Taking care of yourself first

I’d need 10 pair of hands to be able to count how many times I’ve told my patients to realax and take care of themselves this week. People seek advice from me about how to best handle their injuries, their aches and their pains. Yet, when I tell people to apply ice or apply heat, or to take a hot bath, I’m constantly told I don’t have time.

What? You don’t have time. Well, then you’ll just have to continue to suffer. (Sometimes I think it, sometimes I actually say that to them)

There’s no way you can walk into a doctors office, regardless of discipline or specialty, dump your problems off on your doctor and then come back in a week or two and expect your problems to be fixed. Good results in your health always come when a patient and a doctor work together as a team.

So, let me let you in on a little secret…..

Shhhhhhhhh.

Ya ready???

Start taking care of yourself first.

That’s it.

Start taking care of yourself first. Seems simple enough. That's your part in this doctor-patient "TEAM". At the end of the day, come home, eat a light dinner then when you start to wind down…take a nice warm or hot bath for 20 minutes and just relax your body and mind. Let the physical and emotional stresses of the day just float away. I bet you’ll sleep better as well.

If you sleep better, you will get the proper release of growth hormone from your pituitary. Growth hormone helps your body heal and really rejuvenates you. It's like a little in-born fountain of youth. That’s why all studies on sleep deprivation show a link between poor sleep and just about every condition you don’t want. Diabetes, cancer, obesity and a general piss-poor attitude.

So, start with numero-uno. Start by taking care of yourself. An unhealthy ‘you’ can’t perform your job, your career or take care of your family to the best your potential will allow. By taking care of yourself first, you’ll be able to best handle all things life throws at you and then some. So tonight, go take a nice bubble bath and see how much better you feel in the morning.

Unless you have some medical condition that you shouldn’t use moist heat on or increase your heart rate, this should be a nice way to get started on taking care of ‘you’

OK?

Good. Now, on your mark….get set…..GO.

‘nuff said

DocT

Dr. Narson is a 2-term past president of the Florida Chiropractic Association’s Council on Sports Injuries, Physical Fitness & Rehabilitation and was honored as the recipient of the coveted Chiropractic Sports Physician of the Year Award in 1999-2000. He practices in Miami Beach, Florida at the Miami Beach Family & Sports Chiropractic Center; A Facility for Natural Sports Medicine.

HCFS Is Not Natural Says the FDA!!!

FINALLY more justice for my blog articles. For the past couple years I have been mouthing off about this horrible sweetener called High Fructose Corn Syrup and I featured 2 prior posts on this just this HFCS stuff(Drink Soda-Get Diabetes & Is Yogurt As Bad As Soda).

Put up as another form of a "natural type sugar", this crapola is used to sweeten everything from ketchup-to-Yogurt-to-Coke & Pepsi. And, in all those wonderful children's cereals and other foods. But finally, the FDA has take the double talking money mongering larger than life food industry corporations to task. High Fructose Corn Syrup, even though it is derived from corn, is not natural. Because, it takes a chemical process to create it. Read more on the FDA decision.
Hear me now food industry...JUST BECAUSE SOMETHING STARTS OFF AS A NATURAL OR WHOLE FOOD, WHEN YOU ARE DONE PROCESSING IT, IT IS NO LONGER NATURAL.

Valium once started out as Velerian Root. Does that make Valium natural? NOT!!!

The stuff this chemical process creates is something foreign to the human body. High Fructose Corn Syrup (here after known as HFCS) is as artificial as any other artificial sweetener and in my humble opinion, can have equally devastating effects. Basically, you are forcing your body to use a sweetener it was never made to use. Therefore, the digestive process must process something it hasn’t spent the last 100,000+ years evolving with. Corn itself, in its current form hasn't been in evolutionary food chain long enough for our physiology to adapt it as a healthful food for us, so HFCS a real no-no (read the book, The Omnivore's Dilemma for more info on that).

Now, any food, drink or other product to be consumed that contains HFCS can no longer advertise as “natural” or “all natural”.

BUT….WATCH OUT!!!! I “guaran-damn-tee” you that you’ll find products on the market, such as breads, advertising “100% whole wheat”, which in the mind of the consumer, will imply it’s a natural product. Flip the package over and I’m sure you fill find my sugar-wannabe arch nemesis high fructose corn syrup. Read the food label, not the packaging. They'll find a way to fool you on the packaging, but the food label is closer to the truth.

Why is this HFCS so bad? Well, I’ll have to refer you to an early blog post. The explanation has more to do with the history of our evolution as humans over the past hundreds of thousands and even millions of years. If you are a Discovery Channel or Science Channel buff, you’ll find it very interesting. If not, then, well, it may put you to sleep.

So, chalk one up for the consumer. We finally get a little closer to the truth in labeling we all deserve. Now, if a company wants to increase its profits by using a cheap artificial version of sugar in the form of HFCS, go right ahead. I'm all for making a profit. After all, why else are you in business? But, just label your products as such so we as consumers can make the right choice for ourselves and our families based on truthful information.

I for one don’t mind paying a bit more for something that I know is good for me, rather than getting fooled into the belief that something good for me is basically a Trojan horse for a company trying to hide the truth. Let's be honest capitalists, okay big food corps? This way we let the consumers drive the markets based on the truth.

As a doctor though, my advice is to cut out all HFCS and hydrogenated oils, add whole grains, fresh fruit and veggies and you’ll have a much better life. Remember, HFCS is one of the main culprits in childhood obesity, diabetes and weight gain. 3 more great reasons to cut it out of your life.

For those who read my blog and ask what the heck does this have to do with sports medicine….well, if you put good high quality food into your body, you’ll get better performance out of it.

‘nuff said.

DocT

Dr. Narson is a 2-term past president of the Florida Chiropractic Association’s Council on Sports Injuries, Physical Fitness & Rehabilitation and was honored as the recipient of the coveted Chiropractic Sports Physician of the Year Award in 1999-2000. He practices in Miami Beach, Florida at the Miami Beach Family & Sports Chiropractic Center; A Facility for Natural Sports Medicine.