Get Your ZZZZs

Getting Your ZZZZZs

Sleep isn't a luxury, it's a necessity for good physical and mental health.

After starting your automobile, your battery gets recharged as you drive so it’s ready to start your car again. Proper sleep each night is the way you “recharge” your body and stay healthy.

During periods of rest, your body is busy repairing itself, counteracting the effects of stress and strain from your busy life. Studies show that most of us get enough sleep. But it’s the quality of that sleep that most profoundly affects its healthful benefits, including reducing stress.

We sleep in cycles of approximately 90 minutes. This includes a period of light sleep that gradually leads to a very deep sleep and then back to a lighter sleep. We’ve all experienced the groggy feeling that results from being awakened during the deepest part of our sleep cycle. Worse, if circumstances regularly prevent us from entering the deepest part of our sleep cycle, we don’t feel fully rested and our feelings of stress intensify. Parents of newborn children can vouch for this!

Dreaming is an important part of restful sleep. Even if you don’t remember your dreams, sleep scientists confirm that we all dream. Dreams are accompanied by REMs—rapid eye movements. As if watching our own personal “movie” behind our closed eyelids, our brains project images and situations that we call dreams. Apparently dreaming is vital to our health. Experiments in which subjects are deprived of the dreaming state suffer from irritability, poor judgment and even hallucinations.

While much attention is given to the healthful benefits of proper exercise, proper rest is an equally important part of good health and stress reduction.

Dr Douglas Yost Twin Cities Chiropractor

Find out more about aerobic and anaerobic exercise and which is right for you!

Aerobic vs. Anaerobic

Do you have to choose between aerobic and anaerobic exercise?

There appears to be a great deal of controversy over which is the preferred type of metabolic training - aerobic or anaerobic? Metabolic training involves performing specific exercises that are designed to increase the efficiency of the certain pathways in your body that store and deliver energy for certain activities. Three energy pathways store energy - one is aerobic and two are anaerobic. So… what's the difference?

Aerobic activity makes your heart and lungs work harder and increases the body's need for oxygen. Activities such as running, swimming, bicycling, working out on a treadmill, and other activities that generally take place for a longer period are types of aerobic activity.

Anaerobic activity involves lower-impact exercise that doesn't work the cardiovascular system as strenuously as aerobic. Anaerobic exercise involves activities such as lifting weights, running sprints, and other shorter-duration exercises (i.e., under two minutes of medium to high intensity activity).

Many people seem to be partial to aerobic activity because it burns fat and keeps their metabolisms pumping for some time after they actually stop exercising. But… aerobic activity also causes loss of muscle, strength, speed and power if that's the only exercise you do.

Anaerobic activity, on the other hand, increases muscle, strength, power, speed and aerobic function and it also decreases body fat.

So actually, there really shouldn't be any controversy. Ideally in terms of metabolic training, the best of both worlds would be a combination of high intensity/short duration activity, medium intensity/medium duration activity and low intensity/long duration activity – the best of all worlds for those energy pathways!

Roseville, MN Chiropractic

8 Easy Steps To Catch A Cold!

How To Catch a Cold

Want to catch a cold? Follow these easy steps!

Some people seem to expect a bout with a cold or the flu each year. If you haven't had your quota yet, here are some things you can do:

1. Eat a poor diet. If you want to catch a cold, make sure your body lacks the vitamins and minerals it needs to keep itself in good repair. Eat lots of processed foods, stripped of their nutritional value. Avoid fresh vegetables and ingest lots of high-fat snack foods.
2. Avoid adequate rest. After neglecting the quality of the raw materials your body needs to repair itself, deprive yourself of adequate rest. Stay up late and reduce the time you sleep as much as possible. Use tobacco, coffee and other stimulants to fool yourself into thinking you have plenty of energy.
3. Stop exercising. To catch a cold, make sure you reduce the effectiveness of your immune and lymphatic systems. Unlike the circulatory system with its pump (the heart), your lymphatic system depends upon exercise and physical movement to circulate these valuable fluids with their germ-fighting abilities.
4. Rarely wash your hands. Increase your chances of catching a cold by compromising your personal hygiene. Remember to use your dirty hands and fingers to rub your eyes, pick your nose or wipe your lips.
5. Think negative thoughts. Look for opportunities to imagine having a cold. Pay attention to news reports about outbreaks of the flu and pay close attention to TV commercials from drug companies that sell products designed for cold sufferers.
6. Invite stress. Stress yourself physically by experiencing extreme temperature and humidity changes. Stress yourself mentally with constant worry or fear. Stress yourself socially by encountering as many ill people as possible.
7. Become dehydrated. Avoid drinking enough water. Reduce the effectiveness of your immune system and other bodily functions by drinking water-removing diuretics such as caffienated beverages, coffee, tea and alcohol.
8. Forget your chiropractic appointments. Ignore the role of a properly operating nervous system, the master control of your immune system. Avoid all preventive strategies and shun our suggestions of periodic visits to help you stay well.

Of course we're joking! The only way to catch a cold or the flu is to make yourself a hospitable host to the millions of cold and flu germs around you every day. Include regular chiropractic care to keep you working at your very best so cold and flu germs aren't made to feel welcome in your body!

Shoreview, MN Chiropractor

Broccoli vs. Breast Cancer

Broccoli vs. Breast Cancer


Turns out, mother was right: eating broccoli is good for you!

Sulforaphane is a chemical found in many green vegetables such as broccoli and brussels sprouts. Research has shown that sulforaphane may be a factor in inhibiting the growth of cancerous tumors in animals, as well as shortening the life span of cancer cells. Now, a recent study appearing in the Journal of Nutrition suggests that sulforaphane could be a factor in slowing the spread of breast cancer cells.

When laboratory rats were fed sulforaphane-rich broccoli-sprout extracts and exposed to a carcinogen, there was a dramatic reduction in the frequency, size and number of tumors. The scientists found that within 48 hours, sulforaphane "inhibited cell proliferation" and "induced significant inhibition of DNA synthesis" in the tumor cells. Studies with human subjects with sulforaphane and other cruciferous-vegetable components have shown that these compounds stimulate the body's production of detoxification enzymes and have antioxidant effects.

The new study "is the first to report the effectiveness of sulforaphane as an inhibitor of human mammary carcinoma proliferation and to provide confirmatory evidence of a recently identified novel mechanism of sulforaphane action."

In other words, eat your broccoli and other cruciferous vegetables, such as cauliflower, cabbage, and kale. They're tasty and, like your mother always told you, they're good for you!

Dr Douglas Yost

http://www.acwclinic.com

Laugh at Low Back Pain! Could a good laugh cure your back pain? Find Out..

Laughter and Low Back Pain

Laugh at back pain instead of letting it get you down!

Rather than numbing the problem with drugs, or surgically removing the problem, we have always been proud of the fact that we seek the underlying cause of a patient’s low back pain or sciatic nerve involvement.

While vertebral subluxation is a common culprit, a closer look shows another issue: psychosocial issues. That’s a fancy way of saying that your psychological response to social situations may be a contributing factor to your low back pain.

Back pain is a worldwide problem and is the leading cause of disability in the USA. Lost productivity and treatment tax the health care system, with 20% of patients seeking the advice of more than one doctor. In the UK, almost 10% of adults consult a doctor each year due to back pain.

Research is showing that depression and chronic low back pain may be related. In a sample of 31 veterans with chronic low back pain who completed a depression questionnaire inventory, those who suffered from depression scored significantly higher than those who weren’t.

A conclusion? Laugh! Get regular chiropractic adjustments and laugh. In fact, try laughing while you’re getting adjusted!

Back Pain Relief Minneapolis, MN

What is Barking Dog Syndrome?

Barking Dog Syndrome


It's not the bark that's the problem; what causes the bark is what we have to address!

Many new patients ask us why we examine their lower back, when their problem is in their neck and shoulders. Two words: compensation reactions.

While it's tempting to think of regional parts of the spine, it must be viewed in its entirety.

Your body is constantly adapting to the force of gravity. Just as a house foundation that settles produces ceiling cracks and doors and windows that don’t open and close properly, your spine does the same thing. Problems in the pelvis, knees, ankles and feet can often show up as problems in the neck. But the actual problem occurs with the foundation of the spine.

This is based on the principle of equilibrium. If you were to tilt your head to the right, you could only maintain your head this way for a while before your body would curve some other area of your spine to support your head.

We refer to this as the barking dog syndrome. If you accidentally step on a dog's tail, it will bark. The symptom (the bark) comes out of its mouth, but the problem is with your foot on its tail! To alleviate the symptom, you have to address the cause.

Shoreview, MN Chiropractor