Month: March 2022

Time for Spring Cleaning?

To Your Health
March, 2022 (Vol. 16, Issue 03)

By Editorial Staff

Not your house or garage; let’s develop a spring-cleaning plan for your body and mind that improves your physical and mental health as winter comes to a close. Here are three things to dust off, throw out or modify to help you take the next steps in your health and wellness journey.

1. Assess your sleep situation: Not just your actual sleeping environment, but also your sleep habits. Let’s start with your habits: Do you turn in at around the same time every night? Do you prepare for sleep by shutting down electronics at least an hour before bed? Do you get at least 7-8 hours of uninterrupted sleep every night? If your response to one or more of the above is a wholehearted “No,” then you’ve got work to do.

What about your mattress and pillow? Are you giving yourself a fighting chance to enjoy restful, restorative sleep – or do you find yourself tossing and turning all night, struggling to find a comfortable sleeping position – and then waking up in the morning with back and/or neck pain? You can’t reap the benefits of sleep if you’re not enjoy good sleep in the first place. Do something about it.

2. Cough up that stress ball: You can feel it swirling in your stomach all day, pounding in your head, turning your daily existence into a nightmare. It’s called stress, and whether short-term or long-term, it can have dire consequences that impact your health and wellness from head to toe.

What can you do about it? Start by determining the source. To many Post-It notes at work that need to be condensed into short, achievable daily lists? Procrastinating on things you can easily cross off your To-Do List? Keeping things inside that deserve to be shared with a colleague, friend or loved one? Cough up that stress ball and feel a deep, profound sense of relief that will last all year round.

3. Take a self-wellness survey: At least quarterly, if not every month, check in with yourself. Ask yourself this simple question: How are things going? If you can honestly answer, “Great!” then keep doing what you’ve been doing. But if the question exposes your unhappiness with any aspect of your life, it’s time for spring cleaning – no matter the season. Potential areas to evaluate: eating habits, workout program, stress management, relationships (at work, home and everywhere in between) and more.

What happens at your house if you don’t clean periodically? Things pile up, get filthy and cause problems. It’s the same way with your health and wellness. Take care of your personal home – your body and mind – and you’ll be able to enjoy 365 days celebrating your journey, rather than agonizing over when you’ll get around to cleaning yourself up.

Keeping the Weight Off

By Editorial Staff

Losing weight – and keeping it off – proves challenging time and time again for the millions of Americans whose physical and mental health would benefit from dropping a few (or in some cases, many) pounds.

Losing the weight seems distinctly easier than keeping it off, with the “yo-yo” diet plaguing many who lose weight, only to find it returns … with a few extra pounds to boot.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. Despite all the failed diet stories out there, let’s get some tips for success from people who’ve lost weight – and been able to keep it off long term, courtesy of a new study published in Obesity: The Journal of the Obesity Society. Researchers interviewed more than 6,000 men and women who’d lost more than 50 pounds, on average, and managed to keep the weight off more than three years (“weight-loss maintainers”). Here are some of the most important tips if you’re struggling to lose weight (or keep it off) based on study findings:

You Can Persevere: See setbacks as part of your successful journey, not failures. Get back on track the next day or next meal. Measure success based on long-term goals.

Your Health Matters: Focus on the health issues that can be minimized or altogether avoided by losing the weight and keeping it off: diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and even day-to-day issues such as mobility, energy and ability to perform activities of daily living.

Always Track It: Consistently tracking food intake is recommended to ensure you are eating the right foods – in the right amounts – to maintain a healthy weight. Appreciate how food can impact your health and your weight – for better or worse.

Embrace the Past: While you’re forging ahead toward a healthier, lighter future, don’t forget why you’re facing this challenge. If you’ve ever struggled to buy clothes that fit, were criticized by someone for your weight, felt uncomfortable being in public because of your weight, etc., use these experiences as motivation to not repeat them.

While everyone’s weight-loss journey is unique, it’s nice to know success stories are out there; and even more importantly, that certain strategies seem to make a universal difference when it comes to losing weight and keeping it off. Don’t just listen to the people who’ve made it work; become one of them. Talk to your doctor for more information on how to keep the weight off – and love doing it.

How Your Chiropractor Can Help Prevent ADHD

By Editorial Staff

As you may have noticed, research over the past few years has begun to reveal that acetaminophen (the primary ingredient in Tylenol) is not as safe as once thought. A new study (published in the Journal of the AMA – Pediatrics) has shown an association between the use of acetaminophen during pregnancy and the “risk for developing attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)–like behavioral problems or hyperkinetic disorders (HKDs) in children.”

Researchers found that “children whose mothers used acetaminophen during pregnancy were at higher risk for receiving a hospital diagnosis of HKD, use of ADHD medications, or having ADHD-like behaviors at age 7 years. Stronger associations were observed with use in more than 1 trimester during pregnancy.” They ultimately conclude: “Maternal acetaminophen use during pregnancy is associated with a higher risk for HKDs and ADHD-like behaviors in children.”

What makes this study so profound is that acetaminophen is probably one of the most commonly used / prescribed drugs for pain and fever during pregnancy. According to the FDA, “in 2005, consumers purchased more than 28 billion doses of products containing acetaminophen.” A “hydrocodone-acetaminophen combination product has been the most frequently prescribed drug since 1997.”

All drugs have side effects. In this case, acetaminophen (also known as paracetamol) has been heavily marketed to the American public since the early 1950s. Children’s Tylenol was first marketed in 1955. Now, more than 60 years later, we are still learning about new adverse reactions, ones that our children’s children will be stricken with for decades.

Unlike a decade ago, there is currently a continuous stream of studies that demonstrate the association between the use of various drugs and numerous harmful adverse reactions. Television ads by law firms confirm the frequency of these findings.

The frightening reality is it will not be long before you know the mother of an ADHD child who took Tylenol while pregnant, or hear of a woman who overdosed on prescribed pain drugs. Sadly, serious drug-related adversity is already happening in your community. Don’t be a victim. Talk to your doctor of chiropractic for more information on drug-free solutions.

Screen Time and Autism

By Editorial Staff

What parent hasn’t spent time in front of the TV with their new baby? Whether relaxing / bonding with their child or exposing them to educational information (think “Sesame Street” and similar programming), most parents start screen time early and often.

With the proliferation of technology such as tablets and laptops, the opportunities for screen time from a young age have only been magnified. But when it comes to infant exposure to screen time, here’s the big problem, according to new research: it could increase the risk of developing autism.

When infants reached 1 year of age, researchers gathered data from their mothers on the numbers of hours per day they let their child watch TV and/or DVDs: no screen time, less than one hour, 1-2 hours, 2-4 hours and four hours or more. Mothers were asked the same question when their child turned 3 years of age, at which time researchers also inquired about any diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) by the child’s doctor.

Longer screen time at 1 year of age was significantly associated with ASD at 3 years of age, with boys three times more likely to be diagnosed than girls with similar screen times. While the study evaluated TV / DVD use only, the researchers warn that with screen time on the rise via other mediums (computers, phones, etc.), their findings (which appear in JAMA Pediatrics) may be only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the potential association between early screen time and autism.

Auriam is a developmental disorder that affects communication and behavior, and is often diagnosed after age 2, which is why the authors of this study waited until children were age 3 to evaluate the presence of ASD.