Posts by Karen
Treating Sports Injuries Without Drugs
Treating sports injuries without drugs in Park Slope
The most common sports injuries include strains (tear in the muscle) and sprains (tear in the ligament). Other common sporting injuries that we treat include those related to spinal joint dysfunction and nerve pressure.These injuries range in severity, but the important thing is how you respond to them. At our office in Park Slope, we use natural modalities including:
- Spinal manipulation
- Graston Technique
- Active Release Technique
- Trigger point therapy
- Electrical muscle stimulation
- Acupuncture
These methods seek to stimulate your body’s natural healing response by boosting local and systemic circulation, as well as improving range of motion in subdued areas. Our modalities support the efficient treatment and recovery of common sports injuries without the necessity for pharmaceutical or surgical intervention.
Help your body heal more effectively with chiropractic
Athletes are always looking for ways to specialize- at your Park Slope Chiropractor, we help you specialize naturally. If you are looking to use chiropractic in the areas of biomechanical optimization, injury prevention or treatment, give our office in Park Slope a call to schedule an appointment today.
Chiropractic Applications in Children’s Health
Now is the best vantage point you will have to start taking spinal health care seriously
We have an opportunity and, more importantly, a responsibility to take care of our bodies and those of our children. This responsibility is shared by the community, but it must be implemented at an individual level. Chiropractic and acupuncture are two forms of treatment that help you take control of your healthcare. For children, the opportunity is glaring: we are able to give them a head start in spinal health by preventing problems before they happen. Just as our culture values regular dental maintanence and physical checkups, so too should we place importance upon regular maintenance of the developing spine. By maintaining a relationship with an office that specializes in spinal health, we set a precedence that prioritizes your child’s spinal health.
Chiropractic is preventive medicine for children in Park Slope
Spinal adjustments, in support of maintaining the spine’s natural alignment and healthy development, are seen as safe and effective tools for maintaining a high level of wellness in our young community. By starting your child on the chiropractic track early, you set a foundation and a tone for preventive healthcare that will benefit them for their entire life. If you are interested in finding out more about the role of chiropractic in children’s health, give our office in Park Slope a call to schedule an appointment today.
Body Drought: Functioning with Insufficient Water Supply
During an internal drought, your body is forced to make decisions
It is forced to prioritize, and the spine is not a priority. With deficient water supply, the body pulls water from the extremities and spine, reallocating it to the vital organs which simply cannot do without water. Your spinal discs, which rely on water to provide the shock-absorption and articulation between vertebrae, dry out. This effect manifests itself in more back pain, less range of motion and accelerated spinal degeneration. With an internal drought, any water that is put in is automatically routed toward the internal organs, and the spine continues to suffer.
Hydration helps you function your best
So what are we really looking for? To just hum along, with our body scrambling its resources to keep us functioning at the lowest possible level; or to provide our body and brain with the water they need to truly thrive? Drinking your daily recommended amount of water is the easiest and fastest way to start improving overall health, especially that of your spine.
When Lower Back Pain Flares: Movement Matters
Don´t skip exercise when you have back pain- just change your routine
With lower back pain, it is important to avoid movements that will exacerbate your condition. These movements include: bending, toe touches, sit ups, leg lifts, and twisting motions. Lower back pain is often accompanied by less range of motion, meaning that excessive movements can cause injury. Instead focus on these types of exercises:
- Yoga- especially child’s pose and bird dog, provides gentle stretches that challenge your core stabilizing muscles.
- Cardiovascular activity- even walking gets circulation flowing and releases tension in the musculature that creates a pull on the lower back.
- Focus on stretching the hamstrings- tight hamstrings create a pull on the lower spine which can wreak havoc in the lumbar vertebrae.
- Pelvic tilts- focus on undoing pelvic tilt and strengthening the core stabilizing muscles.
Movement speeds up the healing process
That being said, don’t speed into an exercise routine without checking with your Park Slope Chiropractor first. We can help design a multi-faceted, goal-oriented treatment plan for your specific body type and back pain. By combining chiropractic modalities including spinal adjustment and decompression, with targeted exercise and stretching, you can effect great improvements in your spinal health. If you are interested in using our services to manage lower back pain, give our office in Park Slope a call to schedule an appointment today.
Chiropractic’s Role for Tennis Players
The spines of tennis players face a unique mix of stresses
For being classified as a low-impact sport, tennis actually contributes to a lot of wear and tear throughout the body. Once you look at the nature of the sport, you begin to see why injuries are so common in the tennis community. To begin with:
- Shearing forces in the lower extremities: you speed up then come to a full stop, then accelerate in the opposite direction. This unpredictable procession of motions wears down the load bearing joints in the legs and lower spine.
- Repetitive stress: applied to the same local areas over and over again, creates a disproportionate amount of stress to a given region.
- Ballistic motion: increases the pressure on the joints in the upper extremities, as well as the thoracic and cervical spinal segments.
- Twisting motion: side-to-side motion increases the amount of overall spinal pressure.
How we help mitigate pain and dysfunction for tennis players in Park Slope
Our combination of chiropractic and acupuncture modalities help tennis athletes discover their best from while preventing injury.
- Spinal adjustment: balances the body, improves range of motion and circulation, mitigates back pain and prevents injury.
- Decompression: alleviates pressure from the spine, rehydrates intervertebral discs and facilitates healing.
- Stretching for tennis players: focusing on the core muscles, as well as those in the upper and lower extremities; yes, tennis is a holistic exercise that requires stretching for every part.
- Acupuncture: increases local, as well as full-body, circulation and facilitates healing.
Performing your best on court: chiropractic for tennis players in Brooklyn
Our overall goals for helping tennis players include: maintaining a high standard for range of motion, balancing the body so that musculature develops evenly, and improving coordination between body and brain, via the nervous system. If you are interested in using our natural modalities to improve your game on the court, give our office in Park Slope a call to schedule an appointment today.
You Are What You Eat: Explained
So, you really are what you eat
Hopefully that doesn’t make you feel too uncomfortable. But think about it this way: if you are consistently consuming foods that are devoid of nutrition, how can your cells rebuild, repair and literally regenerate, properly? How can you expect to feel well? The western diet, replete with meats and sweets, has had crippling effects on the American population for exactly this reason: with such inferior inputs, our bodies are literally incapable of repairing themselves properly. It’s time to start giving your body the nutrition it needs to support your lifestyle.
Eating wisely begins with awareness
It is difficult to simply swap out a sweet with a fruit, or a meat with a legume. We are programmed from a young age to crave such delights. But what if you could replace your craving for sweets with a craving for optimal wellness? At Community Chiropractic & Acupuncture of Park Slope, we go about this by helping people realize how much better they feel with a balanced diet. Once you unlock the awareness of how good it feels to maintain a healthy diet, the cycle will keep feeding itself, if you’ll pardon the expression. There is no denying that our bodies simply work better with a properly balanced diet- if you need help getting on board the healthy-eating train, give our office in Park Slope a call to schedule an appointment today. We work with you to identify and change any aspect that is holding you back from feeling your best.
Increasing Bodily Comfort to Boost Productivity
Setting yourself up for success
The golden rule of productivity: make yourself comfortable. A comfortable environment raises the overall level of happiness and productivity, and allows for your nervous system to make rational decisions in response to external stressors. Comfort in the office is determined by many factors, some of the most important of which include:
- Temperature: too cold is distracting, while too warm sends you to sleep. A not-too-warm office space makes you feel most comfortable, increasing productivity.
- Brightness: who wants to work in a dark, artificially lit room? That kind of environment increases anxiety while a brightly (preferably, naturally) lit room increases happiness and productivity.
- Ergonomics: the only way to keep pain at bay if you work in front of a computer. Neutral posture should be a priority, as should be taking frequent breaks, and alternating between sitting and standing.
Comfort in the office is also determined by comfort in the body
At Community Chiropractic & Acupuncture in Park Slope, we know that productive output is reliant upon internal comfort. Pain is distracting. If you are letting back pain or dysfunction, there is no way you can expect yourself to be fully efficient when it comes to working. Our gentle, natural modalities including acupuncture, spinal adjustment, decompression and massage help create a culture of calm in your body, allowing you to sleep better and wake up with more natural energy. This is the most effective platform to build upon if you are looking to increase productivity through natural channels.
Waking Up Without the Grog
Time to face down the day
Morning grogginess is a telltale symptom of a busy lifestyle. Here are natural ways for energizing yourself in the morning time:
- Discipline yourself: no Snooze button! Choose an alarm which gets you excited to wake up and only press it once.
- Practice deep breathing as soon as you wake up
- Take a shower that alternates hot and cold. Make sure you finish on warm!
- Set yourself a morning object of desire: whether it be a particularly tasty breakfast, or an early morning walk with the dog.
Waking up refreshed in Park Slope
At our office in Brooklyn, we want to help you leave that groggy feeling behind. Our natural modalities reduce pain and boost circulation, helping you feel more comfortable and relaxed when bedtime rolls around. When your spine is aligned, and your nervous system is firing on all cylinders, your body can be a very comfortable place to be! Let us help you start waking up refreshed by giving our office a call to schedule an appointment today.
The Problem with Ignoring Back Pain
Pain is a signal- a signal that requires a response
The truth is that most incidences of mechanical back pain do resolve themselves. One side of your brain is telling you that you can just keep going and the pain will go away while your more rational voice is telling you that you are simply fooling yourself. Pain is a signal that something is wrong- a warning symbol that if you keep doing what you are doing, injury could occur. That‘s why you become stiff and sore- if you moved those muscles any further than their restricted range of motion allows, there is a good chance you would incur injury.
The problem is that once that pain goes away, it rewards you for your inaction. But did that pain really disappear? If you make no positive actions to account for the health of your back, and you continue with a lifestyle conducive to spinal degeneration, that pain will just recur over and over again. Ignoring your back pain signals is a great way to set yourself up for injury and disability in the future.
Taking proactive measures to beat back pain
We are not suggesting that you panic at the first sign of back pain. Rather keep a steady eye on your symptoms- where and when the pain occurs, the severity and how frequently it recurs. The prudent person takes action to prevent back pain in the first place, but we understand the predicament of being too busy to care for your spine. If you reach a point where back pain is becoming a constant source of worry, give our office in Park Slope a call. We prioritize the health of your spine and reduce back pain to prevent problems from compounding and leading to disability down the line.
Cardio Alternatives for Back Pain Sufferers
Cardio alternatives for back pain sufferers
So we still want to reap the same benefits as a 30 minute run, but without the repetitive trauma? Here are some ideas:
- Swimming or aquatic activity: suspends compressive force of gravity, provides natural resistance for all of your movements
- Elliptical training: allows for intense workouts without the stress on your joints.
- Stationary cycling: reduces stress on the joints and can mimic most running intensities.
- Metabolic resistance training: increases your metabolic rate to maximize the amount of calories you burn in a given session. A great way to burn fat quickly.
- Indoor rowing: reduces stress on the joints while providing cardio and strength-training benefits.
Your holistic health resource in Park Slope
At our office in Park Slope, we are dedicated to helping people discover natural health solutions. If your cardiovascular exercise is also contributing to your back pain, it is worth seeking other activities as a means of maintaining the cardio benefit while minimizing stress on the spinal joints. Give our office a call to schedule an appointment and start taking control of your back pain today!