1.) Malposition – This simply means misalignment of a vertebra
2.) Occlusion – This refers to the closing off of an opening that a nerve passes through. In our case, we are referring to the neural canal where the spinal cord travels down.
3.) Pressure – When C1 or C2 is misaligned, this can occlude the neural canal near the brain stem. This can cause pressure or tension on the cord at this level.
4.) Interference to flow of nervous system transmission – With a misalignment, an occlusion, and pressure, there is zero chance for the nervous system to properly communicate to the rest of the body.
5.) Three-directional torqued vertebra – To achieve these four components of vertebral subluxation, the C1 and C2 vertebrae has to shift up or down, left or right, and rotated front or back.

We covered the causes of physical stress, emotional stress, and chemical stress in the first three parts.

Managing the Stress in Life

Today, we will explain how to successfully manage stress that comes into your life. Let’s begin with the most obvious.

Chiropractic – Keeping the nervous system free of interference is one of the most important things you can do for your health. when the nerve channels are blockaded by the vertebral subluxation, your Innate Intelligence cannot operate at its full capacity. When that happens, your immune system is weakened and your overall functionality is compromised. So remember to get your nervous system checked!

Clean Diet – Keeping your diet free of preservatives, additives, pesticides, and genetically modified food is one of the other important things you can do for your health. Our bodies crave and need nutrient-dense, unaltered food. Organic is the best way to go when it comes to produce. Avoiding the grocery store aisles, especially the three whites (sugar, flour and salt) is another.

Clean water – Our bodies are anywhere from 2/3 to 3/4 water depending on what reference you read, so it only makes sense that you drink a lot of water during the day. I won’t tell you to drink 8 cups of water a way because that may be too much or too little. Only your body knows. But it requires that you listen to it. When you get thirsty, instead of reaching for a soft drink or sports drink, go for some clean, filtered water. Your body will thank you.

Exercise – I won’t tell you what exercise to do or how long to do it, but I will tell you to just do it. It could be going for a walk with the kids, running, body weight exercises such as push-ups and pull-ups, kettle bell workouts, sprinting, mowing the lawn, yoga, martial arts, swimming, bicycling, etc. Getting your body moving is a key to health and the more you do it, the better you feel and the more you want to do it.

Quality Sleep – Our bodies need the opportunity to rest, heal, and regenerate from the previous day’s events. Without this healing period, our bodies begin to break down, not just physically, but mentally. Our bodies begin to ache and our immune systems weaken. Our moods begin to sour and we begin to take on a feeling of hopelessness. For young parents (including myself) sleep can often be a precious commodity that is hard to obtain. So getting sleep whenever an opportunity arises sometimes takes priority over straight sleep throughout the night.

Meditating – This is often overlooked by many people in our fast-paced society. I know… I overlook it often, but I recognize this as a place for improvement. Taking some time each day to sit in silence and focus on a peaceful state of mind will refresh and calm you. You will be better equipped to deal with the stresses of the day after having done this.

In short, healthy people have frequent sex. As B.J. Palmer often stated, “Enuf said.”

Have Fun and Enjoy Life – Enjoying life is imperative. The United States is notorious for its people taking the least amount of vacation days per year of any country in the world. We are an overworked and overstressed society. It is vitally important to remember to have fun and enjoy the things and activities that bring joy and happiness. This could be a trip to the zoo with the kids, a game of basketball with some friends, or reading a good book. Whatever you think is fun, make sure you do it as often as time allows.

Here’s a story to put this suggestion into perspective:

A boat docked in a tiny Mexican fishing village.

A tourist complimented the local fishermen on the quality of their fish and asked how long it took him to catch them.

“Not very long.” they answered in unison.

“Why didn’t you stay out longer and catch more?”

The fishermen explained that their small catches were sufficient to meet their needs and those of their families.

“But what do you do with the rest of your time?”

“We sleep late, fish a little, play with our children, and take siestas with our wives. In the evenings, we go into the village to see our friends, have a few drinks, play the guitar, and sing a few songs. We have a full life.”

The tourist interrupted, “I have an MBA from Harvard and I can help you! You should start by fishing longer every day. You can then sell the extra fish you catch. With the extra revenue, you can buy a bigger boat.”

“And after that?”

“With the extra money the larger boat will bring, You can buy a second one and a third one and so on until you have an entire fleet of trawlers. Instead of selling your fish to a middle man, You can then negotiate directly with the processing plants and maybe even open your own plant. You can then leave this little village and move to Mexico City, Los Angeles, or even New York City! From there you can direct your huge new enterprise.”

“How long would that take?”

“Twenty, perhaps twenty-five years.” replied the tourist.

“And after that?”

“Afterwards? Well my friend, that’s when it gets really interesting, ” answered the tourist, laughing. “When your business gets really big, you can start buying and selling stocks and make millions!”

“Millions? Really? And after that?” asked the fishermen.

“After that you’ll be able to retire, live in a tiny village near the coast, sleep late, play with your children, catch a few fish, take a siesta with your wife and spend your evenings drinking and enjoying your friends.”

“With all due respect sir, but that’s exactly what we are doing now. So what’s the point wasting twenty-five years?” asked the Mexicans.

And the moral of this story is:

Know where you’re going in life… You may already be there!

Conclusion

We live in a health-challenged society, but that doesn’t mean we have to be health challenged ourselves. Learn more about the stress-reducing techniques I suggested here and apply them to your lives as best you can. You can also check out The Top 5 Things You Can Do To Be The Healthiest You’ve Ever Been! Part 1  and The Top 5 Things You Can Do To Be The Healthiest You’ve Ever Been! Part 2 for more tips. No matter your circumstances, you deserve to be healthy and happy!

[Original article by Dr. Brandon Harshe on April 8, 2010; www.theatlasoflife.com; modified by Dr. Stacey Rosenberg]

1.) Malposition – This simply means misalignment of a vertebra
2.) Occlusion – This refers to the closing off of an opening that a nerve passes through. In our case, we are referring to the neural canal where the spinal cord travels down.
3.) Pressure – When C1 or C2 is misaligned, this can occlude the neural canal near the brain stem. This can cause pressure or tension on the spinal cord at this level.
4.) Interference to flow of nervous system transmission – With a misalignment, an occlusion, and pressure, there is zero chance for the nervous system to properly communicate to the rest of the body.
5.) Three-directional torqued vertebra – To achieve these four components of vertebral subluxation, the C1 and C2 vertebrae has to shift up or down, left or right, and rotated front or back.

We also covered physical and emotional stress and their contribution to vertebral subluxations. Let’s move onto the third and final cause.

Toxins aka Chemical Stress

Toxins are around us at every corner. They are in the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, in our medicine cabinets, our bodies… you name it, and toxins are there.

So how do we avoid toxins?

First off, let’s make one thing perfectly clear. We will never be able to avoid all toxins. Life happens and so do toxins. You might as well forget about taking control of every single thing that enters your body right now.

There will be days that no matter how much fresh organic juice you make in your Jack LaLanne juicer, no matter how many miles you run, no matter how long you meditate, you still might walk through a cigarette smoker’s exhaled, yet lingering nicotinic cloud, or breathe in fumes from some old clunker’s exhaust, or shower in city water full of prescription drug remnants and fluoride.

That being said, you can actually control a number of toxins from entering your body. Let’s begin with the most toxic.

Prescription Drugs

In 1992, the average American got an average of seven prescriptions per year. In 2008? That number went up to 12. This is a 71% increase, which amounts to an extra $180 billion in sales for pharmaceutical companies.

Being on 12 prescription drugs is not health. In fact, that is completely toxic to your health, and any MD who says differently is giving unethical advice and should be jailed. Health does not come from a pill or a bottle. It is an outside-in approach, a way of treating the effect, that will never produce the desired effect… which is a healthy lifestyle.

I don’t care how skillfully that guy in the Cialis commercial can throw a football through a tire, Cialis is not good for you. It doesn’t matter how good of a time those four old guys are having on their vacation, cholesterol lowering medications are a cover-up in dealing with the real issue: a disfunctioning liver due to terrible diet and lifestyle decisions.

Prozac Poster

Let’s take a look at the popular drug fluoxetine, more commonly known as Prozac. This drug is commonly used for major depression (including pediatric depression), obsessive-compulsive disorder (in both adult and pediatric populations), bulimia nervosa, panic disorder and premenstrual dysphoric disorder.

Prozac is a selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor (SSRI), and the fourth of its kind when Ely Lilly released it to the public. When the first two SSRIs on the market were withdrawn due to side effects, Eli Lilly went on a fierce marketing campaign to make sure fluoxatine was looked at as a major scientific breakthrough in popular culture. Also, they made it appear as if fluoxetine was the first SSRI to be introduced to the market, when it was not.

Below is a list of side effects associated with Prozac, not often realized because of its acceptance in our society:

Drowsiness, Chronic Trouble Sleeping, Excessive Sweating, Head Pain, Feel Like Throwing Up, Diarrhea, Nervous, Feeling Weak, Anxious, Itching, Joint Pain, Muscle Pain, Fever, Chills, Rash, Trouble Breathing, Nightmares, Feeling Restless, Problems with Eyesight, Ringing in the Ears, Abnormal Heart Rhythm, Stuffy Nose, Dry Mouth, Incomplete or Infrequent Bowel Movements, Inability to have an Erection, Painful Periods, Sun-Sensitive Skin, Hair Loss, Dizzy, Low Energy, Involuntary Quivering, Taste Problems, Temporary Redness of Face and Neck, Loss of Appetite, Weight Loss, Increased Hunger, Fast Heartbeat, Cough, Chest Pain, Throwing Up, Gas, Frequent Urination, Stomach Cramps, Numbness and Tingling, Confused, Sexual Problems, Altered Interest in Having Sexual Intercourse, Neuroleptic Malignant Syndrome, Serotonin Syndrome – Adverse Drug Interaction, Hepatitis caused by Drugs, Inflammation of Skin caused by an Allergy, Erythema Multiforme, Seizures, Swollen Lymph Nodes, Abnormal Liver Function Tests, Reaction due to an Allergy, Allergic Reaction causing Serum Sickness, Low Blood Sugar, Low Amount of Sodium in the Blood, Increased Risk of Bleeding, Behaving with Excessive Cheerfulness and Activity, Mild Degree of Mania, Having Thoughts of Suicide, Loss of Memory, Flu-Like Symptoms, Weight Gain, and Mood Changes.

Altered interest in having sexual intercourse? Hepatitis caused by drugs? No thank you.

To be fair, most of these side effects are rare. But if someone were to take this drug for 15-20 years, I suspect the rare side effects become everyday business as usual.

Is it any wonder that Ely Lilly needed to embark on a fierce marketing campaign to con the public into believing in this worthless and dangerous drug?

Food and Drink

Along with prescription drugs, this subject could take up multiple blog posts for weeks. Food in our society is not what it once was. In fact, most food we eat is not really food. Look no further than the aisles at your local grocery store. Packaged goods with ingredient lists full of words understood only by hardcore chemists line the shelves at every corner.

Ingredients like monosodium glutamate (MSG), phenylketonuronics aka phenalalanine aka aspartame, L-cysteine, high fructose corn syrup, red #40, and yellow #5 frequent all sorts of packaged goods such as Hamburger Helper, diet sodas, whole wheat bread, frozen microwaveable dinners, most cereals, and more. These things do not occur in nature.

For example, MSG was originally derived from seaweed as a salty additive to foods. But now, it is mass-manufactured by the tons through an industrialized fermentation process of starch, sugar beets, sugar cane, or molasses. MSG is the single salt form of glutamate, an amino acid found in protein rich foods, as well as in your body. It is an excitotoxic substance that can raise your blood glutamate levels up to 20 times the normal limit. It might also be responsible for making cancer cells more mobile and contributing to or even causing cardiac arrythmias, among other things.

But here’s the sneaky part: MSG can be in your food under different guises. The manufacturers of this chemical know the negative public perception of the three letters M-S-G, so they were able to get laws passed that allowed them to disguise MSG as yeast extract, hydrolyzed vegetable protein, and textured protein, to name a few.

But even if you avoid the aisles in the grocery stores, the produce can be just as bad. Pesticides are used generously on fruits and vegetables grown around the world. While we all grow up learning to wash our produce before eating it, you can’t wash off or wash out all the pesticides.

Airplane spraying pesticide on crops

There is something called the dirty dozen in regards to produce. This is referring to foods containing the highest amount of pesticides. They are, from most to least: peaches, apples, bell peppers, celery, nectarines, strawberries, cherries, kale, lettuce, grapes (from outside the United States), carrots, and pears. These are not the only foods containing pesticides, just the foods with the most. All conventional produce will contain pesticides to some degree.

Then, we get into the subject of genetically engineered food. Again, this could be more blog posts in and of itself. I will simply refer you to the movie Food, Inc. It is a little bit like in the movie the Matrix, when Morpheus offers Neo the choice between the red pill (the truth) and the blue pill (return to the status quo). Food, Inc is akin to taking the red pill (thanks to Dr. Scott Brady for that metaphor).

Avoiding the Chemicals

As I said earlier, we can’t always avoid everything around us. Many of us live in cities with high rates of pollution, or our homes may have hidden mold that we don’t know about (common in Texas). What we can do is avoid the things we do have control over.

Prescription drugs, unless ABSOLUTELY necessary, are not necessary. Not the purple pill or the green pill or the yellow pill. Not one pill or seven pills or twelve pills. I might sound a little like Dr. Seuss, but I am serious. God doesn’t make defective junk that only pharmaceuticals can cure. In fact, the word pharmaceutical itself is derived from words meaning something along the lines of witchcraft. Not very scientific if you ask me.

When in the grocery store, avoid the aisles and buy organic produce if possible. Jack LaLanne has a saying that goes something like this: “If man made it, don’t eat it.” Grocery store aisles are filled with man-made food and you’re better off staying out of them. Organic has become somewhat of a hip and cool pop culture term, but still your best bet when it comes to pesticide free food.

Next week, I’ll conclude this series with a list of things you can do to minimize or avoid physical, emotional, and chemical stress.

[by Dr. Brandon Harshe on April 1, 2010 from http://theatlasoflife.com/2010/04/01/trauma-thoughts-and-toxins-vertebral-subluxations-part-3-chemical-stress/]