The Healthy Highlights of 2021 from The Back Pain Centre Team
This challenging year was full of new ideas and facts and many of them have helped us and our clinic members (patients) to learn about ourselves. This is what we have learned from the reports of our patients:
Vitamin D
Maintaining good levels of vitamin D has helped the immunity, the mood, and the muscle tone of many. Most often they are taking D3 4000IU with K2 added which they got from us. Some of our clients had it in a spray form which they got from Amazon or a health shop.
Barefoot Shoes
Wearing Barefoot shoes has strengthened the feet of many and had a great impact on the health of the ankles, knees, hips and back. We are still offering arch supporting insoles for use with conventional shoes, but we are now shifting everyone’s attention to barefoot shoes. This style of shoes has many reported benefits and reviews from our colleagues and patients.
We use Vivo-Barefoot (use NOBACKPAIN code at checkout, to get a discount).
We have also teamed up with BeLenka barefoot shoes which have slightly different range of shoes and boots, both for hiking and everyday use, including women’s boots. Some of our patients have ditched all their old shoes in favour of barefoot only based on how they felt wearing those.
Stretching and Core-Stability
Some of our clients had to reduce the frequency of care due to the ULEZ and other reasons (COVID and family/work arrangements). What we’ve recommended is to increase the frequency of the exercises and they managed very well.
It was reported, that following our 4-5 times a day 1-2 minutes stretch routine made a huge difference and the core stability 5-10 minute morning and evening was enough to continue training and working without injuries. Most of you managed to do very well in between your monthly maintenance check-ups.
The stretches are as follows: Neck rolls (without looking up), shoulder rolls (arms pushed to the body), standing body twists (looking over your shoulder), sitting elbow to opposite knee (without lifting knees) and laying on back both knees rolls to sides (arms stretched and looking to the opposite direction) or a one knee roll over with hand pushing knee down, while looking to opposite side, knee to the chest pulled by hands together and one by one (each knee to each shoulder). Most of them are repetitive stretches with 1-2 seconds hold.
The core stability is a static exercise and it is as follows: Bridge leg raises (no too high bridge), superman (opposite arm and leg), front and side plank, cycling in the air while laying on your back with low back pushed to the floor. These performed 10-15 seconds holds 3-4 times, cycling slowly 10 times, 3 sets.
Many of you found, that Spinedango two 9 minutes routines helped a lot to break their daily stagnation and realign the back and the neck with shoulders. The free Spinedango routines are always available here https://www.spinedango.com/free and include most of the above exercises.
Posture and Balance
You know, we insist, that one should stand balancing on both legs at the same time (not constantly leaning on one) and that one should always seat with their back supported by a lumbar support, pillow or whatever it is, keeping their shoulders reclined and relaxed, using the comfort of gravity. Well, we have recent reports from our patients, that this new habit has given them a great advantage in healing their back and neck problems as well as more mechanical and emotional control over their bodies. We are very pleased with that and we hope they will spread the word about their improvement to their family, friends and work Colleagues.
Healing Cold
Cold showers becoming increasingly popular and the benefits of better immunity and circulation are reported by everyone. The best practice seems to be a hot shower followed by a 30 second cold one on the coldest setting.
Fasting
Very important are the reports from our patients, who have fasted to lose weight and to cleanse their system. Muslims often fast Mondays and Thursdays starting their day with some nuts and figs before the sunrise and having a light dish after the sunset. We have not done a long-term study, but, those who do that on the regular basis have better general health. That indirectly benefits the mechanical problems of the joints due to lesser weight and apparent increased ability to fight inflammation.
Many of our clients have reported, that intermittent fasting, which now became popular, has the same effect. Many people reported that it was easy for them to miss the breakfast and survive until lunch on herbal tea without milk and sugar or just on water. They say it was harder for them to have breakfast and lunch but miss the dinner. But many were able to bring their dinner to an earlier evening and then avoid snaking before bed. In average most people fasted 14-18 hours a day roughly 3-5 days a week. Most effective but still comfortable was reported to be 18 hours, some did 20 hours couple of times a week and said it was same as doing 18. One person was doing 18 hour fast, but added fasting workout twice a week which fell on the end of the fast period, when body is burning fat. He felt good. What was also reported is that maintaining low carbohydrate diet during eating hours made the fasting hours easier and taking Omega 3 as a supplement reduced sugar cravings.
Nose Breathing
Nose breathing is becoming a bigger issue during cold months and we have to remind you, that making effort to breath in and breath out through your nose, will help to clear the nose of the adult and the child. If, however one breathes through their mouth, because their nose is blocked, the nose may be constantly blocked, leading to sinus problems and headaches. Benefits of nose breathing has been described by many specialists including P.McKeown in his book Close Your Mouth
We have received comments from our patients, that nose breathing increased their energy and improved their resistance to colds. It is also known to influence child formation and growth of the face and teeth and parents started to pay attention to that. I guess we will hear from them when they are grown up.
Help Us to Help You
We received some new 5 star reviews this year on Google and on our Facebook page. We are very grateful to everyone who found time to do this, because this is helping us to extend our health advice and support to more people in the community. You can also follow us on Facebook and Google for latest updates.
Some less kind community members have given us one-star reviews. Some of them were very unfair and some of them were probably part-deserved, part-misunderstanding. If you think we can improve your experience we are happy to see you or speak to you to help you more than we could do the first time.
Please do not suffer in silence, if you are not happy with anything at the clinic, or if you need some additional attention or help, please talk to us as soon as you can and we will find time for everything.
Wishing everyone a Great Christmas and New Year Holiday and hoping for a bright and healthy 2022.
With you in Health!
The Back Pain Centre
Chiropractic, Physiotherapy and Massage Specialists in South Woodford serving London since 1994
