Halloween is over, which means the countdown to the holiday season is officially on.

     The holiday season is full of fun, food, parties, connecting with loved ones and of course – presents! It is also a time of late nights, stress, worry and unfortunately for many people, sickness and burn-out.

     Having observed my patients and practice members go through 19 holiday seasons, I have become aware of some patterns that drastically effect people’s health and well-being during this time of year. The most obvious trend we see is that we look after far more acute crisis patients during the holidays – and no, it is not from shoveling snow.

     I have also observed the behaviours that lead to either a healthy holiday or a crash and burn holiday. Typically, those behaviours start now.

     So, how do you set yourself up for success this holiday season. It really is very simple.

     In the fall, most people are busier than they are during the summer. It is for that reason they ‘fall’ back into a routine. Some people use that routine to include things that add to their health. They structure a healthy diet, schedule 4 workouts a week and meditate on their noon hour. They see a health practitioner like me regularly – not because they are messed up, but to care for and enhance the function of their spine and nervous system. In other words, it is part of their routine to things that ADD to their overall level of health.

     On the other side of the aisle, people use the ‘busy’ness of the fall as an excuse to not do the things that keep them healthy. They eat more fast food as they rush around, skip the gym due to a hectic schedule and generally get lost in the overwhelm of life.

     We have all been there, so we all know how that pattern ends, don’t we? CRISIS. We get sick, develop headaches, throw our back out…or worse. Fortunately, or unfortunately, most people are pretty tough, so the crash typically ends up happening sometime around or during the holidays.

     There is some good news here, though. The first is that you are reading this now and have time to get yourself on the right track if you start right away. Ask yourself what you can schedule into your life that will ADD to your health in a positive way (not the same as treating a problem)? What habits can you tweak so that you will be healthier in 6 weeks than you are today?

     The other half of the good news is that even if you do find yourself in the midst of a crisis (pain, sickness, burn-out), know that the purpose of that crisis is to interrupt the life you have been living to create a change. Knowing this you can use the crisis as a wake-up call to get back on track as opposed to just treating the symptoms (secondary conditions) and going back to what created the problem in the first place.

     Perhaps the most obvious difference between healthy and unhealthy people is that the former focus on building health while the latter focus on treating symptoms. Having worked with thousands of people over the last 20 years there is no question that the people who get the best results with Neurospinal Optimization are those who use it on a regular basis as a way to enhance their health, well-being, and performance.

     Don’t fall victim to the challenging side of the holiday season. Take control and get better, not worse this year. It will be a great gift to both yourself and your loved ones.

Thorin Gault, D.C.

In this, the final installment of the Hierarchy of Health series, we will be reviewing each of the approaches. Each has their benefits, and each has their costs. In order to be satisfied with our health, it is imperative that we match our goals and values with the approach most likely to meet them.

The first approach is Symptom Treatment. Symptom Treatment is about getting rid of the superficial pain or secondary condition. Success is determined when we feel relief, or at least more comfortable.

The benefit of this approach is that it can buy us some time until we can get to true healing. If we break a bone, we know that the pain killer is not healing us – but provides some comfort while the healing work is done. Symptom treatment is also typically rapid and not time consuming (relief occurs quickly).

The cost of symptom treatment is that it does little to improve – and often impairs – overall health. A comfortable person taking Tylenol is not healthier than they were 20 minutes earlier when they had a headache – in fact one could argue they are now less aware and not as healthy. A lifetime of mere symptom treatment may lead to a significant decrease of health and serious health problems and disease.

The next approach in the Hierarchy of Health is Addressing the Cause. This goes deeper than symptom treatment. This approach understands that in the majority of cases, symptoms are secondary conditions with an underlying, primary cause and that just treating the secondary effects will do nothing to solve the real problem.

At Nexus Chiropractic, our Initial Phase of Care (IPC) is designed to address the primary problem of a spine and nervous system locked in an abnormal state.

Does this take longer to correct than just treating a symptom? Of course. The benefit is that the outcome is typically much more sustainable and even better, when you correct the underlying pattern, very often there are other ‘side effect’ benefits as well.

The third approach in the Hierarchy of Health is Protection. Protection is the first approach that is proactive, as opposed to reactive. Instead of waiting for problems to arise, you take steps on a regular basis to ensure you stay in good shape, much like most reasonable people have the oil changed in their car whether their engine light comes on or not.

While Protection does require regular care, it can go a long way towards preventing major crises that are very inconvenient and very expensive to address in terms of time, energy, lost opportunity, and money.

Our final approach that sits highest in the Hierarchy of Health is Optimization. This approach doesn’t react to problems, or even try to prevent them. The focus of Optimization is continued improvement.

A person utilizing this approach uses their experience to look for new and refined ways to be better tomorrow than they were today. These individuals are maestros of their health and lives.

The more advanced care we provide at Nexus is designed to deliver optimization by helping the nervous system to become ever more adaptable and highly organized.

Where do you spend most of your time on the hierarchy of health? Be honest.

Are you happy with the results you are getting with your currently approach? If yes, keep doing what you are doing.

Do you want more out of your health? Where will you be in 5, 10, 20 years if you keep going the same way? Start by moving up one rung on the Hierarchy of Health, commit to it, and observe what happens.

There is perhaps nothing more rewarding in my work than watching someone choose a higher path for their health and life. It is never too late to make that choice.

Thorin Gault, D.C.

April 1, 2019

When it comes to health problems, we have 4 ways in which we can approach them. All four have their own benefits and are appropriate at different times. Which we choose for a given situation is not only important in having short term success, it is also paramount to achieving the health we want long term.

Let us take a look at each of Patch, Fix, Protect and Optimize.

     Patching is what we do when we know there is a larger problem, but we need to buy ourselves some time in the short term. Your old springs a leak and you know it will need to be replaced, but you need to finish watering the garden. So, you wrap some duct tape around the hole, so the flowers don’t die today.

The Patch strategy is a great one when we are in crisis and if something is not done immediately, disability and even death may result. If someone were shot with a bullet inside them, yes, the bullet will eventually need to come out. However, in the short term, compressing the wound with a bandage will keep them alive long enough to be properly fixed.

Antibiotics can be a great patch when faced with an infection that may kill you. They buy you the time (save your life) so that you can make changes that will strengthen your health and immune system in the future.

Patches can become a problem when they are used as fixes. Antibiotics used unnecessarily will harm your long-term health. Pain medication used simply to cover up a secondary condition(symptom) actually allow people to continue to damage their bodies without knowing it – leading to more serious problems down the road.

Most people truly only need patches (hopefully) a few times during their lives when in serious crisis. When we need them, they are wonderful. When we over use them, we suffer needlessly.

The Fix strategy is one that looks to get to the cause of the problem. It looks to correct the primary condition leading to the secondary effects. If faulty electrical was leading to burned out light bulbs and malfunctioning appliances the patch solution would be to replace them. The Fix solution would be to hire an electrician to correct the wiring.

When we Fix something we typically gain parallel benefits as well. Corrected wiring improves the function of EVERYTHING requiring electricity. Perhaps the electrical bill goes down as efficiency increases. Safety also improves as the chance of a devastating electrical fire decreases.

The Fix approach works the same way with our health. Taking a pain pill may make us feel better for awhile but correcting abnormal spine structure and nervous system function is not only more sustainable but leads to a myriad of health benefits besides.

The Protect strategy begins to move beyond being focused on problems or symptoms. Once we have corrected what was abnormal we have a choice to do some regular work to keep it that way. Protect recognizes that maintaining proper function is better than waiting for the next crisis. Once we get the old piano in tune, it is much less work more enjoyable to have it retuned on a regular schedule than to let it get back to it’s previous state and start over again.

A health crisis can be a time, energy and resource draining thing to face. They are certainly not convenient. Some attention to Protection is a great way to stay healthy long term and avoid future problems.

Finally, we come to the Optimization strategy. This is where exceptionally healthy people spend most of their energy and attention. Instead of focusing on patching, fixing and preventing problems, they look to optimize and improve their health, function and performance regardless of problems.

They know that the best way to be healthy is to continually improve their adaptability and efficiency. Does it mean they will never have a crisis or problems? Of course not, but they will sure be better equipped to handle them when they occur.

Unfortunately, most people spend most of their lives in Patch, and Fix modes when what they truly want are the benefits of Protect and Optimize. Fortunately, changing that only requires a few simple decisions.

At Nexus Chiropractic we are not interested in patching people up. Very few people entering our office truly need patching and if they do, a trip to the ER is probably in order.

We begin seeing most people from a Fix perspective, which is what we do during the Initial Phase of Care (IPC). By addressing abnormalities in the spine and nervous system (Neurospinal Shift) and objectively measuring those changes we know our patients are going back into life healthier.

Once the system is normalized, people may now choose to enter either a Protection or Optimization program. This is where we see people really create long term health strategies that spill over into not only physical benefits, but mental/emotional well-being, greater energy and vitality and an over all greater quality of life.

After reading this article, take some time to look at where you are perhaps frustrated with your health, or not getting the results you would like. Maybe a small shift in your approach is all you need to get what you want?

Thorin Gault, D.C.

April 17, 2018

We have all heard the Einstein quote, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when creating them.” Not surprisingly, there is a lot of wisdom in that quote, and it has powerful applications to our health.

Just as we cannot solve life’s problems with the same thinking that created them, we can’t solve our health problems with the same approaches that created THEM.

I am a competitive Masters (old timer) weightlifter. For the first 4 years of my competitive career, I made consistent and rapid progress in the results I was achieving, which culminated in winning the Pan Am Masters championship in 2016. Everything was great. Then, I plateaued. Then I noticed that my numbers were dropping. This continued for almost a year and I didn’t know why. It definitely was a big PROBLEM!

Because I am not that smart, my first approach to the problem was to just do the same thing (in training and preparation), but more of it. I trained more often and harder. What was the outcome? You guessed it, the problem got worse.

People told me that I was just getting old and I should just accept it, but I was not quite willing to go down without a fight. I knew that I had to change my approach to training (thinking).

So, I studied books and articles looking for answers. I changed my approach to recovery between workouts. From the new insight I gained, I came up with a new plan with a significantly different approach and it has started to work. My trajectory is now upwards again, and I am excited for what will come as opposed to being scared and frustrated regarding to future.

I see a similar narrative play out with many individuals regarding their health. Everything is fine and then one day a health problem shows up. Back pain, headaches, anxiety, digestive problems.

Most people focus on the elimination of the symptom. What is rarely considered is what the symptom (more accurately termed a secondary condition) means. A secondary condition means that your body is no longer able to effectively adapt to the stressors being placed upon it.

A symptom or disease means you have an adaptability deficiency. So, you can eliminate the stressors in your life (such as work, your kids, physical activity), or you can upgrade your adaptability and re-enter life functioning at a higher level.

Most of the time when we treat a symptom, we are really just decreasing our awareness, which leads to even less adaptability. That is what I was doing by training harder. I was ignoring what both my body and the scoreboard were telling me. Had I continued on this path, my results would have continued to decline, and I likely would have either burned out my system or had a serious injury that would have taken me out of the game.

What if instead of making the secondary condition the enemy, your asked yourself, ‘how can I rise above this? How can I take my thinking, approach, and awareness to a whole new level?’

There are many ways to do this that will provide you with an entirely different trajectory in both your health and life.

One of the reasons we get the results we get at Nexus Chiropractic is that we don’t chase symptoms – we upgrade the body’s software (nervous system) to help it become more aware, more efficient, and more adaptable. Instead of fighting your body, we help it rise above the problem.

Why go back into life the same – only a little older and more fragile – when you can rise above and play the game of life at a whole new level?

Thorin Gault, D.C.

March 27, 2018

Part 4 – Holistic vs. Isolated

In the last two articles, we looked at principles lived by the minority of our society that are truly healthy. The first was that they focus on building health as opposed to fighting symptoms and disease. The second was that they seek to enhance awareness instead of sedating.

This article delves into the third principle of healthy people, which is that they see things in a holistic way as opposed to an isolated way.

Holistic is defined as, ‘characterized by comprehension of the parts of something as intimately interconnected and explicable only by reference to the whole.’

What this means from the perspective of health, is that something happening in one part of our bodies is impacting, and being impacted by other parts of our bodies, and even lives.

I learned this very early in my chiropractic practice, almost 18 years ago. At the time I was practicing a very mechanical technique that understood that the spine was an integrated whole. So, I took full spine x-rays on almost all my patients. What I noticed was that very often, when someone would come in with low back trouble, their low back would look good on the x-ray, but their neck was messed up. The opposite was also true.

What this means is that where we have a problem (secondary condition or symptom) is not necessarily where the problem is. This also means that it is important to assess and address the entire system HOLISTICALLY in order to create a solution.

If you have light bulbs burning out too quickly in your house and appliances shorting out, you could go around replacing the parts, OR you could have an electrician go down to the electrical box and address what is more likely to be the main problem.

Unfortunately, many common health care approaches spend too much time replacing light bulbs and not enough time seeing the big picture. In this case changing light bulbs just delays the inevitable.

A holistic approach to health also involves a lot more than just the physical/mechanical. Healthy people look to their lifestyle and observe how it affects their physical health and perhaps plays a role in their symptoms and diseases.

In my chiropractic practice, it is my observation that as people become healthier, they can see the connection between their symptoms and their diet, emotional state, mental state and even how they are doing spiritually. With this awareness comes the ability to change much more effortlessly.

Research shows us that one of the most accurate predictors of back pain is how satisfied people are in their jobs, financial situation, and relationships. There is a neurological explanation for this beyond the scope of this article but when was the last time you considered how what you were feeling inside may be impacting your physical health?

Healthy people understand this and look to all aspects of their lives when faced with a health problem. When someone with back pain not only addresses what is happening with their spine and nervous system but also assesses what they are eating, how they are moving, their emotional state, their interactions with others, and even assess if they are on the correct path in life, not only does it drastically improve their chances of recovery, it also improves the overall quality of their lives. Isn’t that what we truly want, anyway?

The care at Nexus is set up and delivered in a holistic way. We assess the entire spine and nervous system because we know that a symptom in one part of the body is usually not solely caused by that spot, but by stress on the entire system. We teach our patients specific exercises that increases their somatic – or body – awareness. We give presentations that teach patients how to care for their spine and nervous system at home.

While I am no psychotherapist, I often point out how what is showing up in a person’s spine may be connected to what is happening mentally and emotionally in their lives. The state of the spine and nervous system also leave clues about how a person can best go about making the necessary changes in their lives.

So, where in your health and life have you been too caught up in the isolated parts? Where have you been running around the house changing light bulbs, when the electrical system really needed to be updated?

Now, how can you assess and address this in a more holistic manner?

Keep it up! See you next article.

Thorin Gault, D.C.

Over the next several articles we will be exploring – in detail – the 4 Ways of Healthcare. Each Way has a different approach to how we treat our health, different outcomes or objectives, and different ways to measure success. Above all else, which Way we focus on will certainly determine how healthy we are – or are not.

We all spend at least some time using several of the Ways of healthcare, yet most of us do so unconsciously – unaware of exactly what we are doing and why. The unfortunate, yet all too common, impact of this lack of understanding and awareness is desiring one health related outcome and acting in a way that cannot produce it. This is not due to a lack of discipline or will power – it is due to an ineffective approach.

It is my experience and belief that the major cause of frustration with our own personal health, as well as the ‘healthcare system’ is this lack of understanding. We spend too much time, effort and resources on approaches that cannot create the result we desire.

The purpose of this series of articles is to help you to define PRECISELY what you want in regards to you and your family’s health and then to CONSCIOUSLY choose a Way to get there. Included in this will be some suggested practices and interventions in each of these ways.

Something very important to understand is that each of the  4 Ways are good and appropriate at specific times. Each is effective at producing its own result. I have seen some health ‘gurus’ promote one Way as the only way and I believe this to be folly.

Each has a time, each has a place. The key to great results is to apply the appropriate approach at the appropriate time. The only way to do this is to understand what you want and how to get it.

So without further delay, the 4 Ways of Healthcare are:

Symptom Treatment – This approach seeks relief from pain, symptoms, or crisis. I prefer the term secondary condition over pain or symptom because it more accurately reflects what is actually going on. Pain and symptoms don’t typically exist on their own – they are secondary to something more primary underlying the problem.

The Symptom Treatment Way of healthcare is considered successful if the immediate secondary condition is relieved – by any means possible. If a person with back pain or headache takes a narcotic and feels better, the treatment is deemed successful and we move on our way.

There are many treatments and practitioners who are very good at Symptom Treatment. This is NOT our focus at Nexus Chiropractic.

An easy to understand analogy is that of a lawn covered in dandelions (I kind of like dandelions but my neighbours do NOT). Using the first Way of healthcare we would simply chop the heads of the flowers off with a lawnmower and call it a day. Quick, easy, effective…..until?

The second Way of Healthcare goes a bit deeper than symptom treatment and Addresses the Primary Condition that may have led to the symptom. This is the baseline type of care we provide at Nexus and where most people start with us.

This Way of healthcare may monitor symptoms in the background but does not primarily use symptom relief as a measure of success.

Obviously this second Way of healthcare requires a bit more work than the first and absolutely requires baseline objective indicators (an examination beyond symptoms), a reasonable plan of correction (beyond symptom relief), and an objective follow up to determine whether the primary condition was handled.

To go back to our dandelion analogy, in this Way of healthcare, we have to get down on our hands and knees with a tool and start pulling weeds out by their roots. More work? Yes. More time? Yes. More sustainable and long lasting results? Absolutely.

The third Way of healthcare is Prevention/Adaptability. The focus here shifts away from fixing anything to preventing problems in the future. This includes tuning things up before they get turn into pain or disability as well as helping the body to be more adaptable to future stress and trauma.

At Nexus, people using this third Way of healthcare are what we call our protection patients. We have already done the work to normalize the primary condition and now do regular tune ups to keep things in tip top shape.

Going back to the dandelion story. Prevention may include pulling a few weeds from time to time or feeding the lawn special nutrients twice a year to prevent future dandelion overgrowth.

The fourth and final Way of healthcare is Optimization. Optimization goes beyond correction and prevention and focuses on making things better and more efficient over time. This Way is extremely rare in healthcare today.

The folks who use this Way of healthcare at Nexus are our optimization practice members – different from patients looking to treat or prevent something bad. These people desire continued improvement in spine and nervous system efficiency and evolving levels of health.

In our lawn analogy, the focus now turns on the health and beauty of not only the grass, but the entire grounds. Planning, time, and effort go into making the yard more functional and brilliant every season.

In the upcoming articles we will be digging deeper into each Way of Healthcare, the results they produce, and how you can choose which one is appropriate for you at any given time.

At Nexus Chiropractic one of the things we are most proud of – and our most fun challenge – is that many of the people we work with have already been to a number of other health care practitioners, without the success they are looking for. In many ways we are a last resort after a series of perceived failures.

It is for this reason that most of the patients we meet at an introductory presentation or one-on-one consultation are excited by the prospect that we have a different focus and therefore do things a bit different from both other chiropractors and other types of health care offices.

Once in a while we encounter someone surprised by our approach and wonder why we don’t run our office and make recommendations the same way their last office did. The simple answer is that we focus on and expect DIFFERENT results…and DIFFERENT results require a DIFFERENT approach.

This is an important concept to consider not only in choosing a chiropractor or health care provider, but in life in general. If you are not happy with your current results in any aspect of your life, you MUST employ a different approach in order to get what you want. More of the same will get you more of the same.

The New Year is a great time to examine this. If your weight is not where you want it, how can you change your approach this year? If your finances are below your expectations, how can you do things differently starting in 2017? How about your relationships? How about your career?

When it comes to most people who seek our care, the approach they have taken to their secondary conditions (pain and symptoms) is to focus solely on treating that. While this can be effective in the short term, it is akin to chopping the heads off of the dandelions on your lawn. If you are prepared for the problem to be back in a few days, this approach is fantastic. If you really want a green lawn that will stay that way you will have a little more work to do.

At Nexus, instead of focusing on pain and other secondary conditions, we want to know what is underlying those problems. This is why we conduct an objective neurospinal evaluation on all of our patients and follow it up with a reevaluation after the Initial Phase of Care.

The value of addressing the primary condition underlying the symptoms goes beyond just achieving a more sustainable result. When there is abnormal function and structure of the spine and nervous system and you get that handled, a variety of other secondary conditions often resolve as a result.

Often when we ask people in our office what they are happiest about with their care, it is an unexpected result that they did not even come to us for.

Again, I invite you to employ this concept to your life this New Year. How can you take a different approach that will not only solve the surface problem, but the deeper ones as well.

Do this, and 2017 can truly be the best year of your life!

Also, to help you get the most out of 2017, we have put together a series of complimentary workshops throughout the year. Keep an eye out for the full schedule which will be posted here.

In January, we will be both a Head to Toe, Neurospinal Show, and 12 Stages of Healing presentations. Phone 613-932-8111 to reserve a seat.

When I sat down and started the car to drive my kids to school this morning I was a little stressed out. There had been a disagreement with one of my sons, we were running late and just as I was about to pull out of the driveway I realized that my windshield was covered in ice.

My initial instinct was to just start driving and hope that I would be able to see well enough until the defroster did its job – after all, I was in a hurry. Of course I did NOT do that. I got out of the car, retrieved the scraper from the trunk and proceeded to clean the windshield.

What would have happened had I not taken the time and due diligence to clean my windshield before departing? Certainly a series of less than desirable outcomes could have occurred. Minor consequences such as getting a ticket from the police or perhaps bumping into something and damaging my car would certainly be possible. Hitting a person or other vehicle and hurting either my children or someone else would have had much more severe consequences for all involved.

Obviously, the smart thing to do and the only REAL choice was to stop and clean the windshield BEFORE leaving my driveway. Convenient? No. Necessary? Yes.

I see several parallels between my windshield and your health. Very often the bumps and bruises, aches and pains, diseases and challenges we end up with are secondary to dirty windshields.

Regardless of how careful we are, life throws a lot of mud, and crap – and in Canada, ice in April – at us. Things can get pretty dirty over time and it makes navigating difficult at first, dangerous after a while and then next to impossible if it goes too far.

Trouble happens when we focus on what usually begins as bumps and dents in our car. Like aches and pains these small secondary effects are quick and easy to handle. A little paint or a new signal light will do the trick just like an aspirin, massage or good ‘crack’ will.

What will happen if the windshield stays dirty and then continues to accumulate filth? The bumps get bigger until someone really gets hurt.

At Nexus Chiropractic we know that to really get healthy the first thing that needs to happen is that the windshield needs to be cleaned. In fact, most of the people we work with have already spent years treating secondary conditions (symptoms) and know they need a different approach.

Our Initial Phase of Care (IPC) is focused on normalizing a primary condition known as a Neurospinal Shift (cleaning the windshield) that commonly underlies the secondary conditions people suffer from.

As your windshield clears up suddenly there are less bumps, bruises, aches and pains. And…because your body is not made out of steel and plastic it has the opportunity to heal old wounds.

Once the windshield is clean some people choose regular, less frequent care to make sure it stays that way. Others love their clear view so much that they continue more frequently in order to navigate towards the best life possible.

Click HERE to read another article I wrote about addressing the primary cause.

If you would like to know more we have an introductory presentation at our office on Tuesday, April 21^th at 7pm. We will also be having our Level 2 – Transform workshop on Tuesday, April 28^th at 7pm, which I encourage all current patients to attend. Both workshops are at no cost and you can reserve a seat by calling the office.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone in the Nexus Chiropractic family a Happy New Year! I would also like to thank everyone for spoiling us with the thoughtful gifts we received over the holiday.

2014 was an exciting year – we added some new technology, continued to refine our clinical expertise and were joined by a new RMT who has fit nicely with our specific approach to care.

In the past year Nexus invested in new equipment that allows us to more effectively assess, monitor and correct the Neurospinal Shifts that our care focuses on. This equipment allows us to more specifically pinpoint abnormalities in your physical structure that result from a Neuropspinal Shift. These abnormalities often occur way before any secondary conditions, symptoms or pain start to arise.

I have always been a huge proponent of continually refining clinical skills and learning from the best, and this past year I attended my 10th consecutive advanced technique seminar in NSA – the core discipline we use in our Neurospinal Optimization focus. Additionally, I continued to study and train with leaders in different fields to ensure you are receiving efficient and up to date care.

We were also joined this year by Jaime McRae, RMT. Jaime is a massage therapist who focuses on NeuroKinetic Therapy, which is a discipline that works very well with my approach to care. Instead of merely ‘attacking’ tight and sore muscles, she determines ‘why’ muscles are firing a certain way and her care focuses on getting to the underlying cause.

In 2014, Nexus Chiropractic also recommitted to helping patients, their families, and the community at large to help themselves through workshops. The people who take advantage of these events get some of the best results in their health that I have seen. We have a series of workshops held in the office at no charge (some open only to patients, some open to the public), I speak regularly for the Encore Seniors Group, and several times per year we hold intensive ‘Clear Days’ for patients and practice members who have already made progress in their care. Please take advantage of these valuable health resources.

Now, what is to come in 2015? First, we are working on implementing a new diagnostic technology that will allow us to measure and monitor a powerful indicator of nervous system function and overall health – stay tuned.

Next week I will be heading to Denver to attend a brand new program that is an extension of the NSA training I have been doing over the past 14 years. This will be a more advanced application towards the achieving the objectives of our care at Nexus. In case you can’t tell, I am pretty excited about this!

We already have several workshops and events lined up for early 2015. Tonight (Jan. 6) will be the first of many Introductory Workshops. Even if you have attended in the past, the information presented evolves, so feel free to attend again. Also in January will be The Best Year of Your Life workshop, which will teach how to have…….! Our next Clear Morning will be on Saturday, Jan. 31^st. This will fill fast so please speak to Cindy or Adele if you would like to attend. I will also be speaking to the Encore Seniors group with my friend Tyler Touchette in March. Encore is a great organization, so if you are over 50 I encourage you to check out their programs.

I want to thank you all for being a part of Nexus and being a part of my life. As I approach my 15 year anniversary of graduating from chiropractic school I am very grateful for having the opportunity to work with such great people and help them to produce such extraordinary results. Here is to another great year for us all!

In over 14 years of chiropractic practice you begin to notice trends, or patterns at certain times of year. When it comes to the weeks leading up to the holiday season we have noticed two distinct and very much related patterns.

The first is that people who are otherwise regular and routine with their care tend to miss visits as their schedule and stress levels become more chaotic. There is nothing like the holidays to shake up our healthy routines.

The second pattern we tend to see are lots of people with acute crises of back pain, headaches, illnesses and other secondary conditions that sometimes require some intense care in our office to ensure they don’t spend Christmas on their backs.

These trends are certainly not only seen in our office. When people have more to do, more things to spend money on and extra stress, they also tend to eat less healthy food, exercise less, and stay up later at night – neglecting the things that keep them healthy during the rest of the year.

When you add these factors to the fact that many people experience their greatest levels of stress during the holiday season (ain’t family wonderful?) it is no surprise that it is common for people to spend what should be the most wonderful time of the year sick, in pain and unable to enjoy themselves or their families.

The fact of the matter is that it is very easy to become overwhelmed this time of year. I also know that by approaching your health correctly during the holidays will allow you to both have fun (this is very important) and stay healthy. I actually believe that the change of routine, having more time off of work, spending time with loved ones and YES, even indulging in some treats provides an opportunity to boost your health if you do it right!

The first step to a healthy holiday is to acknowledge that you are going to indulge a bit. If you wait all year to eat some of grandma’s famous cookies go ahead and enjoy them. When we make things a ‘treat’ we don’t stress about our indulgence and it actually prevents us from completely going full gluttonous. In addition when we really ‘treat’ ourselves it becomes much easier to get back to our routine when the holidays come to an end.

The second step is the most important and is really quite easy – yet is most often missed. While we treat ourselves to some not so healthy things, it is essential that we continue to do the healthy stuff, too. We need to make sure we get lots of veggies and clean meats while in addition to plum pudding. Meditate and get regular exercise while staying out late. Take our vitamins especially while dealing with our in laws!

As I have applied this over the years I have found a formula to actually improve my health over the holidays even though I love to indulge as much as the next person. I use the extra time off from work to exercise a bit more and meditate regularly. In spite of changing schedules I try to see my chiropractor even more often leading up to and during the holidays. I also increase my supplementation with fish oil, probiotics and vitamin D where appropriate to counteract the increased stresses faced at this time of year.

My wish for you all this holiday is to be able to fully celebrate and participate in whatever way makes you happy, NOT sick, in pain and frustrated. A little time and effort spent doing the good things will allow you to enjoy what we don’t typically enjoy the other 11 months of the year. There is nothing I would love to see more than a reversal of that pattern I have seen over the past 14 years. It is up to you.