Refresher course on our 7 tips for surviving the lock down

Yep. We are as over it as you are. A few weeks ago, Martin and I were excited as we thought it looked like we could ease some of the social distancing restrictions in the practice. We were both looking forward to working together on the same shift again and being able to see the other staff members we have had to keep separate to protect the practice.

Sadly, this has not turned out to be the case.

It goes without saying that I hoped never to refer to this blog post again. I never wanted members of our community to need a survival guide to another lock down, even less than I wanted to update it.

The good news though is that we know how to get through this, and even though it seems like this one is a little more stubborn, and we are all a bit more frustrated than last time and lets face it, wearing face masks all the time is uncomfortable and boring, it is important to remember that we are in fact all in this together and we WILL pull through sooner or later.

So without further ado , please feel free to refresh your memory of Align’s top 7 tips for surviving the lock down.

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 and 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. 

Back to school pART 1: Are your kids set up to succeed?

If your children are headed back to school later this month then read on, this post is for you even though it’s about them.

It’s time we talked behind your kid’s back. Literally.

Being a chiropractor I might sound biased, but now is the perfect time to set your child up for success at school this year and make sure that their bodies look after them throughout.

Over the space of two posts about getting ready to be back at school, I want to challenge you to think a little differently about how you send your little one (and let’s face it, they are always your little one even when they aren’t physically so little any more) off to commence their school year.

Back Packs

In the video below, the Australian Chiropractors Association have spoken to a number of parents about their thoughts and experiences with how their children are affected by their back packs.

I think it’s an important reminder that, especially when they are young, our children’s spines are still developing, so the stress and strain that we put upon them physically can literally play a role in how their body works for the rest of their life.

The rest of this post might seem familiar to a few of you, and that’s because it is a slight edit of our back to school post from last year. The reason it remains largely unchanged is that the information is still accurate, the message still relevant, and our commitment to you through free back pack fitting for your children is ongoing.

So what happens when back packs aren’t right?

An ill fitting, incorrectly worn or over weight back pack can be a precursor to spinal issues and even exacerbate existing problems.

in fact, research suggests that back packs should not be heavier than 10-15% of the body weight of the child carrying it, yet how many times have you picked up your child's bag and thought it would be uncomfortable for YOU to wear?

An international study printed in Spine found that 79.1% of children find their backpacks are heavy, and 46.1% complained that their bags caused back pain.

This is made worse by the fact that in the same study, it was discovered that even though nearly half of the students had back pain, 33% of all of the students were still wearing their back packs too low!

If you want an idea of what happens to posture and spines when you wear a back pack incorrectly, see the photos of our amazing practice model Nicholas below. Nicholas has great posture and is more active than an average boy of his age. (On top of that, he is hilarious and an absolute gun for being a part of this post!) As you can see, none of that matters when he wears his bag incorrectly.

Nicholas shows us what happens when your back pack is too low, note that his head is forward, his shoulders are rolled and his low back has increased curve. 

The reality is, this overloading and incorrect loading of your child's spine may be putting them at risk of longer term spinal damage.

Add that to the time spent sitting or looking at the screen of a phone or iPad and....well I don't need to tell you what this means for posture. 

I have previously discussed the issues with poor posture at other times in this blog, (for a look at a more in depth discussion about posture, read the post here) but in summary, poor posture is bad, and the longer it's left unmanaged the worse things get.

SO WHAT SHOULD YOU DO?

At Align we are concerned about the future of younger generation's health and posture, which is why Martin and I will be providing free back pack assessments to ensure that your child starts the year off with their best foot forward. 

It is always fascinating to see how a small adjustment to a child's backpack can have far reaching effects. 

If you would like to book a Back Pack assessment for your children, please do not hesitate to contact us on 9696 1057.

4 Keys to making successful New Year's resolutions!

If you are keen to start your year off right and really stick to your New Year’s resolutions, then read on.

HOWEVER, if you haven’t yet watched Martin’s video on the 3 biggest mistakes people make with New Year’s resolutions, then I suggest you click the link above and watch that first.

Done that? Great.

Now that you have seen what to avoid when MAKING your new years resolutions, the real question is:

How do I stick with my New Year’s resolutions so that I can achieve something?

It’s the perennial struggle. As Martin talked about in the last video, it is important that you make you goals right in the first place, but its equally as important to know how to make them work for you.

in today’s video, Martin talks us through his tips to really set yourself up for success with your resolutions, how do you prioritise, and how do you turn them into habits that become part of your routine for the rest of your life time, not just while your levels of will power hold out.

As always, for those of you who would prefer to read, the video has been transcribed below.

Hi, Martin here from Align chiropractic and this is the second in our series of New Year's resolutions videos. 

Last time we went over the biggest mistakes that people make in setting New Year’s resolutions,, and today we're going to flip that around and give you some really simple tips that you can use straight away, to make the next year the healthiest year for you. 

The most important thing when you're making resolutions to improve your health is, first of all:

Start really, small. 

So if you're wanting to get fit and part of that is you're wanting to increase your upper body strength and you are going to do push-ups, you might be able to do 10 the first day, that doesn't mean you can do 20 and 30 and 40 day after day after day. 

That sort of radical change can get you hurt, and it will tax your willpower really fast which is no good at all. 

If you start really small, the goal on day one is to do one pushup, and if we expand that out you can apply the same thing to running, to going to the gym, to doing any sort of healthy habit; it's easy to succeed. 

When you succeeded, when you've successfully been able to do just a very small behavior but you repeat that small, easy to achieve habit day after day, it starts to build a habit.

Habits are the superpower behind successful resolutions. 

What I mean by that is a habit doesn't cost you in willpower; you do them automatically. 

If your habit in the morning is you get up and have a glass of water, you don't have to force yourself to do it, it happens automatically. 

The thing that that derails most resolutions is where we’re relying on willpower, doing something that's too big, too ugly, too uncomfortable, that we have to will ourselves to do it day after day, and then we wake up by morning we don't feel like it, and all of a sudden our streak is gone, our lack of willpower has won. 

Small resolutions where we're looking for just a little bit of success is much more successful. 

It also avoids us injuring ourselves and the general if we're doing a physical exercise, you're looking to increase it by a maximum, not a minimum, a maximum of 10% a week while building a habit.

That keeps it easy to succeed and it gives you your muscles, your ligaments, your tendons and your nervous system time to adapt to a new pattern of behaviour while are you building that habit. 

Make it easier to succeed and hard to fail. 

So our second thing is:

Pick the most important thing. 

We spoke last time of having too many resolutions being a problem. 

Just pick one area, one resolution that you're gonna stick to and the most important one. so if your goal was not so much about getting fit but more about losing weight, you've got a choice there, you can either have a resolution where you're going to change some aspect of your eating where you going to eat more vegetables or you’re going to eat less sugar or something like that, or you could look to exercise more and all the research shows that if you want to lose weight, for 99% of people actually, diet trumps exercise. 

You can’t work out past a bad diet. 

So, dial in the diet first because then you can build in habits before you try to change too many things. 

You also create a really positive domino effect where once you've started eating better you kind of naturally feel like being more active and exercising. 

You get this virtuous cycle where you eat better, so you exercise more, and you exercise more, you feel like eating better and so the cycle goes, and you can build a much healthier you with small, incremental and achievable changes.  

If you're only able to change one thing, again it taps into this small change makes it easy to succeed, rather than creating this horrible lifestyle that is so alien to you that you want to stop it the moment that you can. 

Third point is:

Don’t go it alone!

Rather than going solo and trying to do it just on their own willpower and their own resources, If you get a buddy, somebody else who wants to make the same change, or somebody else who will hold you accountable, then it taps into the way that we're wired.

We're wired to be social creatures and you increase your chance of successfully sticking with a resolution if you get a buddy. 

Somebody who’s going to check in with you once a week to make sure you've done what you’ve committed to. 

You can even ramp it up further, by adding consequences. 

One of the the ones that I think is really amazingly successful is that there is research that shows that if you have a negative consequence for if you don't stick to your agreed resolution of eating more vegetables every day or of eating five servings of vegetables every day, you have to make a sizeable donation to an organization that you hate, so for example, if you are a Carlton supporter you have to give a thousand dollars to Collingwood and the way we're wired away from what we don’t want more towards what we do want, it’s a powerful incentive for people to stick to their resolutions. 

The fourth thing is,

If you’re getting physical, get a check up.

If you're doing a physical activity, you're doing a fitness oriented New Year's resolution, then I'm going to strongly suggest that you get a checkup. 

If you're a client of ours, or you'd like to be a client of ours, give us a call pop in we'll check to make sure that everything's working the way that it should, before you put your body under stresses that it's not used to, and related to that, we see soo many people who have ignored niggles and then end up with a more significant issue down the line. 

So if your body is giving you feedback that the new regime is creating a bit of stress for you, don't ignore that, get it dealt with quickly so that you're not derailed by injury in sticking to your resolution. 

I hope these videos will set you up for massive success in improving your health in the year ahead, shoot us a message and let us know what you think and what are new changes you're making in the year to come.

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.

Neck Pain

Neck pain is a common condition that most of us will suffer from at some point in our lives. 

It can arise for a whole host of reasons but if you have ever suffered from neck pain, you know that even mild neck pain can feel like  it is taking over your life! It can make it harder for you to sleep, work, exercise and enjoy time with your friends and family.

The most common causes of neck pain  are day to day movements and postural stresses and  neck pain is rarely the sign of a more serious condition.

In case you aren't sure where neck pain is, here is a stock photo to indicate what a pain in the neck neck pain is. In this instance, pain is indicated by redness.

Neck pain can often refer to areas such as your shoulders, arms and upper back, as well as being a cause of headaches.  

Common causes of neck pain include:

•         Poor posture (the way your body is positioned when standing or sitting)
•         Sleeping in an awkward position.
•         Upper back and neck muscle tension.
•         Injury such as a muscle strain.
•         Whiplash. 
•         Prolonged sitting, especially when using a desktop or laptop computer.
•         Arthritis.
•         Degenerative changes in bones of the neck as a part of the ageing process or previous injury.

You will notice a common theme to the list above and that is; all of them appear relatively trivial when compared to the impact that neck pain has on our lives.

In fact, for a lot of our clients suffering from neck pain, that adds to the frustration. It doesn't matter if the pain is mild or severe, recent or decades old, most frequently, our clients will say that it just doesn't add up. “Why they are in so much discomfort? Why won’t the pain just go away by itself? Why does it keep coming back?”

How can something so mundane cause so much pain?

In these situations it is highly likely that there is an underlying imbalance of function that meant that their body was ‘on edge’. There was a build up of tension in an area of their spine and that mundane event was just the straw that broke the camels back (for the want of a better term).

Does it make sense to you that if your spine is functioning well that a trivial stress would be enough to make your neck hurt? If your range of motion was symmetrical, your muscles, ligaments and tendons were relaxed, elastic and strong  does it make sense that it would suddenly start to hurt you? 

Of course it doesn’t. 

An underlying imbalance of function is most likely why you notice neck pain that comes out of no where, or won’t calm down, or keeps coming back. 

This is why our initial assessment of someone with neck pain looks for two things:

1. What is the cause pain and how do we get it to calm down as quickly as possible? 
2. Is there an underlying imbalance and if so, what can you do to address it to minimise the chances of it coming back?

There are also more serious causes of neck pain that, although much more rare, we need to screen for. 

The more serious causes of neck pain are issues like fracture, disc prolapse compressing on nerves, cancer or meningitis.

We have designed our assessment to be able to determine if your neck pain arises from an issue that we can start to address immediately, requires referring for further testing (such as X-rays or MRI etc.) or if you require immediate referral for medical assessment. 

So how do I know if I need to see you or go to the Emergency Department?

If you are experiencing intense neck pain after a severe head or neck injury, have lost vision due to an accident, are having difficulty swallowing, have lost or severely altered bowel and/or bladder function or your neck pain is linked to intense fever, we advise that you visit your ED as soon as is possible to make sure that you aren’t suffering from more serious conditions. 

If you have any questions or concerns about neck pain, please do not hesitate to get in contact with us at Align.

What to expect when you visit us with Back Pain

This post is for anyone who has back pain and wants to know what to expect if they were to come and see us at Align.

Lets face it...as chiropractors, back pain really is our thing. You might have already guessed but along with neck pain and headaches, back pain makes up a large number of the people who come to visit us initially.

Unsurprisingly therefore, it is important for us to be able to efficiently find out what is happening in these cases and be able to determine their best course of action to move forward. 

The video below outlines very generally what to expect when you first come to see us. 

I use the term 'generally' as obviously, each person is different and so are their injuries, so we treat every client individually depending on their presentation. 

Sometimes back pain sufferers might require a neurological examination, for others we might require X-rays and for some, we may not be the first place they should be at all! 

We take pride in our initial examination's ability to individually assess back pain sufferers quickly and effectively to determine their needs and best course of action.

This video outlines the common elements of our exam.

For those who don't enjoy seeing Martin run an assessment on the Best Looking Chiropractor in Melbourne*, there is a transcript beneath the clip. 

*Not a real competition or title.

Hi, Martin and Kieran from Align Chiropractic and this is a short video to tell you what to expect if you're going to come and see us because you are concerned about back pain.

Step one: History

To be begin, we need for you to tell us all about your back pain; 

-what have you been feeling? 

-what makes it better? 

-when did it start? 

-what makes it worse? 

However mostly we want to understand is; what does the pain mean to you? 

For a lot of people, the pain is only a part of the problem. 

A big part of it is the impact that it's having on your life. What are the things that the pain is stopping you from doing that you love to do or need to do in your life? 

Step one then is for us to get a really good understanding all the ramifications.

Step two: Palpation

Next when you come to see us complaining of back pain, is a palpatory assessment. What we’re looking for with that assessment are areas where the joints are restricted in the motion.

When they are out of balance, they are not able to move the same left and right. 

We also want to see if there are areas where there's increased muscle tension and/or the presence of tenderness.

We are looking for the areas where things are just not working how they should. 

Once we've done that palpatory assessment of the area that is giving you problems, we will often also extend the examination beyond that area of pain because your spine is linked with the way the whole body works and so we will often then extend up into assessing how your neck is working or in other related areas.

Step Three: Assess Alignment

the next step when we are assessing somebody who has come to see us with back pain is we assess the alignment of their spine.

Posture is the window for us to be able to assess alignment.

To do this, we use specialised software where we can take a photo from the side and from the front. 

We then digitise those photos and then analyse them to see if there are indications of misalignment in the spine.

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

The software then places a 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.

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.

Text Neck

This post is a slight change of pace for us, rather than reading about what is on my mind this week, for the first time we invite you to WATCH it instead. 

Leading into Spinal Health Week with a theme of “chiro can help”, Martin and I thought we would make a very quick video about the dangers of “text neck”. 

Please watch me make my video debut as we discuss the importance of this simple but very under appreciated element of daily life. 

For those of you not inclined to enjoy a video format, I will summarise below. 

Text neck is that happens to us when we spend too much time with our head in our phones. Look out your window right now (or just as likely if you're reading this on your smart phone or tablet, think about your own posture) and you are bound to see people leaning their head right forward into the screens of their devices. 

Craning our head forward towards a device causes our posture to follow. Eventually our head stays forward and our shoulders roll forward to follow it. 

This poor posture does not only affect adults, unfortunately it is now very common to see this position in children as they can spend even more time on devices than some adults! 

This head forward posture can lead to number of conditions that we see in practice every day, such as headaches, neck pain, migraine, shoulder pain, tight shoulders or a dowagers hump, just to name a few.

There are several exercises we regularly recommend in practice to clients that we identify need to work on this posture but for this video we wanted to keep it simple. 

Stop, being, in, that, position. 

It is as simple and as difficult as that. Stop training your body to only be good at putting your head forward. 

The solution we offer in the video is to merely hold your phone up higher so it’s in front of your face. Bring the device to you, not you to it!

I know it sounds too simplistic or even glib but we are being sincere, make yourself aware of your posture and what position you are training your body to be in, try to stop staring at screens as often as you can, and if you find yourself looking down at your screen, as yourself, why is it in my lap and not up in front of my face?

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