Our 3 tips for keeping a Healthy change going

If you’re looking for some pointers to keep up your new years resolutions, then this post is for you.

No need for a massive post this time, the best and longest lasting changes are almost always small, its doing them for the long haul that makes them worthwhile!

Our 3 tips for keeping a healthy change on track are:

1. Avoid all or nothing!

Lots of people start with the intention of achieving 100% of their goals - no sugar ever, exercising every day, or meditating every morning etc.

The problem with committing to 100% is that life doesn’t always allow for 100%. So often it feels like once you have gone off track then there is no point getting back on!

You tell yourself that it will never work and you fail back into your pre-resolution pattern. Getting off track is normal! The secret is to accept that it’s going to happen and get straight back on.

After a tiring day at work it’s easy to feel the urge to skip your exercise. Exercising before work means that you have prioritised the important (your long term health) over the urgent.

2. If exercise is your resolution, consider doing it in the morning.

If you're one of the people heading back to work this week, you probably already know that it’s harder to fit a workout in when work takes up so much of the day.

After a tiring day at work it’s easy to feel the urge to skip your exercise. Exercising before work means that you have prioritised the important (your long term health) over the urgent.

3. Listen to your body.

Changing can be tough on your body. If regular exercise is new to you, taking a rest day is super important and can help you avoid an injury.

Getting a checkup to see if everything is working the way it should is also a great idea.

As always, we wish you the best of luck with your new goals, please let us know if there is anything we can do to help you achieve them!

Reduce your stress with a Foam Roller

Feeling like you’re sitting too much at the moment? Feel like the top of your back is more concrete than muscle? Worried you’re starting to develop a hunch back? Then this post is for you!

If you have been following this blog, you’ll know that we have been posting a lot about what you can be doing to keep your body moving well to stay healthy and more comfortable while you’re having this time at home.

In the video below, Martin talks us through how to use a foam roller to take hunch out of your back and help your nervous system calm down as well, because forward head posture has been linked with increased stress and tension as well as many other conditions.

Martin will show you some easy to follow exercises and stretches you can do easily and safely from your home to keep moving and give your body some breathing space.

As always, the video is transcribed below. Please let us know if there is anything else we can do to get you back on track!

Hi, Martin here from Align Chiropractic, and what I want to talk about in today’s video is a really simple, quick strategy that you can use to help de-stress, to unwind, to help loosen muscle tension that we often build up from stress in our neck and shoulder, and to also help reduce that sort of posture where your head and shoulders comes forward that we often get when we’re stressed. 

So, what am I talking about with that posture? There’s a posture that we look for clinically which can come about from postural stress of long periods of time with our head forward and arms foward. It can also be part of our body’s response to stress. The normal stress response activates certain neural pathways that increases the tension in the muscles in our should and neck, which makes sense if we look at stress as a survival response that we need to fight or run away (flight) in response to a stressor that’s kind of the way we’re wired. The challenge is that in our modern lives, we tend to have stresses, rather than being something rustling in the bushes that we need to run away from which might have been a stress when we were hunter-gatherers. It’s more likely that deadlines, or family stresses or money stresses, or all the other reasons that we have to be stressed. So, what tends to happen rather than being a short period of stress and then physical activity to resolve the stress- which has a natural balancing, we have these periods of long-term, ongoing stress and we end up with these shoulders that are like concrete, head that pokes forward, and shoulders that round forward. It’s also then having that posture, we think also signals to your brain that look, there’s something that you should be stressed about, which then winds thing up. So often we’ll see people with neck pain, headaches, or even low back pain where a big part of what’s contributed to it is that ongoing stresses has just kind of wound everything up, altered their posture. 

Foam Rollers: 2:12

So, what I want to show you today is a special use of a foam roller that you can use to help unwind and de-stress, as well as release the tension that you’ve got that tends to build up in your neck and shoulders when you are under ongoing stress. 

So, the type of roller that we’re going to need to be able to do this exercise. You can’t have one of these shorter rollers because I’m going to show you a way where you’re lying on top of the roller this way. So, two types of rollers than can work are the sort of traditional, full, round, long roller, or a specific posture correction type roller which is a half roller, and then the diamond where you’re going to lie on this side. So, either of these two types will work. This one- the full roller tends to be a bit more of an advanced one- some people will find it a bit trickier to balance on, whereas this one tends to be a little bit more specialised for the job. If you want this sort of type, these are a bit harder to get. These ones you can kind of get from online or lots of different sporting goods place. These ones probably best to just come in and get one from our practice, we sell them. 

Exercise 3:26

So, using the roller is as simple as this. I’m just sitting down one end and then my head is resting at the top. My hands are palm up so that I can get some external shoulder rotation, and the starting position is hands down by your side. The first time you do you do this. It’s natural to feel a little bit of stress or tension in the middle part of the back, but it should never cause any pinching or sharp pain. You just want to relax your shoulder back. 

First day you do this, I’m going to suggest you do it for 2 minutes. I’ll show you how you go about getting up in a minute. As you progress, the way that you can increase the amount of stretch and the amount of release here is by bringing your arms up closer  to this sort of 90 degrees to the body mark here- it tends to be easier with the hands down like this. So, increase the time until you’re doing it for about 10 minutes, and then you can start moving your arms out to the side. Most people find somewhere between 10-15 minutes gives them a really really good release, and they feel much less stressed afterwards. You can also increase the impact by doing meditation or the physiological sigh type exercises at the same time.

Getting up 4:52

Now, getting off. When getting off it’s really important that you don’t come up like this- that can feel really uncomfortable. What I’d suggest is you roll to the side and then slowly sit, come up. Just take your time because you can feel a little bit dizzy.

Conclusion: 5:12

So, there we have it- the way to use the posture correction roller, or the sympathetic dominance rock roller as a way of reducing stress, and unwinding tension. 

Simple strategies to reduce stress and sleep better

Feeling fatigued, a little bit over it all or just in need of a few strategies to wake up feeling a bit more energised? Then this post is for you.

For those of you who have been following this blog, you’ll know that we have been posting a lot about what you can be doing to keep your body moving well to stay healthy and more comfortable while you’re having this time at home, but what about the other things our body has to do well to keep us going?

One of the first casualties during periods of stress, especially prolonged stress is the quality of our sleep. We find it harder to nod off, we wake more easily through the night or sometimes we just notice the quality of our sleep has dropped off and we are waking feeling tired despite having gotten our normal amount of sleep.

It makes sense, when under “threat” your body doesn’t want to let it’s guard down completely so that you can remain alert to danger. Its the reason you never sleep as well in a hotel as you do at home no matter how many stars it has because its a new environment so your mind never fully shuts off.

Now think about how we find ourselves living in a new environment, a new routine, changes in the amount of exercise we can do in a day and dealing with stressed people all day every day.

Is it any wonder that our clients are contacting us complaining of fatigue more than ever before? Of course not.

Please enjoy this little video Martin has filmed to help you get your sleep back on track, as always the transcript is below.

Hi, Martin Harvey from Align Chiropractic. So, today’s video is a really simple routine that I think will help you in terms of managing stress and improving your sleep. I’m recording this during the whole COVID-19 lockdown here in Melbourne, and one of the things that I’ve become super aware of when talking to people is that stress is having a bigger impact than ever because of the current circumstance. There’s not always a lot we can do about the circumstances- that applies right now, but it also applies to life generally. Often the things that are stressing us are not the things that we can immediately resolve. So, it’s really useful to have tools that you can use to reduce the physiological impact, reduce the health impact of stress and or issues with sleep so that they’re less likely to cause your immune system to work more poorly, less likely to cause a buildup of tension that is often a driver of spinal problems, and all the other things like headaches and so on that we know are very strongly stress related. 

So, when we talk about stress from a physiological perspective, there’s a whole lot of hormones that are involved. The number one hormone is a hormone called cortisol, but all of our hormones are sort of interlinked. When we talk about sleep and stress, the hormone that also becomes really important for us to consider is melatonin. This is the hormone that really triggers us to feel sleepy at the time we want to go to sleep, and so there’s often a very strong-tie between higher than normal levels of stress and having more difficulty sleeping. So, I sort of wanted to combine a routine that allows you to essentially use really easy triggers to try and normalize your melatonin levels and your cortisol levels.

Melatonin 2:00

So, the first thing that I’m going to suggest that you do is to wherever possible get outside early in the morning- whatever is early for you, but get outside because we get unfiltered light- even if it’s cloudy, and that goes through our eyes and stimulates in our brain the production of melatonin. So, if we do that early in the morning, it’s much more likely that it sets our circadian rhythm in a way that we’re going to feel nice and sleepy when it’s time to go to bed later that night. The advantage of doing a walk is, one- it’s one of the things we are able to do with our current stage 4 code lockdown, but it also triggers a thing called optic flow. 

Optic flow: 2:49

An optic flow is essentially a stimulation of certain brain circuits by having things going past us, by having things going through our visual field. So, it triggers a series of changes in our brain that also helps to kind of relax us and reset cortisol levels in a way that’s really healthy. If it’s raining outside and you can’t get that, the next best way of doing it is to move around the house a bit. If we’re restricted to our homes, we’re not moving as much as we might normally, so make a conscious effort to sort of almost do laps of the house. 

You also want to get near a window. Now, the window will have light slightly filtered- some of the UV radiation doesn’t come through the window, so it’s not quite as good as the melatonin effect that you get being out in direct sunlight (but almost as good).  One little thing to add to the getting out for your morning walk, is that it’s important that you don’t wear sunglasses unless it’s so bright that you almost have to squint, because the light coming in gets filtered and altered by the sunglasses. So, particularly in the morning, you’re generally not going to need it unless you’re walking directly into the sun. 

Physiological sigh- 4:07

The other thing that I’ve mentioned on other videos but I just want to go into a little bit more detail is the power of the physiological sigh. So, when we talk about cortisol and stress, often the strategy that comes up is learning and developing a meditation practice, and it’s very well established, evidence-based way of improving our health, improving our cognitive function, and reducing stress levels. It is a bit time consuming, and for a lot of people it’s a tough habit to get into.

The beauty of the physiological sigh is that it’s very neurologically triggered. You don’t have to develop a skill, it’s just using your breathing in a very specific way. You get the effect immediately, whereas meditation is a skill and a practice that you have to develop over a period of time. So, physiological sigh essentially is a way of breathing where you take one deep breath, which expands the little alveoli in your lungs and triggers certain neural pathways, then you take a second breath over the top of that, and then you relax as you let your breath out. So, it’s a really powerful way of triggering a direct neural pathway that changes you from being into what you might think of as a nervous system that’s all wound up and ready to go- which is called a sympathetic state, to a parasympathetic state- which is the neurological way that our bodies get us into the right state to rest, relax and repair any damage that’s happened to our body. 

So, physiological sigh in terms of routine, I’d be suggesting go for your walk to get the optic flow and get the melatonin. After that, sit down and do 5 of these physiological sigh breaths. Really really simple, you just breathe in through the nose. Just relax your shoulders as you’re doing it. 

Conclusion: 6:59

So, there we have it. A really simple routine to help manage sleep and to help improve stress or lower stress levels. It’s based on research that’s done by Dr. Andrew Huberman, a neuroscientist at Stanford in the US. He’s doing some really exciting work that I think can really help us live a healthier, happier, more active life. 

7 tips to ease into easing restrictions.

Congratulations! If you’re reading this you’ve made it through what is hopefully the highest level of lockdown we will have to face. 

Despite this positive news, we are finding a lot of clients who are finding life stressful even as the restriction levels lower. 

They are finding that the threat level has decreased but their body is still in fight or flight mode.  

As long term readers of this blog or client’s at Align will know, helping your body to better manage stress is kind of our thing. 

Due to this, we have kept our highest “alert level” in operating the practice. 

We are adhering to the stricter levels of social distancing, sanitising all frequently touched surfaces within the practice and will maintain our separation of chiropractors and front desk teams to protect our clients and ensure that in the even either myself or Martin had to self isolate, the other one of us should still be able to provide care to our community. 

(For more details on our Covid-19 procedures click here)

But Kieran, why as our restrictions ease am I not feeling more at ease myself? 

As usual, great question and also as usual, it’s answer is a little complex. 

On the one hand, it’s good to feel like things have gone back to normal to some extent (I mean, who hasn’t been missing eating at a restaurant, drinking a pint or having coffee INSIDE a cafe?), but at the same time it is important to note: 

THINGS ARE STILL NOT NORMAL.

Yes more businesses are opening up, yes we can move more freely and see friends again, but we are a long way from how we lived up until February this year. 

The reality is, Coronavirus is still a daily feature of our lives, affects our actions and looms in the back ground all the time. 

Thankfully we are in Australia where we have hopefully avoided the worst that the virus can wreak, but that doesn’t mean we are free of it. 

Our nervous system is very good at detecting threats. It is always scanning your environment for trouble. It’s why you will get a vibe from some people or places that you don’t like being around when you haven’t had any evidence to indicate why you might feel that way. 

So despite the relative good news we are currently receiving, your nervous system is still aware that things aren’t normal, people are more stressed and as a result your nervous system might put you on a war footing…just in case. 

This is why I decided write a little list of tips for managing our world as it slowly thaws out of lockdown freeze.

1. It’s OK to not feel comfortable going out into the world just yet. 

   We are creatures of habit and we have just spent 8+ weeks training ourselves to be wary of leaving the house, avoid groups of people and keep distance from people at all times. 

   This is not easy to unlearn. It is OK to need time to ease yourself into interacting more openly with the world outside. 

   Try finding places that have protocols that respect social distancing to the standard you feel comfortable with and build confidence from there. 

2. It’s OK to tell people you don’t want to shake hands or stand close to them.

   Again, as a society we have tried to train ourselves to be uncomfortable with others. This will take time to change. 

   More importantly though, the expectation is still to maintain social distancing measures so you should feel empowered to not shake hands, bump elbows or acknowledge people without touching at all. 

3. Look after your health! 

   -Keep exercising,

   -Try to take time to yourself to relax,

   -Focus on the nutrition you’re fuelling your body with,

   -Take care of injuries or health issues, get adjusted when you need to,

   -work on your sleep hygiene and,

4. Be thankful that your children’s teachers can work face to face again.

5. Move. 

   This is different to when I said for you to exercise. We are all sitting more at the moment, even if you’re exercising, incidental movement from commuting, walking you a co-workers desk or to the bathroom in a large office or worksite etc. are no longer forcing you to break the habit of sitting for long periods and in my experience as a chiropractor in South Melbourne, this has been causing clients a lot of issues. 

   If you’re working from home or can’t be in your usual work space, watch these videos on how to set up your work space when working on a desktop or laptop. 

6. Keep washing your hands. 

   It’s easy to be complacent as people around you relax, remember that the expectation is that we keep washing our hands to stop spread. 

   Finally:

7. Read my ‘top 7 tips for surviving the lock down’ post. 

   It contains a lot of info about looking after yourself that even as the world opens up is still relevant. 

The team at Align wish you and your loved ones all the very best for this next phase of the pandemic. We look forward to helping keep you all as healthy as you can be. 

HOW TO SET UP YOUR HOME WORK SPACE IN 4 STEPS - LAPTOP EDITION

2018, when I first posted this video was a simpler time.

Game of thrones hadn’t been ruined yet, Britain was still in the EU and working from home was an occasional thing, dare I say it, a luxury for most. 

Flash forward to today and a lot of us are still having to work form home due to the coronavirus, and many may actually CHOOSE to stay working from home as part of continued social distancing efforts. 

Whatever your reason, it’s important that we make the most of our workstation when we are at home as our health and keeping our body working at its best are perhaps more important right now than ever before.

As a chiropractor for Albert Park, Melbourne and South Melbourne,  Martin and I see a number of clients who suffer from tension headaches, neck or low back pain, high or sore shoulders, or other postural issues such as forward head posture. 

Every day ergonomics are paramount to the ongoing care of these clients to allow for optimum function and increased stability. As a result, despite this video being 2 years old, Martin and I still refer people to it regularly. 

In the video, Martin (using Kieran as the perfect ergonomics model) talks us through the correct ergonomics of how to set up our laptops as a workstation.

To see our top 4 tips for setting up a desk top computer, click here

Please enjoy the quick video, for your convenience, the ergonomics demo has been transcribed below. 

Hi, this is Martin and Kieran from Align Chiropractic, we're here today to give you a quick video that will answer one of the most commonly asked questions that we get in the practice every day.

HOW SHOULD YOU HAVE YOUR DESK SET UP SO THAT YOU CAN LOOK AFTER YOUR SPINE AND YOUR POSTURE WHEN YOU'RE SPENDING TIME AT YOUR COMPUTER

The first example we're going to do today is how to set it up for a laptop. Laptops are always a little bit more of a compromise than a desktop because you can't separate the screen but we’re going to go through how you can set it up so that your posture is in as close to the optimal position as possible. 

STEP 1: SEAT HEIGHT

The first point that we want to address is make sure, we can't see this but just take my word for it, Kieran's feet are flat on the floor. 

So we don't want crossed legs because it’s going to create twisting and torsion through our pelvis and lower back and create tension there. 

We want to make sure that the height of the chair, if you've got a gas lift chair, is up high enough so that your hip is either level with your knee so that we've got a straight line there, or you want the hips slightly higher than the knees.

What you don't want, because it's going to create a real curve in your back is knees higher than hips. 

So first point; set up the gas lift so that you're at that height. 

STEP 2: KEYBOARD AND ARM POSITION

we also want to have when we've got a hand on the keyboard there we want to make sure that we have pretty close to a 90 degree angle here. 

The main thing you don't want to have is to have the keyboard a lot lower, so this is particularly important for shorter people. 

If you have the chair too low then you're in a position where you start having to bunch up and create a lot of tension in your shoulders to be able to keep your hands on the keyboard. 

We want the set up so that we have hands easily on the keyboard with elbows roughly at about that 90 degrees or slightly more open. 

So we want to move our chair in or out so that with our hands comfortably on the keys we've got our hip and shoulder lined up because what we're really wanting to do here is have the big weight of the chest balanced over our hip.

What we don't want to be is so far back that we start to do this kind of thing, where there's a lot more tension on both the lower back and shoulders. Similarly, we don't want to be leaning all the way forward because it's going to tire out our back. 

STEP 3: HOW DO YOU MANAGE THE SCREEN POSITION?

So, a nice comfortable position of the chair, then this is the bit where we always have the little bit of a compromise with the laptop where we want to get your head balanced over your shoulder, but if you're looking down at a screen on a laptop, then that's always going to be a little bit tricky. 

The idea with the laptop is, make sure that you realise that you're always going to have a little bit of your head posture forward rather than balance the weight of your head over your shoulder so it’s really important to take micro breaks. 

STEP 4: MICRO BREAKS

There are programs you can get that will remind you every 20-25 minutes to just stop for a minute, relax your arms way aside have a little micro break, turn your head all the way to the left, all the way around to the right, just drop your shoulders up and down a little bit and then you can get back to work.

So there it is, a couple of key points that you can use to set up your desk or your laptop in the optimal position, thanks.

Align’s top 7 tips to surviving the lock down.

Firstly, let me be clear, this is NOT a Covid-19 survival guide. I am not Pete Evans and I am not peddling a miracle cure. 

Thankfully for all of us, there are actual experts working in hospitals and emergency keeping sufferers alive during this crisis, as well as people working on a ‘cure’. 

No, this is about surviving the largest side effects of this pandemic; social isolation and distancing. 

Even in the hopefully likely event that some of our restrictions are to be eased in the coming week, it is still important to remember, life will still not be going back to normal as of next week. Social distancing is here to stay at least for a while. 

Sadly, there is still the possibility that once lifted, stage 3 and beyond can still be re-instituted if need be.

Most frustrating of all, even if we do have eased restrictions, nearly everything and everyone you see and hear will still be talking about coronavirus for a very long time, so we won’t get to fully escape for a while yet. 

But staying home can be fun and relaxing, why does this effect us soo badly?

I think if you’re reading this then you have probably noticed by now that this is not like a weekend staying at home and watching movies because you couldn’t be bothered heading out to a BBQ. 

The new behaviours to which we all have to adapt are all encompassing and for most of us, do not come naturally. 

“No man is an Island, entire of it self; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main.” - John Donne's Devotions (1624)

Put simply, our brains are wired to connect and communicate with people and enforced separation is stressful for our neurology. 

On top of this, when we DO go out into the world, there is a heightened sense of fear all around us as everyone else is stressed also.

As well, we are increasingly worried about sterilising our hands or even feeling like we should be wearing masks.  

Even pleasant and socially appropriate interactions like with a person in a shop, at a cafe or running into a friend in the street are cut short or filled with furtive glances around to see if you are being noticed or about to receive a huge fine. 

A lot of us are dealing with the loss of the year we thought we would have. Be it no longer going on holiday, missing a birthday, cancelled wedding plans, or even just missing a return of AFL, it all takes a toll on us. 

Not to mention, most of us, at least on some level, care about what is happening to the people around us. It is not easy to hear of people being sick, dying, not being there for their friends, and it is hard to see so many people losing their jobs. 

Yeah Kieran, we get it, it’s a pandemic, why does it concern a chiropractor?

While I don’t know how to manage a pandemic, I am not the person to see if you HAVE coronavirus and I am not sure how long social distancing measures will last, what I can say with certainty is this:

-Most of the issues we deal with as chiropractors are either caused, or made worse by stress. 

-Understanding/managing how someone’s body approaches stress is a big part of what we do.

-Very few people’s homes appear to be set up well to be used as a full time workstation. 

-Schooling your children at home does NOT fit into your regular weekdays easily. 

-Living through a pandemic is TIRING. 

As a result, most of the client’s I have been seeing in the last few months have had issues that would likely heal faster, potentially be less severe or even have not happened at all if they had methods to help their body respond to this crisis before their symptoms even showed up. 

This is why I wanted to write down our top 7 tips for surviving a lock down.

Now I promise, unlike reading my my writing style where I tend to get wordy, the recommendations I make will not involve massive commitment on your behalf…lets face it, you probably already feel like there’s enough on your plate. 

I am confident that the suggestions below have the potential to change not only the way you are feeling now, but how you pull up on the other side of this lock down period as well. 

7 lock down survival tips

1. Recognise that it is OK to be sad/angry/frustrated at the current situation. 

   Even if you don’t think your concerns or issues rate highly on the scale of how disastrous your issues can be, they still can have a large effect on your life and are therefore valid reasons for you to feel bad. 

   To recognise that how you feel about it all is important and you need to deal with that, not just say “it could be worse”. It could be, almost always, but that doesn’t mean that you aren’t being affected now. 

   If you feel hard done by that the things you would normally be doing to feel like you, aren’t happening at the moment, then you are allowed to be annoyed by that. Don’t carry stress around thinking that you help people by not complaining. You don’t, you just get more irritated. Recognise it’s OK to be mad and express it healthily, exercise vigorously or speak up if need be.

2. Exercise. 

   I know right? obvious and boring, but it’s more powerful than you realise and usually overlooked. 

   One of our clients recently told me that they have discovered that without commuting and the incidental exercise they used to do purely from working in the city in an office, they have gone from averaging 8000 steps a day to fewer than 800. 

   In times of stress, volume of exercise is frequently one of the first casualties. Ironically, It’s also one of our best natural stress managers and anti depressants. 

   Ever regretted exercise? Ever felt MORE stressed after exercise even when it was only a small amount of it? No. No one has. Our nervous system registers stress by putting us in fight or flight, or survival mode. Still living on the other side of exercise tells our brain that we have successfully overcome a stressful situation and therefore we don’t need to be in survival mode.

3. Take some time out.

   I know what you’re thinking, easier said than done right? Where are you going to find time or space when locked in your house with your family to have some time off? 

   I get it, sounds like a classic “this guy doesn’t have any kids” thing to say, but I don’t mean try find 45 minutes to fully relax. We all have lives to live, work to do and/or people to look after.

   What we are talking about here is finding even quick “mini breaks” throughout the day that allow you to reset for a second.

   Meditation is a great way to help relieve stress (as well as lots of other benefits). If you're looking to use your self isolation time to up your meditation game we highly recommend the Oak and Smiling Mind apps. Both are free and excellent!

   The Resilience Project has an app that is a daily well-being journal. This app is suitable for and has programs designed specifically for primary & secondary school students, as well as adults of all ages wanting to improve their mental well-being.

   Alternatively if meditation isn’t your thing, you can replicate some of the same effects by listening to songs you find especially soothing. The research into this phenomenon used the songs ‘Strawberry swing’ by Cold play, and “Someone like you” by Adel. Feel free to mix it up, don’t be afraid to admit to yourself that ‘Only time’ by Enya is your relaxation jam.

4. Watch your posture.

   Never underestimate the importance of posture. Just like how research has shown that trying to have confident posture has been shown to release testosterone in our body that increases our feelings of strength and confidence, the opposite is true. 

   There is a reason that if I ask you to do an impersonation of a stressed or anxious person you slump forward and hold your shoulders tight and up near your ears. It’s because universally, that’s what our body does under extreme or chronic stress. 

   This posture increases stress chemicals in our body and just happens to be replicated by sitting for long periods, especially if using a computer, a laptop, a tablet or our phones. Sound familiar during iso anyone? 

   Lie on a foam roller along your spine from your head to your backside with your arms at 4 and 7 o’clock. Then just LIE THERE. If you can only manage 2 minutes, that is better than none. If you’re comfortable or have time to, then 15 minutes is better again. 

   If you can’t get access to a longer foam roller or posture pole, then in a pinch you can roll up a few beach towels, but a roller is best. 

   This position has the added bonus of improving your body and spinal health by decreasing stress and strain on your body, especially you neck, head and upper back. 

   Improved posture can decrease headaches and risk of injury. 

   If you have more questions about this position, want a photo of your posture that we measure to know exactly where you are at or want more information about what improved posture can do for you, please do not hesitate to get in touch as Martin and I would both love to be there to help. 

5. Get Adjusted.

   This can also work towards your taking some time out, but do not neglect your health during this period. 

   Do not put up with ailments that make it even harder to get through the day. Or if there is some annoying issue that you have had for ages that you haven’t felt like you have had time to manage or keep injuring because of your daily routine, now that you’re out of your normal routine is the PERFECT time to get on top of it. 

   Don’t lose any momentum you had heading into this situation!

6. Tune out the news every now and then.

   I know the temptation is to try stay up to date on every little bit of coronavirus news, but eventually it can become fatiguing. Every now and then avoid hearing about it or reading the new story on your newsfeed. 

   This goes hand in hand with having a time out, but I wanted to keep it separate as it is it’s own addiction to break. It doesn’t always help us to know the latest doom and gloom. It will still be there tomorrow. 

   Take the time you would spend on the news to have the time out I mentioned earlier. 

7. Ask for help.

   Speak up. Let people know how you are feeling. It is OK not to find this situation easy, I know I haven’t. Find someone you can have a vent to or speak to someone professional who can help you if you’re feeling like you need specific help. 

   It goes without saying this but obviously, check in on your friends and family. We don’t want people coming out of this in worse shape if it can be helped. 

   Remember that you are not alone in this. Although the lockdown and it’s effects are felt individually as all our circumstances are our own, we are all in this situation together. We will all understand where you are coming from and everyone wants to help everyone else get through it. 

As always, if there is anything we can help with, the practice is here for you. We are working hard to keep up our capacity to care for our community while observing strict social distancing rules. 

Please do not hesitate to contact the practice if you need our help, or if you want to find out how you can visit us and feel safe by respecting social distancing guidelines. 

What is happening at Align due to the Coronavirus Pandemic?

There are really two ways to answer this question…in one sense, a lot, in another more important sense, not much. 

Let me explain. 

We have been getting a lot of questions from client’s including but not limited to; is Align still open? Is it OK to see chiropractors at the moment? And can people over 70 receive care? 

The answer to those 3 are yes, yes, and yes they can, we have special measures in place to decrease risk for clients in higher risk categories. 

I hardly need to tell you, in the last few weeks in Victoria/Australia/the world, things have been a bit different. 

None of us have been immune to the effects of social distancing and shutdowns, as it appears to effect nearly all facets of our day to day life. 

At Align, we have had to adapt quickly to this new set of circumstances. 

As I said earlier, there HAVE been some noticeable changes at Align and I wanted to outline the steps most relevant to keeping our community safe to you below. 

So…What are the changes? 

1. We have adopted more stringent sanitising procedures, increased our frequency of cleaning frequently touched surfaces, hand sanitiser is now present at the front desk as well as in the adjusting areas should you want it and provided single use hand towels for the bathroom. 

2. We have adopted social distancing measures within the practice by revising our booking procedures to limit the number of client’s that will need to access the building around the same time. 

In addition to this, we have removed some of our waiting room furniture to allow for more distance between clients. 

3. Sadly, we have had to remove some of the fun things in our beautiful waiting area that are frequently touched, like our magazines, coloured pencils, books and toys. 

Fear not, the little garage WILL return, but we hope that all of our community, big and small will understand that for the moment we have to minimise risk of transmission.

4. We have had to split our fantastic team into an A team and a B team…I won’t get into the debate here as to which team is which, but as the person writing this, I can’t help but think Kieran’s team has an edge in naming rights here. 

We have done this to protect our clients, minimising risk of spread, and importantly, ensure that care can continue to provide care in case Martin or myself had to self isolate. 

Separating the chiropractors out like this has changed our daily booking capacity so it is possible your usual time may not always be available. We recommend booking in advance to ensure continued convenience. 

So…in what way is Align staying the same? 

I am glad you asked. 

No matter what, Martin and myself, along with the rest of the Align team are still committed to providing chiropractic care for the people of South Melbourne, Albert Park, Port Melbourne, Melbourne city, South Yarra…anywhere the current restrictions of movement will allow to travel to our practice. 

That means, that as long as allied health professionals are allowed to stay open, we will be providing care. 

In Australia we have been fortunate for several obvious reasons, one of which is the fact that some types of primary contact Allied health practitioners (In this instance, Chiropractors) have been encouraged to stay open for client’s to receive care and where possible ease the burden on emergency rooms. 

Martin and I know chiropractors around the world and we are unaware of any jurisdictions where practices have not been shut as part of larger more draconian lock down measures. 

It has truely been an honour to get to be in practice and serve our community during this time. 

As well, even though Martin and I are not practicing the same hours as before, we are still open our regular 6 days of the week.

As always, our team at Align has stepped up to this new challenge. If you or a loved one are in a higher risk category please contact our front desk, we are providing opportunities for our most vulnerable to visit the practice completely by themselves, or wait in the comfort of their own cars before entering the practice to limit time exposure. 

Above all, we would like our community to know, you are not alone. 

We have had a number of our clients mention that we have been their only trip outside other than the supermarket for weeks and we are humbled by your trust in us. 

We do not take this responsibility lightly. 

Please don’t feel like you have to tough it out or go it alone through this period, we are here to help. Please do not think that because your issues might seem insignificant compared to others that you shouldn’t address them. 

This applies both physically and mentally. This is a very stressful time, for everyone. Even if you personally don’t feel you should be stressed, the very fact that everyone around you currently IS stressed, puts your nervous system on high alert too. 

Do not underestimate the need to take care of yourself through this time. 

Over the next few weeks I will be writing a lot about what you can be doing to ease stress levels, physical strain and make themes of this current situation. 

Like you, we are looking forward to having a sense of normality return. 

Personally I am looking forward to working along side the whole team in the practice again, and see the burden of this current situation lifted off our client’s shoulders. 

Wishing you all the very best, 

Kieran.

Jaw pain part 1: What is TMD?

Do you or someone you know suffer from jaw pain? 

Jaw pain is more than just a pain in the face, it can affect nearly every moment of your life, from talking, eating, exercise and even sleeping! 

Not to mention how annoying the noises it makes and headaches it causes can be. 

We see a lot of people with temporomandibilar dysfunction (or TMD) but we find a lot of people don’t really know what it is, whether it can be helped and most importantly, haven’t thought about the far reaching impact TMD can actually have on their lives. 

We hope you enjoy our 3 part series on TMD. In this first video, Martin explores exactly what TMD is, as well as discusses the day to day implications that a dtysfunctioning jaw can have on your life. 

As always, the video has been transcribed below. 

Hi, Martin here from Align Chiropractic and today I wanted to talk to you about an issue that we see very commonly in our practice which is TMD or temporomandibular disfunction, a really long difficult name essentially saying that your jaw isn't working right.

Now when we talk about it you’re jaw not working right or TMD, there's a bunch of different symptoms or signs that somebody could have that they have TMD, the one that brings people most commonly to us is that they've jaws painful. 

It's difficult chewing, it's difficult biting, it can also be that it's difficult to open your mouth fully or in some people it can't even be that it's difficult to fully close you mouth and bring your teeth together and even that the teeth feel like they're a little bit off center or even that the whole system's a bit out of whack. 

Some people will have clicking, either in combination with the other symptoms or just by themselves their jaw clicks the whole time and that can be really annoying, while some people will have it not really causing pain but part of the reason that they're actually getting headaches as TMDs are a really common contributor to people who get in particular tension type headaches. 

So it's something that we see very very commonly in our practice and we've done a lot of post graduate training in specific approaches in terms of how to address it, but when you have TMD a lot of people think of it before they have it as just being about the pain but for most people it makes them super aware of how much impact your jaw has on life overall. 

When you have jaw pain it effects eating, it can affect talking, it can affect sleeping it can affect your ability to exercise and so when it's affecting all of those things it then affects lots of different aspects of our life. 

Some people will find that it's much harder to work or they can't really work at all, they'll find that it impacts their roles in their family, as I said before it makes exercise a lot harder, a lot of people find that it impacts their social life because if you can't eat or you can only eat certain foods and it’s difficult to talk, you don’t really feel like getting out connecting with your friends and family. 

So TMD is a serious issue that can have wide-ranging effects on people who experience it and it’s something that we would highly recommend that if it’s troubling you, you make an appointment to do a comprehensive assessment so we can develop a plan to really get things back on track for you.

So, if you'd like help with that, please give us a call today so that we can get you started on having your life back, not being impacted by ongoing issues with your jaw.

HOW TO TRAIN WHEN YOU HAVE A NECK INJURY FOR THE CROSSFIT, F45 AND HIIT ATHLETE.

If you love your HIIT, and you know who you are…I’m talking to you, CrossFitters, F45 junkies or you’re a boxer etc, we know that getting back to exercise is likely your number 1 priority! Watch the video or read below to get our tips on getting you back on track as soon as possible.

As we said in our last post on back pain, taking time out of training is boring and can seriously impact on the gains that you have made. When you have become addicted (in the healthiest possible way) to getting the most out of your body, training with intensity and seeing the huge improvements in your health and injuries take on an altogether more frustrating element the can affect your body and even your mental state as well.

The reality is, the better you allow your body to heal, the quicker you can be back to 100% and the less likely you are to have recurring injury, and the rehab is going to take some effort on your part, so what CAN you do to get back into it at full speed?

The first thing to work on is recognising that just like gains you have made, THERE ARE NO SHORT CUTS in healing your injury.

Sadly we cannot immediately heal injuries without letting your tissues repair themselves, but you CAN work smarter to reinforce healing, strengthen what you can strengthen, and make sure that you’re healing things properly to minimise risk of recurrence.

In the video below, Martin outlines some of our possible recommendations for managing neck pain while still keeping up your training.

For those of you who enjoy reading the video is transcribed below.

As always, if you have any concerns, neck issues, be they old or new, or just want to get the most out of your training, we are here for you so don’t hesitate to get in touch!

Hi guys Martin here from Align Chiropractic and what I wanted to talk to you about today is something that we see super commonly, which is people that we're taking care of who have are getting neck pain or other issues with their neck where they are also really keen on their cross fit, their f45 their boxing or other forms of high intensity training. 

The main question they ask us is:

“Do I have to stop doing my training for the injury to get better?”

What I want to talk through with you today are the things that you can do while you're managing an injury so that you're not making it any worse and you can keep the gains that you've made from the training so that you can keep the metabolic conditioning, you can keep losing weight and you can maintain muscle by keeping training even while you’re working through the process with us of sorting out the neck issue. 

First of all, we're going to get you to shift focus. So, neck issues are often exacerbated by upper body exercises and things that are super dynamic so people with neck issues can often find doing sit-ups are really uncomfortable because it strain you can strain your neck a little bit. 

Similarly they might find that pushing weight overhead is uncomfortable because of the position that your neck goes into.

So what we suggest you do is move to some exercises or rather, substitute exercises that are super comfortable. 

Often they are lower body exercises, so you can do air squats or you can do squats where you're holding a dumbbell or a kettlebell. 

You also can do lunges, in fact you can can do almost all of the lower body exercises. 

You may find that while performing more dynamic stuff that there can be a little bit of a jarring. So in that instance we're talking skipping or box jumps, Also running for instance might not be comfortable, so we're going to suggest that you substitute by maybe doing things on an exercise bike or do things where on a rower where you can make sure that you're keeping a more controlled cadence, but most importantly, you're looking after the alignment of your spine by making sure your head is nicely above your shoulder rather than coming forward. 

What we can do upper body wise when we're managing a neck injury: often horizontal things, such as horizontal pushups.

Pushups can be okay so long as you’re keeping your posture really neutral. 

Horizontal pulling like ring rows can be comfortable even though perhaps exercises like pull-ups might not be because of that neck extension that is commonly involved with it.

So key here then is focus on the lower body, get rid of really dynamic movements, like things that have jarring in them and substitute for things that eliminate the overhead stuff in particular. 

The second phase once we have been working with people and we are getting some improvement in the way that their neck is working but they're not a hundred percent, then we're going to start adding in some things that are a little bit more dynamic but are a little bit more forgiving on your neck. 

As we’re reintroducing things we might go “you’re not ready for box jumps yet but you can do step ups” for instance, or “you're not ready for skipping but you can do single leg hops as an exercise”

The key thing to remember here if you're training with a neck injury is first of all you just want to wind things back, shift focus and you can get a lot of benefit in working on lower body stuff then as things start to recover we will reintroduce things but in a modified form that reduces how much jarring and how much movement of your neck is required. 

The important thing to remember is, you can keep training through almost all injuries, the most critical thing though is to think through and get advice on what the things you need to avoid and what really clever substitutions you can put in place.

How to train when you have a low back injury for the Crossfit, F45 and HIIT athlete.

For all you CrossFitters, F45 junkies and HIIT people, we hear you: injuries are boring and no matter what, you need to be back training like…yesterday.

Taking time out of training is boring normally, but when you have become used to (read as “addicted to”) getting the most out of your body, training with intensity and seeing the huge improvements in your health and performance that style of training brings, injuries take on an altogether more frustrating element.

The reality is, the better you allow your body to heal, the quicker you can be back to 100% and the less likely you are to have recurring injury, and the rehab is going to take some effort on your part…but surely as a HIIT training person, you aren’t afraid of a little hard work are you?

The first thing to work on is recognising that just like gains in training, THERE ARE NO SHORT CUTS.

Sadly we cannot immediately heal injuries without letting your tissues repair themselves, but you CAN work smarter to reinforce healing, strengthen what you can strengthen, and make sure that you’re healing things properly to minimise risk of recurrence.

In the video below, Martin outlines some of our possible recommendations for managing back pain while still keeping up your training.

For those of you who miss the old school romance of reading, the video is transcribed below!

As always, if you have any concerns, low back issues (old or new) or just want to get the most out of your training, we are here for you so don’t hesitate to get in touch!

Hi, Martin here from Align Chiropractic and in today's video what I wanted to talk about is a question that we really commonly get asked in our practice from people who are involved in high intensity training. 

So commonly people who do CrossFit, people who do f45, people who are at the gym they're doing resistance training but they're ramping up the number of repetitions, a lot of research shows that it's a great way of getting fit, and it's something that people really love and enjoy doing. 

So what we're really about in terms of taking care of people who into those types of training, is giving them what they really value, which is that they want to keep training, even if they happen to get an injury. 

A really common situation that we have with these people is they’ve come to see us because they’ve got a lower back injury, they're getting some low back pain and they want to know;

“what can I keep doing because I don't want to stop everything, and in particular, what can I do that is lower body oriented?"

“Obviously there's lots of things that I can do in my upper body but I still don't want to lose everything that I gained in terms of strength and conditioning through my legs hips etc” 

The clinical process that we work on with people is we use the acronym ‘M.A.B.S’ in terms of what we prioritise. 

That is, we want to make sure we get proper Movement back into joints before we are concerned about Alignment, as you can’t really change alignment until you have proper movement. 

Again before we deal with Balance, we need to have proper

movement and alignment and before we can even really think about Stability, we need to address those other issues. 

So while a lot of people want to talk about stability as something that they want to have, the key to effectively building stability is actually to prioritise movement first. 

Same thing in terms of exercising your lower body. 

When you've got a lower back that's painful that's not working well and the joints aren't moving the way they should, we want to reduce particular movements.

The number one moment that we get people to reduce when they having issues and they do any form of training is lower back flexion. 

Flexion is when you are tipping forward, like would happen if you are doing a deadlift, you were doing a kettlebell swing, you were doing any sort of squat variation, they involve some form of low back flexion, so we want to reduce that or take that out altogether. 

So, when you’re talking to your trainer, the type of exercises that we suggest that you DO do, that you CAN include for most people who are having low back issues are lunge variations. 

Your trainer will have a bunch of different ones; front lunges, rear lunges, weighted lunges, front rack lunges, there's endless variations there.

Also, step ups, where you're stepping up onto a plyometric box, so they're the

two that allow you to have a really good workout, both get your heart rate up as well as improve your strength, but in a way that keeps your lower back nice and neutral and not introduce that low back flexion. 

So, then when people get further down the process of recovery from an injury, that's where we start to reintroduce some flexion movements, but again we're going to prioritise movement before we start adding load. 

We’re going to start people back doing something like an air squat, before they’re going to start doing a heavy back squat.

And certainly, probably the last exercise that we tend to add back in for people who have lower back issues are deadlifts, when you're picking things up off the ground, because that's the movement we have the most low back flexion.  

I hope this tip has been useful, if you're having troubles with your back but you want to keep training, make sure to give us a call and we'll be able to help you hit your goals both in training as well as get back on track doing the things that you love to do.

How to set up your car seat

If you spend a lot of time in your car then this post is for you…and let’s face it, if you're reading this you most likely live in Melbourne, so there is a good chance you DO spend too large a portion of your life driving, sorry, I mean, in traffic.

If reading this whole post isn't really for you, then feel free to skip down to the end where I will summarise how to set yourself up in your care in a checklist.

Note how her head is sitting comfortably above her shoulders? Ideally shed have 2 hands on the wheel also…

What is the issue?

As a society, we appear to give a lot of attention to ergonomics for when we are setting up an office work station, or using a computer, but thats often where our attention to the issue ends.

We are guilty of it too!

If you follow this blog you will know that we have recently posted about how best to set up your computer or your laptop, we have talked about ways to avoid text neck when using your smart phone or tablet. We have even discussed how to sit and the importance of limiting how long we sit for, yet all of those are predominantly centred around screen time, or when you are in an office.

The reality is, the office, be it at work or at home is only a PART of how we spend every day. Important as good ergonomics are during these times, we need to remember that improved spinal health, being mindful of our posture and maintaining high levels of function are 24/7 activities.

We are the result of what we do the most.

To be more precise, our body will get better at whatever we ask it to do the most, so it is important to ask yourself regularly throughout the day:

“What am I asking my body to do right now?”

This is why we often tell our clients that the most important thing they can do for themselves throughout the work day is to get up out of their chair and move around.

One place where getting up and moving around is not really an option however is when we are in the car.

Kieran, I will not be getting a beaded car seat cover so don’t even mention it.

Fair point. I wouldn't want one either. I am far too car proud for that.

Most of my clients will probably already know that I am into cars and that I love driving.

I am fortunate enough that my commute is very short, so much so that I mostly get the opportunity to walk or ride my bike to the practice. I do however get to spend a lot of time in the car though, as I enjoy driving almost everywhere else and spend most of my weekends heading out of the city to go camping, hiking or traveling to visit family in Bendigo.

One thing I don’t like about driving though, is how easy it can be to make myself very sore if I haven't set the car up properly.

A poor driving position can lead to (among other things):

• Low back pain,

• headaches,

• sore shoulders,

• pins and needles in your legs or arms,

• fatigue,

• Sciatic pain and most dangerous of all,

• an inability to control your car properly.

Setting your car up is easy

Fortunately we live in a world where other people have done most of the hard work for us and your car is no exception.

Car companies have employed a literal team of people to make your car so that it is able to get you to YOUR ideal driving position, however most of us rarely use all of the functions they have bent hundreds of hours developing.

It doesn’t matter whether you drive something fun and sporty, or purely as a taxi you use to ferry your children, the following suggestions should be able to apply to nearly every car you drive.

Step 1: Seat height and distance

When it comes to how high you sit in the car, too much of anything is a bad thing. Too high and you have to bend down to see out of the window clearly, too low and you will struggle to see everything you have to avoid.

You want to be a comfortable height to be able to see everything easily over the steering wheel without extra effort. Seems like a no brainer I know but you do wee some weird things out there.

Distance from the pedals is important too. You never want to be reaching for the pedals…obviously but you don't want to have your knees too bent either.

If you are too close, you have to actively position your feet for too long leading to hip issues. On top of this, if your knee is close to or is resting on the dash board, then your leg bones will have to act like an air bag to slow you down in an accident…which is less than ideal if you're the kind of person that enjoys having legs.

Ideally, the best distance from the seat to the pedals would mean that in a manual car, your knee should be *almost* straight but not quite when you press the clutch in all the way. About a 5 degree knee bend in that position should be it.

In an auto, the same rule applies for you to be able to leave your foot on the foot rest (look for it, you most likely have one to the left of the brake pedal) but if you don't have one, you should have that same 5 degree knee bend when your foot rests on the firewall (thats the carpet behind the pedals).

This should also mean that when you take your left hand off the steering wheel it should be able to rest comfortably on the gear stick without having to reach for it, allowing your shoulders to remain relaxed.

Step 2: Steering wheel position

Have the steering wheel at a distance where you can relax your hands onto the 10 and 2 positions on the wheel without leaning forward and having to round your shoulders, keeping a relaxed bend in your elbows.

This means you have the most control of the wheel without having to grip onto it, strain your shoulders or your low back to reach for it.

Another easy way to know if its in a good spot, is when you rest your wrists onto the top of the steering wheel, it should sit *just* at your wrists.

Move it to a height where your hands can sit at 10 and 2 roughly in front of your shoulders, you don't want to have to go reaching up or down to find the steering wheel.

Most cars now have an electric steering wheel movement, but if not, its easy to unclip the handles on the steering column and play around with its position, moving it up and down or forward and back. Take your time with its one, when you get it right, you’ll know.

Step 3: Head position

If you have done the other two right then this should already be set, but just make sure your head isn't having to lean forward too far and is relaxed over the top of your shoulders.

If it is leaning forward, readjust your steering wheel closer to you.

Watch out for car seats that push your head forward. Bad posture is so common that engineers in some car companies have started building their seats to have the head rests moving forward to meet where they assume people with poor postures heads will be.

This forces you into a bad position and over time will GIVE you forward head posture. Personally I have not been able to buy certain cars because of this, and I know it has meant Martin has had to choose a different brand when replacing one of his.

You also shouldn’t need to rest your head back on the head rest.

The name is deceptive, you should have active control of your head, it shouldn't have to be pushed back into the head rest. Its the name of a safety feature in a crash, not a suggested use.

Step 4: Lumbar support

If your car has inbuilt lumbar support, don't be afraid to use it. When you find the right spot for you, you will be amazed that you ever drove without it.

If need be, you can always buy a lumbar support pillow to use when you are driving for long periods or on longer road trips.

Step 5: Never drive with something in your back pocket.

Thats right men who keep a wallet in your back pocket when you're driving, I am talking to you. I don’t care how long you have done it for, it causes an unevenness under you that WILL eventually lead to back pain and even sciatica in some cases.

The same goes for mobile phones. They seem small but even on a short trip they make a difference to how you have to sit. I don’t care HOW short the drive is.

Again, it seems obvious but people do it.

Step 6: Take breaks regularly.

Especially if you are driving a distance. They don't only stop you from feeling fatigued, they allow your body to wake up as well, and they don’t even have to take long! Even a 2-5 minute walk can do the trick.

As promised, here is the checklist:

Step 1: Height and distance

Seat at a height where you can see everything without straining to have your eyes above the wheel or below the sun visors.

Sit at a distance where your foot can relax at the back of the foot well with your knee bent slightly to around 5 degrees.

Step 2: Steering wheel

Bring it close enough to have a slight bend in your elbows when your hands are at 10 and 2, you should be able to rest your wrists on the top of the wheel without reaching for it with your shoulders.

Step 3: Head position

Like sitting at a computer, above your shoulders, not poking forward at the steering wheel.

Step 4: Lumbar support

Play around with it until it feels good for extended periods. This might take some experimenting. If you need to, buy a support cushion.

Step 5: Nothing in your back pockets.

Step 6: Take breaks.

If you have any questions or concerns, would like to chat about how to set up your car please contact us at Align, we would love to help you.

However, if you're happy with your car set up but would like to chat about cars specifically, please feel free to talk to me about it…don’t bother talking about them with Martin…they aren't really his thing.

Kieran

What to expect when you visit us with Neck Pain

This post is for anyone with neck pain wondering what to expect as part of your initial assessment with us at Align. 

Neck pain is one of the most common issues people will come to visit us for. We are chiropractors after all. 

The goal of your first visit with us is to determine not only the likely cause of your neck pain, but the best course of action moving forward for you as well. 

If you have been watching the other videos about initial visits that we have posted recently, you will notice there is a certain level of commonality between the different assessments.

This is by design.

The video outlines the common elements to our cervical assessment. 

We want our examination process to be accessible to people with various levels of pain, injury or disability, and at the same time give us enough scope to individualise our assessment on an individual basis.  

There is a transcript of the video below. Although why WOULDN'T you want to see it filmed live?

Hi, Martin from Align Chiropractic and Kieran...also from Align Chiropractic. This video is just going to give you a little bit of an idea of what to expect if you're coming to see us and you're concerned with having neck pain.

The first thing we're going to do, Kieran if you’ll pretend that you’re the person with neck pain is make sure that you get to tell me all that you need to tell me about your neck pain. 

Certainly I have some questions about when it started, what makes it better, what makes it worse etc, and for a lot of people it's really important for us to understand what is it that their neck pain is making it harder for them to do, or stopping them from doing that they need to get back to.  

It’s really important that you get to tell all about neck pain so that we know what's going on. 

Step two: Palpation

When we're assessing somebody who's come to see us with neck pain is a palpatory exam. A plapatory exam is where we use gentle pressure to assess what is happening in your neck, are there areas where the joints are restricted in their ability to move? Are there areas where there's tenderness or discomfort? Are there areas where there's increased muscle tension?

Once we've assessed the neck, often, because the spine is one

integrated system it's all part of one whole system, we extend our palpatory examination through the rest of the spine. 

Sometimes we will also assess other related areas such as your shoulders or your jaw. 

Step 3: Show us your moves

When we are assessing somebody who's come to see us with neck pain is to assess how they bend, move and twist. 

Often when you have neck issues that will affect how far you can go one way compared to the other. The way we measure that is we use inclinometry, which is where we use an accurate measuring tool to see how far you can bend to the left comfortably and then compare the left side to how far you can move to the right. Simple as that.

Step 4: Assess Alignment

When we're assessing somebody who's come to see us complaining of neck pain is that we have a look to see if there’s any alteration in alignment of their spine. 

The way that we do this is we can use specialised software to take a photo of the person and then digitising that photo to see if there’s any misalignment or alteration in their posture. 

The software works by taking a photo and it uses the iPad to make sure that we have a photo that is absolutely vertical. 

The software then places our grid around exactly where straight up and down is and then we can compare landmarks on your body to measure against. 

Your body's landmarks should also be aligned so we can then see exactly how straight up and down or symmetrical your posture is.

4 Steps to Assess people with Headaches

If you or someone you know suffers from headaches than this post is for you. 

Below is a video Martin and I made about the steps we take when assessing a client who visits us at Align suffering from headaches. 

There are many different types of headache and not all of them respond to chiropractic care. This is why we go through our 4 step process to determine 

1. What type of headache you are suffering from,
2. Are you in the right place and we the right people to help you,
3. What steps do you need to take to get on top of your headaches.

If you are concerned about your headaches or just sick of dealing with them, contact us at Align and lets find out how to get you on track. 

The video is 3 minutes but for those of you who prefer to read, there is a transcript below the clip. 

Hi, Martin here and Kieran from Align Chiropractic and this is a short video to let you know what to expect if you were to come and see us because you've got concerns about your headaches. 

Step One:

The first thing when you have headaches, is you want to make sure that you get the opportunity to tell us all about what's been happening with you. 

There are a lot of different types of headaches and so we're going to be asking you some really specific questions about the type of headache you have, where in your head you get it, the sort of things that make it better or worse and also the things that your headaches are making it harder for you to do in your life. 

This is because while headaches are one part of the problem for, a lot of people the most important thing is to be able to get back to doing the things that they either love to do or need to do in their life. 

So step one we're going to be asking some questions and giving you an opportunity to tell us all about your headaches. 

Step two

When we're assessing somebody who's come to see us with headaches, is to do a palpatory examination. 

A palpatory exam is where we use gentle touch, gentle pressure to assess areas where joints might be restricted in their motion or muscles might have tightened up or there might be areas where there's tenderness that can be part of the trigger for head pain. 

We will also often extend beyond that area, once we’ve got an assessment of the neck and upper back to other related areas so we might be feeling out through the shoulders, palpating the jaw or palpating down through the lower back and rest of the spine. 

Step Three

When we are assessing somebody who has come to see us for headaches is we look at how their spine bends and moves and twists. 

Often when there are imbalances or problems in the way the neck is working it will affect how far you can bend to the left compared to the right. the way that we assess that is to use a process called Inclinometry, which is where we use a precise instrument, called an inclinometer to measure exactly how far you go to the left compared to the right. 

So we can assess all the way, comfortable range of motion one way and then see if going the other way is more restricted. 

Step Four: 

When we are assessing somebody who has come to see us complaining of headaches, is we assess the alignment of their spine. 

Posture is the window that we can use to assess how their how well aligned their spine is and we use specialised software to take a digital photo of them from the front and the side we then digitise that to see if there's any significant alteration in their alignment. 

The way the software works is we first of all take a photo and it uses the iPad to make sure that we have a photo that is absolutely the software then places our grid around exactly where straight up and down is and then we can compare landmarks on you that should also be aligned to see exactly how straight up and down or symmetrical your posture is.

9 tips for more comfortable travel

If you’re traveling and have back pain or you're concerned about making sure you're still comfortable once you actually REACH your destination, this post is aimed at you. 

For Kieran and Martin’s 9 tips to prevent back pain, neck pain and headaches when flying, skip to the bottom this post. 

For more back ground and some extra info about looking after yourself when you travel, please read on. 

With the school holidays upon us, a number of our clients are planning to get away with the family for what we hope will be a fun and relaxing time for them all. With that in mind, we wanted to share a few tips on traveling in comfort to maximise how great you get to feel no matter where the destination. 

Like I said...gloating. This was on my first day in Tokyo at Shibuya crossing, the busiest intersection in the world.

Anyone who follows me on Instagram was made very aware in the last few weeks that I went away for a few days… and lets be honest, isn't gloating really all insta is about? 

My point is, if you looked at someone’s travel photos, you see beautiful views, drinking in glamorous locations and sometimes food (I don't really show food as I am too busy eating it) but there is a side to travel that you’ll never see on people’s insta profiles. 

You never see the multiple times that you have to lift and shift luggage, the waiting in lines, the lack of opportunity to exercise and of course, the dreaded aeroplane seats and accompanying lack of leg room with its *ALMOST* enough to be comfortable but not quite level of recline. 

I was contemplating this when I realised that even though it was only a quick trip and a relatively short flight, my girlfriend who has no injury and no major history of back pain and is quite fit and active, had me bring my activator along so that I could adjust her if need be while we were traveling. 

Originally I was jealous because I would have LOVED to have travelled with my own private chiropractor. 

Then I remembered that most of Align’s clients feel the same. 

I cant tell you how many times people in the practice who are about to fly have joked “can I just take you with me to have you on call for the whole trip?”

Yet no matter how many times I have said “yes, pay for my flights and Ill see you at the airport.” no one ever takes me up on it. 

What I mean by all this is, it doesn't matter if you're headed away for a holiday or work, long or short haul flying, everyone knows what it feels like on the other side of travel and wishes they could somehow avoid it. 

The fact is, even though we are keen, even though we might have a person willing to be your travel chiropractor, for most of us (my girlfriend excluded) it is just not practical to bring one, nor does it seem possible to avoid the physical pitfalls of travel. 

This even appears to be true for people I see who don't have to travel in the same class that I do, those fortunate enough to have seats that recline MUCH further and have access to vastly superior champagne. 

It appears that our bodies just aren't built to be inactive for extended periods then immediately lift weights from above head height and repeatedly walk, stand in line, sit again, lift and twist until FINALLY we are at our destination. Who’d have thought? 

Who are you to tell me how to fly?

For both Martin and myself, our interest in comfortable plane travel goes beyond seeing clients every week who are flying all over the world.

Me at Harajuku...not looking like a tourist at all. As you can see, NOT suffering a post flight migraine, the reason in flight health is so important. 

As a lot of you are probably already aware, Martin regularly runs seminars and workshops on chiropractic education here in Australia, but what you might NOT know, is that he is actually a highly sought after speaker internationally as well. In just the last few years Martin has spoken in the USA, Argentina, New Zealand, the UK, Ireland, Holland and Spain and what always amazes me is how short his turn around times will usually be. 

For instance, for his most recent speaking engagement in Scotland, Martin left the practice slightly early on a Thursday evening, flew to Edinburgh for a seminar and was back in Melbourne again Tuesday evening to start practice at 7am Wednesday morning. As someone 18 years his junior (I had to fit that in somewhere) it always astounds me how much energy he still has on the other side of those trips! 

For my part, I began taking more than just a professional interest in healthier travel when as I got into my later 20’s, international flights started to trigger migraines. 

Think of how fun you find airports and customs, and now imagine doing it with burred vision, an inability to deal with noise and a headache seemingly splitting your head in two from the back of your neck to just behind your eye. 

Obviously, I was keen to avoid repeating this fate and so, in recent years have adjusted (pardon the pun) my travel habits to accommodate. 

Well get on with it Kieran, what am I meant to do?? 

Kieran and Martin present:

9 tips to prevent back pain, neck pain and headaches when flying

1. Seating position

For tips about ideal degrees of seat back position, read my post on sitting here.

Don’t forget, that tiny pillow we are given on a plane that seems useless is a great substitute for short term lumbar support or to go under your legs if the seat cushion is pressing in behind your knees.

Another rule of seating position is to mix it up! Your back hates being still for too long and your circulation NEEDS us to change position. You wouldn’t fly to London without moving your ankles toes and feet to avoid DVT and you should think of your low back the same way. 

There are at least 4 seating positions available to you no matter what class you travel in, upright, reclined, upright with lumbar support, reclined with lumbar support. Keep changing between these 4 options to allow your low back the chance for at least SOME movement. 

2. Neck Pillows

No one can actively hold their head up while properly being asleep, as is characterised by the nodding and catching movement we do continually when sitting on planes. 

I have a number of clients who return from flights (many people literally call us to come in on their way home from the airport!) with symptoms that are like mild whiplash. Tight neck muscles, headaches, pins and needles in their arms and restricted neck range of motion are just a few of the symptoms we regularly see after flying and a lot of these could have been avoided if they had been able to properly relax their necks while attempting to sit upright. 

Believe me, I know how lame neck pillows look but there better/less daggy options out there and for me, a neck pillow has changed my life for when I arrive and the quality of my sleep. 

If you are limited for space or forget one, a towel from your carry on or the blanket the airline gives you can be used in a pinch. 

3. Hydration

Staying hydrated tends to be hard everyday in real life, and can seem especially hard when you have to ask someone else for water all the time, but for avoiding headaches, migraines, quality of sleep and relaxing your muscles it is essential. 

The air in the plane tends to dry us out so you should always try to keep your water intake up. Some people travel with a small amount of high quality salt to put a sprinkle in their water to try retain fluid so that drinking doesn't mean too many trips to the bathroom but be careful not to go too far with that. 

The most boring suggestion I have is to limit/don’t drink alcohol while flying. Alcohol inhibits the realise of Anti Diuretic Hormone (or ADH) from our brain, making us need to use the toilet more frequently leading to further dehydration, its one of the main reasons we get hangovers! For further proof of this phenomenon see: “You on a Sunday morning prior to having children”.

4. Sleep

Get as much as you can at the right time. Obviously we need to acclimatise our body to wherever we are traveling to, so if this is in a vastly different time zone, try to sleep like you are already. there.

Neck pillows (as discussed above), eye masks and good quality ear plugs are essential.

The rise in affordable noise cancelling ear plugs has been a God send, but Martin and myself recommend ‘in ear’ earplugs/headphones as larger over the ear ones can make it harder to get your head in a good position for sleeping. 

5. Don't just sit there

Get up and move an annoying amount. Do not care what other people in the cabin think about you getting up and moving about the cabin. 

Obviously this is recommended for avoiding DVT but has the added benefit of stretching and moving the soft tissues of your body. 

My personal tip is to try do some discrete glut activation while you are up. Your gluten are you main pelvic stabilisers and your Glut Max is your largest muscle as its meant to be used for all your lifting, you need it to get your bag down from the overhead lockers and taking luggage off the carousel. 

Remember, you aren't trying to be good at flying, you're actually wanting to enjoy yourself at the other end! 

6. Travel light

The lighter your bags and the less bulky and awkward they are to move around, the easier it will be on your body, no matter how strong you think you are.

7. Prepare early so that you're rested

I cannot tell you how many times I have had to adjust people who have injured themselves PRIOR to leaving for a holiday because getting ready to leave has meant a lot of extra stress in and of itself!

Wry necks, disk issues and headaches are just a few of the issues we see that can be exacerbated or even caused by stress, so do everything you can to be ready early for wheels up - including at work. How often do you stress out about having to get things ready at work so that you can get away? Start looking after yourself in the weeks leading up to your departure and from day one you'll actually feel like you're on holiday. 

8. Meditation

Let’s face it, travel can be stressful. Delays, anxiety about making a connecting flight and of course, your fellow passengers can be an ordeal. 

It can pay to have a good meditation app or relaxing music (as I have said in a previous post I am an Enya man, but there are a few types of music more relaxing than others. For more tips on distressing that post can be found here) can make you more chilled while you fly, leading to a better rested version of you once you get out of the plane on the other end. 

9. Have a brilliant time

You deserve to enjoy your holiday. If you have been putting these tips into practice, you'll be maximising your chances of having the trip you have planned, not one marred by injury. 

Don’t worry! If you find yourself in a spot of bother while you are away, shoot us an email, you'd be surprised just how many places we will be able to fond someone great to get you back on track while you are away. 

If you have any questions about these tips or any suggestions of things I have missed, please feel free to contact us at Align. 

Have a safe and healthy school holiday!

 

6 tips for better sleep - Waking up to being asleep (Part 2)

This article is about why sleep is important, what happens to us if we don't get enough sleep and 6 tips to improve your sleep. 

If you are just after the 6 tips, skip to near the end of the post. 

If you haven't read part 1 of this post, please read it here.

This is a continuation of my discussion of an interview on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast with British neuroscientist Matthew Walker. 

(To listen to the podcast, click here)

Man with some serious sleep issues...namely, he is not even trying to lie down...I'm not even sure what his plan is. 

In the first post I focused mainly on how and why the information about the importance of sleep really spoke to me as an element of my life that I needed to address, but in this post I wanted to outline other elements of the interview, specifically, I wanted to talk more about the actual health issues associated with skipping a few hours of sleep. 

What do you mean when you talk about ‘sleep’?

In the interview, Matthew Walker classifies sleep as being between 7-9 hours of good quality sleep that contains appropriate time spent in each of 4 stages of sleep. 

Although all 4 stages of sleep are essential to the quality of your sleep, I wont get into the nitty gritty of how sleep works specifically here, because thats really a few massive posts all on their own, and like you, we only really have time to just hit the high notes here, so yes, I am GROSSLY oversimplifying the whole system here, but here is a general run down. 

Stages 1 and 2 are your “set up” stages of sleep, they are the period where your body begins to turn off your monitoring systems and relax, changing your heart rate and breathing to eventually get into deeper levels. This is also the stage where you can have a power nap as long as you don't doze for more than 20 minutes.

Stages 3 and 4 are where you get down into deeper levels of sleep. In Stage 3, your brain waves become very long and slow and become much less responsive and harder to wake up, while your brain “paralyzes” your body in a type of muscular incarceration so that during stage 4, otherwise known as REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, you don't get up and start acting out your dreams…it sounds scary at first but its a handy survival mechanism. You have probably experienced this lock down first hand if you have ever suddenly felt awake at night time but been unable to move your body.  

Stages 3 and 4 are where most body replenishment occurs. This type of sleep is excellent for cardiovascular health, metabolism, and most importantly, removal of waste products that accumulate in your brain throughout the day. 

OK, get on with it - what health issues does it cause? 

Short answer? Heaps. Almost everything in fact. According to Matthew, the shorter you sleep, the shorter your life. Fewer hours of sleep predicts all cause mortality. Put simply, you’ll be dead sooner and the quality of your life will be worse.

Kieran, I want more detail than that…

Fair enough.

In the podcast, Matthew talks about the research he has done for his book “Why we sleep” and summarises a few of the more…well lets face it, scary side effects of a lack of sleep. 

Some of the issues are more functional than others.

As mentioned in the previous blog, fewer than 6 hours of sleep leads to a decrease of physical endurance and function of 30% due to lactic acid build up as well as the bodies ability to expire our breath, but anything below 7 hours has been shown to impair us, with decreases in our peak muscle strength, peak running speed and our vertical jump. 

Coupled with this fact is that according to Matthew, it has been shown that sleep and frequency of injury has a linear relationship, stating that 9 hours of sleep Vs 5 hours of sleep leads to a 60% increase in the probability of injury.

Another more functional element to sleep is that it has been shown to improve learning performance (in rats at least) by 20-30% as it is thought to be the time when our brain strengthens its connections when learning something new. 

Have you ever been trying to learn something new or studying and come to a point where you are just stuck so you give up for the night? 

If your anything like me, I know that you found that the next morning it just clicked. You were able to get through the whole song you were learning, the language came to you, or you could remember the whole quote correctly. 

It appears that the brain literally prunes away the unnecessary elements of the pathways and streamlines your new skill. 

This next one really spoke to me also, as someone who has always carried more weight than is strictly necessary, and frequently had a yo-yoing relationship with weight gain and loss, I was surprised to learn that sleep doesn't just help you lose weight, it actually helps you keep it away! 

Lack of sleep decreases the body’s levels of a hormone called Leptin, who causes the sensation of satiation (aka - feeling full). At the same time, the hormone Gremlin (the guy responsible for NOT feeling full, and making you hungry), is ramped up. 

It has been shown that people who sleep between 5-6 hours a night will eat 200-300 MORE calories a day, equalling roughly 70,000 calories a year, leading to 10-15 pounds (or 4.5-6.8kgs) of obese mass a year. 

Worse, you eat more of the WRONG THINGS, going for heavy hitting carbs and heavy processed food, while simultaneously staying away from leafy greens etc. 

Matthew claims that if the rise in obesity in last 70 years, is plotted on same graph as amount of sleep in society on average, the lines go in equal opposite directions.

So just to clarify…on average, if you slept more than 7 hours a night, you would eat fewer calories, crave better quality food and with no extra effort or will power necissary, you would have to manage up to 7kgs of fat FEWER, each year. 

Do you know any other “magic” weight loss solution that can offer all that with zero negative side effects and at zero cost?

And now, as promised…the scary stuff.

Insufficient sleep according to the podcast, degrades our DNA, specifically it has a negative effect on immune response genes, decreasing their reproduction. At the same time, we get increased chronic inflammation, increased stress response leading to cardiovascular disease and an increase in the expression of genes related to the promotion of tumour growth.

I shouldn't really need to go on about those points but I will. 

Matthew claims that this is most exemplified by people who do shift work. Night shift workers suffer from higher rates of obesity, diabetes and cancers, most notably bowel, prostate and breast cancer. 

This is apparently so prevalent he states, that the World Health Organisation now classifies night shift work as possible carcinogen in and of itself as 4 hours of sleep even for just one night, causes a remarkable state of immune deficiency, a significant drop in anti cancer cells in our immune system.

But wait, there’s more!

Sleep deprivation affects your sex hormones too, in fact, Men who sleep 5-6 hours a night will have testosterone levels 10 years their senior, a critical element of health, strength, muscular performance etc, in short, it ages you a DECADE.

Consider how you are when you're deprived of sleep; reduced alertness, impulsive, lack of ability to concentrate, difficulties with learning and memory.

Why could this be? What do you think happens to your brain when you are like this for weeks, months or even YEARS on end? 

While we are awake our brain builds up toxicity, especially a protein called ‘Beta Amyloid’. You may have hear of this protein before as it is the main mechanism in the  development of Alzheimer’s Disease. When we sleep properly, the process of sleep wipes our brain, reducing build up of Beta Amyloid.

Insufficient sleep across lifespan now appears to be one of THE most significant lifestyle factors in determining whether or not you will develop Alzheimer’s disease.

Simply put: wakefulness causes low level brain damage and sleep offers reparatory function.

Matthew offered two real life examples that are suggestive of these findings too. Love them or hate them, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan have arguably had a huge effect on our world today. They were both known as having strong wills with sharp minds. They were both also famous for getting around 4-5 hours of sleep a night. They both died with Alzheimer’s. 

This anecdotal evidence is hardly proof of the research but it raises a few questions about the concept, two people with very active minds and social lives (two factors previously thought to be predictive of the disease) got it anyway.

But Kieran, I’m one of those people who doesn’t need that much sleep…so I’m all good right? 

Wrong. 

Well…at least its a safe bet that you're wrong anyway. 

If you had read Part 1 of this post (seriously, why are you this far in if you haven’t?) you’ll remember that Matthew’s research has shown that people are completely incapable of determining how much they are affected by sleep deprivation. 

I was was of you, I was convinced of my own ability to get things done when I was working off lower levels of sleep, but it turns out, like you, I am completely unqualified to make that assessment. 

Negative effects of your lack of sleep can ONLY be assessed by external sources and measurements. 

“I’ve heard some people just don't need that much though. I bet I’m one of them.” 

Again, you're only partially correct. 

Although studies show us that there is a population of humans that can function as normal from just 5 hours of sleep, but those same genetic studies show that is a group of less than 1% of the population. 

In fact, you're MORE likely to be struck by lightening in your life time than to be one of those people, so you should probably assume that you aren't one of them. 

So…what can I do then? 

Get to sleep. Seriously, its as simple and as difficult as that. 

The minimum you should aim for is 7 hours! 7-9 hours appears to be our sweet spot as humans. 

6 ways to improve sleep:

1. Regularity; go to bed at same time.
2. Decrease light; Try away from screens for at least an hour before bed or at LEAST have your screens on night mode. 
3. Halve the number of lights on in your home in an evening. Apparently, if you are in an environment with no lights at all, we fall asleep 2 hours earlier. 
4. Keep it cool, brain decreases temp by 2-3 deg fahrenheit to initiate sleep. always easier to sleep in a room thats too cold rather than too hot. We fall asleep faster and deeper in cold. 
5. Wear fewer clothes to bed. Again, its a heat thing.  
6. Try to have warm feet and hands. It helps keep your brain cool as it stakes blood away from your core. You could also try having a hot bath or shower before bed, it brings blood to the surface then your core body temp plummets when you get out of the water and you're more ready to sleep. The reverse is true for waking up, studies have shown that its the rise in temperature in the morning not just the light that wakes you.

This is not an exhaustive list of things you can do to try improve your chances of going to sleep but I like them because they are the classic set you always read. If you have any other tips about sleep we’d love to hear them.

If you have any questions about how your body is working, sleep related or not, always feel free to contact us at Align to discuss your health issues. Its literally what we are here for. 

I am going to leave you with a few more things to think about. 

Sedation is NOT the same as normal sleep, pills and alcohol might help you nod off but they do not allow you to go through the full normal stages of sleep and so you will miss out on a lot of it’s benefits. Be sure to discuss your inability to sleep with a health practitioner about improving your sleep hygiene as Matthew Walker states in the podcast that sedatives are an absolute last resort.

Sleep is NOT like a bank, you cant accumulate debt during the week and then make it up on the weekend. As humans we've never developed the ability to create a safety net to overcome a lack of sleep as we are the ONLY species that deliberately deprive themselves of sleep for no apparent reason.

Remember too that every day in Australia there are car accidents that are linked to sleeplessness. Drowsy driving is apparently worse statistically than drinking or drugs. In fact according the Matthew Walker, being awake for more than 20 hours makes your brain act like it is over the legal blood alcohol limit for drink driving. 

Lastly NO ONE tells you to stay awake on a problem. “Sleep on it” so that you can have a fresh perspective is a suggestion with no cultural boundaries. 

Accumulated wisdom for centuries has promoted sleep as a way of better tackling your problems, getting things done and improving your life…do we really think that is no longer true just because television is so much better now?  

Ice Ice Maybe?

Before I get into this, I need to clear up two things.

1. When I use the term 'Ice' or say, 'use ice' I am of course ONLY referring to frozen water. Whatever you do, DO NOT take those terms out of context.

2. let's just get it out of the way:

An obvious yet somehow necessary gag to put at the top of a discussion on anti-inflammatory protocol

There, now that this blog has a soundtrack, we can get started. 

Should I use ice or heat?

As Chiropractors, we get asked this a lot. There appears to be a lot of confusion out there about what you should use, when and why, and that confusion is not just limited to the general public! 

There is a lot of debate and conflicting info about ice vs. heat amongst different health care professions and even between practitioners within the SAME profession, so it is little wonder that when people are injured, they aren't sure what to try. 

In this post I will attempt to explain a bit of the ins and outs of the issue, as well as some of the  the common sticking points in the discussion and ultimately, try to give a summary of the basic approach you could try, based on the best and most current research I am able to get my hands on. 

So, if you are the type of person who just wants to get a few tips WITHOUT having to go through the rest of it (and to be honest, I don't blame you if you do), then please feel free to skip down to the bottom of this post where I will summarise the main info in bullet point form. 

However, if you're like me and you're kind of into the back ground of things, then please read on. 

So why would I use ice or heat anyway?

Full disclosure...this will not be an exhaustive explanation of how inflammation works because that would be WAY too much info to put in this blog and to be honest I really couldn't do the topic justice with my explanation anyway (however, if you would really like to geek out and marvel at just how incredible the human body is, and get a much more complete picture of what is happening at a cellular level in detail, I suggest you check out a video called "Basic Inflammatory Response". Be warned though, videos like this are only the start of a fascinating rabbit warren so be sure to have a clear afternoon for all the other info you'll want to follow it up with).

To EXTREMELY oversimplify the situation: 

1. You injure yourself
2. Your body detects the injury
3. Chemical signals are released to signal to your body to begin healing and cleaning the injury up.
4. The chemicals also cause more healing factors in your blood to come to the area/slow down in the blood stream at the site of injury and help to clean up/heal
5. The resulting 'inflammatory Soup' causes redness, swelling and alterations of movement at the affected site as well as activation of nerves that carry information about the damage to your brain where it is registered as being painful.

As stated above, this is a very simplified version of events that skips many steps in the process but I feel gives you an idea of the situation. 

The most important take home message though? The body is very smart and so it does all this to HELP you, so we want to allow healing to occur as much as possible without hindering the healing process too much.

The reason then that we employ heat or ice is to limit the levels of swelling and discomfort you have to experience, while allowing all these steps to occur and let you live your life while your body gets on with the task at hand. The cooling or heating of tissues is used to constrict or dilate blood vessels in order to modulate the inflammation to inhibit or help the healing factors to arrive at and move on from the site of injury.

Heat and ice have the added bonus of having relatively few side effects compared to their pharmaceutical counterparts, something I find clients are generally very keen to avoid having to take where possible.

Kieran, you haven't answered the question yet, do I use heat or ice? 

That depends on the injury. 

Generally speaking, we use ice for acute injuries (i.e. injury that has only occurred in roughly the last 48 hours) and heat for more chronic injuries (i.e injuries arising more than 2 weeks ago). 

In yet another simplification, we use different modalities because in the early stages of injury, the inflammatory soup is different to one that has been around for a longer period of time. In the gap between 2 days and 2 weeks, you can use ice or heat, or ice AND heat. 

You can however have a chronic injury that you exacerbate, in which case you might need to act like its a new injury and switch back from heat to using ice on it again. 

By now I am sure you can see why so many people can become confused as to what they should do. Don't worry, Ill still give that summary below. 

Does it matter where the injury is? 

No, that shouldn't be a factor.

In the past, some health professions have prescribed ice for acute inflammation for everywhere on the body EXCEPT the spine. For some reason they appeared to have forgotten that the spine is made up of joints, ligaments, tensions, muscles, blood vessels that have the same characteristics as other areas of the body. 

So, in cases of acute injury and pain in the neck and/or back, you should still use ice like you would on a knee. 

Some important points to remember...

As I have said, this is not an exhaustive discussion of this topic, and there is still a lot of argument among researches and practitioners as to the best practice for ice or heat (just type ice vs heat into Google and you'll get a sense of what I am talking about) I am just attempting to summarise what I have discovered from the best sources of research information I can find, as well as my experience with clients with acute and chronic injury in practice. 

Other important points to remember are:

• It appears that crushed ice in a bag is more effective than traditional cooling packs
• Do not return to activity immediately after using ice
• Don't use ice for more than 20 minutes of constant contact/ 
• If you have any questions or concerns about your injury, contact your health practitioner immediately.
• If either of the approaches make you feel worse, stop using them immediately and contact us to discuss your options. 

In Summary:

• Ice for acute injury (roughly under 48 hours old).
• Use ice for 10 minutes on, 10 minutes off, repeat as often as you like.
• Heat for more chronic issues (especially for injuries over 2 weeks old)
• You can alternate heat and ice for 10 minutes of one, 10 minutes of the other 
• There is no hard and fast rule, these are tools designed to make you more comfortable so let your body be your guide. 
• I would still recommend avoiding heat for acute inflammation.
• Do not just put up with pain or even just hope for the best with an injury, the earlier you act the better your prognosis. 
• Call us at Align to have a chat about your injury and discuss how to get back on track. 

If you're the type of person who would like to know where the information I have talked about here came from, please feel free to contact me at the practice at any stage and I will send you through the details of the research articles I have used, 

I will be keeping my eye out for newer, more definitive research and promise to update this post if anything new comes to light.

If you have any other questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to get in contact. 

Kieran

Coccyx pain, its a literal pain in the...well...you know where.

If you don't already know what I'm talking about its fair to say that this post isn't for you. 

If you have experienced Coccyx Pain (aka coccydinia), then you already know just how painful and potentially debilitating it can be. It can stop you from exercising, driving, walking or for some clients I have seen, even from being able to work! 

So what is a coccyx?

A coccyx (pronounced COX-SIX) is the proper name for what we usually refer to as our "tail bone" and is small bit on the end of our sacrum. It *kind of* looks like a little tail, but in reality is that little curved forward bit you see on the pelvis of a skeleton. 

Why does the tail bone get it's own blog post?

The tail bone has its own post because it's small and seems so insignificant, which in my opinion, has meant that it has never had much coverage. This has lead to many people suffering, frequently needlessly, with a condition that leaves them feeling powerless when chiropractic can potentially help them.

If its so small then what is it's issue?

Some people are more likely to suffer from coccyx pain than others for anatomical reasons such as degenerative change in the area, the presence or absence of vertebral disks, scoliosis, or even the shape or angle of the coccyx itself. As well, lifestyle reasons like being overweight, recently pregnant or from extended periods sitting can also contribute to the likelihood of suffering from coccydinnia.

By far the most likely reason to suffer from coccyx pain is from direct trauma like a fall onto your buttocks, which is why as chiropractors, we don't find videos like this funny at all.

Most unfairly however, just by being a woman you are anatomically 4-5 times more likely to suffer from coccyx pain as a result. 

(On a personal note, it was a fall off a swing set onto my coccyx when I was 4 or 5 that was the reason I started seeing a chiropractor in the first place...so it is fair to say it's a pretty powerful injury for me, however not everyone's experience is so positive)

An artists impression of me about to injure my coccyx

So what can be done?

Firstly, you want to try if possible to get to the bottom of WHY your coccyx is painful in the first place.

We take time to assess you more globally, to see what other factors can be affecting your coccyx and your healing. As well, we have to determine exactly what area or tissues actually are inflamed, causing your pain. Is it the bone itself? The disks? The ligaments attached to it?

One of the other factors that might need to be taken into account is, does this client need to have X-Rays taken to get to the bottom (no pun intended) of this issue?

Most importantly, we need to know, how can you be helped and is chiropractic the right thing to get this person back on track?

If you think you or someone close to you might be having issues with coccyx pain, please call us at Align so we can see if we can't have you sittin' pretty.

Ankle Sprains...are you doing it wrong?

I don't know if its the time of year or if I have just been noticing it more, but it feels like there has been a lot of ankle injury limping into the practice in the last few weeks.  

Ankle sprains and strains are common, they are not just for sports people and most importantly, are usually really poorly managed when they happen. 

Sure, getting people out of pain doesn't usually take too long but there is a lot more to it than that. 

As a lot of you already know, at Align a big part of our practice is looking after families. There are a few things you notice when you have families with school aged kids coming in and one of the more common injuries we will see is ankle sprain or strain.

So what do I mean by poorly managed? The problem is, getting on top of these very common injuries is at the same time, very important but very BORING to deal with. 

If you are lucky enough to have avoided issues with your ankles, I am willing to bet we all know SOMEONE we went to school with who rolled their ankle early on in high school, and by year 12, nearly overtime they took to the field, court or even walked next to you down the street, they would put their foot down at one point and over they would go!

In practice, we often here this described as their "bad ankle".

Structurally there is usually nothing "bad" about their ankle, so why do they have such a problem? 

A "Bad Ankle"

In my experience, up until recently, treatment for most ankle injury would consist of people would ice on their ankle till the swelling went down and they could walk on it without pain, then they would hope for the best until inevitably, the next episode of the "bad ankle" would happen, increasing in frequency, leaving them with no confidence in their own body and an inability to enjoy playing sports or exercise how they should be able to. Sound familiar?

The reality is, when you really sprain your ankle, what you are actually doing is causing damage of specific ligaments around your foot and ankle. The pain from these injuries is just one part of the issue. The other, equally important part is the movement issues that a sprain will introduce into our ankle's support systems. 

I touched on these movement issues in my last blog about posture but in a nutshell, when we injure tissues it can cause movement control issues in the affected joint, making it harder for our nervous system to be certain of how to position and manage that joint in the future. 

This is why it's so important that any management of these injuries includes longer term rehab thinking, as well as care for the immediate area and work on the connected support structures. 

In my next blog, I plan to outline some important points you want to be thinking about if you have an acute ankle sprain, as well as what you can do if you already ARE someone with a "bad ankle"

In a slump...Is it time to stand tall and stop your mum from nagging you?

Good Posture...I know, I can feel how bored you are already. I don't blame you. Can you even count how many times you have been nit picked about slouching? 

And why the hell should you care right? I mean, who cares that you slump a little? Plus, its so hard to stop doing! You try so hard to be upright when you first get to your computer but sure enough, 2 hours later you find yourself leaning into the screen of your computer with your shoulders hanging from your ears and a back hunch that would make Mr. Burns envious. 

A man displaying woeful posture...in need of nagging

As a Chiropractor, 2 things happen often in my life. 

The first is that at almost every time I am introduced to a person or group, most people instinctively straighten their backs and sit or stand taller, as if they all instinctively know that 'Good Posture' is important (even if we don't know why) and that its something we only think about when prompted to (even though we know deep down that our posture isn't great in the first place)

The second is that poor posture is one of the leading causes the issues that we see in our practice every day!  

Low back, neck pain, jaw pain, shoulder injury, predisposition to spinal degeneration, carpal tunnel type symptoms, migraines and tension headaches are some of the most common symptoms we see day in and day out and it doesn't take much Googling to find that a lot of these problems are either caused by, or at the least made worse by, poor posture. 

So, how does having bad posture lead to these issues? 

The answer is actually really simple and its actually a major part of understanding what we do as chiropractors:

Nervous system feedback and the body’s position in space

"The deeper layers of muscle are concerned with ‘sensing’ our position in space and relaying this information to the brain. If this function is taken over by muscles... (As a result) the brain gets an incomplete picture. The brain assumes that the body needs to be propped up to counteract the effects of gravity, so it triggers further muscle contraction. This adds to the general fatigue and pain felt by the person with poor posture." - The Victorian Government's better health website 

The issues with poor posture appear to go beyond just the physical mechanics as well! 

If I told you to imitate a person who is stressed out, anxious or depressed, I bet you would tighten and slightly raise your shoulders, pushing your head forward and making you shorter. Sound familiar? 

Some authors discuss that consistently being in this position might actually lead to deepened depression, increases in perceived stress, circulation issues, as well as negatively affecting digestion, breathing mechanics and the we way we are perceived by ourselves and others!

So what can we do about it? Well I'm here to tell you that dealing with posture is both simple AND challenging. 

Simple in that there are very basic ways that we can start to work on and improve how our body holds itself, yet challenging in that as Australian's, we are sitting or lying down for an average of 23 hours and 47 minutes, so we have a lot practice at bad posture to try and work against!

Over the space of a few more blog posts, I am hoping to talk you through some strategies to start tackling this problem, but until then, if you have any questions, or if yourself or someone close to you needs help getting out of their slump, please do not hesitate to contact us at Align on (03) 9696 1057.

Kieran 

Are you Sitting too much?

Maybe you've heard the new catch phrase, "Sitting is the new smoking"? 

Have you wondered why that is?  Are you curious as to how prolonged periods of sitting is causing you harm?  How sitting decreases brain activity, can cause back pain, shoulder pain and neck pain? How sitting can decrease fat metabolism, contribute to metabolic diseases, heart disease, depression and even some cancers?

For a simple explanation, watch this 5min Ted Ed talk (perhaps do it standing!) and learn what impact sitting is having on your posture and health.

If you're curious, you can even take this survey and calculate just how much sitting you are doing each day, the results may shock you!

Here's a few strategies you may use to get off your butt;

1. If you work in an office at a desk, perhaps get into the habit of taking phone calls standing up

2. Set an alarm for every 30mins to get up out of your chair and do a few stretches

3. If you commute to work via Public Transport, you could choose to stand instead of sit

4. There are great options for standing work stations - check this one out

5. Walk to work, or at least park further away from the office.  This serves two purposes, increases your exercise for the day AND reduces sitting time in the car

6. If you're into computer games, try playing them standing up, instead of sitting!  It may surprise you to know that standing actually increases brain activity and reactivity.  So standing may help you get to that next level.