CONTENTS
1..…Chiropractic 101
2.….Here’s How to Boost Your Immune System
3…..6 Tips for a Better Sleep
4…..Sitting Biomechanics: Optimal Car Driver’s Seat and Optimal Driver’s Spinal Model
5…..The Gift of Love for The Gift of Help
6.….Holiday Hours for February – March
7…..Clinic Hours and Services
CHIROPRACTIC 101: – by Dr. Rick Lee
There is a lot of news surrounding the Coronavirus, now dubbed COVID-19 by W.H.O. (World Health Organization). There are also some basic recommendations that they make to help minimize its impact. Most of this is common sense that we should be following every flu season, however I thought it would be appropriate to review and then also look at what else we can do for ourselves from an optimal immune system perspective.
Wash your Hands Frequently
First and foremost is to wash your hands with soap and water or use an alcohol-based hand rub to eliminate the virus from our hands. This practice should be done as a regular part of your own personal hygiene in any case.
Practice Respiratory Hygiene
When coughing and sneezing, cover mouth and nose with flexed elbow or tissue – discard tissue immediately into a closed bin and clean your hands with alcohol-based hand rub or soap and water.
Why? Covering your mouth and nose when coughing and sneezing prevent the spread of germs and viruses. If you sneeze or cough into your hands, you may contaminate objects or people that you touch.
Maintain Social Distancing
Maintain at least 1 metre (3 feet) distance between yourself and other people, particularly those who are coughing, sneezing and have a fever.
Why? When someone who is infected with a respiratory disease, like COVID-19, coughs or sneezes they project small droplets containing the virus. If you are too close, you can breathe in the virus.
Avoid Touching Eyes, Nose and Mouth
Why? Hands touch many surfaces which can be contaminated with the virus. If you touch your eyes, nose or mouth with your contaminated hands, you can transfer the virus from the surface to yourself.
From a holistic Health perspective, for the most part when we are exposed to viruses, your body has an amazing biochemistry set that pharmaceutical companies would love to emulate. You see the immune system responds to protect itself by creating Antibodies (Ab) when a specific Antigen (Ag), such as viruses, bacteria or parasites enter the body (please note there are symbiotic bacteria that is good bacteria that we need, so it is vital that we have this system that distinguishes between friendly vs non-friendly) and this triggers an immune response.
For the most part our bodies learn immunities over time. When we get sick, our body learns how to fight off the disease. The next time that disease invades, our body is ready for it and can quickly produce antibodies to prevent infection. That is the premise for vaccinations as well, however with the variety of flus, you want to make sure that you are receiving the correct one for that specific virus.
Detoxification and Restoring Homeostasis
When we fight off the flu and get symptoms, the fever, sweating, fatigue—are good for you. You are restoring homeostasis as your body flushes out toxins. The symptoms are how your body restores homeostasis or balance. Symptoms are part of a healing process. As Hippocrates said, “We call them diseases but symptoms are the cure of diseases.”
Infections Only Arise in Fertile Soil
Claude Bernard, the father of physiology, famously said our “milieu interieur”—our internal environment—was the key to health. This flew in the face of Pasteur and Koch’s germ theory of disease, that considered the germ to be primary as a cause of disease, irrespective of the individual’s health. Intense discord among scientists arose over this issue. Yet on his deathbed, Louis Pasteur, in 1895, said to his friend Professor Renon: “Bernard was right, the germ is nothing, the milieu is everything.”
Give ourselves some credit, we have the most powerful and sophisticated biochemistry set on our side called the immune system. It’s when we don’t take better care of ourselves that this can become compromised. Should we wait for a crisis to then address the problem, of course not, that’s why we are always advocating better lifestyle habits, not only for a better quality of life, but for times like these when a compromised immune function leaves you predisposed. Remember the three dimensions of stress are physical, chemical and emotional, when they become excessive, this is what can negatively impact us.
Our Health & Lifestyle workshops are monthly on Wednesday evenings. Remember these are part of your care, so feel free to join us again as a review and a great reminder that many of the challenges that we experience are due to physical, chemical or mental, emotional life stressors and are a health problem and not just a neck or back problem.
Our next workshop will be on March 11th at 6:15 pm, please ask us to reserve a seat for you and any family or friends that you would like to bring.
HERE’S HOW TO BOOST YOUR IMMUNE SYSTEM (abridged) – by Markham Heid (Dec/18) http://www.time.com & Dr. Rick’s comments
Some people seem to breeze through cold-and-flu season without so much as a sniffle. What’s their secret?
Regular exercise is a prime candidate. “If you look at all the lifestyle factors that decrease the number of days you suffer from common cold, being a physically active and fit person is the most important,” says David Nieman, a professor of public health and director of the Human Performance Lab at Appalachian State University.
Nieman has spent years examining the effect exercise has on human health and immune function. In one of his studies, he and his colleagues found that 30 minutes of brisk walking increased the circulation of natural killer cells, white blood cells and other immune system warriors.
When these immune cells encounter an illness-causing pathogen, they can kill it very effectively, he says. “But we found that, about three hours after exercise, these immune cells retreat back to the tissues they came from,” he says. In other words, the immune-boosting effects of exercise are fairly short-lived. This is why the “regular” part of regular exercise is crucial. “If you have a housekeeper come in and clean for 30 minutes every day, by end of the month, your house will look a lot better,” he says. “I think the same thing that happens with the immune system and pathogen clearance in the body.”
Nieman says 30 to 60 minutes a day of moderate intensity aerobic exercise—think brisk walking, cycling or easy running—seem to be best when it comes to optimizing immune function. He says weightlifting may prove to be just as effective, but more study is needed. On the other hand, 75 minutes or more of intense exercise may be overdoing it, he says. “When you go that long at a high intensity, stress hormones go way up, and the immune system does not respond well to that.”
Research on animals suggests that hard exercise during a cold or flu can make things worse. “Rest is recommended,” he adds.
A Good Night’s Sleep is another way to keep your immune system humming (Dr. Eric covers this in the next article).
“We looked at identical twins where one was habitually sleeping an hour or more less than the other,” says Dr. Nathaniel Watson, a professor of neurology and sleep medicine at the University of Washington and first author of a 2017 study on sleep and immune function. “We found that in the shorter-sleeping twin, genetic pathways related to the immune system were suppressed.” He says his study’s findings are in line with other research that has shown sleep-deprived people exposed to viruses are more likely to get sick than well-rested folks.
Exactly how much sleep you need for your immune system to function at its best is tough to gauge. “There’s a lot of individual variability there, so it’s not one-size-fits-all,” Watson says. But getting seven or more hours of sleep a night seems to be a good target for most people. “That’s not seven hours in bed—it’s seven hours of sleep,” he adds.
Finally, a Varied and Healthy Diet is essential. “What we eat fuels our body, and without proper fuel our immune systems don’t work as well,” says Dr. Jason Goldsmith, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Pennsylvania’s Institute for Immunology. Goldsmith has studied the effect that diets have on the microbiome and immune health. He says most people in the U.S. don’t have to worry about malnutrition. But many people are deficient in certain vitamins and minerals. “In particular, the B vitamins, vitamin C, zinc and vitamin D are important for proper immune function,” he says.
While you could get some or all of these from a pill, he says eating a variety of fruits and vegetables is the better way to go. Along with providing you with the nutrients your body needs, these plant foods also contain soluble fiber, which supports the health of beneficial gut bacteria. These, in turn, seem to promote healthy immune system functioning, he says. (He adds that things are “more complicated” for people with existing medical problems. “We don’t have simple recommendations that can be applied to all patients,” he says, so talk with your doctor.)
The one big exception to this “eat your vitamins” rule is vitamin D, which isn’t easy to find in food. “Vitamin D in particular is important, as deficiency has been associated with both autoimmune diseases and poorer immune function,” Goldsmith says. Taking a vitamin D supplement could reduce your risk for common colds and infections by 10%, research has shown.
So move your body, get some sleep and eat your fruits and veggies. Do that, and friends will be asking you why you never seem to get sick.
My Comments: I think we all know that regular exercise, good sleep and eating healthy nutrition is just common sense for a better quality of life, period. However, I want to add that your immune system is made of proteins, so you want to ensure that you are eating good quality protein and enough of it to not only support your lean muscle, but also as the building blocks for your immune system & function.
Excessive stress is another thing to consider, whether it be emotional, physical or chemical, it compromises your immune system, as we discussed with Dr. Hans Selye’s work (Father of Stress) on stress and their outcomes. Look at adding meditation (with many studies to support its benefits for immune function) to help calm and control the emotional aspect or find some self-help books that will help you recognize the source and can give steps to deal with it. You can ask us for suggestions or if you really do not know where to begin, seek some counsel, so you can discuss it with someone and get some direction.
If trying to eat all of those things are difficult given our proximity to good, fresh food items, consider using a good multi-vitamin to supplement with your food.
Surgical Masks: Using a regular surgical facemask won’t protect you from the coronavirus, however an N95 Respirator can. The N95 is thicker making it more difficult to use for prolonged periods. It also requires training to use and to be fitted properly in order to receive the full benefit of the mask.
The use of a surgical mask by the infected individual can be beneficial because it will decrease the amount of virus spread by an infected person.
6 TIPS FOR A BETTER SLEEP – via Precision Nutrition – Dr. Eric Lee
Turn Off Electronics
- Remove your eyes from all devices at least 30 minutes before bed. Artificial light interferes with our production of melatonin, which ensures deep sleep and may help regulate metabolism.
De-Stress
- Reading, meditation, and gentle movement (stretching, yoga, walking, sex) can release tension and activate calm-down chemicals.
Take a Bath or Shower
- Warm water can help us relax and de-stress. Throw in some magnesium-based Epsom salts, known to help with sleep.
Create a Relaxing Sleep Area
- Your bedroom should be quiet, peaceful, relatively organized, and free of anxiety-inducing clutter. If you live in an urban area, consider a white noise machine to drown out city sounds.
Set Your Room to an Appropriate Temperature
- Most people sleep better when it’s cool (around 67 F); others sleep better at a neutral temperature. Find what works best for you.
Make the Room as Dark as Possible
- To maximize melatonin production, cover your windows and turn your phone face-down. Use a motion-sensitive or dim night light to illuminate mid-sleep bathroom trips.
SITTING BIOMECHANICS: OPTIMAL CAR DRIVER’S SEAT AND OPTIMAL DRIVER’S SPINAL MODEL
– J Manipulative Physiol Ther. 2000 Jan;23(1):37-47. Harrison DD1, Harrison SO, Croft AC, Harrison DE, Troyanovich SJ.
Abstract
BACKGROUND:
Driving has been associated with signs and symptoms caused by vibrations. Sitting causes the pelvis to rotate backwards and the lumbar lordosis to reduce. Lumbar support and armrests reduce disc pressure and electromyographically recorded values. However, the ideal driver’s seat and an optimal seated spinal model have not been described.
OBJECTIVE:
To determine an optimal automobile seat and an ideal spinal model of a driver.
DATA SOURCES:
Information was obtained from peer-reviewed scientific journals and texts, automotive engineering reports, and the National Library of Medicine.
CONCLUSION:
Driving predisposes vehicle operators to low-back pain and degeneration. The optimal seat would have an adjustable seat back incline of 100 degrees from horizontal, a changeable depth of seat back to front edge of seat bottom, adjustable height, an adjustable seat bottom incline, firm (dense) foam in the seat bottom cushion, horizontally and vertically adjustable lumbar support, adjustable bilateral arm rests, adjustable head restraint with lordosis pad, seat shock absorbers to dampen frequencies in the 1 to 20 Hz range, and linear front-back travel of the seat enabling drivers of all sizes to reach the pedals. The lumbar support should be pulsating in depth to reduce static load. The seat back should be damped to reduce rebounding of the torso in rear-end impacts. The optimal driver’s spinal model would be the average Harrison model in a 10 degrees posterior inclining seat back angle.
THE GIFT OF LOVE for THE GIFT OF HELP
During the month of February for Valentine’s Day, we offer an opportunity to have your family or friends benefit from a health assessment by our clinic.
This makes a great gift for someone in which you believe could benefit from a lifestyle change for their health.
In lieu of fees ($90 consultation and evaluation), they are asked to make a donation of $25 to support Julliette’s Place, which is a Family Shelter that we have supported for over the past 15 years. They will be issued a tax receipt from Juliette’s Place, so it is a win-win.
Massage Gift Certificates and Muscle & Joint Pain Relief Cream are also a great gift idea, please ask Larissa or Judy about them!
HOLIDAY HOURS FOR FEBRUARY – MARCH
February 17 – closed – Family Day
February 28 – closed – Seminar
Sa. February 29 – open – 9:00 am – 12:00 pm
Sa. March 21 & Sa. March 28 – closed – Dr. Eric away March 20-28
Des Fan, RMT away from F. February 28 – Tu. March 17
CLINIC HOURS & SERVICES
Bridlewood – 3420 Finch Avenue East, Suite 406
Dr. Rick & Dr. Eric
Monday 2:00 pm – 6:30 pm
Tuesday 10:00 am – 6:00 pm (by appointment)
Wednesday 10:00 am – 12:00 pm 3:00 pm – 6:30 pm
Thursday 10:00 am – 6:00 pm (by appointment)
Friday 9:30 am – 12:00 pm
Saturday 9:00 am – 12:00 pm
Desmond Fan, RMT & Fiona Caldwell, RMT
Please call Larissa or Judy at 416-756-3833 to arrange an appointment. Des is available during the weekdays and Fiona is available one Saturday morning per month.
Bridlewood Chiropractic Centre 