call these examples selling out your body. We know these things are bad for us but we still give into them for the instant gratification. What I am saying, along with the lyricist of this song, is that we do not have to give in to these addictions that hold us from our full potential. We do not have to sell ourselves short. We have the inborn potential to overcome any temptation and addiction that will compromise our health and/or values. It is time for us to say "I am not going to take it anymore." It is time for us to seek out the help that we need to overcome these things that bind us down. In the words of the Hoobastank song, "I am the first of me 'cause I can't live the lie I am just what you see I'm not the next of them I am the first of me... You were born to lead the way and be the first of you." It all starts with you, there is no one else to blame, take control of Your life!
-Mike E
Saturday, February 22, 2014
Time, Nobody Seems to Have Enough
Everybody wants everything and they want it right now. Most people seem to always be looking for a quick fix. The problem with this is the quick fix is usually always temporary and very rarely addresses the underlying cause. One example comes to mind, say you twist your ankle and now it hurts to walk. The first thing that most people would do is take an ibuprofen to stop the pain. Yes you may feel better from taking the pain medicine but you will probably keep walking on it and just prolong the healing process. On the other hand, if you had just would have stopped putting pressure on the ankle it probably would not feel as bad and would heal faster. Now do not get me wrong, I take a pain killer every once in a while because I am a student and I still have to endure classes and get sleep and so forth. The important thing to take from this is to think about why you are hurting. If your hand hurts let it rest. If your head hurts, maybe you should stop looking at your computer, phone, tv, etc. for a few minutes and let your eyes rest, but I digress...
Healing takes time. No one likes to suffer but with all processes in life it takes time to heal. This is something that gets forgotten a lot. In our fast pace world, no one seems to have time to let their bodies heal. We work ourselves too hard too late in the day that we have to take something to help us sleep. Then when we have to get up the next morning we have to take or drink something to wake us up, but if we just would have listened to our body in the first place by going to bed when we were tired then we probably would have woken up on our own more refreshed with out any aids. I know what you are thinking, "aint nobody have time for that." You can either take the time to work on being healthy now or you can pay for it later on. Think of your health as an investment in a up and coming start-up business. I am sure looking back some of us would have loved to have invested more money in Apple co when it was starting out. You would be rich now, but instead you are struggling to find that extra buck to maybe have something when you get old so that you might actually be able to retire, because heaven knows there will not be any social security around when we get to that age. Think of your health as Apple co when Steve Jobs was just a young unknown hippie. Invest all that you have in it so that you can look back when you are old and say I lived a full life and now I can still enjoy my body because I listened to it and invested the time needed to maintain it. Just like Apple co seemed like a long shot, it definitely payed off for those who had the foresight in the long term.
We need to slow down and smell the roses every once in a while and take the time to make sure our bodies are functioning at a hundred percent. We go to the dentist to make sure our teeth are clean and functioning properly. Like we take care of our teeth, we should also make sure our nervous system is functioning at a hundred percent. We can do that by getting our spines checked by a chiropractor. With that maintenance we can heal more efficiently because communication is intact. But just like everything else, even functioning at a hundred percent, it will still take time to heal. Be patient and your body will thank you in the long run. So turn "aint nobody have time for that", into I have time for my health.
-Mike E
Healing takes time. No one likes to suffer but with all processes in life it takes time to heal. This is something that gets forgotten a lot. In our fast pace world, no one seems to have time to let their bodies heal. We work ourselves too hard too late in the day that we have to take something to help us sleep. Then when we have to get up the next morning we have to take or drink something to wake us up, but if we just would have listened to our body in the first place by going to bed when we were tired then we probably would have woken up on our own more refreshed with out any aids. I know what you are thinking, "aint nobody have time for that." You can either take the time to work on being healthy now or you can pay for it later on. Think of your health as an investment in a up and coming start-up business. I am sure looking back some of us would have loved to have invested more money in Apple co when it was starting out. You would be rich now, but instead you are struggling to find that extra buck to maybe have something when you get old so that you might actually be able to retire, because heaven knows there will not be any social security around when we get to that age. Think of your health as Apple co when Steve Jobs was just a young unknown hippie. Invest all that you have in it so that you can look back when you are old and say I lived a full life and now I can still enjoy my body because I listened to it and invested the time needed to maintain it. Just like Apple co seemed like a long shot, it definitely payed off for those who had the foresight in the long term.
We need to slow down and smell the roses every once in a while and take the time to make sure our bodies are functioning at a hundred percent. We go to the dentist to make sure our teeth are clean and functioning properly. Like we take care of our teeth, we should also make sure our nervous system is functioning at a hundred percent. We can do that by getting our spines checked by a chiropractor. With that maintenance we can heal more efficiently because communication is intact. But just like everything else, even functioning at a hundred percent, it will still take time to heal. Be patient and your body will thank you in the long run. So turn "aint nobody have time for that", into I have time for my health.
-Mike E
Energy and Tone
There are many ways energy can express itself. You can have energy from heat, movement, or stored as potential. Energy is one of the universal ways that we can explain the properties of our physical world. Here I would like to explain how energy effects us everyday in our bodies and in our environment.
Let us first look at some of the smallest particles in the world, atoms. Everything is made up of a combination of about 118 unique atoms known as the elements. In these atoms we have three distinct particles, protons, neutrons, and electrons. The protons and neutrons stay in the center body and the electrons move at close to the speed of light around the center. With these little electrons zooming around a center body and with the center body being attracted to the speeding electrons, you could see that the protons (and neutrons) get pulled around. This happens so fast that it looks like a blur and simply appears to vibrate. I like to think of it as someone getting a new tire but they forget to put weights on it to balance it. So you drive along and the faster that wheel turns the more vibration gets created by the unbalanced wheel until you are pretty sure every bolt in the car is going to shake loose. This type of vibration happens in every atom and since different atoms or elements weigh different amounts they all have unique frequencies that they vibrate. Frequency is just a measurement of how many times something completes a cycle every second. Also since every atom vibrates and everything in the universe is made up of atoms, then we can rightfully take the next step in deductive reasoning to say everything bigger than atoms vibrates, even our bodies. Just like the different elements, each of the pieces of our bodies have their own unique frequency that they vibrate. Here is a one of my favorite YouTube videos on the subject : Symphony of Science - the Quantum World
OK, so we have established that we all vibrate, now I want to talk about talk about energy states. Looking back at our atom example, electrons like to be as close to the protons as possible without touching, but if we introduce more energy into the atom the electrons will get excited and jump to a higher energy state. All that electron wants to do is lower its energy and get closer to those protons. It can only accomplish this is by releasing the energy that excited it. Our bodies work in the same way. We store adverse external energy from our environment, like when we get all worked up after that person cut us off on the highway. Also like the electrons all we want to do is relax and release that energy so that we can get back down to the lowest energy state.
Now lets talk about how energy works through waves (tone). I was at a short seminar recently and the speaker (Dr Holder, the founder of the chiropractic Torque Release Technique) made a rather bold statement: "everything in three dimensional space communicates through tone." I agree with that statement. In order for energy to travel through any material it must do so as a wave. We talked about how everything vibrates and we can measure its frequency. Well if you take something vibrating and throw it all you will see is that object moving up and down as it moves forward like a wave.
In this figure you can get an idea of the type of wave I am talking about. Tone is basically a wave with a known frequency. Our nervous system communicates through different tones. When we are at a high energy state, based on the stresses we have been put under, our tone gets higher or the wave that we produce looks like the high frequency wave at the bottom of the picture. Ideally we want to be in a low frequency state. Our body is more efficient and our nervous system communicates better when it is not so "noisy" at the lower frequency or energy state.
Using waves to help lower our energy states. In a body of water you can throw a pebble and make little high energy ripples (or waves). Now what would happen to those little high energy waves if they get hit by the larger wave, lets say a wave caused by the wake of a large boat? The little waves get overcome and assimilated into (or entrained by) the larger lower energy wave. this brings the water into a lower energy state. In Network Chiropractic we can use lower energy respiratory and somatopsychic waves to entrain or assimilate the higher energy waves in the body so that the whole system can have greater ease and your body can work more efficiently.
I have introduced and hopefully explained quite a few principles in this post. The purpose was to get a broad overview down so that later I can elaborate on each of these great principles later. I hope that I did not go to far over your heads.
-Mike E
Let us first look at some of the smallest particles in the world, atoms. Everything is made up of a combination of about 118 unique atoms known as the elements. In these atoms we have three distinct particles, protons, neutrons, and electrons. The protons and neutrons stay in the center body and the electrons move at close to the speed of light around the center. With these little electrons zooming around a center body and with the center body being attracted to the speeding electrons, you could see that the protons (and neutrons) get pulled around. This happens so fast that it looks like a blur and simply appears to vibrate. I like to think of it as someone getting a new tire but they forget to put weights on it to balance it. So you drive along and the faster that wheel turns the more vibration gets created by the unbalanced wheel until you are pretty sure every bolt in the car is going to shake loose. This type of vibration happens in every atom and since different atoms or elements weigh different amounts they all have unique frequencies that they vibrate. Frequency is just a measurement of how many times something completes a cycle every second. Also since every atom vibrates and everything in the universe is made up of atoms, then we can rightfully take the next step in deductive reasoning to say everything bigger than atoms vibrates, even our bodies. Just like the different elements, each of the pieces of our bodies have their own unique frequency that they vibrate. Here is a one of my favorite YouTube videos on the subject : Symphony of Science - the Quantum World
OK, so we have established that we all vibrate, now I want to talk about talk about energy states. Looking back at our atom example, electrons like to be as close to the protons as possible without touching, but if we introduce more energy into the atom the electrons will get excited and jump to a higher energy state. All that electron wants to do is lower its energy and get closer to those protons. It can only accomplish this is by releasing the energy that excited it. Our bodies work in the same way. We store adverse external energy from our environment, like when we get all worked up after that person cut us off on the highway. Also like the electrons all we want to do is relax and release that energy so that we can get back down to the lowest energy state.
Now lets talk about how energy works through waves (tone). I was at a short seminar recently and the speaker (Dr Holder, the founder of the chiropractic Torque Release Technique) made a rather bold statement: "everything in three dimensional space communicates through tone." I agree with that statement. In order for energy to travel through any material it must do so as a wave. We talked about how everything vibrates and we can measure its frequency. Well if you take something vibrating and throw it all you will see is that object moving up and down as it moves forward like a wave.
 |
| http://images.tutorvista.com/cms/images/83/frequency1.PNG |
In this figure you can get an idea of the type of wave I am talking about. Tone is basically a wave with a known frequency. Our nervous system communicates through different tones. When we are at a high energy state, based on the stresses we have been put under, our tone gets higher or the wave that we produce looks like the high frequency wave at the bottom of the picture. Ideally we want to be in a low frequency state. Our body is more efficient and our nervous system communicates better when it is not so "noisy" at the lower frequency or energy state.
Using waves to help lower our energy states. In a body of water you can throw a pebble and make little high energy ripples (or waves). Now what would happen to those little high energy waves if they get hit by the larger wave, lets say a wave caused by the wake of a large boat? The little waves get overcome and assimilated into (or entrained by) the larger lower energy wave. this brings the water into a lower energy state. In Network Chiropractic we can use lower energy respiratory and somatopsychic waves to entrain or assimilate the higher energy waves in the body so that the whole system can have greater ease and your body can work more efficiently.
I have introduced and hopefully explained quite a few principles in this post. The purpose was to get a broad overview down so that later I can elaborate on each of these great principles later. I hope that I did not go to far over your heads.
-Mike E
Friday, February 21, 2014
Lessons from Playing the Trumpet
From the sixth grade through some of my undergraduate studies, I played the trumpet in band. It was enjoyable to play as a group of different instruments. Each instrument in the band had its own unique sound and by itself was pretty but as a diverse group, amazing things were be accomplished. One of the hardest parts of playing music in a group of unique instruments, is being able to play "in-tune." If just one instrument was slightly off center of tone (or out of tune), the whole group suffered in accomplishing its goal to bring powerful music to the audience. But when we were all in-tune, we were able to communicate powerful emotions through the pieces of music we played. In order to stay in-tune with the group, I had to constantly modify how my lips sat in the mouthpiece based on how I heard the group play and by listening to how my trumpet contributed to that sound. Each musician is incredibly important to the band and each was responsible for continually playing in-tune for the betterment of the whole band.
So how does all this apply to my current career path? Well lets compare the band to the nervous system in your body. Each of the instruments are individual nerves. The conductor in the front orchestrating the instruments is the brain, and the audience receiving the communication from the band is the rest of the body. Just like in the band, if a nerve cell is not "in-tune" it cannot produce the communication that the whole system is trying to convey. All systems are effected is some way to this one nerves inability to adapt and be in-tune with all the rest of the nerves in the "band." So since one or more of these nerves are out of tune it is impossible to get the intended message from the conductor (brain) to the audience (body).
This simple analogy has shown the objective that I will have in my chiropractic practice. I will be striving to help strategies for the nerves of the body to stay in-tune by increasing harmony and decreasing nerve tension so that the brain can better communicate with the body. Stay "tuned" (pun intended) for more on these subjects.
-Mike E
So how does all this apply to my current career path? Well lets compare the band to the nervous system in your body. Each of the instruments are individual nerves. The conductor in the front orchestrating the instruments is the brain, and the audience receiving the communication from the band is the rest of the body. Just like in the band, if a nerve cell is not "in-tune" it cannot produce the communication that the whole system is trying to convey. All systems are effected is some way to this one nerves inability to adapt and be in-tune with all the rest of the nerves in the "band." So since one or more of these nerves are out of tune it is impossible to get the intended message from the conductor (brain) to the audience (body).
This simple analogy has shown the objective that I will have in my chiropractic practice. I will be striving to help strategies for the nerves of the body to stay in-tune by increasing harmony and decreasing nerve tension so that the brain can better communicate with the body. Stay "tuned" (pun intended) for more on these subjects.
-Mike E
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
Weight loss
Having your body be able to adapt to the negative forces in our environments is ideal for a full enjoyable life. I have recently felt the weight come off (pun intended) as I have succeeded over the past year to increase that ability adapt by getting to a healthier weight and fitness level. Now I do not proclaim to be a dietitian or a personal trainer. I am a chiropractic student with a degree in chemistry. I hope to use my personal experience with weight loss as well as my background in chemistry to share how you can improve your health and ability to adapt through losing weight.
As with other posts I will start with my science background. In physics we have the Law of Conservation of Energy that simply put states, "Energy can be neither created nor destroyed, but can change form". In our bodies we consume chemicals (food) and those chemicals have chemical energy (calories) that can be released if broken down into smaller chemicals. These chemicals have basically two fates: they can be stored in the body as either energy reserves or building blocks for our body, or they can be converted into kinetic energy by contracting muscles. The calories have to go somewhere and they do not just appear in the body. We had to put them there by consuming them. If we convert more of those calories to kinetic energy rather than stored energy we will lose weight.
Now on to my experience. On January 1st, 2013 I decided it was time for me to live what I preached. As a future healthcare provider, I knew that I could not help others improve their health with out me improving mine first. One of my biggest pet peeves are hypocrites. So being that I was only 5'6" and 174 pounds, I decided that the first way I could improve my health was by shedding some of that extra storage I had been carrying around. Knowing the facts that I stated earlier in this post, the best way for me to lose this extra weight was to eat less then I burned. It is a simple enough concept in theory, but harder in practice. So I started by keeping track of the calories I consumed and made sure that I was consistently lower than what I had calculated was my baseline calorie burn (if you are interested in how to calculate this just ask) for example, my base was around 1850 cal/day so I ate 1600 cal/day. It was hard to eat less because up to this point in my life I had eaten whatever and how much I wanted. With some good old fashion discipline and the occasional "unknown day" I was able to see marked results. I lost over 20 pounds in the first 3 months. Also, as I lost more weight, my desire to exercise increased, which led to more marked weight loss results. It was like my body was saying "thank you for freeing me up now let me show you what you really can do." As my exercising increased I then upped my calorie intake and when I exercised less I ate less. The longer I kept this cycle the easier it got. Now after over 13 months I am down to 134 pounds and feeling amazing. I sleep better and I have much more energy.
You see your body only has so many fat storage cells (adipocytes) and when those are full, your body starts putting fat where ever there is extra space in you body. As more of this fat is placed outside your fat cells the more cramped your other tissues become. Your heart and lungs normally have plenty of room to expand and contract, but when you start filling that expanding space with fat it becomes too crowded and then your heart and lungs have to work much harder to perform their functions. Also your blood vessels become clogged with the extra fat so your heart has to work even harder to get blood throughout your body. Also your glucose receptors become desensitized to all the extra glucose you are consuming which causes diabetes. I could go on and on and on about how too much fat is bad for you and makes it hard for your body to function at its full potential.
I understand that people on certain medications gain weight and that there are more genetic issues coming out about the difficulty of weight loss. Popular culture plays a big roll in the obesity epidemic as well. But simply put, if you eat less than you burn you will lose weight. I tested it and it worked magnificently. Your body wants to be healthier and it wants to show you what it is capable of. We can all make better choices about what we put into our bodies. I just hope that this helps inspire some and help us all continue to strive for better health so that we can adapt to our ever changing world. As always leave me questions or feedback in the comments.
-Mike E
As with other posts I will start with my science background. In physics we have the Law of Conservation of Energy that simply put states, "Energy can be neither created nor destroyed, but can change form". In our bodies we consume chemicals (food) and those chemicals have chemical energy (calories) that can be released if broken down into smaller chemicals. These chemicals have basically two fates: they can be stored in the body as either energy reserves or building blocks for our body, or they can be converted into kinetic energy by contracting muscles. The calories have to go somewhere and they do not just appear in the body. We had to put them there by consuming them. If we convert more of those calories to kinetic energy rather than stored energy we will lose weight.
Now on to my experience. On January 1st, 2013 I decided it was time for me to live what I preached. As a future healthcare provider, I knew that I could not help others improve their health with out me improving mine first. One of my biggest pet peeves are hypocrites. So being that I was only 5'6" and 174 pounds, I decided that the first way I could improve my health was by shedding some of that extra storage I had been carrying around. Knowing the facts that I stated earlier in this post, the best way for me to lose this extra weight was to eat less then I burned. It is a simple enough concept in theory, but harder in practice. So I started by keeping track of the calories I consumed and made sure that I was consistently lower than what I had calculated was my baseline calorie burn (if you are interested in how to calculate this just ask) for example, my base was around 1850 cal/day so I ate 1600 cal/day. It was hard to eat less because up to this point in my life I had eaten whatever and how much I wanted. With some good old fashion discipline and the occasional "unknown day" I was able to see marked results. I lost over 20 pounds in the first 3 months. Also, as I lost more weight, my desire to exercise increased, which led to more marked weight loss results. It was like my body was saying "thank you for freeing me up now let me show you what you really can do." As my exercising increased I then upped my calorie intake and when I exercised less I ate less. The longer I kept this cycle the easier it got. Now after over 13 months I am down to 134 pounds and feeling amazing. I sleep better and I have much more energy.
You see your body only has so many fat storage cells (adipocytes) and when those are full, your body starts putting fat where ever there is extra space in you body. As more of this fat is placed outside your fat cells the more cramped your other tissues become. Your heart and lungs normally have plenty of room to expand and contract, but when you start filling that expanding space with fat it becomes too crowded and then your heart and lungs have to work much harder to perform their functions. Also your blood vessels become clogged with the extra fat so your heart has to work even harder to get blood throughout your body. Also your glucose receptors become desensitized to all the extra glucose you are consuming which causes diabetes. I could go on and on and on about how too much fat is bad for you and makes it hard for your body to function at its full potential.
I understand that people on certain medications gain weight and that there are more genetic issues coming out about the difficulty of weight loss. Popular culture plays a big roll in the obesity epidemic as well. But simply put, if you eat less than you burn you will lose weight. I tested it and it worked magnificently. Your body wants to be healthier and it wants to show you what it is capable of. We can all make better choices about what we put into our bodies. I just hope that this helps inspire some and help us all continue to strive for better health so that we can adapt to our ever changing world. As always leave me questions or feedback in the comments.
-Mike E
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Power Within
When I was a small child of 7 years old I went through a rather challenging ordeal medically. In March of 1995 I was diagnosed with a rare inflammation disease named after the doctor that discovered it in Japan named Dr Kawasaki. If you would like to read more about that, see my Kawasaki's disease notes post. Because of that ordeal I was left with a very damaged heart. I had 3 coronary aneurisms and we found out when I was 18 that my right coronary artery that is responsible for supplying the right half of my heart with oxygen is 80-90% blocked from scaring that was caused by the ordeal that I went through as a 7 year old.
Now that I have set the ground work, let me share with you from my small example how powerful the human bodies ability to adapt and heal on its own. Like I said when I was 18 we found out about how blocked my coronary arteries were. Other doctors were surprised that a person as young as me could have such damage to his heart and have no symptoms. I had taken care of myself for the most part but I was not by any means a picture of health. After we found that out we did some other tests to find out if there was any damage to the heart muscle. Incredibly they found that the heart had no muscle damage even though half of the blood supply had been cut off. Later we discovered that the left coronary circumflex artery (this normally just supplies the back of the heart) had grown around to the right side and is supplying the right side heart muscles that were supposed to be supplied by the right coronary artery that was damaged. This all happened on its own without any medical intervention. Also we found out that I have a larger lung capacity then other people my size. I also hypothesize that my height is also a result of my body adapting to the medical complications I had while I was a child, (my father and 2 brothers are 5'10"-11" and I am only 5'6" tall). My life has been just a small example of how powerful our bodies capability to heal on its own.
I propose that we all think of our bodies as more than just a machine full of chemicals. There is an intelligence at play here. Call it whatever you want, a spirit, innate intelligence, the soul, subconscious, whatever label you put on it, it has the ability to know better than we do what the needs of our body is. Another example to help illustrate what I am trying to say is this, you have left the stove top on but it is not hot enough to be glowing. You place your hand on it and immediately pull it away. Who told you to pull it away? Did you even know it was hot before you pulled you hand away? Your body was able to respond quickly to minimize the damage. Also without even thinking about it your body has already began to heal the damage to the body. No one had to teach you body to do that. There are so many other examples of this intelligence in your body that I cannot write about them all.
I hope that this article has helped you to better appreciate the power within yourself to heal and adapt to your environment. I am not trying to say that we don't need medical intervention when necessary. I will be eternally grateful for the doctors that have helped me. I simply want to express the great awe that I have for our bodies inborn abilities to cope with our daily lives and function at 100%.
-Mike E
Monday, February 17, 2014
Snap, Crackle, and Pop
When you first hear those words you probably think of a popular breakfast cereal, but that is not what I am discussing in this post. What I want to talk about is the common comments I get from people when I tell them that I am going to be a chiropractor. The some of the most common phrases I have heard from people is "Oh you are going to be one of those back crackers" or "Good I need someone to pop my back" and others like that. I hope to be able to dispel some of these misconceptions about chiropractors and show what they are really all about.
First off, lets talk about the pop that some of you may have experienced under care of a chiropractor. The sound is not coming from any bone on bone grinding. The sound you hear is actually coming from one or more joint capsules. Most of your joints have a fluid filled capsule that helps it move freely and when they get stuck in a position the fluid is not getting replaced and is not filling the capsule correctly. When a force is put into the joint to free it from being stuck fluid rushes into the joint causing the popping (or cavitation) sound that you often here when moving around or on the chiropractic table. You can think of it this way, when you have a suction cup stuck on a window and you suddenly pull it off, the rushing air makes a popping sound. This is the same principle that happens in your joints.
Now that I have explained the sound, lets talk about what the chiropractor is trying to do. There is a common misconception that chiropractors are bone doctors. In reality we work on the nervous system. The nervous system is the information super highway of the body with the brain as the control center. Every tissue in the body communicates with the brain and the brain communicates with the tissues via the nervous system. When there is a disruption anywhere in the communication highway, misinformation or lack of information is being communicated to the tissues and/or to the brain and they do not function to their fullest potential. One of the greatest culprits of disrupting the communication highway are misaligned vertebra in your spine. Since nearly every nerve in the body has to pass through small spaces between vertebra, if that bone is misplaced, even to an extent of a couple millimeters, the effects down the line of the communication highway can be drastic. So the chiropractors job is to find the misplaced vertebra and correct it via a chiropractic adjustment to free up the communication pathways. Yes chiropractors move bones but it is a means to a different end. It is for the purpose of helping the nervous system function at its fullest potential.
There are many different ways that a chiropractor can go about moving bones to help the nervous system work correctly. Only some of the techniques will actually elicit the sound that we talked about before. The method that I plan on using in my practice is a low force, gentle adjustment (with no cracking or popping) that uses the bodies own systems to work out the fixations of these bones that are disrupting the communications from brain to body and/or body to brain for a better functioning whole person.
I hope that I have been helpful in explaining what chiropractors really do in their offices. I plan on explaining some of the topics in this post in greater detail later. If you do have any questions, feel free to comment on this post or shoot me an email at mike.r.epperson@gmail.com.
-Mike E
First off, lets talk about the pop that some of you may have experienced under care of a chiropractor. The sound is not coming from any bone on bone grinding. The sound you hear is actually coming from one or more joint capsules. Most of your joints have a fluid filled capsule that helps it move freely and when they get stuck in a position the fluid is not getting replaced and is not filling the capsule correctly. When a force is put into the joint to free it from being stuck fluid rushes into the joint causing the popping (or cavitation) sound that you often here when moving around or on the chiropractic table. You can think of it this way, when you have a suction cup stuck on a window and you suddenly pull it off, the rushing air makes a popping sound. This is the same principle that happens in your joints.
Now that I have explained the sound, lets talk about what the chiropractor is trying to do. There is a common misconception that chiropractors are bone doctors. In reality we work on the nervous system. The nervous system is the information super highway of the body with the brain as the control center. Every tissue in the body communicates with the brain and the brain communicates with the tissues via the nervous system. When there is a disruption anywhere in the communication highway, misinformation or lack of information is being communicated to the tissues and/or to the brain and they do not function to their fullest potential. One of the greatest culprits of disrupting the communication highway are misaligned vertebra in your spine. Since nearly every nerve in the body has to pass through small spaces between vertebra, if that bone is misplaced, even to an extent of a couple millimeters, the effects down the line of the communication highway can be drastic. So the chiropractors job is to find the misplaced vertebra and correct it via a chiropractic adjustment to free up the communication pathways. Yes chiropractors move bones but it is a means to a different end. It is for the purpose of helping the nervous system function at its fullest potential.
There are many different ways that a chiropractor can go about moving bones to help the nervous system work correctly. Only some of the techniques will actually elicit the sound that we talked about before. The method that I plan on using in my practice is a low force, gentle adjustment (with no cracking or popping) that uses the bodies own systems to work out the fixations of these bones that are disrupting the communications from brain to body and/or body to brain for a better functioning whole person.
I hope that I have been helpful in explaining what chiropractors really do in their offices. I plan on explaining some of the topics in this post in greater detail later. If you do have any questions, feel free to comment on this post or shoot me an email at mike.r.epperson@gmail.com.
-Mike E
What is Health anyway?
This question is one that has occupied my thoughts on more than one occasion lately. Although each of us may have our own personal definition of what health is, I would like to share what mine is.
To build on my definition, I would like to go back to my days as a chemistry student. In the study of physical science such topics as Light and Heat are discussed at great length. Each of these topics have their opposites. The opposite of Light is darkness and the opposite of Heat is coldness. But here we see a problem. Although we talk about light and darkness as two opposing forces, but is darkness actually a thing? Light as we know is are forms of energy that we can see with our eyes. If we block them we can form a shadow of darkness, but the darkness is not a thing, it is simply the lack of visible energy we call light. The same can be said about coldness. Heat is thermal energy, we make it by using different types of friction like rubbing two sticks to make a fire or increasing the electrical current creating electron friction in a piece of metal. We cannot create coldness however. Even in your refrigerator we are not creating cold we are simply removing the heat out the back. If you don't believe me feel the back of your refrigerator some time. So we see that like darkness, coldness is not a thing, it is simply the removal or blocking of heat.
So what does any of this science talk have to do with Health? I am glad you asked. Like light and heat, health has an opposite as well by the name of disease. What is disease, in the medical world it is a list of repeatable signs and symptoms that are present in a person. But why are the signs and symptoms there in the first place? I believe that they are there simply because the person has lost a bit of their ability to heal on their own. I present to you that health is what a person is missing when they are "sick" instead of having a disease. Health is the persons ability to adapt to the environmental forces that they encounter on a daily basis. These forces can come in the form of physical trauma, chemical toxins, or emotional stresses that bombard us all the time. When we lose this ability to adapt we become "sick", not because we caught something, but because like darkness and coldness, disease is not a thing it is the lack of health.
So in review health is our ability to adapt to our environment and withstand the external forces that continually pound on us. If we do not have enough health we fall to these forces and become "sick". Our goal is then to be proactive and seek out health rather then run away from disease (or lack of health).
-Mike E
To build on my definition, I would like to go back to my days as a chemistry student. In the study of physical science such topics as Light and Heat are discussed at great length. Each of these topics have their opposites. The opposite of Light is darkness and the opposite of Heat is coldness. But here we see a problem. Although we talk about light and darkness as two opposing forces, but is darkness actually a thing? Light as we know is are forms of energy that we can see with our eyes. If we block them we can form a shadow of darkness, but the darkness is not a thing, it is simply the lack of visible energy we call light. The same can be said about coldness. Heat is thermal energy, we make it by using different types of friction like rubbing two sticks to make a fire or increasing the electrical current creating electron friction in a piece of metal. We cannot create coldness however. Even in your refrigerator we are not creating cold we are simply removing the heat out the back. If you don't believe me feel the back of your refrigerator some time. So we see that like darkness, coldness is not a thing, it is simply the removal or blocking of heat.
So what does any of this science talk have to do with Health? I am glad you asked. Like light and heat, health has an opposite as well by the name of disease. What is disease, in the medical world it is a list of repeatable signs and symptoms that are present in a person. But why are the signs and symptoms there in the first place? I believe that they are there simply because the person has lost a bit of their ability to heal on their own. I present to you that health is what a person is missing when they are "sick" instead of having a disease. Health is the persons ability to adapt to the environmental forces that they encounter on a daily basis. These forces can come in the form of physical trauma, chemical toxins, or emotional stresses that bombard us all the time. When we lose this ability to adapt we become "sick", not because we caught something, but because like darkness and coldness, disease is not a thing it is the lack of health.
So in review health is our ability to adapt to our environment and withstand the external forces that continually pound on us. If we do not have enough health we fall to these forces and become "sick". Our goal is then to be proactive and seek out health rather then run away from disease (or lack of health).
-Mike E
Sunday, February 16, 2014
Chiropractic Survival
I would like to share an essay I wrote for one of my classes a little while back. It was written to help illustrate that chiropractic is going to survive as a unique healthcare option. Not as a replacement of medicine but as another source for us to express our full health and well being.
Enjoy.
Enjoy.
Is chiropractic going to survive as a
profession? That is an excellent question. A point of view of the ways it would
survive are given in the paper by Yvonne Villanueva-Russell entitled Gynecological Neurologists and Other Lessons
of History. In this paper the author gives an example of another profession
that fell early in its life due to spreading itself to thin and it not truly
creating a viable identity. This is not too different to where Chiropractic is
today as a profession. There are some in the profession that believe we have an
identity crisis, but I think the reality is that they do not want to accept the
inborn identity of what Chiropractic really is, the only profession capable and
qualified to locate analyze and correct vertebral subluxations.
To
understand how chiropractic is to survive we need to talk about cultural
authority. Cultural authority, in current definition, is the authority that society
gives to an idea or being that gives them credibility and a place in the
culture. Chiropractic has struggled with this through the years because of its
“identity crisis.” There are many in the profession that would love to just be
another specialty in medicine, and others that want to be the antagonist to
medicine and paint medical doctors in a negative light like they were Hitler
himself, while there are still others that would simply just like to be
completely separate and distinct as a profession. The latter is the only way we
can gain cultural authority. If we go with the first way we will just become
pawns of the medical doctors. If we choose to be anti medicine then we alienate
ourselves from those that support medicine. The path is clear in my eyes, the
only way to become a sustainable profession is to cut our ties with other
professions and build our own place in society.
Another aspect to gaining cultural
authority is to be able to validate what we do by ways of academia. This has
also been a big struggle for the chiropractic profession because there are many
people in society who claim that what we do is “unscientific.” Lets talk about
what is scientific. The
Oxford English Dictionary defines the scientific method as: "a
method or procedure that has characterized natural science since the 17th
century, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and
the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses.” So what we can see
is that at the basis of the scientific method “truth” can never actually be
achieved only a hypothesis can be modified and tested again. While I was a
researching assistant at the College of Charleston we were taught that a good
hypothesis could never be proven, it can only be tested and enhanced when new
things findings are found. The only people that say that science brings us
facts are the news reporters that love to exaggerate the findings of scientist
to make a good story. This is the only way that the public hears about science
so they make the obvious conclusion of scientific findings equaling true facts.
This is wrong and any researcher that is humble enough will tell you the same.
All through history we have seen this trend. One example would be chemistry.
The “truth” used to be that there were only four elements, earth, wind, water,
and fire, and you could make anything with different combinations of those
elements. Then Dmitri Mendeleev came around and came up with the “truth” of 118
elements that were the building blocks of all things. This became the new
truth, but later we discovered the “truth” that atoms were made up of even
smaller building blocks called electrons, protons, and neutrons. This continues
on and on illustrating the point that science is not the end all definition of
truth. It is just an evolving pool of knowledge that grows and changes directions
like a leaf on the water. It is not the only way to gain knowledge and it
should not be the only way to determine if a profession is valid.
In
order for us to ultimately survive as a profession is to finally nail down what
is our jurisdictional claim. Let me propose what jurisdictional claim we hold
innately within our profession. We restore nerve function by adjusting the
vertebra. Whether someone calls it the curing of back pain, manipulating the
joints, or correcting vertebral subluxations, it makes no difference. We have a
corner on the market of restoring nerve function. We need to own that fact and
tell the world about it. Too many people are living with decreased nerve
function due to vertebral subluxations. We need to narrow our focus to the goal
of increasing nerve function and then we will be able to survive as a wonderful
profession and not step on the feet of other professions.
-Mike E
A place to talk about heath and chiropractic
As I approach a turning point in my chiropractic education and enter into the health center to see patients as an intern later this summer, I have thought a lot about how I will present what I do as a chiropractor to my patients. So I am rejuvenating my old blog to outlet some of my musings about health and wellness, and how chiropractic plays a part in them. I will use this space to write essays on different health topics and discuss topics that mean a great deal to me. I hope they will be helpful to those that take the time to read them. I am planning to incorporate these thoughts and essays in my practice member education for my practice that I will be opening in 2016. There will be an open atmosphere to this blog, in that I encourage you to right comments and ask me questions about what I write. These are my thoughts and I am just one person. I simply hope to be able to convey my passion, knowledge, and experience about health and well being to as many as will listen to me.
-Mike E
-Mike E
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