Why have CranioSacral therapy

Jeannette Raskin RMT,CST

Why have CranioSacral Therapy?

1. Some people come because they feel as though they aren’t coping and that life is very difficult. CranioSacral Therapy can often be a last resort after many years of struggle.

2.      Some people come because they have long standing health issues which make it very difficult to cope. CranioSacral Therapy can help relieve the emotional and physical side-effects of living with long term illness or pain and can support the body in its natural movement towards health.

3. Some people come because they have experienced traumatic events that they cannot move past. CranioSacral Therapy is a very safe, gentle and effective way of treating trauma and post-traumatic states.
4. Some people come because they are incredibly stressed and anxious and can’t seem to find any relief from a very busy mind. CranioSacral Therapy is especially good at encouraging a very deep sense of stillness allowing the mind slow down and rest. Many people say they sleep very well after a craniosacral treatment.
5. Some people come because they just need to be held and listened to. The most important thing a CranioSacral Therapist does is to simply be present for the client and hold the therapeutic space allowing the client’s process to unfold naturally.

Jeannette Raskin practices at Family First Chiropractic and Wellness, 142 Erickson Dr. Red Deer

call 403-347-3261 to book an appointment today.

www.family1stchiro.ca

Do you Struggle with bed time...you are not alone

Bed Time, the ongoing struggle!

Every night my kids go to bed, around the same time, every night they need to brush their teeth, and every night they have to put on pj's. Sounds simple right? Why is it that every night it's a complete surprise?!? "what? its bedtime? that's NEVER happened before!" They always try every trick in the book of course, "I need this specific toy that I haven't played with in a month, RIGHT NOW!, A glass of water, bathroom, lights on, this blanket, and of course 'the sun is still out'" But once you give them their good night kisses, and "squeeze hugs" and they lay their heads down on those pillows, they are the cutest sweetest things, and you want 5 more minutes with them. (don't worry you will get them, as soon as you walk down the flight of stairs, just as you sit down they will need something again) ... and repeat!

Brought to you by the parents of Family First Chiropractic and Wellness, 142 Erickson Dive

403-347-3261 to book an appointment

www.family1stchiro.ca

Chronic Stress and Lack of Relaxation Takes a Heavy Toll on Your Health

The classic definition of stress is "any real or imagined threat, and your body's response to it." Celebrations and tragedies alike can cause a stress response in your body. Some stress is unavoidable. Some mild forms of stress can even be helpful in some situations. But a stressor becomes a problem when:

·         Your response to it is negative.

·         Your feelings and emotions are inappropriate for the circumstances.

·         Your response lasts an excessively long time.

·         You're feeling continuously overwhelmed, overpowered or overworked.

It's important to realize that all your feelings create physiological changes. Your skin, heart rate, digestion and assimilation of food, joints, muscle energy levels, the hair on your head, and countless cells and systems you don't even know about change with every emotion. One of the major causes of subluxations of your spine is stress. This leads to pain/ headaches and dysfunction. While you cannot eliminate stress entirely, you can work to provide your body with tools to compensate for the bioelectrical short-circuiting caused by it. Regular chiropractic care can help this tremendously. Other helpful strategies that can help you deal with stress and unwind each day, include:

·         Exercise. Studies have shown that during exercise, tranquilizing chemicals (endorphins) are released in your brain. Exercise is a natural way to bring your body pleasurable relaxation and rejuvenation.

·         Proper sleep

·         Meditation
Family First Chiropractic and Wellness is located at 142 Erickson Drive, Red Deer. 403-347-3261
www.family1sychiro.ca

The rise of polypharmacy

The Rise of Polypharmacy

Another factor of our current drug use trend that is frequently ignored is the impact of polypharmacy, i.e. the use of multiple drugs. For example, people with chronic pain or depression will oftentimes take more than one drug to ease their daily suffering. This exponentially increases your risk of side effects, but many still ignore this obvious fact. This holds true for ALL drugs, of course, not just pain medications and antidepressants. There's no doubt that the U.S. has been purposely manipulated into becoming a "polypharmacy nation." In just one decade, from 1992 to 2002, the number of prescriptions written increased by a whopping 61 percent, and the number of opiate prescriptions increased by almost 400 percent in that same timeframe.According to statistics from the Kaiser Health Foundation^iv, the average American adult, aged 19 to 64, now takes more than 11 prescription drugs. So while polypharmacy used to be primarily a concern for seniors—who, on average fill more than 31 prescriptions per year—polypharmacy now applies to virtually everyone, including children and toddlers, whose drug use now averages out to four or more drugs per child! This is a very significant problem that is not getting much attention. I've also heard many stories of concerned patients bringing it up with their doctors, only to be rebuffed. Still, it's essential to understand that when you mix two or more drugs together, you exponentially increase your chances of suffering serious side effects. But just how did we get to the point where the average American is taking nearly a dozen pharmaceutical drugs daily?
Big Pharma Wants You Hooked on Drugs for Life
A major factor is the fact that the U.S. allows direct-to-consumer advertising for drugs. Most other nations do not allow pharmaceutical advertising, and their population consequently also does not consume nearly as many drugs. Advertising works—that's a fact! There are two effective marketing strategies employed by drug companies on a regular basis, and they include:

1.     Convincing you that drugs you used to take only when you needed them are now everyday "prevention" necessities in the form of a prescription; and

2.     Selling you the idea that just being at risk for a chronic disease makes you someone who should be taking a drug for the disease.

The supreme success of these two strategies arises from the fact that YOU are the one who then demands it from your doctor. Furthermore, the treatment goal of most of the drugs advertised is to keep taking them for life. After all, if you're at risk for a chronic disease, that risk never goes away, so you have to keep taking the drug until you die, or cannot afford it any longer.In a recent article, Martha Rosenberg^v lists six types of drugs that are "marketed for perpetuity," meaning they're intended to be taken for life. This type of marketing has also been profoundly effective. According to statistics, 46 percent of all Americans take five or more prescriptions chronically (as opposed to "as needed"). Sadly most of these drugs come with potential side effects that can be far worse than your original symptom, and few of them have been definitively proven to actually provide any significant health benefits. In fact, some of these drugs have been found to worsen the very condition they're meant to treat (such as antidepressants, statins, proton pump inhibitors, and asthma-control meds), and/or cause other serious diseases.

ADHD Drugs and Drugs for Pediatric Psychopathologies, such as "pediatric bipolar disorder"	Antidepressants	Statins
Hormone Replacement Therapy	Proton Pump Inhibitors (PPIs)	Asthma-Control Medicines

The Incredible Cost of Polypharmacy and Perpetual Drug Use

Four years ago, an analysis of federal data by the nonprofit Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) discovered that in the first quarter of 2008, fatalities from adverse drug reactions accounted for23 percent of all adverse reaction reports!^viIt's quite likely that this could be due to the exponential increase in polypharmacy. And it should serve as a wakeup call for everyone. We're not talking about headaches and nausea anymore—we're talking about deathbeing reported as the side effect in nearly one out of every four cases...

Excessive drug use is also extremely expensive. First, drugs cost the US health care system nearly one trillion dollars a year. But that's not all. We also spend tens of billions of dollars to treat the side effects of those drugs! And despite all these "magic pills," the United States ranks 49th in the world for both male and female life expectancy, down from 24th in 1999.

From my point of view, the idea that "more and better drugs" is the answer to our nation's failing health is clearly misguided. This is also part and parcel of the point I wanted to make in the beginning of this article, which is: Why focus on trying to determine which toxic and expensive drug to use when there are safer, in many cases completely natural, alternatives available? No one has died yet from too many whole food supplements, but drugs taken as prescribed kill at least 106,000 people annually and more than two million people suffer serious side effects. Isn't it time for another approach? Like Taking Control of Your Health without drugs.
This information is brought to you by Dr. Stephen Kelly of Family First Chiropractic and Wellness, 142, erickson Drive, Red Deer. 403-347-3261 www.family1stchiro.ca

A Healthy Lifestyle Includes Getting Proper Sleep

Good sleep is one of the cornerstones of health that should not be overlooked. Sleep deprivation prematurely ages you by interfering with your growth hormone production, normally released by your pituitary gland during deep sleep. Growth hormone helps you look and feel younger. But that's not all. Interrupted or impaired sleep can also:

·         Dramatically weaken your immune system

·         Accelerate tumor growth—tumors grow two to three times faster in laboratory animals with severe sleep dysfunctions

·         Cause a pre-diabetic state, making you feel hungry even if you've already eaten, which can wreak havoc on your weight.

·         Seriously impair your memory even a single night of poor sleep—meaning sleeping only 4 to 6 hours—can impact your ability to think clearly the next day and impair your performance on physical or mental tasks

One study has even shown that people with chronic insomnia have a three times greater risk of dying from any cause.

For more infor mation visit our website at www.family1stchiro.ca about our clinic and practitioners, Family First Chiropractic and Wellness is located at 142 Erickson Drive, Red Deer 403-347-3261

If you've ever been wondering if somebody will ever come up with some tricks for living a longer, happier, healthier life, there's good news: Read this, beginning with chronic inflammation.^.

Chronic inflammation is the source of many diseases, including cancer, obesity, and heart disease, which essentially makes it the leading cause of death in the U.S. and Canada.  To address that issue, Best Health offers a range of strategies that will help you live a longer, healthier life. The Importance of Combating Chronic InflammationInflammation is a normal and beneficial process that occurs when your body's white blood cells and chemicals protect you from foreign invaders like bacteria and viruses. You actually need some level of inflammation in your body to stay healthy, however it's also possible, and increasingly common, for the inflammatory response to get out of hand. If your immune system mistakenly triggers an inflammatory response when no threat is present, it can lead to excess inflammation in your body, a condition linked to asthma, allergies, autoimmune disease, heart disease, cancer and other diseases, depending on which organs the inflammation is impacting. Unfortunately, chronic inflammation typically will not produce symptoms until actual loss of function occurs somewhere. This is because chronic inflammation is low-grade and systemic, often silently damaging your tissues over an extended period of time. This process can go on for yearswithout you noticing, until a disease suddenly sets in.Diet accounts for about 80 percent of the health benefits you reap from a healthful lifestyle, and keeping inflammation in check is a major part of these benefits. It's important to realize that dietary components can either trigger or prevent inflammation from taking root in your body. For example, whereas trans fats and sugar, particularly fructose, will increase inflammation, eating healthy fats such as animal-based omega-3 fats found in krill oil, or the essential fatty acid gamma linolenic acid (GLA) will help to reduce them. If you have not already addressed your diet, this would be the best place to start, regardless of whether you're experiencing symptoms of chronic inflammation or not.  Diet is not the only component that will have a profound impact on your health and longevity. It's really about addressing your total lifestyle.
This information is brought to you by Family First Chiropractic and Wellness, 142 Erickson drive, Red Deer 403-347-3261
www.family1stchiro.ca

Back to school shopping tips

MONEY SAVING TIPS FOR BACK TO SCHOOL SHOPPING

To your kids, shopping for new clothes, gear, and school supplies may be the only good thing about going back to school, but that doesn't mean you have to spend a fortune every year. Here are 10 great ideas for how to get everything they need and save a few bucks doing it.

Hold off buying trendier gear like lunch boxes and pencil cases. Kids may love a version they find in July, but once they start school and see that their friends are all using another kind, they'll beg you to upgrade them -- and that only results in wasted cash.

Shop end-of-summer sales. You know as well as we do that kids wear short sleeve polo shirts all year long, so hit the big summer sales and snap up discounted duds that can be worn well into fall.

Stick to The List.The teacher's supply list at the start of a new school year is daunting enough so don't waste time and money on unlisted items. Extra supplies, while they may be cute, will probably never get used and just leave your pockets empty.
Head to the supermarket for basic supplies. Check weekly circulars for great deals on pens and loose-leaf paper, and get your weekly grocery shopping done at the same time. Bonus: buying everything in one place will save time and gas money!

Let your kids raid the home-office supplies, then personalize them in unique ways. For example, decorate inexpensive plain, white binders with digital photos by creating a collage and inserting the page into the plastic outer cover.

Host a back-to-school swap. Round up a couple of other moms with kids the same gender as yours but different ages, and host an annual clothes swap. Trade toys and books, too! You'll save a bundle.

Plan lunch.When you're in charge of what your child eats, you'll save yourself money. Check the weekly circulars at your local supermarkets for sales. If turkey isn't on sale one week and ham is, go for the ham!

Buy bright.Lost school supplies may be a given, but gear that's hard to miss can stave off the inevitable. Pack all their pencils, erasers, and other goodies into a bright backpack or pencil pouch to keep them from disappearing.

Shop the big three.Old Navy, Gap Kids, and The Children's Place rotate merchandise often -- ask when they do their markdowns so you can grab the deals. Also, if you see an item you bought in the past 14 days on sale later, you can get the difference refunded, you don't need the clothing, just the receipt.

Browse KijijiYes, you can find top-quality stuff on the cheap, but you can be a seller, too. Why not get some cash for that barely worn, now outgrown brand-name outfit? Just enter your location and click on "Baby and Kids."

Brought to you by Family First Chiropractic and Wellness located at 142 Erickson drive, 403-347-3261

www.family1stchiro.ca