by Charles Herbert | Oct 12, 2021 | Wellness |
This Back Awareness Month we are looking at what causes back pain? The answer is simple. Stress! Certain things might jump to your mind when you think of stress, however there are many different types of stress. Let’s break them down into the 3 main types. Physical Stress This is all about how you look after your body physically. Poor posture and bad lifting techniques are obvious culprits. Lack of exercise and stretching, repetitive movements, accidents and falls, carrying your kids – the list goes on. The biggest piece of advice I have for this type of stress is, keep movement varied and frequent. There are ideal postures we should adopt, however the worst position is the one you spent most of your time in. If you’ve been working from home during the pandemic then the amount you need to move, compared to commuting and walking around an office, is dramatically reduced. Try and move each joint in your body through its full range of movement at least twice per day. Emotional Stress We are all affected by this one but rarely do people link it to back pain. The truth is, worrying about a deadline, running around after your kids, making ends meet, having a never ending to do list all affect you physically and cause pain. A classic example, how many times have you heard someone say they’ve had a stressful day at work and now they have a headache? Although not an obvious cause, emotional stress probably causes or is involved in 80-90% of the patients we see! What can you do? There’s a huge amount...
by Charles Herbert | May 12, 2021 | Blog, Chiropractic, Wellness |
Aches and Pains in Old Age When it comes to ageing, most of us just seem to assume that aches and pains are part of the package. However, this is only true to a certain extent. While there are some normal aches and pains to ageing, these can be mitigated to a certain extent by taking the right precautions. Pain is usually your body’s way of signalling that something’s wrong and so if you’re experiencing notable amounts of pain as you grow older, it isn’t something you should ignore or simply put up with. It’s important to take the right steps to address aches and pains, no matter how old you are. And the sooner you address them, the better. The Normal Aches and Pains of Ageing Our bodies undergo a significant amount of stress over the course of our lives, and so it makes sense that we experience things differently as we grow older. There may be certain activities that you could with ease when you were younger, whether it’s something as simple as kicking a football around a park with some friends. But whereas simple activities or sports had no effect on you in the past, now they may leave your joints feeling stiffer than usual the next day. This can cause you to feel less mobile and free than before. As we age, our bodies become more prone to damage, which means we need to take additional steps to take care of them. It’s important to remember that your body is carrying all those years of sports and physical activities that you have behind you. But...
by Helena Read | Aug 10, 2016 | Wellness |
The Benefits of Crawling Are you ever too old to crawl? Let’s find out… My fascination with crawling began when my first-born began to roll, reach, stretch and find his own way towards movement on all fours and crawling. As a dancer and massage therapist I could scarce pull my eyes away from this miracle of movement unfolding in front of my eyes. The dynamic combination of determination, push and yield that I witnessed, running throughout his whole body, has fuelled my own exploration of crawling, and an ongoing inquiry to its wellbeing benefits. In this article I will share some of my passion for this simple and profoundly effective method for regaining original strength, as well as a little of the science. A baby’s determination to crawl is initiated by 4 billion years of human evolution coupled with profound curiosity. In the case of my son, this curiosity often took the form of our cat; though anything that lay in easy eyesight and just out of reach would do. This movement of reach is made possible by the dynamic force of push that comes from an opposite limb, often on the diagonal, sometimes on the same side of the body. The push and pull would start with the extremity of toes, fingers, elbows or knees gaining traction on the surface beneath them, and lead to a rocking movement that would gradually provide the momentum for progress towards the said attractive object. Integral to this push is a movement of yield, when the opposing muscles soften. This allows the spine to arch and become a spring of rocking movement,...
by Charles Herbert | Oct 23, 2015 | Wellness |
Should I be taking statins? We get asked a lot of questions about our opinion on medications that patients have been prescribed by doctors. The one medication we get asked most about are statins. The reason we get asked about these the most is that they stir up a lot of controversy and conflicting opinions. Most people have heard about or experienced side-effects and are recommended to take them as a precautionary measure rather than as a treatment. Around 12 million people over the UK routinely take statins. Current guidelines recommend a doctor prescribes statins for anyone with a 10% risk of heart disease within 10 years, and there have been pushes in the past for everyone over 50 to take statins, regardless of their health. So, with so many people taking statins and the medical profession pushing for more to join them, do the benefits out-weight the side-effects? Recent research has found that the benefit of taking statins only helps people live 3 days longer. How do statins work? Statins reduce the level of cholesterol in your blood. There are different types of cholesterol in your body, including “good cholesterol” (high-density lipoprotein) and “bad cholesterol” (low-density lipoprotein). Cholesterol is essential for your body, we need it for the health and structure of our cells among other benefits. High levels of cholesterol, especially “bad cholesterol”, is linked with thinning and blocking of arteries (atherosclerosis), which can cause heart attacks, strokes and coronary heart disease. The main effect of statins is to stop your liver for producing cholesterol, therefore reducing the levels of cholesterol in your blood. Your liver produces around 70% of the cholesterol in your body,...
