June - July 2012

“We look forward to the time when the Power of Love will replace the Love of Power. Then will our world know the blessings of Peace.”
–-William Ewart Gladstone

Heat and Heat... and Heat

Some of us love it, some of us hate it, either way the summer has been pretty darn hot so far! I know most of you are enjoying yourselves, completing outdooor projects, relaxing in the garden, taking trips with family. We are too!

Please be safe! People are hurt and killed each year by the heat, mostly because of poor self-care decisions, which we are all susceptible to in moments of immortality.

Make sure to stay well-hydrated, but with things that actually hydrate you. Soda, beer, and coffee all cause dehydration, so drink water! Also try and avoid extended time outside, especially in areas without shade, and especially between 10 and 3. Lastly, make wise decisions about sunscreen. I've included a guide on purchasing sunscreens below.

Most importantly, have fun.

Enjoy the sun,
Dr. Matthew

News from Us

Past winners have usually referred 3 or 4 people, so it is easy to win. Each client you refer will receive their first visit for a $10 donation to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. This visit includes a consultation, exam and x-rays if necessary. Also, if you are an inactive client you can receive an updated exam, x-rays if necessary, and an adjustment for a $20 donation!

Birthday Cards
As most of you know, we have always sent out birthday cards to celebrate you and how glad we are that you are here on the planet with us, and your gift was a free adjustment in your birth-month. At the end of last year we reviewed this procedure as we were spending hundreds of dollars on cards, postage and time hand-writing our blessings and were only seeing two or three come back each month. So, as much as we want to celebrate with you, we decided to discontinue the mailings. HOWEVER, we still want to honor you: the new policy is that on one of your adjustments during your birth-month, if you remind us it is your birthday, your visit is free. Ask for what you want, and happy birthday!

Help Us Help More People

Please take a moment to like us on Facebook, write a Recommendation at LinkedIn, or write a short review at Yelp. Thank you very, very much!

Local News

Free Parking for People's Choice Festival
As with Memorial Day celebrations, all Centre Chiropractic clients are welcome to use our parking lot for The People's Choice Festival. If you want to use our lot, go ahead! Please park towards the back corner to leave the closer parking spaces for people coming in for adjustments, and leave a note on your dashboard saying "Parked with permission from Dr. Matthew. Then go enjoy! Remember - drink water, not just lemonade!

Is Walking Really the Best Medicine?

We've all heard this expression, and if (somehow) you haven't, I can tell one thing for sure: you're not a client of mine. Particularly after the first treatment I strongly encourage all my clients to walk for a few minutes, even before they get back in the car, and to spend as much of the rest of that day up and moving around.

There are a lot of reasons walking is so good for you, and there are a lot of reasons why it is so important after an adjustment. First and foremost, it's what our machine is meant to do. Our bodies are engineered to walk, and in fact that is the foundational explanation for all the other benefits.

The factor I talk about most often with my clients is that ligaments, the soft tissues that actually hold bones in the proper relationship to each other, have little blood supply so shorten and heal slowly. They are not like muscles, which have tremendous blood supply and so are elastic and heal relatively quickly. If you or anyone you know has ever sprained an ankle, you were most likely told it would take six to eight weeks to heal. This isn't just because ankles have a lot of weight, and therefore stress, on them, but also because ligaments just don't recover overnight. So if you are up and moving around (walking), then they will get more blood supply and heal faster.

The flip side of this factor is that sitting is stressful. In one biomechanics textbook an in situ study evaluated the psi (pounds per square inch pressure) in the L5/S1 disc (base of your spine, at about the belt line) in different positions. This study found that when an average person is standing with good posture, the disc registers around 80 psi. When sitting in a firm, straight-backed chair with good posture, the psi increases to close to 200. When slouching, or in a soft couch or chair this can get as high as 400 psi. Now of course healthy joints know how manage these stresses (at least in the short term), but not if you are slouching habitually, or have an injured joint in your low back that is trying to heal.

So not only does walking help you heal faster, sitting can undo you.

Less often considered are the intervertebral discs. The discs between the vertebrae have almost no blood supply in a normal adult and yet are dense with water (and strong, gelatinous proteins). The way the water gets into the disc is primarily by the pumping motion of that joint moving through a normal range of motion… yep, you guessed it, walking. This becomes not just an explanation of why walking is healthy and why it is so important after a chiropractic adjustment, but also an argument for adjusting misaligned joints in the first place, especially degenerating joints. If the disc is degenerating – regardless of whether the thinning is secondary to misalignment or not – realigning it will restore normal joint biomechanics and help get fluid back into the disc, improving it's health and ability to regenerate.

One of the least-mentioned reasons walking is so good has to do with lower extremity circulation. If you think about the fact that the blood stream carries nutrients, oxygen and important healing mediators throughout the body and helps purge the waste, and then think about how far the legs are from the heart pump, you'll realize circulation in the legs is no small feat. In fact the circulatory system is one big loop, and not only are your feet the farthest point in that system, but the returning blood has to fight gravity, and the heart would have to be really shoving on the fresh blood leaving the heart to get it to push all the blood in front of it back towards the heart. A major factor in the healthy circulation of the veins and lymphatics in the legs is muscle contraction; as you walk the muscles contract and in addition to moving you through the world, this helps squeeze, or "milk," the waste back up your legs. You can probably also see that while not walking becomes a problem here, sitting on the backs of your legs all day makes this return circulation even harder.

The one exception, of course, is if it causes pain to walk. Pain sucks, but it's your friend and the only reason it occurs is to tell you that you are doing yourself damage – so listen to the boss.

Of course studies have shown that walking can reduce the risk of stroke, diabetes, some cancers, heart problems, depression, arthritis and even some organic mental disorders. A study even showed that it and can improve interest in, and enjoyment of sex. Not to mention simply enjoying fresh air, listening to birds singing, watching the seasons change, looking for real estate deals, or as my wife likes to do, taking note of whose garden gives her an excuse to make ours bigger next year. Get out and do it!

New Research

Alternating Caloric Intake Day to Day Beneficial

A Louisiana State University study found that alternating overall calories daily can have dramatically beneficial health benefits. Specifically, eating 20-50% of normal daily adult intake day one, and eating as much as is desired day two, and alternating the two had dramatic effects in as little as two weeks.

Benefits were seen with"insulin resistance, asthma, seasonal allergies, infectious diseases of viral, bacterial and fungal origin (viral URI, recurrent bacterial tonsillitis, chronic sinusitis, periodontal disease), autoimmune disorder (rheumatoid arthritis), osteoarthritis, symptoms due to CNS inflammatory lesions (Tourette's, Meniere's) cardiac arrhythmias (PVCs, atrial fibrillation), menopause related hot flashes. We hypothesize that other many conditions would be delayed, prevented or improved, including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, multiple sclerosis, brain injury due to thrombotic stroke atherosclerosis, NIDDM, congestive heart failure." Read the abstract.

FDA Fights to Educate MDs on Long-Term Rx Effects

As part of its efforts to curb the abuse of narcotic painkillers, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is requiring drug makers to educate doctors about the risks of long-acting and extended-release forms of the drugs. "Prescription-drug abuse is our nation's fastest-growing drug problem," FDA commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg said during a Monday afternoon press conference.

"Educating health care professionals on how to safely prescribe extended-release and long-acting opioids is essential to address this critical public health issue," she said.

I'd think this would be basic curriculum, not crisis-management stuff… Read more.

Study Finds Diet Soda Increases Stroke Risk

"In a study of 2564 people of varying ethnic backgrounds, researchers at Columbia University in New York and the Miller School of Medicine in Miami found a significant correlation between diet soda consumption and the risk of stroke." Read more.

Featured Practitioner — Stephanie Yost, The Whole Life Coach

My friend Stephanie Yost is a life coach, a term which is common these days, though many people are fuzzy on what a coach does. In my opinion and experience, in times of challenge most coaches seek to help you find your own answers, versus psychologists and psychiatrists who typically see you as needing to be fixed and themselves as responsible for the fixing.

I have used Stephanie extensively as a coach, as have several of my clients – and we have all had a joyful time working with her in addition to experiencing phenomenal results. I asked her some questions about her work to help you understand what she does. Unfortunately this process could never give you a sense of what an inspired, enthusiastic, loving and supportive person she is.

What is Whole Life Coaching?
It is a modality that utilizes your own inner wisdom to create the life and work you truly desire. Clients who go through the process claim that they are lighter, happier, feel more free, experience more fulfilling relationships and have more ability to get out of a stuck place or feeling when it arises.

How would I know if I needed Whole Life Coaching?
If you are currently contemplating or going through a transition in your life or work, Whole Life Coaching gives you the support, skills and tools to move from confusion and overwhelm into clarity and more peace. Many who have tried other modalities without success, have commented on how they wished they had found this earlier in their process of growth.

What is it like to experience?
There's a lot of laughter usually when you discover that you've been the only one in the way of what you truly want. After you set clear goals for the coaching relationship, you will be asked to take an honest look at how you've been relating to yourself, to your work and to the others in your life. Typically, this brings relief and laughter as you discover you are at choice in all of the areas of your life. This is when the fun begins! You are free from there to make new choices on a daily basis and the change typically occurs immediately. You begin to experience different results, more in line with what you want, and the process becomes a positive loop. The better you feel, the more willing you are to go after what you want, the more you focus on that, the more you get what you want.

How does the process work?
It's a beautiful process to watch people unfold into more of who they are. When they are living closer to the truth of who they are at the core, what typically happens is the desire to serve others in some way springs forth. This is my secret agenda :-) I love to watch the ripples happen in the community when clients go out and provide their unique essence. It's why I do what I do.

Logistically, we work on a monthly retainer basis. You sign up for a month of coaching at a time and you are engaged in the process through 2 or 3 45-minute phone calls, on-going homework and accountability throughout the month. The agenda is clearly designed prior to beginning the process to meet your objectives. You also have the option of engaging in a group coaching process, typically each one lasting 6 weeks at a time, a more cost effective option for some.

What type of training do you have?
I have a background in business and was trained at The Coaches Training Institute in Wash, DC. After completing the foundational training, I went on to be certified with the same organization. I am a member of the International Coaching Federation and also am a graduate of the CTI Leadership Program, which is a year-long coaching and leadership program.

Stephanie can be reached through www.TheWholeLifeCoach.com

Plastic Paradise

Someone forwarded me a link to this trailer for a documentary called Plastic Paradise. I am not sure what the status of the project is, as this trailer is old but she is still accepting donations towards completing the movie. I was quite surprised at how much of the information in this short trailer was new to me, and am more thoughtful about the choices I make now and what else I can do to help turn this around.

Vulnerability

I think most people know about TED talks by now, a forum in which world innovators, from physics to poetry, chemistry to psychology, present their work, achievements and destinations. It makes far more stimulating and enlivening entertainment than most stuff we have access to these days, and it's free online. I saw this talk from 2010 just a few weeks ago on Facebook and was deeply moved by it. I encourage you to take the 20 minutes to drink it in, you won't be sorry.

Translation Humor

I wanted to include something fun this month. I ran across this video a few months back and it had me laughing - hard. I haven't watched any other videos by this team, but they seem smart and funny.

Dr. Mimi Guarneri, The Heart Speaks

I recently read this fascinating book by cardiologist Mimi Guarneri. Not only does she share fascinating stories about patients she worked with and the lessons she learned from them, but she also charts her passage from a very conventional, mechanistic MD to someone working in depth with alternative procedures to help her patients heal their heart disease on the mental, emotional and spiritual levels. This book is chock-full of fascinating research on the MindBody continuum, and is a pretty fast and easy read.

Farewell

Thanks for your participation, and thanks for your feedback. In addition to linking to my website in order to keep the newsletter concise, these will all be archived on the website so you can always go back later to read, research or forward content.

It's also important to me that you know that I am never compensated in any way for any of the promotions in this newsletter; individuals, businesses and products are featured because I believe in them.

Subscribe to the Centred on Health newsletter…

As most of you know, my mission is to support as many people as is possible in living healthier lives and making more informed choices. This newsletter is designed to communicate current research, information and perspectives in service to that mission and is provided free of charge and without obligation. It may or may not contain promotional events or advertising for Dr. Matthew Hertert and Centre Chiropractic.

Centred on Health values your privacy. We do not sell, rent, loan or transfer your personal information to anyone else. For more detail, please view our privacy policy.

top of page | more newsletters

Let us keep you directly informed—subscribe to the Centred on Health newsletter; to ensure delivery to your inbox, please add info@centrechiro.com to you contacts. If you no longer wish to receive the Centered on Health newsletter, you can unsubscribe.

© 2012 Centre Chiropractic. All rights reserved.

Dr. Matthew Hertert, Centre Chiropractic & Centred on Health
128 East Boal Avenue
P.O. Box 680
Boalsburg PA 16827
(814) 466-2000
info@centrechiro.com