Chiropractic Tips Archives - Advanced Chiropractic of South Carolina

Oct 20 2020

Home Declutter Guide

The doorbell rings and I look around in horror. The house is untidy. I haven’t done the dishes, the bathroom needs to be wiped down and I forgot that my sister-in-law was coming by to go to lunch with me. Rather than open the door right away and invite her in, I grabbed my purse, put the dog outside and opened the front door. My momentum kept her from entering the house and as I locked the door I said, “So, where are we going for lunch today?”
I hate it when I let my house go, even for a couple of days because then I never want anyone to come into my home. That’s never a good plan. Instead of allowing my home to get messy, I knew I needed to set up a plan where I could keep the chaos inside my home under control to the point where I was never embarrassed to have someone come in to visit. But more importantly, I need to keep my home uncluttered because it is important to me to be at peace with my surroundings.
For me, the kitchen table is the dumping ground. It’s where the mail goes, the groceries, the books from the library, the kids’ laptops for school. For years we rarely ate on the table because it was always so cluttered. The only way I could figure out how to handle that was to have a plastic bin for every person in the family. At dinnertime, we scooped everything from the table and put it in the respective bins. My daughter’s laptop and math books went into her bin. The big pile of mail and magazines went into my husband’s bin. It took me years to figure out this simple, yet effective method of having a kitchen table to eat meals together again.
That was my jumpstart. To be able to handle the chaos of the kitchen table so quickly made me more interested in keeping the house more tidy. The living room is actually our music room, so anything related to music finds its home there. Anything that doesn’t have to do with music is no longer stored in the living room.
Kitchen and downstairs bathroom both get a quick spray with disinfectant and a paper towel to keep both tidy enough for visitors and I rather enjoy using a clean bathroom myself.
It only took me a few ideas before I realized that keeping the house tidy takes just a few minutes each day. As long as I make that a priority, my house is no longer an embarrassment when someone unexpectedly rings the doorbell.

Toys by Maliz Ong

Oct 20 2020

What’s Better than Coffee in the Morning?

Most of us know people who can’t function first thing in the morning until they have had their first cup or three of java. Without caffeine, they don’t talk. They don’t smile. They simply don’t function.
But is coffee always the answer? There was a time I battled a stomach ulcer and caffeine was the first thing the doctor put on my list of things I could no longer have. This was difficult for me. Not only did I drink nearly a pot of coffee in the morning, but I drank several Cokes throughout the rest of the day and into the evening.
Getting off caffeine was a habit I didn’t look forward to breaking.
But in order to heal my body, I had to do the right things for it. Obviously I had been doing a lot of things wrong, like working long hours, including weekends. I used caffeine to keep me focused rather than proper rest, food, and exercise. My stomach pain took me to the doctor, but the news changed the rest of my life.
I always believed that I was a healthy person, but that most of the healthier things in life I could do “later” in life. But a stomach ulcer at the age of 24 told me that later might be too late. I had to start them now. Here are some of the changes I made to my life that allowed me to be healthy, happy, rested enough to wake fully in the morning without resorting to a cup of coffee.
Every morning before I opened my eyes, I thought about what I wanted for the day. Not what I wanted to accomplish, but rather an intention. Rather than listing my “to-do” list, I thought about what I wanted to feel by the end of the day. My intention might be something like: “To easily manage the conflict at today’s office meeting without getting emotionally involved.”
By setting intentions, I was working to change how I lived my life and how I interacted with people. I used to revolve around reacting to my life rather than actively trying to live my life. I learned to be grateful for the small successes in my life and for the people in it rather than focusing on the long-term goals that kept changing as I learned to define what I wanted out of life.
It’s good to have goals, but focusing only on the future without being grateful for what I had in the present was killing me. In a very literal sense. My stomach had been my warning sign. I had been focusing on a lot of the wrong things in my life and none of the right things.
In addition I learned to move my body appropriately, eat well, and make sure I hydrated well.
Our bodies are intended to work well. Our natural state is to be healthy. When we are unhealthy at a young age, then something we are doing is wrong. Fortunately, my stomach healed. I learned to take care of myself is ways bigger than just myself. When you can do the same, you will live a bigger and greater life than you expected.

Coffee by George Hodan

Oct 20 2020

A Message From Your Feet

Until they are sore or tired, we often forget about our feet. They lie hidden beneath layers of socks and shoes or boots. There is nothing so true as the saying, “Out of sight, out of mind.” And our poor feet are quite often very neglected.
When our feet feel good, we tend to fee pretty wonderful. But the instant our feet begin to hurt, we don’t feel so well. Our feet, however, have a whole lot more to tell us if we just learn to listen to the messages.
If you have cold feet, for example, it is possible that you could be suffering from a disease that causes poor blood circulation. Things like smoking and COPD can interfere with the lungs’ ability to absorb oxygen. PAD and other arterial and heart diseases can impede the flow of blood through our bodies and our extremities, hands and feet, will be cold. If you are experiencing physically cold feet, have a chat with your doctor.
Been hitting the gym pretty hard lately? You’ve been doing just fine until your feet seem to feel like they’re on fire and itching. When you pull off your shoes and socks, you notice tiny blisters that burn and itch. Congratulations, you have a case of tinea pedia, or athlete’s foot. This is an infection that thrives in a dark and moist environment. Like the sweaty interior of a workout shoe. If you use the same pair of shoes every day at the gym it is possible that they don’t have time to properly air out, leaving them dark and damp. Even worse, if you’re showering at the gym in bare feet, contracting athlete’s foot from someone else is very easy. Try to always wear a pair of rubber flip-flops when you shower in public places, try some over-the-counter antifungal medications, but a daily soak in a warm water bath with apple cider vinegar is also helpful.
Do your feet feel and look swollen at the end of the day? This can happen after a long day of standing or shopping in bad shoes. But if the swelling doesn’t go away when you take off your shoes and elevate your feet, you could have a bigger problem that signals a medical condition. It might be the result of congestive heart failure or kidney disease. If you’re taking a medication for diabetes or high blood pressure, swollen feet could be a sign of a reaction to the medication. This would be a good time to visit your doctor for an evaluation.

Feet by Anna Langova

Oct 20 2020

Friend or Foe?

What happens when your friend no longer feels like a friend? At first everything seemed fine, but after a while that great friend no longer feeds you in the same way. You feel horrible every time you go out what that person.
We believe that every time we make a friend, same sex, opposite sex, it doesn’t matter, but friendship means we ought to remain so for life. But according to a study done recently, many people over the age of 50 have linked negative friendships with illness, specifically high blood pressure in women. The surprising effect of this study is that men did not experience the same problem.
That women are more affected by friendships and attach more importance to them than men is an interesting fact. Women tend to share more. Men, tend to live with less intimacy with friends.
As a woman, I can attest to this. I had a friend who refused a request that would have helped me on a social level and eventually on a financial level. She refused to help me and that refusal hurt my physically. I had to spend a great deal of time evaluating whether my friendship with her was helping me or hurting me.
What we have to remember is that friendship is a voluntary association with other people. If those associations are positive, then we should continue them. If they are negative, then we need to move on. There is no reason to continue a friendship when our physical bodies react in a negative way.
Negative friendships can be fixed when both sides are willing to do what it takes to fix them. In order to change what has become a toxic relationship, look at it this way:
1. Accentuate the positive. Tell your friend what you like about her. This is a common technique, so if your friend knows this approach, she may know that something unpleasant is coming.
2. Be quiet and say nothing when you don’t need to. Some things your friend may say will be painful, say nothing. Your friend will understand that you don’t want to discuss an issue.
3. Be prepared to set boundaries and hold to them. This applies not only to friends, but family as well. We often give in to those we are most intimate with. Stop doing that. Hold strong to your boundaries as a sign of respect for you and for your friend.
Eventually you will determine whether the friendship is worth saving or whether you have moved beyond this friend. It would be a perfect world if you could keep every friend you ever made. That isn’t possible. Know that from time to time, as an adult, you may have to let go of a friendship that has become toxic. There will be a period of sadness and grief, but in the long run it will be for the best.

Proverb A Friend in Need by Piotr Siedlecki

Oct 20 2020

Six Ways to Live Longer

With constantly advancing medical technology and increasing levels of health awareness, the human lifespan continues to increase. There are always ways to add tack on extra years to that lifespan, however, and being mindful of these options is a great route to a longer life.

Be Conscientious
While staying relaxed and relatively stress free is always a great recipe for a healthier, longer life, that doesn’t mean living completely carefree is an automatic path to a long life. On the contrary, people who tend to put a painstaking amount of thought into every decision tend to make choices that work out better in the long run. This creates a happier life that causes less stress than someone who is impulsive and always lives in the moment.

Eat Well
This is hardly a surprise, but an individual’s diet plays a huge role when it comes to lifespan. The longest living people in the world tend to have diets that are high in vegetables, fruits, nuts and various healthy fats. This kind of diet tends to reduce heart disease risks as well as memory loss, proving to be a very effective antidote to aging.

Get Educated
Higher education leads to longer lives. Not only is an educated person more likely to land a job in favorable work conditions, he is also more likely to plan out a healthy future. It doesn’t hurt that a more educated individual is likely to know more about basic nutrition from college level courses dealing with health-related subjects.

Work Hard
Putting a lot of effort and energy into a career may seem like a stressful act that takes years off a life if anything, but those who devote themselves to a job do for a reason — it gives them a sense of accomplishment and increases overall well-being. Hard workers also tend to form close work relationships, helping them be form more friendships in the process.

Be Social
The more socially active members of society tend to have the longest lives, and the correlation is unavoidable. By having a strong social network and staying close to family and friends, there are always people to watch after and help. Helping others comes with a number of emotional benefits.

Stay Active
A sedentary lifestyle is almost guaranteed to lead to a shorter life. Even if a fitness regimen isn’t a realistic fit for everyone, simply getting up and moving around continually throughout the day makes a huge difference.

Bookshelves at the library by Westcott Phillip, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

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