When it comes to having a healthy heart there are three important things to keep in mind. The three important things are: DIET, EXERCISE, GENETICS.
Having a heart friendly diet is very important. Heart friendly diets are going to consist of vegetables, some fruits, oatmeal, fatty fishes like salmon, and healthy cuts of meat like chicken breast or grass feed steak. Its not only important to realize what we are eating, but also how much of what we are eating so watching calories is crucial. Avoiding trans fats, processed foods, and added sugars are some easy steps towards a heart friendly diet.
Exercise, in the early turn of the century it was hypothesized that exercise was bad for the heart. Some thought the human heart had only a limited amount of beats while others thought the heart would getting bigger and weaker. in the end we realized the heart is made up of a different type of tissue when compared other muscles. The heart needs exercise just like any other muscle to handle stresses better. Walking, jogging, swimming, cycling, or any other moderate continuous exercise should be done at least three times per week.
Genetics is something right now we can’t change but it is also something right now we understand plays a big role in our health. Some folks can eat a high saturated fat diet, and their body handles the cholesterol, blood pressure, triglycerides well within the normal region. Others can have a fairly healthy diet and their bodies can still give them poor findings when checking their blood work. It is important to realize your family heart history, get your blood work done periodically and talk to your doctor about changes you would like to make. The most important advice I can offer to see how healthy your heart is doing, is go and have a Calcium Heart Scan done, sometimes blood tests can show normal but the heart scan will tell you the amount of plaque that is built up in your heart arteries.
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What is my Plainfield Chiropractor looking at?
When a patient is laying face down, a question a lot of chiropractors get asked is what are you looking and feeling for?
When a chiropractor puts his hands on your spine he is feeling for multiple things. General shapes and curves of the body, is a hump in the back due to a scoliosis, is there a lump in the back due to a fall? Muscle tension, how do the muscles feel, is it tighter on the left or is their a spasm on the right. Skin temperature, does certain areas feel more warm then other areas, is an area inflamed? Joint play, how does a joint respond when motion is applied to it, will it rebound, is it ‘stuck’? As you can see the chiropractor is feeling for multiple different things.
Why does my chiropractor keep looking at my feet?
Chiropractors may do a technique that involves checking out your leg lengths. A short leg or a long leg can give the doctor an idea of the the sacrum and ilium are doing. A short leg on the left may indicate and high hip on the left. A flared foot on the right might indicate a hip rotation on the right. The doctor is trying to put humpty dumpty back together again so to speak and these are little clues on how the puzzle should go back together. As you can see the doctor is processing many different things while the patient is laying down. Chiropractic hands take many years to understand what they are feeling, and different chiropractic techniques such as reading leg lengths take many years to master what the body is showing.
