January Health Tip
My January Health Tip is to keep moving. As your Chiropractor, our job is to restore motion to the spinal joints.
Normal motion of spinal joints minimizes joint stress, inflammation and nerve irritation. This makes spinal adjustment vital to spinal health restoration and maintenance.
What creates spinal joint restrictions? There are three main forms of stress the physical body and mind must manage: physical, chemical and emotional stress. In this blog we are going to touch on the physical stressors. More specifically, the stress of sitting or standing for lengthy periods.
More often than not, job details involve long periods sitting/standing at a workstation and computer use. Can you relate to the hours of sitting/standing at a workstation? How does your back, neck and body feel at the end of a workday? Work week? What can be done to relieve some of these symptoms of achy, sore, stiff, headache and fatigue?
The causative factor, again, is lack of movement and motion of the spinal joints. So, it is time to get things moving while you sit or stand to reduce the physical stress on the body. By working in more frequent breaks to get up and move, brief chair stretches and some fundamental breathing exercises (visit the patient portal at Home Care Videos – Chiropractor in Tempe | Reed Chiropractic (chiropractorintempeaz.com) for helpful exercises).
Whether taking breaks is an option or not you can also add movement to your workstation. A simple exercise tool, referred to as a “balance disc’, or “wobble cushion” can be purchased online for under twenty dollars.
Use this tool on your normal work chair, other chair at home or even in your vehicle to add spinal motion while you sit. These “discs” are also useful at a standing work station to add motion in the legs and up through the spine.
During a time between work hours the spine benefits from continued motion. A form of movement exercises can be utilized called “spinal undulation”.
Invest in your spine and invaluable health through chiropractic spinal adjustments and keeping the motion in life.
Written by Dr. Chad Hood
