Madison AL Chiropractors Talk About the Complexity of the Human Body

By: Dr. Justin Walbom, DC and Dr. Greg Millar, DC CCEP
Millar Chiropractic - Madison Al

Your Partner in Good Health - Chiropractic Care

Good health rarely happens by accident. That is especially true these days, because the typical American diet and lifestyle stacks the odds against us.  A very small number of fortunate people will enjoy good health no matter what they do. Perhaps you know one of these rare birds who do all the "wrong" things and in their advanced years, will tell anyone who will listen how they've never been sick a day even though they smoke, drank, ate fried foods etc. But for the rest of us, we need to make healthy lifestyle choices in order to enjoy long-term health and wellness. Perhaps our goal is simply to be consistently well enough that we can live an active life without chronic aches and pains interfering with it, or constantly worrying about our state of health and what might be going wrong. Dr. Greg Millar and Dr. Justin Walbom of Millar Chiropractic Clinics in Madison, Alabama say that chiropractic care is an important component of healthy lifestyle. Regular chiropractic care can help ensure that we get the most value out of the other healthy lifestyle choices we make. Regular chiropractic care can help us achieve the long-lasting good health and wellness that allows us to get the most out of life.

The concept of complexity is a useful way of helping us better understand the world around us. Complexity theory is a scientific concept that has spread rapidly throughout the collective consciousness during the last several decades. Anyone who watches the television show "The Big Bang Theory" has heard various references to complex systems, chaos theory, and emergent phenomena. Perhaps surprisingly, these fascinating topics from the fields of mathematics, physics, biology, and chemistry also have special importance for human health and wellness.

Examples of chaos and complexity are prevalent in the natural world. Weather systems are a good example of complex systems, which is why the weather is so difficult to predict, even in the short-term. This is primarily because the basic structure of a weather pattern can change in an instant. The scientific understanding of chaos theory has been advanced by studying another natural phenomena - avalanches. Another example in the natural world is the flocking behavior of birds, which demonstrates the ever-variable outcomes of a great number of factors.

An emergent phenomenon is one that cannot be predicted from studying the various parts that make up the whole. Emergent phenomena include the flocking behavior of birds in flight, in which large flocks create beautiful, shifting, dynamic patterns as they fly; the structure of beehives; and the World Wide Web. Even human consciousness may, from a certain perspective, be considered an emergent phenomenon.

From an individual health perspective, the relative health and wellness of any particular person is also an emergent phenomenon. For example, fighting off the flu or a common cold is a dynamic process with many complex and chaotic interactions taking place in order to determine the outcome. The individual fighting off the flu or cold may be aware of how things are going in general, based upon how well or sick they are feeling, but they are not aware of each of the specific cellular and sub-cellular activities that are happening in their body.

Are our white blood cells working together effectively to keep us healthy?  Is their behavior organized? Do they know where they need to be in order to battle the invading forces? Or is their behavior uncoordinated and random causing us to end up sick as a result?

Consistent, long-term health and wellness emerge from a variety of prerequisites, including proper nutrition, sufficient rest and regular exercise. These activities are considered healthy lifestyle choices because they promote good health. Because the body's functions and the interactions with its environment are very complex, it is impossible to guarantee a specific outcome. But we can make an educated prediction based on historical data and analyzing the facts. It is clear that the outcomes we want - long-term health and wellness - are most likely to result from a set of healthy lifestyle choices that are made consistently over the long-term. 

Millar Chiropractic - Madison AL
1908 Slaughter Rd. 
Madison, Alabama 35758
(256) 430-2700
http://millarchiro.com/millarchiropractic-madisonal-chiropractor.html

1Koonin EV: Are there laws of genome evolution? PLoS Comput Biol Epub August 25, 2011

2Jayasinghe S: Conceptualising population health: from mechanistic thinking to complexity science. Emerg Themes Epidemiol 8(1):2, 2011

Madison AL Chiropractors Tell You How to Take Care of Your Body

By: Dr. Justin Walbom, DC and Dr. Greg Millar, DC CCEP
Millar Chiropractic - Madison Al

Chiropractic Care and Total Health

You may have noticed that chiropractic care is extremely efficient. By addressing your spinal health and the health of your nerve system with chiropractic care, many of your body's other systems are also positively affected, indirectly. Your central nerve system - your brain and spinal cord - is your body's master system controlling every part of your body. Every other organ, tissue, and cell receives instructions on when and how to do its job from the nerve system, via spinal nerves and smaller nerve branches. Simply put, when your nerve system is not functioning properly your body as a whole will not function properly. You may have pain. You may have symptoms of specific diseases. It is important to address these symptoms. But to really correct the problem, it is also critically important to address possible causes which lie within the nerve system. Using gentle correction of spinal misalignments, chiropractic care helps optimize the functioning of your nerve system. A healthy nerve system helps ensure good health in your cardiopulmonary, gastrointestinal, and endocrine systems, as well as other body systems.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if you were born with an owner's manual for your body? Ideally you would find out the best ways to care for this most precious possession. By finding out how to use your body optimally, you could ensure a lifetime of maximum health and vitality and top performance. You could keep your originally perfect physical vehicle from systematically breaking down.

By developing the most effective practices and techniques now and making them a habit, you could be spared the common experience of many years of avoidable physical discomfort, which often also includes significant emotional/mental suffering.

The good news is that it's never too late to make an effort to improve and optimize your health. The sooner you begin, the quicker you will begin experiencing the rewards.

Imagine the table of contents of your body's owner's manual. What subjects would it cover? Ideally, the manual would cover the usual suspects - good posture, exercise, nutrition, and proper rest - four important requirements for health, that almost everyone knows about but hardly anyone actually puts into practice. One of the best things about having your body's own personal owner's manual would be that you'd automatically know what works best for your body without having to go through a long drawn out process of figuring out what works and what doesn't work. Even more importantly, you would have the knowledge and ability to take proper care of your body - keeping yourself healthy from the start rather than trying to regain your health.

What can a person do to reclaim and maintain their optimal health? Since people aren't born with an owner's manual, and most also never had coaches or teachers who are very knowledgeable, they usually just struggle along. Their posture gets progressively worse, their muscles get progressively tighter as they begin to experience joint problems, and eventually they start to notice various aches and pains that quickly become long-term and unrelenting.

Fortunately our bodies have amazing resilience and recuperative powers. Once we find someone who can guide us to improve our posture and participate in exercise that is appropriate for us, we begin to find that it really is possible to feel better.

A doctor of chiropractic is an excellent choice because these physicians are very familiar with the musculoskeletal system and natural health strategies, and are therefore a good choice to help you figure out the secrets to your own body. Dr. Greg Millar or Dr. Justin Walbom of Millar Chiropractic Clinics in Madison, Alabama can help you get all the benefits of having an owner's manual without having to suffer through the trial and error yourself.

Take posture for example.Dr. Greg and Dr. Justin can share with you the same secrets that most high level competitive athletes, dancers and gymnasts learn from coaches and other mentors. You can be taught about your center of gravity, and how to balance the majority of your weight over the front part of your feet rather than your heels. You can be taught to stand tall and straight without tensing your muscles. You can learn how to breathe deeply and freely - opening your chest while relaxing your chest muscles - so that your lungs can take in all the oxygen you need to function optimally. You can be taught to keep your shoulder muscles relaxed, as you sit with your spine lengthened and your and back and neck muscles relaxed. You can be taught to properly strengthen and engage your core abdominal muscles, to provide a strong foundation for your lower back and throughout all of your daily activities.

Our chiropractors at Millar Chiropractic Clinics are experts of the nerve and musculoskeletal systems, and has extensive knowledge of how your posture and the health and integrity of your spine affects how you feel, as well as what you need to do to take care of your precious body.

If you want to take the best care of your body, as if you had your own personal owner's manual, contact your Millar chiropractor and get started on the path to optimal health and wellness today!

Millar Chiropractic - Madison AL

1908 Slaughter Rd. 

Madison, Alabama 35758

(256) 430-2700

http://millarchiro.com/millarchiropractic-madisonal-chiropractor.html

1Vidal J, et al: Effects of Postural Education on Daily Habits in Children. Int J Sports Med March 4th, 2011 (Epub ahead of print)

2Eriksson MK, et al: Quality of life and cost-effectiveness of a 3-year trial of lifestyle intervention in primary health care. Arch Intern Med 170(16):1470, 1479, 2010

3Huffman DM: Exercise as a calorie restriction mimetic: implications for improving healthy aging and longevity. Interdiscip Top  Gerontol 37:157-174, 2010

Madison AL Chiropractors Talk About Maximizing Your Health Account

By: Dr. Justin Walbom, DC and Dr. Greg Millar, DC CCEP
Millar Chiropractic - Madison Al

Deposits and Withdrawals from Your Health Account

In terms of your health and well-being it's very important to not to "overdraw your health account". Withdrawals should never exceed deposits. The trouble is that sometimes we don't even realize that we're making a withdrawal, or we forget to make sure we've had enough deposits to cover a big withdrawal. When this happens, we tend to get sick. Stress can cause a very large withdrawal from your health account. Your body will expend a large amount of resources as it tries to cope with stress. The result is the same whether the stress is psychological, emotional or physical - all types of ongoing stress result in ongoing withdrawals. When we are under a lot of stress, it's especially important to pay close attention to our health accounts. Proper nutrition, sufficient rest, and regular exercise become even more important when we're under increased stress. The trouble is, heightened stress levels go hand in hand with chronic exhaustion - so we tend to feel like we just don't have the energy necessary to do the things that will keep us healthy. We tell ourselves that we're too stressed out and we don't have enough time to workout or make an effort to buy and prepare healthy food. But the thing is, that's when it really is most important to make the effort and take the time to do what's best for our health.  Even if we don't really feel like it. Take the time now to pad your health accounts, so that you will have the necessary health resources down the road when you really need it.

Everyone wants to increase the balance in their bank accounts. The health of our finances is largely determined by the level of our resources. The more money we have in the bank, so to speak, the more secure we feel overall. If our resources are nicely diversified among liquid assets, property, stocks, and bonds, we are apt to feel even more secure.

We can similarly use this type of fiscal accounting as a metaphor for our physical well-being and health. The more resources we are able to accumulate in our "health account" the healthier we will likely end up being. To take it one step further, if we're able to diversify the assets in our health accounts, as it's prudent to do with our financial accounts, we're more likely to experience better outcomes with regard to our long-term health.

You may notice that your physical resources probably fluctuate as often as your financial resources. With the metaphor of health accounting, we can still think in terms of income and expenses. If your "income" is greater than your "expenses", you will likely enjoy overall higher levels of health.  Of course, the opposite is also true - when expenses are greater than income, health tends to deteriorate.

What kinds of things can we use to pad our health accounts? Dr. Greg Millar and Dr. Justin Walbom of Millar Chiropractic Clinics in Madison, Alabama say that the most obvious and crucial aspects are food, exercise, and rest. With each of these, quality is more important than quantity - especially when it comes to the food we eat. Eating a large quantity of poor quality food will eventually lead to being overweight or obese. On the other hand, when you focus on quality - enjoying a diet that primarily consists of high-quality protein, high-quality fats, and plenty of fresh vegetables and some fruits - you will usually become more fit and naturally lean.

When it comes to getting adequate rest, most people usually do best with seven to eight hours of sleep each night. There are exceptions, but for most people, getting less than six hours of sleep per night long-term will eventually deplete their health account. In rare cases, getting too much sleep long-term can also lead to negative effects. Just like with food though, quality can be more important than quantity (or at least equally important).

There are many additional sources of "income" that can increase the balance of our health accounts. Close and loving personal relationships with family and supportive friends, interesting and stimulating interests and activities, exploring new places and learning new skills all help to grow our health accounts, enhancing our long-term health and increasing our overall sense of well-being.

Chiropractic care is another wonderful source of "income" for our health accounts. Receiving regular chiropractic care can help a person maximize the value - on a physiological basis - of the food, rest and exercise they are getting. Chiropractic care assists people in getting the most out of their health resources, by optimizing their physiology and thereby improving their health and increasing their well-being.

Millar Chiropractic - Madison AL
1908 Slaughter Rd. 
Madison, Alabama 35758
(256) 430-2700

http://millarchiro.com/millarchiropractic-madisonal-chiropractor.html


1Greenwald P, Dunn BK: Do we make optimal use of the potential of cancer prevention? Recent Results Cancer Res 181:3-17, 2009
2Jackson AS, et al: Role of lifestyle and aging on the longitudinal change in cardiorespiratory fitness. Arch Intern Med 169(19):1781-1787, 2009
3Smaldone A, et al: Sleepless in America: inadequate sleep and relationships to health and well-being of our nation's children. Pediatrics 119(Suppl 1):S29-S37, 2007

Madison Chiropractors Talk About New Year's Resolutions

By: Dr. Justin Walbom, DC and Dr. Greg Millar, DC CCEP
Millar Chiropractic - Madison, AL

It's New Years again already, and perhaps you're determined that this will be the year that you actually follow through with your New Year's resolutions. This is finally going to be the year that you make your self and your health a priority.  You'll eat better, exercise regularly, lose weight, and you're finally going to find our whether chiropractic care can make a positive difference in your life.

If you're like most people, you've probably been thinking about doing more to improve your health for many years. Perhaps you even have family and friends who have been recommending chiropractic health care to you for a very long time. You decide you're ready to take action and you make an appointment to see your local chiropractic physician.

Chiropractic health care is more important now than ever before. Today, many Americans are lacking health insurance or are under insured. Deductibles, premiums and copayments seem to keep rising while most household incomes have been stagnant. Because Chiropractic treatment is both corrective and preventative in nature, it tends to be a very cost effective choice and can play a large part in solving our current health care crisis.

In contrast to most medical care, chiropractic care is low-cost while providing high value. Chiropractic treatment  focuses on the musculoskeletal system - bones, muscles, and joints - but first and foremost, it addresses and optimizes the functioning of the nerve system.  Simply put, chiropractic care makes your nervous system more efficient. And an efficiently functioning nervous system is crucial for optimal functioning of all other critical body systems - your cardiovascular, respiratory, immune, endocrine and digestive  systems.

Chiropractic care utilizes a hands-on approach, and you'll notice that your visits with your chiropractor provide real, personal interactions between you and your doctor. Dr. Greg Millar and Dr. Justin Walbom of Millar Chiropractic Clinics in Madison, Alabama are highly trained in a variety of disciplines - including nutritional evaluation and restorative exercise - and he or she will make recommendations that are specially designed for your particular needs.

Chiropractic care itself - called spinal adjustments - is gentle and relaxing. Immediate results often include decreased pain and muscular tension, and a noticeable increase in mobility of the neck, back, hips, and shoulders. For patients with back-related pain, improvement is often noted within 24 or 48 hours. People also often report sensations of increased alertness and increased focus after chiropractic adjustments, and an increased feeling of relaxation, ease and general well-being.

Additional profound benefits of chiropractic care derive from its direct effect on nerve system functioning. Although chiropractic health care is not specifically a treatment for headaches, menstrual cramps, asthma, allergies or digestive problems, improvement in one's health may occur across the board as an indirect result of chiropractic therapy.

So, chiropractic care provides a tremendous amount of "bang for your buck" - a lot of health benefit for your health care dollar. And at Millar Chiropractic Clinics, located in downtown Huntsville, Jones Valley, Madison, and Decatur, you not only receive the benefit of treatment but also the benefit of your doctor's vast health-care knowledge - you learn about how your body works and how to best take care of it naturally. The original meaning of the word doctor was teacher, and Dr. Greg Millar and Dr. Justin Walbom are educators as well as a health-care provider, interested in all aspects of your health and well-being. Make it your New Year's resolution to become healthier

Millar Chiropractic - Madison AL
1908 Slaughter Rd. 
Madison, Alabama 35758
(256) 430-2700

http://millarchiro.com/millarchiropractic-madisonal-chiropractor.html

1Bronfort G, et al: Efficacy of spinal manipulation and mobilization for low back pain and neck pain: a systematic review and best evidence synthesis. Spine J 4(3):335-356, 2004
2Johnson C, et al: Chiropractic and public health: current state and future vision.
J Manipulative Physiol Ther 31(6):397-410, 2008