Live to be 100 Years Old!

Posted by: The Balancing Center

How would you like 4 quick, proven, you-can-do-them-all-today ways to increase your chances of flourishing until age 100?

Dan Buettner and National Geographic teamed up to study the areas of the world that boast the most centenarians. They called these areas and this project “Blue Zones.” All the communities of the world that celebrate multiple 100th birthdays share 9 characteristics in common. You can watch the amazing talk Dan Buettner gives for the full picture and visit his website for the full breakdown of the “Power 9.”

In the meantime, here are 4 things that you can integrate into your life today!  

1. Move Naturally

What if I told you that you don’t have to exercise to live until 100? Shocking, unbelievable, almost blasphemous to say, right?

In each Blue Zone of the world, centenarians don’t exercise in the way we are familiar with. They don’t jog, do Pilates, Crossfit, or visit the gym. They do, however, incorporate lots of natural movement into their daily lives. How? By “deconveniencing” their lives.

In Okinawa, Japan, people don’t have furniture for sitting and end up doing 30 to 40 squats every day just by sitting down and getting up to perform daily tasks. Sardinians walk, on average, 5 miles a day as they go to work and pick up groceries.

Try substituting walking for one leg of your daily commute. Walk to the grocery store and use the natural weight of your groceries to build your muscles. Sit on the floor while you watch TV--you’ll have to exert more energy each time you want to get up. Forgo a seat and stand while you’re on the train or bus to sustain good posture and increase your blood and energy flow.

2. Downshift

Stress is a killer, most people would agree. One way to live longer and better is to take time to destress. By just taking ten to fifteen to thirty minutes each day to unwind--with no distractions, no cell phone, no email--you can increase your lifespan and your enjoyment of it.

What’s your favorite way to have fun? What is guaranteed to make you laugh? Pets are shown to decrease stress and if you don’t have one, here’s a video of an adorable corgi in a losing battle with a tennis ball! Have a glass of red wine tonight and simply sip and enjoy. (Incidentally, moderate and regular alcohol consumption is another thing you can do tonight to increase your longevity!)

3. Hara Hachi Bu

The Okinawans repeat this phrase at the start of each meal to remind themselves to stop eating when they are 80% full. The benefits to this are plenty.

For one, this will give your brain the time it needs to register that you have enough food in you to function. It takes about twenty minutes for the signals to get from stomach to brain and stopping before you think you are 100% full can provide you with that necessary time.

For another, you end up eating less, which leads to less wear and tear on your body overall. Fewer calories means you can maintain a healthy weight with more ease, and I hardly need to repeat the reasons why a healthy weight is, well, healthy.

4. Honor a loved one

Centenarians live in communities that put their loved ones first. Grandparents and the elderly live at home, children are nurtured and nourished, and people make lifetime commitments to their romantic partners.

These are lifetime practices, but the practices of a lifetime can begin at any time and today is always the best time. Take a minute to call up a loved one, arrange a dinner for your friends, hug your children, or go for a walk with your spouse. Added bonus? These activities are opportunities where you can practice hara hachi bu, destress, and add some natural physical movement into your life.

At some point, the number of your age doesn’t matter. But wouldn’t it be wonderful to live a better, richer, and flourishing life for whatever time you are on the planet?

Check out the full Power 9 and see what you can integrate. We wish you a long and lovely life.

Unleash the Fear

Posted by: The Balancing Center

We might not consciously think of it, but beyond the candy and the costumes, Halloween is a holiday that allows us to confront fear. We visit haunted houses and marathon scary movies and feel the primal chill that runs through our guts. It’s uncomfortable but electric and undeniably compelling.

What other time of year do we decide, nationally, to let fear flow through us? (Maybe inadvertently at Christmas time, but that’s another post.) Most of the time we strive to minimize the fear in our lives (even as the culture around us strives to create a fear-based economy, but that too is another post).

Fear does strange things to us. We might run, we might fight, we might freeze. Rational thought stops as our heart races, our blood vessels constrict, our cortisol levels rise, and our stomachs drop to the floor. And because we are so rarely educated in how to deal with fear, we don’t always make healthy choices. We ignore the fear. We distract ourselves from or anesthetize ourselves to the fear, eating out of stress, using drugs (including caffeine and nicotine), watching too much television, spending too much time on the internet.  

After school specials and our moms tell us to face our fears. Why? Because fear, in its primal profundity, can be an opportunity. If we can breathe through the fear, if we can pause before we run or fight or freeze, we might get a chance to figure out why we’re afraid and, even better, find a way to defeat, confront, or embrace what is scaring us.  

Understanding the causes and effects of fear opens up so much of life. We’ll try new things. We’ll want to run and stay anyway; we’ll want to fight and instead we’ll forgive.

At The Balancing Center, we strive to present the facts of your health. Whatever emotions arise out of that--fear or frustration or confusion--we strive to find ways to work with you through those emotions.

When you don’t let the fear move through you, well, it can’t move through you. It will get stuck. Emotions cause physical reactions and the emotion of fear will cause your body to enter its defense physiology, leading to poor sleep, increased stress, constricted digestion and respiration. Just like how fear might paralyze you from growing, fear that is stuck somewhere in your body can prevent that part of your body from healing.

And we want you to heal.

The chiropractors at The Balancing Center also practice N.E.T, or “NeuroEmotional Technique,” a question-based method of discovering the locations of trapped emotions and stress in your system. Practical example: we store fear in our kidneys and in the vertebrae T1, T5, and T8. By using N.E.T., the chiropractors can discover if you’re storing fear and they can help you to release that from your system. 

Your body can relax and rest. And you can use your fear as the spring board into health. Fear will always find a way into your life. And you can always find a way through it.

Allow this Halloween holiday to unleash the fear in you and see what happens. Let the fear move through you and see what it can in turn unleash and even inspire. And then consider making an appointment with us to round out your October.

Surprise! Allergy Relief

Posted by: Lindsay

One of the wonderful features of chiropractic care is the pleasant surprise. You might come in to ease your back pain and walk out also cured of your migraines. Dr. Dan certainly experienced a number of pleasant surprises after his first chiropractic adjustment. Going in for back pain, he was shocked to discover how his headaches disappeared, his sinuses drained, and his allergies simply went away.

That allergy part sounds great. I’ve had hay fever since I was 8 and learning that chiropractic care can ease my itchy eyes and sneezy nose made me an enthusiastic patient indeed!

How does chiropractic care alleviate seasonal allergies? An aligned spine eases allergies on several different fronts. For one, a subluxation or misalignment in your spine can pinch nerves in your body. Since your brain controls your body through your spine and your nervous system, pinched nerves make it more difficult for your brain to send messages to all the parts of your body. Certain vertebrae are in charge of controlling your sinuses and if these are out of alignment, they cannot control and regulate your sinuses correctly.

If your sinuses are not functioning correctly, they might overreact when certain irritants invade your nose and eyes. Allergies (watery or dry eyes, runny or stuffy noses) are the body’s overreaction to irritants like pollen and ragweed.

So a spinal adjustment that decreases the pressure on your nerves can increase the functioning of your nervous system so your brain can properly tell your sinuses, “Calm down! It’ll be okay!”

And speaking of calming down, an aligned spine means your body is just under less stress. Less pressure on the nerves means better communication throughout the body and if everything can connect without interference or struggle, everything can flow with ease. Your body is better able to respond and react to stress, handling new pressures or changes with grace.

This isn’t to say that chiropractic care doesn’t help your back pain because it definitely can and does! But sometimes people don’t realize or know about the other wonderful, unexpected results you can experience because of a straightened spine.

This allergy season, you might give chiropractic care a try. And maybe you’ll come in for allergy relief and walk out with more energy than you’ve had in years. Visit our office and discover some pleasant surprises!

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.

Fighting Tiger, Fleeing Rabbit

Posted by: The Balancing Center

A rabbit might flee if something startles it. A tiger might fight. Adrenaline is what provides both with the energy to either run or attack; both enter a defense mode where their senses heighten and not-essential-to-survival systems, like digestion and procreation, power down. The rabbit doesn’t have time to eat if it is on the run. The tiger isn’t concerned with sex in the middle of a battle.

While the kinds of threats to humans have changed since we hunted and foraged, our physiological responses to those threats have not. When a driver cuts you off in traffic or when someone verbally assaults you, your body enters the same defensive system as the rabbit or tiger. Your adrenaline increases, your senses heighten, and your body’s not-essential-to-survival systems shut down. You too cannot focus on eating or procreating if you think you are under threat. But once the threat is gone your body can return to its normal state: at rest but ready to spring into action.

What if you suddenly found out that your body has been operating under a low but constant threat for days, weeks, months, or years? That your adrenaline has been pumping at a low but steady rate for all that time? That the systems not necessary for immediate survival--digestion, circulation, elimination, recreation, and procreation--have been operating at reduced efficiency?  

Did you know that when you are out of balance, this is exactly what happens? If your spine is out of alignment, your body cannot get a good grip on the ground and your finely tuned physical sensors think that you are about to fall over at each and every minute. Your body goes into a mild defense mode to protect you from the perceived threat that you are about to trip or topple over.

 

As anyone who has ever been frightened knows, being in defense mode with your adrenaline pumping and your heart racing and your senses on overdrive is incredibly stressful. Mild but prolonged stress can take as large a toll on your body as short but intense bursts of stress. And because your body thinks it is in a mild emergency, your body thinks that this stress and defensive strategy are normal. It’s not looking to correct itself. And while it might seem like nothing is wrong, it also seems undesirable to walk around in a constant state of distress.

No need to fear, however! (No need to stress about it!) The doctors and practitioners at The Balancing Center offer a simple solution: get balanced.

If your body gets balanced, your body can actually, finally, and fully relax. You can breathe, rest easy, and take your time to go about your day. You’ll be able to stop defending and start digesting, stop protecting and start procreating! (If that’s what you want, of course.) Run into the office today to see how you can get out of defense and into health!

Cancer Schmancer

Posted by: Dr. Dan
The other night Dr. Dan went to an event hosted by Fran Drescher, president and visionary of the Cancer Schmancer Movement, though you may know her best as "The Nanny". Fran is a cancer survivor speaking out about the best cure for cancer: prevention. As Dr. Dan listened to her talk, he couldn't help but notice the striking similarities between her message and ours. Check out the following video to hear why Dr. Dan was so inspired:



Some of the specifics of Fran's message were related to environmental toxicity. Our immune systems are simply not equipped to defend our bodies against the toxic chemicals all around us. Here at The Balancing Center we have been longtime supporters of a unique product called Orenda Immune. The powerful blend includes a substance called Calcium D Glucarate, and it helps the cells of your body defend themselves against toxins.



As Dr. Dan mentioned in his video, we are very excited to be attending another important event about health and wellness this coming Thursday, October 20th, at 7pm, this time hosted by Orenda's founders, George and Bob Hall. You are warmly invited to attend the event. It is free and open to the public. Find out more here.

Cancer Schmancer, Orenda International, and Dr. Dan Fedeli agree that it is vital to incorporate proven health and wellness strategies into your life. You can do so today by making an appointment at The Balancing Center, learning more about Orenda Products, and attending Thursday's event.

Shoulders Down and Back

Posted by: Dr. Dan Fedeli

Check out our new video that demonstrates this important principal of tensegrity!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weK04BcYnA0&feature=youtu.be

Our mothers told us to pull our shoulders back...
Many yoga teachers suggest raising the shoulder up, then back and then down...
This video makes the case for Down First, Then Back:

• When the shoulders go down before they go back, they stop in their sockets and are available to move when you need them to.
• From the down and back position, it is easier to properly find and position your center of gravity
• This proper positioning of the center of gravity sets the stage for the pelvis and legs to support the body...instead of straining the back muscles.

“Shoulders should not be responsible for posture”

Watch this video and see how this principal shows up in three of our ‘Foundational Movement Practices’ .

Defense Physiology: Have You Ever BeenTwo Places at the SameTime?

Post by:Dr. Dan Fedeli

Take a moment to imagine you are spending a peaceful moment in the sun on a park bench. You are open to the gentle breeze and the birds chirping. Life is good. Suddenly, a police car turns on its piercing siren! But that's just life in the city. We become immune--or so it seems. How long did it take for your heart to slow down after being startled? What if, unknown to you, that response lasted days, months, or years, without you even knowing it? Defense Physiology is the body's response to an emergency or a consistent demand (the ongoing stresses of daily life) that becomes accepted as normal and necessary. In other words: we are not truly immune to city life. We seem to have built up a tolerance, but inability to relax, asthma, digestive problems, pain, and tensions are a few of the effects of "daily life." This seeming tolerance is actually abnormal programming in the central nervous system.

For me, my imbalances show up as tension and anxiety. These imbalances are like red flags that signal that my body needs some kind of support. "Support" can be compared to rebooting the computer. Sometimes it just needs to be turned off, and restarted. My internal computer (nervous system) can override the defense systems (fight or flight stressors), when properly supported.

How do you override the main frame nervous system? You do nothing more than make yourself available. When you come in for an appointment, we will notice the pattern in your body and "reboot" your system.

In the meantime, you can use some easy tools yourself. For example, your automatic nervous system can be aided using your breath. Holding your breath and contracting your muscles for several moments sends an emergency signal to the body to focus on immediate life support. You have turned your "computer" off. When you begin breathing again, enjoy some high quality breaths--deep inhales and relaxing exhales. This takes only a minute and can be done anywhere.

You can also control stress by using breathing techniques that lengthen your inhalation and exhalation. They should be proportional--the same length as each other. While breathing, imagine positive outcomes. This overrides the physiological defense patterning that seems to cause stress. These techniques work well with organized movement, like the tensegrity we teach at the BC, mediation, and yoga, to maximize your experience of health and vitality. In the present, you are safe and supported. Why let your body carry around traumas from the past? Here's to being in one place at a time.