Clean, Burn, and Shape

Posted by: The Balancing Center

We are well into the second half of 2013 and it seems like a great time to evaluate how your year has gone and how you would like your year to finish. How are you lately? Are you feeling energized and lively? Sluggish and tired? Ready to take on the upcoming months or maybe wanting to get back to those New Year’s resolutions you made almost eight months ago? However you’re feeling, there are things you can do to either keep up your momentum or increase your energy so you can finish your year with a flourish!

Besides visiting your friendly neighborhood chiropractor, we recommend taking on the rewarding challenge of a cleanse, specifically Orenda’s new Clean, Burn, and Shape program. Cleanses, when done safely and properly, can give you more energy and support the health your body is designed to achieve naturally and on its own.

Orenda’s Clean, Burn, and Shape program is a multidimensional cleanse program, beginning with detoxification, supporting healthy weight-loss functions, and creating a strong foundation for continued weight and health maintenance. You start with a 10 day cleanse to jumpstart your metabolism and detoxify your system. After the cleanse you move into three 30 day cycles that outline a detailed diet and exercise regiment. All told, it is 100 days to a leaner shape, cleaner body, and more vitality!

The last step after any cleanse is to integrate your new, healthier habits into your everyday life to maintain your vitality for the rest of your life. Orenda’s Clean, Burn, and Shape program is ideally designed to help you achieve that integration.

Check out this simple and informative online brochure to get the scoop on Clean, Burn, and Shape. If you would like to order the program, visit Orenda’s website here or call the convenient support line at (866) 673-1333. If you would like, you can even call us at The Balancing Center, and we can support you in your decision to Clean, Burn, and Shape!

We’d love to feature your progress and celebrate with you as you move forward in your health goals. Our wonderful office manager, Jennifer, recently began the program and has already seen encouraging results. After her first 10 days, she lost over 13 pounds and an inch from her waist!

If you’re looking for a way to make the second half of 2013 even better than the first, try Orenda’s Clean, Burn, and Shape to receive the best support for your optimal health!

Our New Affiliate: Abe's Market

Posted by: The Balancing Center

We at The Balancing Center are thrilled and honored to have connected with Abe’s Market, an online marketplace for natural products and holistic services. From granola to gift wrap, Abe’s Market discovers and promotes products that are eco-friendly, ethical, sustainable, organic, good to you and good for you, your family, and your community. As a recent addition to their wonderful website, Abe’s Market now offers recommendations for services, including nutritionists, yogis, and now The Balancing Center!

Abe’s Market provides an awesome incentive program as well if you purchase services through their website. When you buy a service online, you receive money back as a reward, 15% back that you can use for other products on their site!

As your one-stop shop for natural goods and services, visit our splendid, new, partner-in-health Abe’s Market. And while you’re there, check out our videos and schedule a visit to our office to receive credit for more Abe’s Market products. You can treat yourself to some organic cookies to go along with your chiropractic care!

The Checklist of Care

Posted by: The Balancing Center

Gravity never forgets to pull down. (At least it hasn’t yet in recorded history.) Our body’s natural resistance to gravity is what gives our muscles definition and tone, what strengthens our bones so we can walk, work, and play.

But if you’re out of balance, the uneven connection you have with the ground makes it harder for your body to function easily. Your left leg might have to work harder than your right leg, causing your muscles, bones, and joints to work unevenly. Gravity might never forget to pull down, but your body can forget what it’s like to properly pull up.

However, if we can restore that connection and your innate balance, your body can start to work with gravity instead of against it. You can turn off your emergency response systems, decrease your stress level, and feel more relaxed. How do we restore that connection? By building upon a checklist of care to discover what combination of tactics can create the best strategy for health for each patient.

1. We promote a different perspective on health: you are designed to be well and health issues arise because of interferences in that design. Health issues are multidimensional and require multidimensional solutions.

2.  We discover if your upper neck is misaligned. If it is, we realign it with our precise upper cervical technique.

3.   We check for any secondary structural issues in the rest of your spine and body. If we find any, we clear and correct those.

4. We check for underlying emotional or mental patterns of trauma that might be interfering with your body on a level separate from structural issues. If we find any, we release or recondition those patterns using kinesiology techniques.

5.  We teach you our unique exercise program, a series of simple movements that help you hold your spinal adjustments longer and more effectively. Practicing these movements also retrains you to sit, stand, and move better.

6.  We determine what kinds of supplements and products will best support your healing process through all its stages.

7.  We have you take ownership of your healing experience. When you are an active part of your healing, you can achieve better results and more clarity.

Though we work off of this basic skeleton, the details of your care might change every time you visit because you are a dynamic and flexible being. The right combination of techniques at the right time can restore your connection to the ground so you can work with, and not against gravity.

Come to Orenda's Open Event!

Posted by: The Balancing Center

Here at The Balancing Center, we like to think of Orenda supplements as the chiropractic care for your endocrine system. A few daily supplements can support the alignment of so many important functions, including your thyroid, cell growth, sex hormones, and adrenal glands.

You can find out more from the experts themselves: Orenda is hosting an open informational session tonight!

Thursday, July 11 at 7:00 pm

Hilton Garden Inn

10 E. Grand Ave

Chicago, IL 60611

The event will feature Dr. Shanhong Lu, speaking on The Science of Toxicity and Stress as it Affects the Endocrine System. As an added bonus, Bob and George Hall, the co-founders of Orenda will also be speaking!

For more information, visit Orenda’s website to find out more! You can also contact us at The Balancing Center to get more information!

Stressed? Here's a Tip!

Posted by: The Balancing Center

Are you feeling anxious? Nervous? Stressed? Have you ever? Will you soon?

Here’s a new, old way to destress and relax: exercise. (Surprise, surprise?) New research suggests that exercise causes certain neurons in your brain to suppress your stress and anxiety response.

When you strengthen your heart, lungs, and muscles, you also strengthen your brain’s ability to stop your neurons from firing the stress signal. Imagine experiencing overall reduced anxiety because of your daily walk, yoga class, or dance class!

If you want to experience the benefits of regular exercise without joining a gym, try incorporating our Foundational Movement Practices into your daily routine. The FMP are easy, quick, and ultimately life-changing because they retrain your whole body to sit, stand, and move better. As an added benefit, the FMP make everything you do over the course of your whole day exercise! According to the research, that will in turn decrease your stress and anxiety. It’s a win all around!

Read all about this fascinating research here.

Orenda is Hosting an Open Event!

Posted by: The Balancing Center

Did you know that just like your atlas is the master control of your spine, your pituitary gland is the master control of your endocrine system? Chiropractic adjustments are effective at unwinding locked sections of your spine but if your endocrine system is on the fritz, your body might still be operating at reduced efficiency. The endocrine system controls cell growth, sex hormones, thyroid function, and the adrenal gland--it’s clearly important to have that system operating at full throttle!

That’s where Orenda can help! Orenda offers a line of supplements designed to support your endocrine system. In fact, we like to think of Orenda as the “chiropractic” for the endocrine system! For optimal health, the doctors and bodyworkers at The BC often recommend one or more of Orenda's supplements in conjunction with regular chiropractic and therapeutic care.

Want to know more? You're in luck! Orenda is hosting an open informational session on:

Thursday, July 11 at 7:00 pm

Hilton Garden Inn

10 E. Grand Ave

Chicago, IL 60611

The event will feature Dr. Shanhong Lu, speaking on "The Science of Toxicity and Stress as it Affects the Endocrine System." Bob and George Hall, the co-founders of Orenda themselves, will also be speaking!

For more information, visit Orenda’s website to find out more! You can also contact us at The Balancing Center to get more information!

Adapt to the Normal You Want

Posted by: The Balancing Center

The first week I lived near the El, I thought I would go crazy from the constant, disruptive rumbling. The second week I lived near the El, a guest asked me, “How do you sleep with that noise?” and I answered, “What noise?”

Humans are fantastic at adapting to their environments and mental, physical, and emotional circumstances. We tune out background noise, adjust to the fluctuating temperatures of the seasons, and can live fully without the full use of our bodies. The human capacity to adapt is remarkable--so remarkable that we often take it for granted and do not even remark on it!

Humans also adapt exceptionally well to pain and discomfort. When we are in a suffering state for long enough, our bodies come to accept that suffering as normal as part of its remarkable survival mechanism. If my body thinks it is under a constant threat, then my constant state of emergency response will become my new normal. I won’t look for an alternative solution because why would I? According to my body, everything is just fine. If I haven’t been able to stand up straight for over half my life, then that crooked view would grow to seem normal.

Which is your "normal?"

Having a misaligned spine is an example of a threat to your body. And you might not even know you are under a threat if you have been misaligned long enough. But even if your body thinks everything is fine, the stress of that misalignment is taking its toll.

Increased stress leads to increased cortisol levels. Cortisol is a hormone that regulates countless bodily functions, including blood pressure, blood sugar, and the immune system. Too much stress and too much cortisol can lead to high blood pressure, hyperglycemia, suppressed immune function, thyroid troubles, weight gain--you might have heard this list before. At some point we might even grow accustomed to hearing that list of “bad things” thrown at us from every healthy corner of the Internet.

We have certainly grown accustomed to using medication to ease us into normalcy. But that’s not the point. Neither is the point the laundry list of scary things that can happen because of increased stress. The point is, you might ask yourself what pains or discomforts in your life and your body have you come to accept as normal? And is that really the “normal” you want or need? If so, then awesome. But if not, then what kind of normal do you want? What can and will you do to create that new and (hopefully) better normal for yourself?

One option would be to see if your neck is out of alignment and if you have been living under the low but constant level of stress that can cause. Getting back into alignment and balance can help unravel several other issues and problems that appear in your life--clearing the way for your body to relax and heal itself from the inside out. Now, what if that were your new normal?