Blog
Taking A Holistic Approach to Stress Management
Coming to terms with your stress
Stress can cause physical pain. Experiencing stress regularly is harmful: high blood pressure is one of its better known side effects, but overstress can lead to a whole range of physical ailments from muscle tissue deterioration to chronic headaches. It is common to hear that joint pain is experienced during moments of prolonged stress. This pain is processed by the central nervous system through a system of neuron transmissions in the spinal cord. The spine then sends signals to the brain, which creates the sensation of pain. Do you ever feel tense when you are stressed? This is a physiological manifestation of the tightness in your muscles. If back muscles are tensing and retracting, they can create misalignments in your spine that cause pressure to the nerves. Simply put stress= pain.
Stress can be treated by chiropractic therapy!
Spinal manipulation restores your spine back into alignment and treats nerves that may have become inflamed due to the build up of stress. Chiropractic and acupuncture are both proven to improve blood circulation. At our office in Park Slope, we use natural methods to boost your body’s natural energy levels, thus helping you cope with stress in a healthier, more effective manner. All of these are important to an effective stress management plan.
Winter Wellness
Feeling your winter best
Your immune and nervous systems fight hard in cold weather; they are often worn down more quickly in winter than in other seasons, hence the seasonal cold, and the outbreaks of flu during cold months. Operating on the idea that the odds are slightly stacked against your nervous and immune systems during winter, holistic medicine attempts to tip the scale back in their favor. Using chiropractic adjustments to establish spinal alignment and balance, your nervous system is less encumbered. Acupuncture balances the body further by stimulating circulation, nourishing all parts of your body with nutrient and oxygen-rich blood and cycling away waste products.
Winter is a grind
Our services ensure that the cold, dark New York winter doesn’t get the best of you. Many of our patients find that with regular attention to their physical and mental balance, they are able to avoid seasonal illness completely. If you are interested in finding out more about our holistical wellness plan for winter, give our office a call to schedule an appointment today.
Banishing Back Pain from Breastfeeding
A healthy transition for mother and child
Keep these tips in mind:
- When sitting, recline to an angle of 20 degrees to take pressure off your neck.
- Use cervical and lumbar support pillows when sitting
- Choose a supportive chair when sitting
- Vary your position between sitting and standing to prevent muscle fatigue
- When standing, always use a baby carrier or a wrap
- If lying down, make sure to use a pillow to prop yourself up and support your upper body effectively
From here, it is a matter of exercising to restore lost muscle tone and improve the weight-bearing and compression-resistance capabilities of your core muscles. If you can do this while also focusing heavily on hydration, nutrition and sleep, you will go a long way towards making a healthy transition for yourself and, by extension, your child. At Community Chiropractic & Acupuncture, we can facilitate this process! We have the expertise and experience to help you fight pain and keep well being on the up and up. Give our office a call to schedule an appointment today.
Calcium-Magnesium Balance for Better Spinal Health
Magnesium is key to calcium absorption
So many people focus exclusively on intaking the recommended amount of calcium and vitamin D, forgetting about magnesium. Magnesium and calcium share a complementary relationship, the former helping the body absorb the latter. Without a balance of magnesium, calcium accumulates in the body and this in of itself can be detrimental. Magnesium has a lot of health benefits beyond simply helping your body absorb calcium but, from a spinal wellness perspective, this can be one of its most important roles. Fortunately, magnesium is even more widely available from natural foods than calcium and certainly moreso than vitamin D.
Simple diet tricks for improving spinal health
The magnesium-calcium balance is a great example of how simple dietary changes can have profound effects on your spinal health. If you are interested in finding out more, give our office in Park Slope a call to schedule an appointment today.
How Acupuncture Directly Treats Back Pain
Acupuncture for back pain explained through a western medicine lens
Studies show that when acupuncture needles are inserted at specific points in the body, they stimulate a nervous system response- neurochemicals including endorphins are released in the brain, triggering a ripple effect of chemical and hormone release throughout the body, that in turn affects the spinal cord and the localized soft tissues. These chemicals change the way you perceive pain and help the body regulate its internal functioning; the resulting improvement in biomechanical balance is what TCM calls balancing the Qi.
Making your body more capable of caring for itself
For all these reasons, acupuncture should be a front line treatment. It should not be a last resort, when all other pain remedies have been tried and proven ineffective. It is most effectively used as a conservative, proactive approach to dealing with back pain and dysfunction. If you are interested in finding out more, give our office a call to schedule an appointment today.
Getting Excited About Brain Balance
Improving brain function helps you live a more functional life
At Community Chiropractic & Acupuncture of Park Slope, we support holistic methods for training the brain. Brain fitness refers to neuroplasticity- the idea that you can create new neural connections and improve your brain performance through simply using your brain; clinical evidence is telling us that it is that simple!
And this concept applies to people of all ages, and especially those who are looking to recover from traumatic brain injuries or strokes. Using sensory training exercises and balance improvement techniques, you create natural challenges for your brain that elicit a response and an improvement in overall functioning. This translates to a real improvement in overall wellness.
Balancing the Brain Through Exercise
Increasing coordination of the left and right brain
Indeed, conditioning your brain starts with being more mindful. The first exercise we often recommend is to simply tune in- challenge yourself to clear your mind and really focus on the present moment; the sounds, smells, and sights of your immediate surroundings are something that we often breeze through without truly perceiving. At Community Chiropractic & Acupuncture of Park Slope, we also encourage the following techniques to improve hemispheric brain balance:
- Visualization
- Logic games and puzzles
- Problem-solving strategies
In conjunction with a balanced, holistic lifestyle, focusing on coordination of your left and right brain can be a powertful tool for improving wellness. There is a lot to be gained from improving brain balance- from an uptick in confidence to an increase in brain function, we want you to feel your best! Check in at our new office in Park Slope and start taking advantage of a more balanced brain today.
Acupuncture to Induce Labor
Acupuncture to induce labor
The method behind using acupuncture for inducing labor is that by inserting acupuncture needles into specific points in the body, we can encourage both the dilation of the cervix and help catalyze contractions. Clinical studies are showing that acupuncture can contribute to a more ready cervix without the side-effects of more traditional labor-inducement methods. However, it is important to note that none of the studies we have reviewed included a reduction in the necessity for C-sections. However, a comprehensive review of the Western medicine literature that studies acupuncture for inducing labor has validated the theory that for many women, acupuncture is a good option to seek.
Your pregnancy acupuncture specialists in Park Slope
At Community Chiropractic & Acupuncture of Park Slope, we are one of Brooklyn’s longest standing and most trusted pregnancy acupuncture centers. With a new office replete with acupuncture specific facilities and tables that can accomodate the heaviest of pregnancies, we want to bring our services to an even greater part of our local community. Please don’t hesitate to give our office a call to schedule an appointment today.
Chiropractic Maintains Good Brain Function
A healthy brain improves every aspect of our health
It all starts with the brain- an uptick in cognitive function will improve your mood, physical performance, immune system function and even regulate your relationship with chronic pain. Optimal brain function is consistently linked by clinical studies with lowering the risk for many diseases, and significantly improving quality of life. Chiropractic is one way to regulate and improve cognitive function. At Community Chiropractic & Acupuncture of Park Slope, we are a certified and experienced practice of neurologically-based chiropractic.
We use the latest technology to diagnostically assess brain function and set a course for improving it; spinal adjustments have been shown to regulate and improve the nervous system functioning. Our patients report feeling:
- more energized
- a greater ability to focus
- more mental clarity
- better retention and recall
If you are interested in finding out more about how chiropractic can boost brain function, please give our office in Park Slope a call to schedule an appointment today.
Acupuncture for Improved Brain Function
How does acupuncture improve cognitive function?
Neuroacupuncture works by stimulating specifically defined points on the scalp, which TCM tells us correspond to energy pathways that control functions like spatial learning and information and sensory retention. This tells us further that while scalp acupuncture is growing in stature for its use in post-stroke and brain surgery therapy, it can also be useful for anyone looking to improve cognitive function. If you feel unusually clouded, distracted or unstable mentally, you can benefit from the therapeutic nature of scalp acupuncture.
Optimize your brain’s functioning with acupuncture
At Community Chiropractic & Acupuncture of Park Slope, we have decades of experience using neuroacupuncture to help the members of our community who suffer from neurological disorders. If you are interested in finding out more about how this pioneering form of acupuncture therapy can help in your life, give our office a call to schedule an appointment today.