Lifestyle - A Way of Life

Lifestyle relects the attitudes and values of a person or group. At the healing wave we practise what we preach. We recognise that we are homeodynamic beings living in harmony with a universal intelligence. We respect the inbuilt regulatory mechanism and try to do our best to support this function through our way of life (lifestyle).

The contemporary term for this is WELLNESS. However, this term was coined by Chiropractors over 100 years ago. Wellness is the active pursuit of making choices towards a more balanced and fulfilling life experience. A wellness lifestyle builds a healthy body, which in turn creates a happy mind.

"Happiness is the meaning and purpose of life, the whole aim of human existence" Aristotle.

THE HEALING WAVE LIFESTYLE
There are many different areas that contribute to your lifestyle. We believe that detecting and correcting vertebral subluxations will make a big difference to your life by removing interference from your nerve system. However, when Chiropractic is applied in combination with other healthy lifestyle habits you will experience enormous and lasting life changes.

THE FIVE PILLARS OF A WELLNESS LIFESTYLE

1. Nutrition
2. Exercise
3. Rest and Relaxation
4. Positive Attitude
5. Optimal Functioning Nerve System

Nutrition

Your nutritional responsibilty is to provide your body with pure nutrients to support cell function.

Simply your goal is to maximize purity and sufficiency of essential nutrients and minimize or eliminate toxicity and nutrient deficiency.

Understanding your key nutritional requirements is easy if you consider it in terms of your cellular genetics.

We must firstly appreciate that our genetic DNA make up has changed relatively little over the past 40,000 years. However, the diet of our ancestors is vastly different to the modern western diet.

This imbalance between what our body requires and what we provide by way of food intake is believed to be the major cause of coronary heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, and some types of cancer.


The typical Western diet nutrient breakdown

PROTEIN- industrial grain fed meats 15-20%
CARBOHYDRATE- processed grains, sugar 45-55%
FAT- grain fed meats, diary, processed foods 35-40%

The typical Hunter-Gatherer diet nutrient breakdown

PROTEIN- organic vegetables and lean meat 20-35%
CARBOHYDRATE- organic fruit and vegetables 25-40%
FAT- organic meats, fish and nuts 30-45%

Dr Loren Cordain, an evolutionay biologist from Colorado State University showed by way of anthropological research that hunter-gatherers were healthy, fit and free from the degenerative diseases common in our modern world.

In sharp contrast, more than 70% of the calories we consume today are from foods that our ancestors rarely, if ever, ate. In Dr Cordain's view, getting back to the foods we were meant to eat would substantially improve our health.

What to EAT:

• Lean organic meat, fish and organic free range poultry
  
• Organic fruit & vegetables; nuts- eat RAW
  
• Limited whole grains- rice and oats
  
• Purified water- reverse osmosis is best. 4 L per day
  
• Take nutrient rich supplements to fill in the gaps
  
  What NOT to eat: (Toxic food Choices)
  
  
• Fried foods- chips, takeaways
  
• Processed Carbohydrates- flour,pasta, bread
  
• Dairy- milk, cream, cheese
  
• Sprayed, early harvested fruits and vegetables
  
• Grain fed, antibiotic, hormone fed meats
  
• Shellfish, farmed fish and deep sea fish- tuna
  
• Smoked meats
  
• Processed drinks and Tap water
  
  Dr. Cordain states that even small changes in diet can make a vast difference to your health, especially when combined with other lifestyle characteristics of the hunter-gatherer, including regular exercise, less stress and no smoking.
  
  To learn more about the hunter-gatherer diet visit www.thepaleodiet.com.
  

Exercise

Exercise is an essential factor in contributing to overall health and wellbeing. In keeping with our genetic requirement we should exercise daily to support our innate cellular function.

Just as our hunter-gatherer ancestors did a variety of different activities so should we within a modern context.

The known benefits of exercise

• Increased joint mobility and flexibility
  
• Improved energy levels and stamina
  
• Stronger bones, increased muscle tone
  
• Improved muscular strength and coordination
  
• Increased neural firing and spatial awareness
  
• Improved circulation and metabolism
  
• Improved concentration, confidence and wellbeing
  
  There are many reasons not to exercise in a modern convenient world but today less than 40% of people exercise on a regular basis primarily due to modern convenience and lack of motivation to change. As a culture we are experiencing an epidemic of obesity (especially children) and declining health leading to chronic degenerative diseases.
  
  How to enjoy exercise
  
  
• Choose activities that interest you and are suited to your fitness level
  
• Vary your activity regularly to prevent boredom
  
• Enjoy a mix of resistance, low force aerobic, and stretching activities
  
• Arrange exercises in conjunction with social activities
  
• Start slow and remember a little exercise is better than none.
  
  
  SPINAL HYGIENE STRETCHING EXERCISES
  At Healing Wave we give you specific exercise instruction to best suit your body type, spinal shape and health status. We have computer generated programs to help take you from basic stretching to more advanced core stability exercises.
  
  Recent studies show that people who combine Chiropractic care and exercise maximise their strength, coordination and energy levels while reducing the chance of injury. Many of the worlds elite athletes incorporate Chiropractic care to ensure optimum performance.
  

Rest and Relaxation

Rest and relaxation equals recovery. In today’s world we are busier than ever with increasing demands on our time. As a result, we sacrifice quality time-out to allow our body to catch up, repair and refresh for tomorrow.

Benefits of rest and relaxation

• Allows innate repair of cells throughout your body
  
• Restores energy levels
  
• Refreshes the mind and enhances clarity of thought
  
• Waste removal and cleansing of the cells and organs

Forms of rest and relaxation

• Gentle stroll outdoors in clean air
  
• Quality sleeping habits. Every hour before midnight is worth two after
  
• Power naps for 15-30 minutes after lunch is ideal
  
• Meditation restful awareness to purify the mind
  
• Breathing exercise- deep breathes through your nose expanding your stomach
  
• Massage helps reduce muscle tension and enhance circulation
  
• Warm soothing bath helps to detoxify your muscles
  
• Book holidays in advance. Take them before you need them (ideally 1 week every 3 months)

Sleep is an important daily requirement to repair and rejuvenate the body. Your natural cycle of sleep and waking are called your ‘circadian rhythm’. This controls you through the different stages of sleep releasing hormones to promote repair and restore energy levels. Experts suggest between 7 and 9 hours of sleep every night for an adult. Newborns need more sleep because they are growing.

Positive Attitude

Positive attitude is often referred to as happiness. Happiness is an innate feeling we are instinctively driven towards. The search for happiness defines many of our goals and determines most of our actions in life.

Happiness is essential for health and wellbeing. It is not something you can buy, it is inside you. It makes up your beliefs, your behaviour and the way you view the world. Developing happiness is best done focusing on what you enjoy, spending time with those who make you feel good and avoiding circumstances that create stress, anger or unhappiness.

Research shows that laughter causes the release of endorphins and other happy chemicals that enhance blood flow and boost the immune system. It also lowers muscle tension, relaxes your nerve system, encourages healthy breathing, reduces your perception of pain and helps let go of physical and emotional stress. Find what activities make you laugh and do them as often as you can.

However, it is difficult to be happy when you are ill or lack health. The perception of pain releases chemicals that effect emotions. This leads to imbalance at a cellular level causing stress and perpetuating the sickness cycle.

Chiropractic is important in restoring internal harmony. Reducing and correcting subluxation relieves nerve irritation causing muscle tension and promotes the release of happy chemicals namely dopamine and endorphins. This collectively helps restore a sense of wellbeing. The longer you are under Chiropractic care the greater the change at both the cellular and system levels.

'All that we are is the result of our thoughts' Buddha

Optimum Functioning Nerve System

The brain is the hard drive that controls and coordinates all cell, organ and system function in your body. The communication channels between the brain and body is via spinal nerves that exit the spinal column.

Interference to these pathways affects the clarity of the nerve signal and reduces the end organ function. This creates a state of imbalance. Prolonged periods of cellular imbalance may lead to the development of disease.

Optimal posture is a vital key to achieving and maintaining optimal health. Early detection and elimination of subluxation leads to a healthy nerve system at any stage of life. Posture is the window to the spine. If you are out of balance then your joints are placing pressure on your spinal nerves.

Only Chiropractors are specialised in the detection and correction of spinal subluxations. Chiropractic care as part of a healthy lifestyle will ensure your nerve system is functioning at an optimum level.

'OPTIMUM SPINE = OPTIMUM NERVE FLOW = OPTIMUM HEALTH'