Nobody wants to start the new year hampered by an injury picked up over the holidays, so start preparing now. Here are 3 key tips to keeping yourself healthy, so you start 2019 “upright”:
Yummy diets can be crummy diets.This season most of us eat deliciously-rich foods filled with sugar, salt, and fat. Our poor diet this season will negatively affect our bodies and can create an inflamed internal environment where your body has a lowered threshold for injury. If your threshold for injury is low, you can more easily hurt yourself or get sick. So, drink water (3 Liters = 100 oz = 12.5 cups of water/day is a good goal), practice holiday food moderation, and get rid of holiday sweets and treats before the new year shows its face.
Don’t be afraid of the word “no”. We are often pulled in every direction possible, and we forget that if we don’t take care of ourselves we will pay for it, one way or another. Share your time but remember that your time is limited and inherently valuable. Make sure to spend time for yourself and your immediate family in a low-stress environment. By limiting stress, you can prevent structural aches and pains from occurring in the first place.
Toes follow your nose.From unpacking lights and decorations from your attic, to boxing, unboxing, and wrapping gifts, we do more lifting, bending, and twisting that most realize. When we aren’t aware of our movements, we can get sloppy and careless. A high number of low back injuries happen when you load your spine (pick something up) in a bent/flexed position and then twist/rotate. A quick fix for that is to make sure that when you bend over and are carrying something, always have your nose and toes point in the same direction.
Merry Christmas and happy holidays from your Lompoc chiropractor at Thrive Health, and the rest of the Hurd family!
References:
1) Popkin BM, D'Anci KE, Rosenberg IH. Water, hydration, and health. Nutr Rev. 2010;68(8):439-58.
2) Ferrante, A. W. (2007), Obesity‐induced inflammation: a metabolic dialogue in the language of inflammation. Journal of Internal Medicine, 262: 408-414.
3) Abdallah CG, Geha P. Chronic Pain and Chronic Stress: Two Sides of the Same Coin?. Chronic Stress (Thousand Oaks). 2017;1:10.
4) Veres SP, Robertson PA, Broom ND. The influence of torsion on disc herniation when combined with flexion. Eur Spine J. 2010;19(9):1468-78.