​Resolutions, dream boards, vision boards, hopes, and wishes are all fine and certainly good, but only if you are armed with the machinery to turn your resolution, dream, vision, hope, or wish into a reality.  So my New Year wish for you is that you will apply yourself to yourself, but not for the sake of self, but rather for everyone else’s benefit.  Please let me elaborate.
           
            Most resolutions take the shape of exercise, diet, weight loss, and the like…self-improvement.  We should all be trying to improve ourselves all the time but it is my opinion that we will be more successful if our self-improvement is done to help someone else we care about, or perhaps everyone else we care about.  Without giving to or taking care of others, self-improvement is, well it’s selfish, it’s vanity, it’s air, it’s nothing, and it generally won’t last.  Like helium in a balloon, it will give the balloon shape and lift for a time.  But soon it will be gone, floating up and up and up into outer space, off our blue planet, gone forever. 
 
            “Nice philosophy lesson Doc, what’s that got to do with my weight?” you ask.  Answer, accountability.  When I was 240# I decided I needed to lose weight, but I didn’t do it just for me.  I did it so that I would be better able to play with my kids, to hike with the scouts, to live longer for my wife, and to be a better example for my patients.  And then by being a better example for my patients, I could bring more patients to a healthier life-style.  And by losing the weight for everyone else, failure would have far greater consequences than if I’m just doing it for me. 
 
            This philosophy works for every aspect of self-improvement.  Do what you do TO yourself, but do FOR someone else.  Stop smoking to help a friend stop.  Take vitamins because you want your spouse to.  Get your adjustments to play more with your kids, or grandkids.  Do your disc pump exercises to convince your boyfriend to get on the floor to do them with you.  Make his spine healthier.  Drink more water to be an example to that co-worker who is chronically dehydrated.  You don’t have to look like and act like Jack LaLane to be a beacon of health for your family and friends.  You just have to do something different than what you are doing right now.  You just have to show that you are making a change, any change, and you have to announce it to those whom you are doing it for.  Then you are accountable.  They will be watching you.  And when you succeed, perhaps they’ll follow you.  And even if they don’t, you can better serve them from this new found greater health.  Service is why we are here isn’t it? 
 
            And if you fail.  That’s OK too.  We all fail.  But there is no shame when you fail while trying to help another human being. You tried.  You did more than most.  And then when you have dusted yourself off, you try again.  And perhaps this time you ask someone to come along on the ride with you.  Lose weight together.  Get adjusted together.  Exercise together.  Drink water together.  But even if you are doing this WITH someone else, make sure the two of you are doing it FOR another someone else, to better serve them.    
 
            Give of your love.  Give of your life.  Give of your time.  Give of your health.  Give and serve and everything you need in this life will be given back to you. 

​I continue to think that people make health harder than it needs to be.  So many of us make it so hard that we give up on it.  We don’t bother.  We accept where we are.  We just take to grumbling about getting older.  We give up!  Not at one moment mind you, but slowly over years as we march toward perceived inevitability.  Most of those out there don’t even spend any time thinking about health at all.  We are all so caught up in getting through the day or the week, that we can barely think about life in our 50’s, 60’s, and beyond.  Until we are there and we have lost our health and we are scrambling to get it back, often fruitlessly.  That is tragic.
 
            So here you are reading this article and perhaps you see yourself or someone you love in the paragraph above.  I want to do this different, you think.  Or, I don’t want to end up like my (fill in blank) ended up, wasting away.  You see, I hold that life is best lived as of a candle, burning bright its entire life until at the end, it flickers and goes out.  Life should not be like the candle that perhaps burns bright in the beginning, but then slowly fades as it ages, becoming dimmer, shadowy, weak, and wan, even useless in lighting the way around it.  Being that elusive life-long bright candle requires commitment, planning, work.  It requires time spent and energy mustered to do what must be done while one is younger, so that as they get older they remain healthy, mobile, erect, flexible, strong, vital.  But I contend it is worth the effort, but again, it is not that hard.  It starts with 150 minutes per week.
 
            Here is where I tell you that not only do people make health harder than it needs to be, but they make exercise just as hard.  Studies have demonstrated that all we really need for a healthy heart and cardiovascular system is to walk briskly for 150 minutes per week.  You can to 3 sessions of 50 minutes (my preference), or 7 sessions of 22 minutes, or whatever.  That’s it.  If you want to do more or different, or whatever, have at it.  I’m just telling you how simple health is.  But while 150 minutes/week is not health.  It is a fantastic and necessary start.
 
            The rest is for other articles.  But let me remind you of my rule, that if followed, will lead you to that bright candle.  “One More Step Toward Health.”  Once you have the 150 min/week down and you are ready to take another step toward greater health, then pick a change you can make in your life that moves you that one step closer.  For example it could be drinking more water, adding a new supplement, losing 10#, prayer/meditation, committing to better sleep, making more me-time, working on a relationship, getting closer to God.  I suggest you pick something easy, something you can assure success in, build confidence, make it part of your life, and then take another step.  Always look to the next step.  And in 10 years you will be a different person that you were going to be. 
 
            This is exactly the process I took starting in 2000.  Yes, I have had set-backs along the way.  That’s normal.  But today I am much healthier than I was when I was 39.  And if I had continued on the path that I was on in 2000, I would have been the dimming candle, if I had even been here at all.  I urge you to take your first step, and if you have, encourage someone else.  

​Chiropractic was established way back in 1895 with 3 components; philosophy, science, and art.  There is an entire philosophy within my profession which I have studied and taught.  It has 33 distinct components, and I am not going to bore you with them here.  Then there is the science of the Vertebral Subluxation Complex, that thing we treat in your spine.  And finally there is the art of the adjustment, which is why no two chiropractors are the same.  Some are adept at their art, some are not, and some use machinery instead…blasphemy!!  Just as there are 3 components, there are also 3 phases of chiropractic care; Initial Intensive Care, Reconstructive Care, and Wellness Care.  And to round out this story of the #3, there are 3 benefits of chiropractic care.  Which benefits you care about and which you don’t determines how you will utilize your care in my office. 
 
            Benefit #1: Pain Relief – Your pain is caused by one of two things, inflammation or structural damage.  You have to have one or the other or both to have pain.  So you can be 10 years old with zero structural damage but lots of inflammation and have the same pain as someone who is 60 with lots of structure damage and zero inflammation.  But most of us have both inflammation and structural damage.  When I say structural damage I mean disc herniation, joint degeneration, scar tissue, torn anatomy, that type of thing.  When you get adjusted function is restored to the joint and the inflammation goes down, and perhaps some structural damage can be repaired.  Pain lessens or completely goes away, that is until time, life, and gravity slowly ratchet up the inflammation once again, hence the need for some sort of ongoing program of care for most of us. 
 
            Benefit #2: Slowing of Spinal Degeneration – Although you might not think so when you are in pain, this is a way more important benefit.  When we restore function to your spine through our treatment program we are helping you to make your spine last longer, to make the joints wear out slower, or perhaps stopping the wearing altogether.  This translates into greater mobility as you age which then translates into less pain as you age, since your joints have remained younger.  Look around and you will see that the healthiest seniors are the ones with the greatest mobility.  And with some exceptions the mobile seniors worked at it when they were younger.    
 
            Benefit #3: Health – This is the most complex of the 3 benefits and centers around two concepts.  First, your nerve system controls your health.  Second, inflammation causes disease.  So, when you have subluxation this means you have an inflamed spine, which means you have inflamed nerves, which irritates the nerves, which control the blood supply to your internal organs, which is reduced or cut off due to your inflamed nerves, causing organs to malfunction, work less efficiently, and perhaps eventually fail.  And while those inflamed joints spread the inflammation throughout your body thereby setting the stage for all kinds of chronic disease, the best understood is cardio-vascular disease.  Studies indicate that the best preventative for a heart attack is to reduce your inflammation levels. 
 
You are healthier when you have less inflammation and when your nerves are calm.  This will make your spine last longer.  As a result you can prevent pain in the first place.

I was asked recently if it is OK to someone to “pop” his own neck or lower back.  I get asked the same question about knuckles.  There are four questions that come out of this:
1)What makes the popping sound?
2)Is it OK to do that to myself?
3)Why does it feel better when I do it?

1. How is this different from what my chiropractor does to me?

 
#4 - How is this different? 
The short answer is that it is orders of magnitude different.  Imagine you have in your hand a length of chain in which some of the links have rusted together and some of the links haven’t and remain loose.  Now imagine shaking the chain in front of you.  Which links flex and bend?  The non-rusted ones of course, or perhaps the ones that are only lightly fused with rust.  To get the rusted ones to loosen you will need specific pressures applied directly to those links. 
When you “pop” your own spine you are twisting or torqueing yourself in such a way as to cause something to pop.  You have no control over what pops.  You are popping the already loose links, or perhaps the lightly rusted ones.  In contrast your chiropractor is using his long acquired skills to find the bones or joints that are truly “rusted” or stuck while he leaves the loose links alone.  He applies a specific force in a specific direction (adjustment) to break the rust (scar tissue) down and slowly restore motion to the joints that need it.  Lightly rusted ones are easy to fix and heavily rusted ones may never get fully loosened. 
 
#3 – Why does it feel better?
            Simple.  Endorphins.  These are your own natural opiates, stronger than morphine.  They are released in the joint each time it is popped, whether it needs to be popped or not.  When you pop your own spine you are getting addicted to the endorphins, as a high cost (see #2). 
 
#2 – Is it OK to do that to myself?
            No!  Popping healthy joints is not OK.  It will make them even looser which creates its own problem.  Loose joints become inflamed causing more pain.  Loose joints tear apart the disc cartilage leading to herniated discs.  This is not OK.  You end up creating more of the very problem you are trying to resolve.
            Having said that, is it OK to pop your knuckles.  It really doesn’t matter since there are no discs in your knuckles like in your spine.  But it is really annoying to those around you. 
 
#1 – What makes the popping sound?
             The most common explanation is nitrogen gas coming out of solution when you create a vacuum during the popping action.  But there are other sounds that we don’t fully understand the source of.  So we are not 100% sure. 
 
            If you feel the need to pop your neck or back there is a problem called rust or scar tissue, and more self-popping will only make it worse.  STOP THE POP!  

​It is likely that you have never heard of “Brother Andrew.”  I had not until recently.  He lived and still lives a rather remarkable life as a Christian missionary.  Since my articles revolve around health, this is not about his mission, but I cannot talk about the health story without giving you some information about his life.  I hope you enjoy. 
 
Andrew was born in Holland prior to WW2 and lived through that horror.  Since the war had closed schools, he had a very limited education with no way to make up for lost time.  This, coupled with the pressure from his father to find his way in the world must have been terribly stressful.  A series of events and opportunities led him to Scotland, where he went through what we would now call layman missionary training.  And it was here that he would tell you that he learned to trust in God for everything, and I mean everything.  And he would tell you that he would pray before every big decision and try hard to do God’s bidding, and he learned to trust that as long as he was doing God’s bidding, then God would provide the means and pathway to get done what needed to be done.  For Brother Andrew this became absolute. 
 
His faith and determination would lead him along a very dangerous pathway committing the highly illegal act of smuggling and distributing what was considered by some Soviet governments as pornography, the Christian Bible.  He would narrowly avoid detection and prison repeatedly, sometimes seemingly miraculously, supernaturally.  Not only did very few Christians in these countries have Bibles, but pastors often lacked them as well, or at best there might be one for an entire congregation.  You can imagine the thirst he was able to satisfy.   
 
But Brother Andrew has a terrible lower back.  Sometimes he was barely able to stand.  Other times he could only drive his car at 35mph or the jarring of the road would cause disabling pain.  And still other times all he could do was lie on the ground waiting for the pain to subside.  His mobility was at the whim of his lumbar spine.  This is post World War 2.  Europe is in pieces.  Whole towns and cities have been reduced to rubble.  Medical care is hit and miss.  Chiropractic, being the invention of an American in 1895, has not yet spread to the world, as it would much later. 
 
As you can imagine, Brother Andrew needed a series of good chiropractic adjustments.  But that was not in his future.  What was in his future was not a series of adjustments, but rather a single very serious adjustment, and not one that any of us would want.  This adjustment would happen during a plane crash, believe it or not.  Brother Andrew barely survived that plane crash with a broken vertebra in his lower back.  After months of recovery he noted a very surprising benefit to his broken back, his lower back pain was gone.  It was his opinion and the opinion of his doctors that the trauma of the plane crash had not only broken one bone, but realigned another, and in just the right position.  His pain has never returned.  It just shows that chiropractic adjustments can come in all shapes and sizes, but I hope you like the ones we do here more than a plane crash.  But if you want to give it a try…  

​If I were to ask you what you think of when I mention the name of Paul Newman, what is the first thing that comes to your mind? 
 
            If you are a little boy (and you knew and cared about who does cartoon voices) you would say Doc Hudson from the movie Cars.  If you are a middle aged or older woman you would say those dreamy blue eyes that you could just fall into.  If you are a movie buff you might say Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, or Road to Perdition, or The Color of Money, or The Sting, or dozens of other great, near great, and even awful movies.  A 12 year old patient surprised me with Cat On a Hot Tin Roof.  If you are a gourmand you might say Newman’s Own brand of sauces, dressings, and organics.  If you are an open wheeled CART racing fan you would say the owner of one of the most successful racing teams in open wheel history, and a very fine and accomplished race car driver, even into his 70’s.  If you follow the Oscars, you would answer a 3 time Oscar winner.  If you know your charities, you would say the man that has given away much more than $250 million to charity.  If you are one of the lucky kids to attend his many and international Hole In the Wall Camps for underprivileged kids, you might say the greatest guy on the planet.  If you are a romantic like my wife you might say he is the rare Hollywood man that maintained a close and loving marriage for 50 years, to Joanne Woodward.  If you are a beer drinker you might be jealous of the numbers of beers he could put away every day and still keep a thin and toned physique into his 80’s.  If you are a method actor you might say the co-founder of the Actors Studio West, the home of the popular show Behind the Actors Studio.  And note that he was that show’s first guest.  If you are a politico you might say a very left wing political operator who was not too big to man a call center for his candidate, or go out and stump for him.  And if you are one of his 5 daughters you might say a wonderful, loving, well intended, but often absent father.  After all, he was pretty busy.
 
            If you answered any of the above you would be right.  He was all of those things and more.  As my patient Tony said, Paul Newman was the real deal.  He was committed to so many things and managed to find time for all of them, except perhaps one, but that’s another story.  He was successful in so much but he never took credit for any of it.  He thought that his life was a privilege and that he was just the recipient of a life long string of good luck.  He was just a regular guy that knew what he wanted and was willing to do the work.
 
            So why do I bring him up?  There was one more thing he found time for in his busy schedule.  Do you remember article #149 where I talk about research that showed that 25 minutes of brisk walking each day would add 3-7 years on to your life?  Paul Newman did just that.  He exercised every day, and perhaps for not more than those 25 minutes.  It might have been walking or running or swimming, but it was something every day.  It was no accident that he raced competitively well into his 70’s.  It was no accident that he had such a high energy level.  It was no accident that he did all that he did.  And it was no accident that his exceptional health lasted 83 years.  He worked at it.  150 minutes a week is all you need…and all I ask.  

​ I really think that many people make it harder than it needs to be to get healthier.  Just this past weekend there was research presented at the European Society of Cardiology Congress that was done by Germany’s Saarland University that demonstrates just what I’m saying.  But before we get to that research please let me review the steps to getting healthier:

1. Decide to get healthier.
2. Do one thing about it and then never stop doing that one thing.  Hint: keep it easy.
3. When that one thing is part of your lifestyle do another thing.  Maybe something harder.

That’s it!
 
            Admittedly, there are a lot of ways to measure “healthier.”  Most of us use weight.  It’s easy to measure.  We feel good when it goes down.  We get depressed when it goes up.  But there are a lot of skinny people who get sick, right?  So losing weight may be a good thing but it’s not a true measure of health.  A BETTER way to measure “healthier” is endurance.  For example, I can speed walk so far at such and such mph before I get tired.  Or I can do so many minutes of Zumba before I throw up.  Endurance.  The BEST way is what was used in the above noted research.
 
            Genetic bio-markers.  Telomerase activity.  Blood-thiole levels.  C-Reactive Protein.  Things such as these.  Researchers now take blood and measure DNA repair, anti-oxidant levels, or inflammation levels.  These and other much more complex types of tests are much truer ways to measure health and longevity.  They tell us how our behavior is effecting our gene expression. 
 
            So back to the German study.  What they found out is that if you fast-walk for 25 minutes per day, or 150 minutes per week, your genetic bio-markers improve.  You actually slow down the aging process at the genetic level.  Let me restate that, you actually slow down the aging process!!  No you can’t get younger, but you can get older more slowly.  And that’s fantastic!!  The research concluded that by speed-walking 25 minutes per day you will live 3-7 years longer, you will have a greater quality of life, and you will have less stress.  That is so simple.
 
            That goes back to my first sentence, people make getting healthier harder than it needs to be.  What could be easier than putting on some decent shoes, loading up your favorite play list on your phone audio app, and walking out your front door at as fast a pace as you can every day for 25 minutes?  “Hey, I don’t have 25 minutes a day,” you say.  Fine, in the long run your body doesn’t know the difference between 25 minutes-7 days per week or 50 minutes-3 days per week.  You decide which fits your life.  “I’m too old,” you say.  The research even said starting at 60 or 70 made a difference.  It’s never too late.
 
Remember: 1) Decide to get healthier.  2)  Do one thing about it and never stop.  3) When that one thing is routine, do another thing.  Someday you’ll thank yourself.    

​Pretend you own a house in a fire zone, like just about anywhere in Southern California, right?  Now imagine you don’t carry fire insurance.  Perhaps you keep a stack of flammable materials like a wood pile right next to your house.  I’ll bet there are thousands of homes just like this.  Now pretend you store old leaky kerosene containers in the back yard next to your extensive road flare collection, which you store at the base of your lightning rod.  Yeah, I know I’m getting silly.  Play with me for a minute.  This person would be suffering from a super extreme severe case of IWHTM, It Won’t Happen To Me.  We all suffer from this in some form or another, especially when it comes to our health. 
           
            Look at your older relatives.  The ones who take a bag full of medications every day.  The ones who use an electronic wheel chair to shop at the grocery store.  The ones who are in and out of the medical doctor’s office, or worse yet, the hospital.  Not the ones who are sick occasionally, but the ones who now define who they are by their ailments.  You know who these sad people are.  What do you think when you look at them?  Personally, I think “I wonder what I can do to not be like that when I’m that age.”  Honestly, I think that all the time as I walk around and people-watch.  Or I might think, “What did they do to get like that?”  Because I know that if I sit back and live my life just like they did I will be in the exact same boat that they are in.  I will not accept that fate, at least not without a fight.  Because I suffer from the opposite of It Won’t Happen To Me.  I suffer from It Will Happen To Me.  (Well actually I suffer from It Probably Will Happen To Me, but those initials are IPWHTM, which doesn’t fit the title of this article, so let’s just you and I pretend that I suffer from It Will Happen To Me, OK?) (I mean, if I really suffered from It Will Happen To Me then I would have to be some sort of paranoid hypochondriac, right?  Which I’m not…am I?)
 
            If I know it will (or probably will) happen to me then I’m going to do something about it now and not wait until it happens to me, right?  I’m going to change my lifestyle in some way, or multiple ways.  And I’m going to have to develop a plan to make that change, because the change is not going to happen by accident.  If I wait for the accidental change then I’m going to be in the same bag of meds riding the same electronic cart checking into the same hospital. 
 
            So what’s the plan you ask?  Here are the steps I took since 2000 and continue to this day.  1) Drink 64 oz. water per day.  2) Fast-walk/hike 45 minutes 3/week.  3) Weight loss and/or strict weight management.  4) Get adjusted weekly.  5) Daily stretching using the Disc Pump Exercises.  5) Supplementation of Vitamins D3, E, and Multiple, Omega 3, Glucosamine/Chondroitin, Standardized Turmeric.  There are other steps that are more geared toward mental/emotional health but those are beyond this article.
 
            For most of us avoiding a personal future defined by medical intervention and immobility does not require much, but it does require a decision and a commitment to that decision.  The 5 things listed above are easy to do.  Making the decision to do them and committing to that decision for the rest of your life is the hard part.  How are you doing with that?