Prana Chiropractic's Wellness Corner

Black tea has become one of my favorite beverages and what's awesome is it's very simple to make at home.  I personally use my coffee maker to make an entire "pot" of tea by simply dropping 8 to 10 tagless bags of black tea in the coffee pot after adding 12 cups of water to the maker.  Turn it on and let it run it's cycle and there you have it, a pot of hot, fresh black tea.  In addition to being extremely easy to prepare, black tea is full of health benefits, making it a great choice for those of us working to live a Wellness Based Lifestyle. Like several other teas, black tea is made from the Camellia Sinensis plant.  Black tea is fermented longer than green tea, which accounts for the darker color.  As a result of the longer fermentation process, black tea has a higher caffeine content. Among the health benefits of black tea, perhaps the most important is the high amounts of antioxidants present.  Antioxidants help to reverse the detrimental effe...

So Kelly turned me on to coconut oil several years ago as a healthy alternative to other cooking oils.    Nowadays, coconut oil is widely accepted by the nutrition community as one of the healthiest oils that we can use for cooking, and a great way to add healthy fats to your diet.    Initially, there were concerns by the health community over the amount of saturated fat that coconut oil contains, but given the unique structure of the saturated fats they contain, those initial fears have gone by the wayside.    I decided I wanted to look a little more in depth at some of the health benefits it offers. Number one, which is also the reason my wife began using coconut oil prior to its level of current popularity is the fact that it has a higher tolerance to temperature than other non- hydrogenated oils, like olive and some canola oils (I want to talk about the negatives of canola oil in another blog later).    Oils can actually reach a point ...

I am often asked about nutrition and what I consider to be a “healthy” diet.  So I’m sharing with you here the nuts and bolts of healthy nutrition.  It’s your job to take these nuts and bolts and use them to build healthy meals.  Remember that we want to focus on changing eating habits and to work towards establishing a Wellness Based Lifestyle!  The list of foods below is the food choices in different categories to choose from when constructing your meals and options to choose as snacks.   In order to increase body metabolism, aim to eat 6 smaller meals a day verses 3 larger meals.  Each of your meals will ideally be close to the same size in terms of overall calories and proportions.  Space them out 2 to 3 hours from each other, but don’t go over 3 ½ hours in between meals. Proteins:  Eggs (free range vegetarian fed), lean chicken breast, Wild salmon, tilapia, tuna, flounder, lean turkey breast, scallops, organic tofu, organic tempeh,...

Often times we are completely wrapped up in our day at work, home, commuting, attending meetings, and a long list of other obligations.  Once lunchtime comes around, because we are so busy, we often times end up making some pretty bad choices regarding food.  We settle for a fast food drive thru, or we choice a candy bar and soda from the vending machine or gas station.  Problem is, neither of these choices does anything to actually fuel our body, and afterwards we feel lethargic and hungry again. In order to avoid this type of situation, over the years, I have relied on meal prepping in order to make certain that I always have healthy meals at my finger tips.  The process is extremely simple.  You just pick a day that you are off or can set aside 45 minutes or so, and cook a week’s worth of meals, ahead of time.  Sunday seems to work well for me, so in the morning before I get fully involved in the day, I will grab out a bag of frozen fish, 7 swee...

You guys know I love my fun facts about the human body and how we function.   Keeping with this tradition, here are a few more for your reading pleasure!   And seriously, as fun as it is, it’s important to learn about the things that make us all truly amazing, from the inside out.   Funny how regular Chiropractic care works to increase health and Wellness from the Inside Out as well! Did you know that children have approximately 10,000 taste buds?  Thing is, as we age the number of taste buds naturally decreases.  This accounts for the natural loss of some taste as we get older. A person that has no ability to smell is referred to as anosmic. Each fingertip has approximately 100 touch receptors. If you were born with one eye, the world would appear as 2-Dimensional. Your sense of smell is 20,000 times stronger than your sense of taste. Females have more taste buds than males.  Education is the key to growth! The more you know and understand...

Why Spinal Problems Often Return Chiropractic skeptics often pooh-pooh the idea of periodic chiropractic checkups after symptoms subside with the classic, “If it’s not broke, don’t fix it” line. This justification often results in a relapse into the original problem for countless patients. How come? Because biomechanical changes along the spine affecting nerves and muscles don’t heal like a cut, infection or some other self-resolving health condition. Addressing Long Lasting Problems By the time spinal problems produce obvious symptoms, the problem has been there for some time—maybe even decades. Yet the symptom didn’t emerge until “last week, when I bent down to pick up the paper.” Thankfully, a chiropractic care plan may produce symptomatic improvement in a matter of months, sometimes weeks. The patient is delighted, but we haven’t completed the retraining of the underlying muscles and soft tissues necessary for lasting spinal changes. That’s w...

Anyone that exercises regularly is certainly familiar with the muscle and joint soreness that accompanies tough workouts, particularly a day or two afterwards.    So what’s going on here in the body that causes the onset of sore and stiff muscles?    The simplest answer is tissue inflammation.    By better understanding inflammation and learning ways to control the symptoms can lead to faster recovery times, fitness gains, and most importantly avoiding injuries.    To get started, let’s look at what inflammation actually is, in simple terms.    It is an immune system response to damage that’s occurred to the tissues.    Exercise causes damage to the tissues by causing microscopic tears to the muscle fibers.    As a result of this damage, inflammation occurs around the site of the tears….which is actually the body’s way of repairing the damage.    In turn, once the tears have healed the muscles become s...