As a Chiropractor, I understand the importance of quality sleep. Knowing how to get better sleep will nurture both body and mind. Here are some transformative benefits of a good night’s rest with a comprehensive pre-bedtime routine. Achieve a restful and rejuvenating sleep following these steps.

How To Get Better Sleep

The Benefits of Quality Sleep:

1. Enhanced Cognitive Function. Good sleep is essential for cognitive processes such as memory consolidation, problem-solving, and concentration.
2. Improved Mood. Adequate rest can help regulate emotions and promote a positive outlook on life.
3. Enhanced Immune Function. Quality sleep strengthens the immune system, helping the body fight off infections and diseases.
4. Optimal Physical Health. Adequate rest supports healthy growth, repair of tissues, and maintenance of overall physical health.
5. Weight Management. Quality sleep plays a role in regulating hormones that control appetite, potentially aiding in weight management.
6. Reduced Inflammation. Good sleep is linked to lower levels of inflammation in the body, reducing the risk of chronic diseases.
7. Improved Heart Health. Quality sleep is associated with a reduced risk of heart disease and helps maintain healthy blood pressure.
8. Enhanced Athletic Performance. Adequate rest improves physical performance, coordination, and recovery in athletes.
9. Stress Reduction. Quality sleep lowers stress levels and enhances resilience to daily challenges.
10. Longevity. Studies suggest that consistent, restful sleep is linked to a longer and healthier life.

How to Get Better Sleep:

Pre-Bedtime Routine: Must-Do’s:

1. Establish a Relaxing Routine. Engaging in calming activities like reading, meditating, or taking a warm bath signals to your body that it’s time to wind down.
2. Limit Screen Time. Reduce screen exposure at least an hour before bed, as the blue light emitted can disrupt your body’s sleep-wake cycle.
3. Create a Comfortable Environment. Ensure your bedroom is conducive to sleep by keeping it cool, dark, and quiet.
4. Practice Good Sleep Hygiene. Maintain a consistent sleep schedule and create a relaxing bedtime ritual to signal to your body that it’s time to sleep.
5. Mindful Breathing Exercises. Practice deep breathing or progressive muscle relaxation to calm your mind and body before sleep.

Pre-Bedtime Routine: Do Not’s:

1. Avoid Caffeine and Stimulants. Steer clear of caffeine, nicotine, and other stimulants close to bedtime, as they can interfere with your ability to fall asleep.
2. Limit Heavy Meals. Avoid heavy or spicy meals close to bedtime, as they can cause digestive discomfort and disrupt sleep.
3. Skip Intense Exercise. While regular exercise is beneficial for sleep, vigorous workouts close to bedtime can be stimulating, making it harder to fall asleep.
4. Refrain from Alcohol. While alcohol may initially make you feel drowsy, it can disrupt the quality of your sleep later in the night.
5. Avoid Prolonged Screen Time. The blue light emitted from screens can suppress melatonin production, making it harder to fall asleep.

By incorporating these must-do’s and avoiding the do not’s into your pre-bedtime routine, you can pave the way for a restful and restorative night’s sleep.

Wishing you peaceful nights and energized mornings.

P.S. Did you know that regular chiropractic care leads to less stress in the body? This has been shown to positively impact sleep.

Happy journey towards health – Dr. Laura

I get asked very often: ”How do I live a healthy lifestyle Dr. Laura?”. Unfortunately, there is no magic pill, no ONE thing that we need to incorporate into our day to day life – there are MANY things.

Living a Healthy Lifestyle

Whenever I am asked this question, I am always hesitant, as explaining a list a mile long can deter people from even making one small change towards wellness. Instead, my answer usually begins in the form of a question: “What are you willing to do?”, as keeping people accountable to their responsibilities really comes down to what they are willing to do. I can suggest many approaches, but at the end of the day, it is really up to YOU.

It is the same as going on a diet tomorrow and throwing out everything in your cupboard. This approach is not sustainable long term. Small steps in the right direction will get you to your goal. When you understand that healthy living is multifactorial you will look at it that way. Like pieces of a puzzle. Our goal in life is to experience and express life to its full potential! As chiropractors, it is our job to help facilitate that expression. When the nerve system is ABLE to process all that we experience in our life, that leads to a full and prosperous experience. That is health.

The Wellness Checklist

When our spine moves properly, through the full range of motion on a consistent basis, it sends signals to our brain to allow it to navigate the world and dynamically take in the data that is coming to it. That is life. So the first checkbox to living a healthy lifestyle would be chiropractic: a spine that moves fully and completely.

Other factors include:

1. 8-10 hours of sleep
2. Good nutrition
3. Meditation and deep breathing
4. Positive thoughts
5. Reduce chemical load
6. Time outside in nature
7. Emotional self care
8. Being around positive people
9. Movement and exercise
10. Connection to your life purpose

That may seem like a long list – but don’t get overwhelmed.

It is important to understand that when our spine moves, our brain dials down the stress response and feelings of being overwhelmed. When this happens, THEN we move towards new, optimal and functional choices naturally, and oftentimes, unconsciously.

Happy journey towards health – Dr. Laura

The Stress Epidemic

There is more than one Epidemic in today’s society.

Stress: We Are In A Stress Epidemic.

Never before has our community, and society in general, experienced so much chronic disease and stress related illnesses. We all know what stress is and we wouldn’t argue that we are under a lot of it in the “ pressure cooker” world we live in. But, what most doesn’t know is how stress affects our bodies.   

The Stress Epidemic in Modern Society

Modern day stress has catapulted us into the early stages of the worst epidemic of all time: Stress overload. In reality, all forms of stress are “ brain stress” causing what keeps us in overdrive and fight or flight.  

Fight or flight in 30 minute bursts will and can save your life. But, the long term presence of this state (which is how most of us live our life continuously) turns off (to name a few) our reproductive system, immune system and digestive system.

Think of someone who is stressed out may follow this picture: someone who is always sick, run down, fatigued ,bags under eye, gaining weight, constipated. That is what the continual presence of cortisol and epinephrine do to your body. The better and faster you can get your body to deal with, and process, stress the less the fight or flight mechanism will work against you.   

Tips to deal with stress and recover from the stress epidemic:

1. Remove yourself from the stressful event, experience or people.
2. Breathe and meditate. 
3. Regular Chiropractic adjustments- neurological and physiologically bring the body back to ease and remove the stress overload.

More than 2 billion people worldwide are now suffering from stress based health challenges such as: IBS, colitis, fibromyalgia, migraines, depression, anxiety and more.  

The good news:

Chiropractic is more than a treatment for sore neck, it is a true health care system. To optimize and maintain your brain-body connection and put your brain in its “happy place” choose Chiropractic. 

Happy journey towards health – Dr. Laura

New Year Restoration: Keys to the New You

Typically when we celebrate the New Year, we’re excited for the new beginning and typically most of us make at least one resolution. It could be weight loss, bucket list items, find love, exercise more, eat less, work more/less, typically these resolutions fail, and with a few week or months we are back to our old habits. 

Resolution for care for the New You

This year, let’s all make the resolution to promote restoration to our current lives, implementing small and manageable changes that impact your overall health and well-being.

Tending and maintaining our nervous system is how I can help you, here are some tips that can assist in living up to our true and best selves. When you think of restoration, you think of restoring or bringing back to life.

Repairing

Fixing

Mending

Reconstruction

Overhaul

Renovation

Rehab

Mending

Return.

All of those paint a wonderful picture as to what goes on in your body every minute of every day.  Your body is a house under constant construction from the top of your head to the tip of your nose… 24-7-365.

Always renovating and repairing itself. We cannot see the constant buzz of healing and reorganization. We cannot see the enzymes, hormones, cells, antibodies that are in constant motion. These chemicals (and that is what your body is, a beaker full of simultaneous chemical reactions)… cleaning up dead and debris cells.

They are always cleaning up and laying down new cells. Out with the old and in with the new. This continuous action is under direct control of the nerve system.

As a chiropractor we are in the restoration business.

The nerve system is the master system. The master FOREMAN on the job, director of all healing at all times. It never sleeps. Healing in your body is directly related to how well your nerve system is able to communicate and direct the component parts to do their job.

Connection = Power = Restoration When there is interference in your nerve system; the messages of healing are diminished and reduced. We still heal and function… but not at the highest level.  

Tips to Restoration of the New You – Part 1:

For us to express life, healing and restoration at the highest level we have to be connected to the power within. This power is accessible to us all! It is within each of us! We are amazing beings with huge potential.  Here are keys to the new you: to full and complete daily restoration:

1. Sleep – Wonderful sleep is a full restorer. “Early to bed, early to rise” is a proverb that has a lot of merit. A tip is to set your timer to go to bed 30 minutes earlier than you normally do. In the bed room have no technology or TV. This will allow a blissful and restorative rest. A good night’s sleep is very important for a healthy body and mind.
2. Journaling – Find a beautiful book to put your daily thoughts in. Journaling allows us to connect to our inner self. Promoting self-awareness, gratitude, creativity and goal setting, organizing your day/week/month. Journaling restores our thoughts to those of healing, growth, repair and action.
3. Meditation – Meditation does not have to be done cross legged on the floor, it could be done lying down in Shavasana (yoga corpse pose) whichever way that is most comfortable for you, though you don’t want to fall asleep! Meditation is suggested to be done at the same time every day. 10 minutes in the morning of blissful reconnection. What a great way to start your morning routine! Quiet your mind, focus on your breath. No Technology. Bring awareness to your thoughts that come in, acknowledge the thought, and allow them to pass by, focus on your breath. Meditation is proven to have many positive impacts on our health, emotions, healing, immune system, stress reduction. It is also a great example for the loved ones around you, to see what great time and care you put into yourself so you can be good to those around you.
4. Daily exercise – Restoration of our body comes to us through movement. Did you know that not moving a joint for 24 hours cause break down of the muscles, and 48 hours bone degeneration starts to develop. This is why movement to sore joints and bones is vital for life! Movement of any kind; It can be anything from yoga, to high intensity workouts, Whatever feels good to you to keep that body moving that circulates positive chemicals and reduce inflammation? All you need is Thirty minutes per day for a great start. This can be walking to and from work, taking the stairs not the elevator, a walk with the kids, throwing the ball around at the park! Being mindful of daily activity of any sort and make attainable goals in order to be active for life! There is no limit as to how you can get the body moving.
5. Be Mindful of Your Thoughts – As we restore every day we are affected and often driven by our minds and feelings. When we keep our minds and thoughts positive, we continually feed the body healthy patterns. Imagine what happens to our bodies when we focus on the negative. The body receives vibration from our thoughts. When you think positive your body restores with new healthier cells. When we find ourselves in negative mindset or thoughts it is important to acknowledge to thought and choose not to own or continue that thought process in order to protect your mind of the damage of negativity. Keeping a log of our thoughts and feelings is a good idea.

You never know where you may have the opportunity to share the message of healing, and health and chiropractic.  I take each and every one of these opportunities as they present themselves. 

Happy journey towards health – Dr. Laura

How we heal is a fascinating process. You can wake up in the morning with back or shoulder pain, BUT you brush it off, saying “I didn’t do anything at all, I just woke up that way…”, sound familiar? Body aches are something we all deal with from time to time, but when pain becomes chronic, it starts to get in the way of how we want to live our lives – this is where chiropractors can help.

Layers of Healing

Think of healing like an onion. The layers can be many and deep—much the same way the nerve system stores and holds on to experiences. We can think of the core 

of an onion being “the centre” – without stress at state zero. It is the source of all healing as the inner light. The farther away from it we get, the lower our threshold becomes to express that inner glowing light. Total healing becomes less a strain. As we move away from the centre, adding more layers, the life expression within our body can diminish. We experience less, our threshold is less, and our ability to deal with new stress (even if it is simple and minimalistic) is drastically lessened.

Layers add on over the years. Birth, a broken arm, a gymnastics fall, a boating or motor vehicle accident, emotional stress, PTSD – and the list goes on. Now, back to our “sudden shoulder pain” that “just came out of nowhere” doesn’t seem so sudden. As we add on layers and layers of stress that go stored and unchecked, the body changes. We no longer have the same ability to deal with the stress load of life as we bear it as a “Santa’s sac” which just gets heavier. Yet, our ability to deal with the load continues to weaken. Our system structurally may have changed over the years, reflective of the exhaustion to our system.

How Your Body Expresses Stress

Our posture may reflect something like this: head forward, shoulders rolled in, neck arched forward, head down, shoulders up in ears, rounded back, problems breathing. This posture will tell us how the load of life has been. Really we measure your “life to date”. A heavy load of life could be “headaches for 15 years, then a numb toe, then problems sleeping, then antidepressants for 15 years” and so on. When your head is forward your brain can no longer effectively navigate where you are in space and adapt appropriately. We lose the adaptive and flexible edge from the curves in our spine that help us sway and bend (as buildings do) to the loads of life. Chiropractic adjustments can help you begin to improve your posture.

Final Thoughts

It’s time to return back to the source of all healing, so we can express and experience life fully – though it may take time. It can take years of un-patterning what’s been developed, creating a new pattern and then reinforce that pattern with repetition. When the brain learns to get out of the stress state, it will respond better to its environments and adapt appropriately; we begin to heal. How many layers of stress do you have? How thick is your onion? Gravelle Family Chiropractic can help you break through these layers.