Ten Strategies for Better Health

by Dr. Adam Rushford

Don’t fall victim to perfection paralysis. Just because you can’t fit in that 60-minute workout at the gym doesn’t mean that a 15-minute walk isn’t extremely beneficial.

Ilove being a Chiropractor!! I love to treat patients, I love the relationships that I have formed over the past 12 years of practice, and I love coaching patients and giving advice on how to live healthier outside of the office. I have noticed that there are ideas, concepts, and strategies that I find myself repeatedly revisiting with patients.

Here are 10 of the most common statements about achieving or approaching better health that I continually go back to with patients.

1. Drink water: I love simple things that have immense power, and there are few things more impactful to your health with less of an investment than proper hydration.

The general rule that we follow in the office is to drink half of your body weight in ounces of water (180lbs—->90oz of water). For every ounce of diuretic (coffee, tea, alcohol), you have to drink two additional ounces of water.

2. Squeeze your glutes: Go ahead, do it. What you should notice while squeezing your glutes is the engagement of abdominal muscles and thighs. This is because your glutes have radiant strength.

Squeezing your glutes will brace your entire core from the diaphragm to the top of your knees, front and back, and create the stability needed to bend, lift, and stand for long periods without gravity getting the better of you.

3. Stable, neutral, mobile, and

aligned spine: These should be the four goals you cultivate while developing your most efficient spine. Although simple sounding, whole books are written on each of these four. Here are some starter tips. • Stable: Strengthen your core and squeeze your glutes. • Neutral: Use the Two Hand

Rule. With your right-hand flat and your palm facing the floor, put your thumb against your sternum and your left thumb against your belt buckle.

Envision two perpendicular lines coming straight out.

If these lines are converging, you are stuck in flexion, and if they are diverging, you are stuck in extension.

The goal is to have these lines run parallel to each other. This helps your spine offload gravity, weight, and stress into your hips and down your legs.

• Mobile: The human body is meant to be in motion. So, move a lot and move with diversity.

Run, swim, bike, lift, do yoga, high weight, low weight, play, work, and have fun.

• Aligned: Have an awareness of your body position as you lift, bend, move and sit throughout the day.

4. Entropy is constant and passive:

The body is breaking down every second of every day, and this constant decay takes no energy. It is completely passive. The body is also in a constant state of repair, recovery, and growth every second of every day. This process requires continuous eating well, thinking well, moving well, and communication between the brain and body to overcome the constant entropy.

Repair and Recovery > Entropy and Breakdown = health and wellness

Entropy and Breakdown > Repair and Recovery = dysfunction and disease

5. Health isn’t about how

you are feeling. It’s about how your body is healing:

Contrary to popular belief, your health has little to do with how you feel.

Symptoms can give you some vital information, but over years of practice, I have come across extremely healthy people who are in tremendous amounts of pain and very unhealthy people who aren’t in any pain at all. There is a wide spectrum between being healthy and being unhealthy, and the majority of this space is filled with a subacute grey area in which the problem is there and getting worse. I have three goals with patients that I want to see to determine if their care is successful. I want to lessen their symptoms while improving their body’s function and structural integrity. Getting out of pain alone is only putting out the fire. You have to unravel whatever structural or functional deficits that are presenting that wore out the body over time and eventually started the fire.

6. The Power that made the body

heals the body: If you ever lose faith or forget how amazing the human body is, just take a moment to study embryology. This science studies the magical process that turns two cells that fall in love into a perfect baby in nine months. Building on the idea in #4, the body is in a constant state of repair, recovery, and growth. It is easy to focus on the negative things that can present in our bodies. When you remember the amazing power that created you in nine months, working for you your entire life is a good practice.

7. A setback does not give you permission

to quit: If you failed yesterday, the good news is today is a new day: You will have 100s of setbacks and failed days, put them behind you, move on, and get on with the process.

A little of something is better than a lot of nothing: Don’t overlook the power of a sustained 1% change over time.

8. Focus on the exhalation: Stick with me while I explain some basic neurology. The Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) is responsible for driving the billions of processes that take place in your body without you thinking. The

ANS is split up into two different areas. The first part is the sympathetic nervous system known for driving the fight or flight response in your body. It diverts blood flow from your internal organs and brain into your extremities, raises your blood pressure, heart rate, respiratory rate, and cholesterol, and down-regulates immune function and digestion. This fight or flight response is ignited with an increase in physical, chemical, or emotional stress. The other side of the ANS is the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), which I think of as the rest and digest system. The PNS down-regulates everything the sympathetic fire up to increase your immunity, improve digestion, and help the body heal and recover.

Both of these systems are necessary, but our modern lives have put many of us in a state of sympathetic dominance that significantly affects our body’s ability to heal and recover. I use focusing on my breath as a tool to transition between these two systems throughout the day. The inhalation cycle stimulates the sympathetic, and the exhalation stimulates the parasympathetic. Try a breathing cycle of inhaling for a four-count, holding for a seven-count, and exhaling for an eight count. While doing this, you should notice your jaw unclench, your neck muscles loosen, and your heart rate slows down.

9. Balance more stress with more recovery: This is very simple. If you are going to load up more physical, chemical, and emotional stresses on the body, make sure you take extra time to recover, re-hydrate, and decompress your mind.

I’ve noticed most people take the opposite approach. The stress loads up, and we talk ourselves into believing that we are too busy to work out. We burn the candle on both ends and choose fast, cheap, and easy food. Be proactive when you see these more stressful times coming up and prepare.

10. Chiropractic College was a life-changing experience

for me in many ways. The most impact it made was reframing how I viewed health. It shapes how I raise my kids, how I direct my health and wellness, and how

I approach patient care. The ten concepts above are general and straightforward and can be used in many scenarios throughout your life to help you make better decisions in how you value the amazing gift you live in and how you treat it.

August

Spiritual

Visit a new church, synagogue or temple. Stay after the service for the fellowship. Invite their members to your place of worship.

Emotional

Take stock, write down some things you want to put behind you. Then tear it up and let it go.

Space

Make a place for play. Build a fort under a table. Invite your kids in for a snack.

Sleep in a sleeping bag on your deck under a full moon or the stars.

Social

Make Easy Low Carb Fudgesicles and sit with a friend on the porch and eat them like you used to do as a kid in the summer.

Ingredients 1 ¾ cup heavy cream 2 ½ ounces unsweetened baking chocolate finely chopped 1/3 cup granulated stevia/erythritol blend 2 large eggs ¾ cup unsweetened almond milk 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions

1. In a 1 ½ quart saucepan, whisk together the heavy cream, unsweetened baking chocolate, granulated sweetener and eggs.

2. Place the saucepan containing the mixture over medium low heat. Whisking continuously, heat mixture until it just comes to a simmer. Remove from heat immediately.

3. Whisk in the almond milk and the vanilla extract.

Pour into popsicle molds, cover and insert popsicle sticks. Freeze until completely frozen, for about 5 hours.

Financial

Summer can trigger over spending because it’s so much fun! • Assess your financial situation. • Actually plan and budget per activity. • Make it a family game to find ways to do what you love for free.

Personal

Take a day to play. Write down three things that you loved doing as a kid when you played by yourself. If your body will still let you, go do those things.

We can all still play with Barbies! What was it you loved about playing with Barbies? The clothes, hanging out with your friends, their adventures?