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It may feel like it just begun, but summer is nearing its climax: nothing signals this more clearly than the first week of school. As the children of the Bay Area prepare for yet another year of mental and physical growth, they are also throwing their spines into another year of potential trauma: the trauma involved with overstuffed, ill-fitting backpacks; the trauma of poorly designed classroom furniture; and more and more, the trauma involved with computer activity. However, a simple dose of awareness and a penchant for pro-activity on behalf of the parents can fight back against these trends and prevent them from doing damage to growing spines. 

• Backpacks: make sure they fit well, make sure they have two straps, and keep them loaded as minimally as possible. The maximum weight we should carry in a bag is 15% of the carrier’s body weight. While this is not always possible, keep an eye on the books or objects that may not be necessary for that day’s activity. 
• At home study-zone: you can’t control the quality of desks and chairs at school, but you can at home. Create a fun, healthy environment for your child to study in and they will probably respond by having more enthusiasm for homework! 
• Teaching posture: help your child become a trend setter by teaching them, or letting us teach them, how to achieve great posture and why it’s important. 

At Family Chiropractic & Natural Healing Center, we believe in the potential of every child. We also strongly believe that keeping their spines in shape and their nervous system free of interference helps them grow optimally. Help your child to enter this school year with their firmest foot forward by giving our office in Milpitas a call.

Dr. Gregory Lind, D.C. 

 

The serious gardener is the one who spends their days in the summer heat creating a personal oasis that nourishes the mind and soul. The smart gardener is the one who also looks out for the health of their back in the process! The motions involved in gardening can be hard on the spine, and as such, we seek to remind everyone that observing a few tips can prevent injury, allowing you to enjoy your garden without any soreness or stiffness. 

• Keep your task in front of you: avoid working on multiple tasks and twisting your body between them. This will help you to keep your tools in front of you, so you don’t have to keep reaching behind yourself to retrieve that spade!
• Rest: take breaks, hydrate and admire your work! Preferably, do this from a shady spot. 
• Stretch regularly: before, during and after stretches will keep your body limber and prevent the kind of small injuries that accrue from the twisting, bending and dipping inherent in gardening.
• Use the power of your legs to lift! Everyone is told, “don’t lift with your back,” but this sage advice is very easily forgotten and very often ignored. Lifting with the legs will save you a lot of pain down the road. 

At Family Chiropractic & Natural Healing Center, we want you to enjoy the fruits and beauty of your labor without the slightest pain. To this end, we want to keep you well-adjusted, the chiropractic way! By having your body evaluated, we ensure that there is no structural abnormality that could leave you vulnerable to injury or subluxation that is creating nerve interference. Give our office in Milpitas a call at (408) 263-8025. 

Dr. Gregory Lind, D.C. 

Allergies are the body’s response to a perceived threat: as the immune system mistakes an incoming substance as harmful, it releases histamines and creates antibodies to repel this substance. This is what leaves you feeling itchy, scratchy and sneezy.  To this end, we can control the frequency and severity of allergy “attacks” with diet; consuming ingredients with anti-inflammatory properties and nutrients that support the immune system should go to the top of any allergy sufferer’s list. 

• Vitamin C: perhaps the most thought-of ingredient when it comes to improving allergy symptoms. Vitamin C is a natural anti-histamine that also assists the body in antibody production. 
• Sulfur and Selenium: minerals that enhance the potency of vitamin C. 
• Calcium and Magnesium: complimentary alkali minerals. When magnesium levels are low, histamine production is high. Calcium and magnesium are used to regulate the body’s pH balance.
• Vitamin D: low vitamin D levels are linked to allergy and respiratory problems. Consuming fortified milk, fish, egg yolks, sunlight or taking a supplement can help Americans improve on their intake of vitamin D. 

Don’t let yourself languish under an allergy cloud this summer. Call our office in Milpitas and start taking steps to reduce the hold that allergies have on your life the natural way. 

Dr. Gregory Lind, D.C. 

Allergies are a strange and little-understood phenomenon of the human biological system: essentially, our immune system identifies an external substance as harmful and goes overboard in its attempt to purge our body of said substance. Pollen, for example, is benign but it causes millions of people to sneeze, sniff, tear up and itch. While chiropractic is not a direct treatment for allergies: it works because the immune and nervous systems interact with and influence each other. 

An allergic reaction is often provoked by the body’s incorrect sensory interpretation of the surrounding environment. The nervous system is the processor for this sensory information, collecting it and sending signals to the brain in fractions of a second. If the nervous system is impaired by subluxation, this could cause the kind of misinterpretation that leads to allergies. 

People often find relief from the severity and frequency of their allergy symptoms through regular chiropractic care. If you are looking to get over the scratching, itching, tearing and swelling that results from allergies without depending upon over-the-counter medication, give our office in Milpitas a call. We correct subluxation to ensure your nervous system is communicating correctly.

Dr. Gregory Lind, D.C. 

Releasing tension at work is essential for physical and mental health. Many of us spend our office days in a haze of mental stress and physical tension forgetting that each influences the other and that simply shaking our shoulders may be the tip of the iceberg for improving performance at work and improving your overall health that goes beyond the office. 

Ways to release tension at work while encouraging flexibility and range of motion include: 

Looking up

1. Sit up as straight as possible in your office chair.
2. Clasp your hands with arms fully extended overhead and palms facing the ceiling.
3. Look up to the ceiling by raising your chin. Hold this position for 10 seconds while breathing deeply. 

Hug yourself: 

1. Right hand on left shoulder and left on hand on right shoulder. 
2. Breathe deeply.
3. Feel tension release from upper back area

Torso-twisting:

1. Sit up straight.
2. Inhale and exhale as you twist one direction and grab the back of the chair.
3. Return to neutral. 
4. Repeat motion in opposite direction.

Walking for simple office tasks

Don’t let automation ruin your health: e-mailing a co-worker on the floor below may be labelled efficiency for some; however, there was a time before e-mail and these kinds of inter-office communications were dependent upon a walk: so get up and walk to communicate simple memos rather than e-mailing everything. 

As you can see, most of these simple motions also involve an emphasis on breathing. Ensure that every once in a while you take a deep breath, or three, to encourage a healthy flow of oxygen to your cells. For help reducing the toll that the office takes on the human body, give our office in Fremont a call. 

Dr. Gregory Lind, D.C. 

 

Staying flexible with age is far from easy. Growing up, we are constantly told that “you don’t heal as fast when you’re older,” or “you can’t move like that when you’re older.” Nonetheless, as kids, we continue to take our range of motion and flexibility for granted. However, as we get older, those seemingly harmless tasks such as getting out of bed or tying shoelaces can become problematic and painful. 

Flexibility and injury exist in a vicious cycle: while injury causes us to move less, limiting flexibility, the fact that we are less flexible simultaneously leaves us more vulnerable to injury. At Family Chiropractic & Natural Healing Center, we would like to help you improve your overall flexibility and range of motion. We achieve this through spinal adjustment: realigning the spine and balancing the muscles in the back immediately improve your range of motion and specific recommendations for exercise can improve core stability and flexibility.

The lasting benefits of being more flexible include:

1. Better posture
2. Lengthened muscles and connective tissues, giving you a longer leaner look
3. Prevention of injury
4. Improved physical performance
5. Confidence that basic movement will not create pain

Call our office in Fremont today to start making simple changes that will keep you flexible and ensure your range of motion throughout your life. 

Dr. Gregory Lind, D.C. 

Summer time is a great time to lose weight, which will boost your musculoskeletal well-being and leave you happier in the long run. Obesity is linked to back pain because excess weight adds strain to the muscles and ligaments of the back. The spine is subject to forces that conspire to move it out of alignment all the time, and extra weight can also cause unnatural curvature to develop. Any pre-existing back pain will be made worse by obesity as the pelvis is pulled forward and the lower back is strained. At Family Chiropractic & Natural Healing Center, we would like to see people take the summer initiative to shed winter weight and feel better. Here are some doable ways to lose weight this summer:

• Cut back on the booze: a surefire way to cut back on the caloric intake. 
• Add in a soup appetizer: soup combines liquid and sustenance to help curb your appetite. 
• Smaller portions: studies show that humans will eat, on average, 92% of what is on the plate. This means that if you serve yourself smaller, you will consume less.
• Eat fruit instead of drinking juice: juice contains more sugar and less of the raw vitamins than whole fruit. 
• Coffee over tea: the dairy and sugar counts that are in coffee drinks (think iced latte) can really affect your diet negatively. A green iced tea is more refreshing and contains a wealth of healthful properties including antioxidants. 

Changing your entire lifestyle is not our aim here: we want you to start small and think big. Summer is the greatest time to start because you can feel great about your decisions in the sunshine. For help on ways to institute healthy changes and improving your well being, give our office in Milpitas a call.

Dr. Gregory Lind, D.C. 

Summer is the season where we feel best: a wealth of sunshine opens the doors of possibility in the outdoors. Some of our healthiest produce is now available and farmer’s markets are thriving: what a fun way to spend a couple hours picking out healthful ingredients and engaging with the community.

At Family Chiropractic & Natural Healing Center, we would like you to be able to take full advantage of the season. Here are some tips from your chiropractor for the summer:

Vitamin D: It is essential for both immune system functioning and bone health. This is the season of abundant supply: grab a book and a towel and spend some time in the sun. Be sure to avoid sunburn and heat exhaustion by staying hydrated, using sunscreen and alternating direct sun with shade.

Treat your body: Regular exercise improves every aspect of life. When you are surrounded by natural beauty and the outdoors, exercise ceases to feel like hard-work. Go for a hike or a swim in the lake or combine both!

Stay hydrated: The only pitfall of the warm season is that dehydration comes easier. We sweat more and

Don’t forget to relax: use the summer as your total body reprieve from the stress that often accumulates during the winter. To optimize your health during the summer time, give our office a call. We offer chiropractic treatment modalities, nutritional counseling and corrective exercise that will improve your overall well-being.

Dr. Gregory Lind, D.C.

Golf season is in full swing: with the weather heating up, more people are taking to the course for a dose of relaxation and recreation. At Family Chiropractic & Natural Healing Center, we urge the many golfers of the Bay Area to take preventative measures against injury. Strict adherence to a warm up routine of stretching will keep you limber as you strive for perfection from tee to green. 

Stretching before the first swing: 

Shoulder stretching: Perform shoulder rotation by using an iron and holding it at shoulder level behind your head. Twist your torso each direction for as far as you can go and hold for 2 seconds on each side. Repeat this up to 5 times. 

The hamstring stretch: besides keeping you limber, this also adds leg strength. Sitting on the ground, with one leg fully extended and the other tucked behind you, reach for the big toe of the extended leg. Feel the stretch in the back of the leg and hold for 2 seconds, then switch legs. 

Hip rotation: Place an iron behind your back resting in the crook of your arms and twist slowly one direction until you cannot go any further. Hold for 2 seconds then return to neutral and repeat this stretch the opposite direction. 

Stretching is so powerful: it adds flexibility and power to your golf game while also preventing injury due to extreme rotation and jerking of the back during play. It makes me wonder why so many people forego 5 minutes of stretching and end up wrenching their back. At our office in Milpitas, we practice both prevention and rehabilitation. To add an extra element into your golf game, or to rehabilitate an injury you may have sustained on the course, call us at (408) 263-8025.

Dr. Gregory Lind, D.C. 

Back pain is wide-spread: it will affect 80% (on the low end of estimates) of Americans at some point in their life, and quite often, the pain will be non-specific in nature. People who suffer back injuries usually suffer from an accumulation of symptoms that reach a breaking point rather than a specific trauma. So, it is worth taking a look at our habits to determine whether they could be contributing to our pain. Below, I have compiled a list of bad habits that don’t seem bad until they create a serious problem, such as low back pain. 

• Being overweight: Being overweight tends to shift your center of gravity forward which contributes to a bodily imbalance: besides the weight adding to the burden of a lower back, your core muscles must compensate to support the center of gravity shift, and they often become strained in the process. This ties directly into #2: 
• Not getting enough exercise (or none at all): Poor circulation, poor posture, low back pain, reduced range of motion, the list goes on. Accepting a lifestyle of little to no movement is the quickest way to let your body degrade. For back pain sufferers, the buck stops here: start moving and never look back. 
• Poor posture: No one wants to strain their muscles or put excess strain on the spine voluntarily. But this is exactly what we do when we spend our computer hours slouching or hunched over. 
• Lift correctly: It is time to stop ignoring the age-old adage to lift with your legs and not your back. It may be easier to bend from the hip and lift, but this is one of the most common actions that will push an intervertebral disc to its slipping point.

At Family Chiropractic & Natural Healing Center, we can help you reverse these habits and make them an exception to the rule. With a focus of beating back pain or preventing it, we work closely with you to ensure your spine is in the right shape to go after all the activities you can to improve spinal health.

Give our office in Milpitas a call at (408) 263-8025

Dr. Gregory Lind, D.C.