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Use Your Hips to Relieve Tension From Your Spine
Tight hips spell pain for your lower back
It can go both ways: a tight set of hips is a signal contributor to lower back pain by creating a pull on the lower back that leads to instability at the base of the spine. Tight hips, in tandem with anterior pelvic tilt, wreak havoc with your posture and cause the muscles of your lower back to work overtime to maintain spinal alignment. On the other hand, mobile hips allow you to stabilize and transfer forces more effectively; less tension in the hips translates to more strength at the base of the spine and helps prevent injury. It’s time to put more effort into keeping your hips open.
Our Spinal Alignment Tip of the Week
Have you trained your spine into misalignment?
Modern lifestyles are conducive to holding patterns that are bad for the spine. We sit all day, interacting with devices of varying sizes and ignoring our posture. The muscles of our shoulders, neck, back, hips and pelvis recognize that they are placed in such unnatural positions often and they begin to change to accomodate this frequency. These positions involve over-contraction of some muscles and complete lack-of-use in other, changing the entire musculoskeletal balance of your body. The worrying thing is that if you’ve trained your spine into misalignment, you may also be training it to accept tension and pain as the norm.
Chiropractic and Weight Loss Catalyze Each Other
When starting any new weight loss plan, it is important to stack the odds in your favor.
A good place to start is by being honest with yourself- you are less likely to exercise if you are in pain. Back pain is a key deterrent in any exercise regime- it makes you less likely to seek out physical activity in the first place, and much less likely to enjoy it. This is where chiropractic steps in: our job is to help reduce back pain, alleviate nerve impingement and reduce muscle tension in order to help your body feel more comfortable. The more comfortable you feel, the more likely you are to seek out the exercise which will then help you lose weight. A further goal of chiropractic care is establishing as close to full range of motion in the spinal joints as is possible given your level of fitness and the state of your spine. Full range of motion allows you to work out more comfortably and effectively, with a lower risk for injury and pain.
Cervical Decompression Done Daily
Say goodbye to your stiff neck
A sore, stiff neck is indicative of modern lifestyles that ask us to sit too much, move too little and all but sacrifice our spinal health for the sake of our jobs. Your head is the heaviest structure in the body which poses a challenge, especially to the cervical vertebrae, by sitting right at the top of the spine. Many of us then add poor posture into the mix by craning our heads forward to look at our computer and phone screens, unwittingly magnifying the weight of our heads and associated downward pressure on the spine. It’s no wonder that so many of us leave work at the end of the day with neck pain. This week, we have one simple exercise that helps to roll back this compressive effect on the cervical vertebrae and allows for an uptick in circulation in the neck which stimulates healing.
The Fascia Holds You Together But Can it Also Hold You Down?
First of all, what is the fascia?
The fascia is a lesser known layer of the human body. Made up of connective tissue (primarily collagen), the fascia encloses and stabilizes all of your organs and muscles while also connecting them. It allows for the free articulation of every part of your body by reducing friction between the muscles and other structures. It is hard to imagine what we would be without the fascia, but it is also not hard to imagine how the fascia causes pain.
The Loving Link Between Comfort and Sleep
Comfort is integral to sleep
It is one of the reasons that women with no history of sleep problems find that it suddenly poses a problem during pregnancy. The backaches, indigestion, headaches and breathlessness combine to cause a certain kind of insomnia that can be hard to shake during pregnancy. Now take away the pregnancy and imagine that one or more of these factors was present in your life- you can see how that would make sleep exceedingly difficult. One of our jobs at OFW Chiropractic is to make your body more comfortable so that falling asleep is easier. Because sleep is a cornerstone of wellness, we make it a priority in our holistic wellness plan. Comfort is what leads us to sleep in a preferred position each night but, as we will find, not all sleep positions are good for us.
Listen to Your Body When It Says: I Need to Stretch
It’s time stop ignoring your intuition
If you are like millions of Americans, you leave work at the end of the day with a stiff, sore spine. You may have associated pains in the neck and even headaches that stem from the nature of office work. Your spine is suffering the effects of compression- the downward force of gravity, combined with the added pressure of sitting and, possibly, poor posture. Your brain knows your body is in need of a stretch, so what are you going to do about it? Again, if you are like millions of Americans, you are going to ignore those signals and let the pain compound. This is how many of us end up with chronic back pain. So whether you are actually ignoring pain signalls, or you simply don’t know how to go about stretching to account for office-related back pain, it’s time to start being more proactive about caring for our backs.
Yoga Do Yoga Don’t When it Comes to Back Pain
Yoga is a back pain sufferer’s best friend
Its versatility is its greatest asset: you control the intensity and determine what part of your body you want to target. In this way, people with back pain can use yoga to increase spinal flexibility, strengthen the core stabilizing muscles and boost circulation in localized areas of pain. This type of exercise perfectly aligns with the core tenets of chiropractic, which is why yoga is a chiropractor-approved and recommended form of self-care. However, certain yoga movements can actually worsen back pain, and it is important to know which moves are a no-go when using yoga to treat your back pain.
Holistic Pregnancy Care in Westwood
From the first postural changes to postpartum care, we are there
We want to keep back pain out of your pregnancy! This may seem like an ambitious feat- but we say why not aim as high as possible so that if we fall short, you will still have a more comfortable pregnancy than most. Pregnancy poses a singular challenge for your spine; the two main factors are loss of stability at the base of the spine and the growing weight in your belly. As your body prepares for delivery, hormones contribute to the loosening of ligaments in the pelvis which destabilizes the support network at the base of your spine which contributes to spinal alignment. Pile on top of this an additional 25-35 pounds of body weight (the average to accomodate a growing fetus) and you have a recipe for back pain that causes such insidious conditions as:
- Sciatica
- Acute lower back pain
- Posterior pelvic pain
The pain usually reaches its most severe point during the second half of pregnancy and can persist for months after your baby is born. Chiropractic seeks to mitigate the severity of this pain so that you can focus on the spiritual side of your pregnancy.
Your Family Deserves Holistic Healthcare
Chiropractic is holistic healthcare for your whole family
Every member of the family has specific concerns regarding their spinal health. Parents are concerned with the onset of spinal degeneration, the herculean task of childcare and the monotonous, repetitive trauma inherent in many jobs. Simply commuting can place a burden on the spine that is then repeated twice a day for an indefinite amount of time.
Children, on the other hand, are much more active and less inhibited by spinal problems. Rather than worrying about degeneration, they struggle with the problems of spinal development, including abnormal curvature and early spinal injury. They also spend significant amounts of time sitting at school, learning and reinforcing the habits that lead to poor posture from an early age.
Being proactive about spinal health helps everyone in the family maintain a high level of spinal health, no matter the particular pressures that they face on a daily basis. And the best way to be proactive about spinal health is using chiropractic care!