* Due to Federal regulations, this offer may not apply to Medicare/Medicaid or Federal Insurances.
Your health is a sliding scale — every second of every day we are either getting healthier or sicker. Your health is dependent on certain essential elements being present in the correct amount.
Local DeKalb chiropractor, Dr. Y.B. Evan Barrat of Barrat Chiropractic, offers these top five tips to improve and maintain your overall health:
1. Water
Dehydration makes everything more difficult and uncomfortable, from the noticeable (aches and pains) to the unnoticeable, but still very important (a rise in your blood pressure). Keeping hydrated is critical to your body’s health, no matter what time of day, week or year it is, and it helps to keep your body’s systems in balance. A good rule of thumb is that for every pound of body weight, drink a half ounce of water every day (i.e. a 200 pound person should drink 100 ounces of water). A gallon of water is 128 ounces.
2. Diet and supplements
What and how much you eat can maintain your overall health, but by making poor choice, your body is likely to spiral into disease. A planned, nutritious and well-balanced diet that consists of properly-portioned amounts is key to maintaining a healthy lifestyle. A diet high in grains and processed foods is pro-inflammatory. Inflammation is the precursor to all of the major disease states plaguing society today, so emphasize a diet containing lean, grass fed-meats, plenty of fresh fruits and vegetable, and use little to no flour or sugar.
Almost all Americans should consider supplements as a way to replenish that which even the best of diets are deficient in. Those that are proving to be invaluable are: A good multi vitamin, magnesium (400 mg a day), Omega 3 (1-3 grams a day) and vitamin D (1000-4000 IU a day).
3. Exercise
Regular exercise is an excellent way to maintain your body weight and also increase the anti-inflammatory processes in your body. It will also increase the natural “feel good” chemicals in your body, reinforcing the good decision you’ve made to exercise!
For most people, a half hour walk daily is sufficient, though others may need more than this to maintain a healthy weight. If you sit for long periods of time, for instance on a chair or couch at home or in your chair at your office, any physical straining should be preceded by a two minute walk to equalize the pressure on your intervertebral disc.
4. Sleep
Six to eight hours of good sleep is crucial to good health and to give your body adequate time to rest and repair. Your nervous system uses this time period to repair from the stresses of the day and to set you up to meet the challenges of tomorrow.
5. Chiropractic
You’ve heard the expression, “if you don’t use it you will lose it,” and nowhere is it proven more true than in the joints of the skeleton. Your spine protects your nervous system and makes it so you can do all the activities that bring you joy (playing with family and friends) as well as those that we just have to do (work and go to school).
When you’re body is not moving as it should, you’ll experience a lack of stamina, pain, sore or spastic muscles, numbness tingling and other symptoms. A chiropractor is uniquely trained to find, identify and correct these misalignments.
These five things, when done one at a time, will keep you alive. Done properly all together, however, they will get you living again. Your body has an incredible capacity to repair itself given the opportunity. Whether it is changing your diet, helping you find the right exerecise plan or providing diagnostics and corrective manipulation, Barrat Chiropractic’s goal is to improve the health of our overall community.
Start the habits to a healthier, happier life: Give Barrat Chiropractic a call today at 815-748-3900 or visit us online at www.BarratChiropractic.com.
These are guidelines for maintaining and improving health. However, there are conditions and situations that may need to be considered before altering lifestyle. If you have questions or concerns, contact your primary care physician.
*NOTE: Our advertisement in the March 2011 edition of New Values Magazine made reference to a free spinal screening. We mistakenly omitted that, due to Federal regulations, this offer may not apply to Medicare/Medicaid or Federal Insurances.
