Stay Strong!

Mentally, physically, socially, and spiritually

To be Mentally Strong: 

1. Work!   Make money!

2. Learn about money.  Make sure you know where you stand financially.  Learn about retirement plans and investments.  

3.  Learn about your world.   Never stop learning.  

To be Physically Strong:  

1.  Exercise.   Do my two routines.    

2.  eat right

3.  Be active.   Get an hour (or better yet two) hours of activity every day.   

4.  sleep.   For most people 7-8 hours is optimal.   But some do great with 6.  Sleep on your back or side.  If you are on your back put a pillow under your knees and for your head no pillow or a small pillow or an orthopedic pillow or a roll.  If you are on your side put a pillow between your knees and for your head and neck you want a pillow that keeps them in the middle of your body.  A firm mattress is best.    If you sleep on your side a bit softer. 

5.  Avoid Trauma!  Big traumas and little traumas.    Bad postures, sitting for too long without a break, walking on hard surfaces without supportive footwear, bad lifting technique, car accidents, slips and falls all contribute to bad spinal health.

Have good Posture!  See your chiropractor!

If you have to sit for long periods, change something every hour!   Raise the seat, move the seat back, sit on a pillow, put a pillow behind your back, change the lumbar support, shift your weight, use your legs to support some weight.   Sitting is hard on your back, it doubles the pressure on your spine.  

To be Socially and Spiritual Healthy: 

1.  go to church once a week.  Find a place you are comfortable.   You will get lots of physical benefits too!

2.  Value family, honor parents

3.  serve.   You make a life by what you give.   

Secret # 7 to Good Health

Be Grateful

I grew up with a great custom on Thanksgiving.   We would each be given some kernels of unpopped popcorn.  Then we would pass around a bowl and we would drop a kernel in the bowl and say something we are thankful for.  For mental health as well as physical health, being grateful is essential.  If you aren't grateful your health will not be as good as it could be.   If you want more in your life be grateful for what you have had, have now and will have.   Dr. DeMartini says: " What you think about and thank about you bring about."   Find some aspect in every hour to be grateful.   If you need help with this.... GET IT.    Take a minute when you wake up and a minute before going to bed.   Review the day.  Be grateful for what you like.  It doesn't really take much time, only like..... 5 Minutes!  But it makes a world of difference.

My father sent the following to me this Thanksgiving:

As noted in the Harvard Mental Health Letter:1

"Gratitude is a thankful appreciation for what an individual receives, whether tangible or intangible. With gratitude, people acknowledge the goodness in their lives.

In the process, people usually recognize that the source of that goodness lies at least partially outside themselves. As a result, gratitude also helps people connect to something larger than themselves as individuals — whether to other people, nature, or a higher power."

Gratitude is also associated with improved health, both physical and emotional. Dr. P. Murali Doraiswamy, head of Biologic Psychology at Duke University Medical Center once stated that:2

"If [thankfulness] were a drug, it would be the world's best-selling product with a health maintenance indication for every major organ system."

Health

In the movie The Princess Bride the count says to Prince Humperdinck: "If you don't have your health, you don't have anything."  Everything becomes secondary if your body is not working right.   It's the only one you have so TAKE GOOD CARE OF IT!   The Big Three are chiropractic adjustments, exercise and nutrition.  These three work together like a three legged stool.  You will not perform as well if you are missing one or two.  Just like a stool missing a leg or two is precarious, so will be your health if you are missing one or two.   I like to qualify this by mentioning that we have some people who do everything right and still have problems.  As well as people who seem to do everything wrong and live to be 100.  Like George Burns.   Lol.  Don't base what you do on those peoples experiences.  It doesn't take a lot of time to take good care of your body.  I like to say.... it takes Just Fiiive Minutes.  

We live in an imperfect world.  Physical stresses such as: bad posture, sitting in awful chairs for 12 years, walking on concrete, bending twisting and lifting, as well as big traumas like slips and falls and car wrecks reek havoc on our spines.  Mental and chemical stresses add up too.  The simplest, and I would argue the best, way to manage these is regular adjustments.  If you are having symptoms get that problem addressed ASAP.  THEN at least once a month get adjusted.  Best is once a week.  One reason once a week is best is you can misses a few and still be following the AT LEAST ONCE A MONTH rule.   If you are getting adjusted once a month and you miss a few... joints lock up and premature wear and tear begin.  It doesn't take much time ...... Just 5 Min.  

Second leg of health is diet or nutrition, what goes down the hatch.   You are what you eat.  Garbage in means you have a garbage body.  There is no replacing a good diet.  Three fruits, three vetegables, three whole grains, eight cups of water, and protein.  Best source of calcium is green leafy veggies. 

The Bad list:  salt, sugar, artificial sweeteners, coffee, tea, alcohol, tobacco, white flour and drugs.  Avoid these inflammation promoters as much as possible.   Especially, when in pain.

Thirdly, is exercise.  I lump exercise into three groups.  Core exercises, major muscle exercises, and cardio.  From my perspective core is BY FAR the most important.  Followed fairly closely by major muscle work.  So if you only have 5 minutes for exercise today do the core workout.  It pays big benefits today!  Do you have to do my routine, no.  But every other routine I have seen takes longer, and some miss important parts.   Now this routine doesn't hit everything, but for 90% of people it does what you need it to do.  If you find other exercises that really help, DO THEM!  I call this routine "stretches", but calisthenics is a better description.  They are exercises for the back, belly and neck.  Ten repetitions or hold for ten seconds(isometric exercise) on each one.  The exception is the hamstring stretch.  Hold for 30 seconds on each one.  All the rest we are trying to strengthen or loosen up, with the hamstring we are trying to stretch or lengthen.   Because we often sit for long periods and it shortens up on us.  

Use the core list.   Watch my video below.   And just do them.   Next three times a week, for just 5 minutes, do major muscle work.   Mondays I do my legs.  Wednesday upper body.   And Fridays chest and back.   10 repetitions and DONE!   Use the major muscle list.  (Can be found at www.doctorhahn.homestead.com )   Watch the video once.   Just do it.  These two routines, core and major muscle, affect QUALITY OF LIFE!    You will feel better today and tomorrow.  Must do!    Now, if you want to increase quantity of life you should also do cardio.   Get your heart rate up and keep it up for 20 min.   Also, as a side-bar, you should get at least 90 minutes of activity each day.   If you have a sedentary job, when you get home you need to move.  Yard work, housework, play with kids, etc.  If you have an active job, where you move your body a lot, that counts as activity, but you still need to do the exercises.  Walking is great for the back!  As long as it's at a quick pace and you're not walking slow, strolling along.   So Swing your arms!  If you want to try keeping your abs engaged(tightened), rotate your pelvis opposite to your arms, and use your calves to push off at the end of a stride.   

Optimum exercise = hour or more a day! minimum two routines above.  

Other stuff to come in the future:  Proper lifting technique, Fasting, and Eye exercises

Everything You Desire in Just 5 Minutes!

Not want you think you want, but what you really DESIRE. 

When my children were young we took them to the Derby Dinner Playhouse for their children's theater.  Before each performance, at the appropriate time, a polite female voice over the intercom would announce:  "The production will begin in just FIIIIVE minutes."  Often since, joking around, I have imitated the way she said those last four words.  When my kids asked:  are we there yet?    ...... In Just FIIIVE Minutes!   When we were standing in long lines at Disney World:  How much longer til we get to ride?  In Just FIIIVE Minutes!

 

 I have found in my life that many things are easier to manage in five minute chunks.  Things I'm not necessarily thrilled with doing I can make myself do if its only going to be for 5 minutes.   Napoleon Bonaparte is attributed with saying:  "the victory goes to the one who understands the value of FIVE MINUTES."   (Emphasis mine)  Five minute chunks make up hours and days and will give us everything we want when used correctly.  

What do we really want? Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

After we have life and liberty we want HAPPINESS!   

Tolstoy wrote "All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

Happy families follow the rules of happiness.    Unhappy families break different rules in different ways.   It is the same with individuals.  

Relationships are where it's at.   Our relationships with our significant others, with God, and with ourselves.   We want social, physical, spiritual health.   Not merely adequately.  But functioning at 100%.  

We want ALL OF OUR NEEDS TO BE MET.  Physical needs such as air, food, and shelter are first.    Then comes other needs such as to be appreciated, to create, to belong.  If we are unaware of a need we will simply feel that something is missing or not right.  

We all do everything we do to try to get our needs met.  EVERYONE.   EVERYTHING.  Looked at in that context, it's easier to be forgiving and understanding.  Yes, there is right and wrong.   There are appropriate and inappropriate ways to get our needs met.   And there are people that have been screwed up.   But, just about EVERYONE(including you) that we care at all about is doing what they do in an attempt to meet a need that they perceive consciously or unconsciously.  I like to break things down to as simple as I can.   Makes things easier to understand, remember and share!

Along those lines I have made a few lists.   They help until the actions are internalized and become second nature.  They also serve to act as a standard to refer to occasionally.  If we climb the ladder of life and then at the end find out it was placed against the wrong wall......PROBLEM.  Also, "Goals are stars to steer by, not sticks to beat yourself with." Dallin H. Oaks.    That's where In Just Fiiiive Minutes comes in.   We want to have IT ALL.    Happiness and all of our needs being met.  This does require some effort.   It requires us to make some........ Changes!   Gasp.   But if all it takes is Just Fiiiive Minutes and the benefits are HUGE!  OK.   I can do that.  

Some will say, I want a billion dollars.   No, they don't.   They want what a billion will buy.   Virgil Strang, esteemed professor of philosophy at Palmer College of Chiropractic, taught that "we don't want the fancy cars and homes.  We want the feelings we think we will have when we have them".   We want the relationships we think will come with them.   Don't get me wrong, money is important.  But we don't NEED a million bucks.  We need to get ALL of our needs met, then.......BAM.   HAPPINESS.  

We are not born knowing what we need.  Most people are not getting ALL of their physical needs met!!   Half of all Americans are dehydrated!  So, where do we begin, what are our needs?   Here is the pyramid that you have probably seen before.   Let's start at the bottom and build our way up.

Maslow's Hierachy of Needs

Next week's blog will review the bottom layer, aka:  HEALTH!

Other connections with this topic:

TV Show:  Greatest American Hero: super hero suit with no handbook of instructions

Book you should read:  Think & Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill:  think about hard, ponder, figure out with your brain your needs and what you want and how you want to get it all legally, ethically, and morally.