The holidays are nearly upon us and you know what that means—lots of extra things to do which creates lots of extra S-T-R-E-S-S! Here are some suggestions to help you manage stress:

Set realistic expectations:    Don’t expect that this will be the year that everyone comes together and gets along if it hasn’t happened in the past 10 years!

Accept your limitations: You can not be all things to all people so stop trying.  Know when to say “no”.

Take extra care of yourself:   Maintain balance in your eating, sleeping, drinking and exercise habits.  Most importantly, ensure that you get adjusted.  No amount of good habits will last if there is interference to your nervous system.

Find some time to help others:   Volunteer and give your service to an institution or an organization and bring some holiday cheer to someone less fortunate.  If time is your concern, donate to the Rotary Tree of Joy in our practice.

Create healthy traditions for your family:   Read a new book, walk around the neighbourhood and enjoy the Christmas lights, decorate the house, see a new holiday movie, anything that involves spending time with your loved ones.

Focus on the Spiritual, rather than the material:   Remember the reason why we celebrate the holidays in the first place.

Watch frivolous spending: Don’t try to outdo other family members with expensive gifts that you will have to pay for later.

Remember you cannot change other people: You are the only person that you can change.  If you do not like what someone is doing, create space between you and that person.

Have Fun!:   It can be affirming to be around family.  Enjoy it.

One of the more common questions that I will ask patients is ‘how much water do you drink a day’.  The answer is usually either ‘heaps’ or ‘not enough’.  Both of these answers are very subjective – that is heaps according to that person could be either two cups at one end of the scale or at the other end it could be four litres!  There needs to be a measurable unit of consumption that becomes individualised and tailored to that person, not a one size fits all rule for women and men.

Current literature suggests that men should drink 3.0 litres of water a day, while women should drink 2.2 litres of water a day.  The question I have around these measurements of fluid consumption is; does a 70kg man need to be drinking the same amount of fluid as a 110 kg man? The answer to this is of course , no.  How much water do we then need to consume daily?  It will be dependant on a few variables, but we can start with our weight.  We should consume between 25 – 35ml of water  per kilogram of body weight. For example, someone weighing 40kg, should be drinking between 1.0 – 1.4L of water.

One rule of thumb to go by, so as you know that you have consumed enough water, is that of your urine colour.  The more yellow your urine, the more water you need to consume.  The clearer your urine, the better the consumption and better hydrated you will be!

Initially the amount of water needed to be drunk throughout the day seems like climbing Mount everest for some, but remember the saying, ‘inch by inch it’s a cinch, yard by yard it’s hard’. The easiest way to drink your allotted amount is not all in  one go, it is bit by bit.  Gradually drink throughout the day.  Master this step and you are that little bit closer to a healthier you.

With winter here, it is quite common for me to hear people “catching the cold”.  One of my first questions back to them is “how did you catch it – with one hand or two?”

I add the fact that, if as a practitioner there are all of these sick people coming in to see me, spreading their germs, why is it that I do not get sick?  The answer lies in the fact that it is not the seed (the germs) that cause the disease, it is the soil (the body and its state of health or dis-ease) that allows the germs to ‘germinate’.

Lets explain what I mean.  Picture two garbage cans in front of you. One bin has continually collected rubbish over the years and has never been cleaned out.  The second bin also collects rubbish, but is cleaned on a regular basis, and is like brand new.  Of the two bins, which will attract the flies and the vermin?   It is the first bin of course.  In our attempt to stop the spread of the flies and the rats, we spray the flies with Mortein, and lay rat poison.  However, over time, the flies and the rats return and the cycle repeats itself.  The sensible thing to do is to clean out the bin!

The bin is your body.  Day to day the stressors of our body, such as poor diet, inadequate nutrition, poor posture, lack of exercise, not enough sleep and an under performing nervous system will allow our body to collect rubbish, and provide the fertile soil for germs to spread and multiply, allowing us to become ill.  Most people will visit their GP and be prescribed some antibiotics, much like spraying the flies with Mortein.  This only acts as a stop gap, a band aid over the real cause of the dis-ease process in the first place.

The key to remaining healthy is to ensure that we upkeep and enhance our health across the five essential pillars of health.  That being:

1. Maintaining an adequate diet. Only eating food that roams on and grows from the earth (rather than food that had been processed) and drinking the right amount of water for you (25 – 35 ml of water per kg of body weight).
2. Getting ample rest on a mattress and a pillow that properly supports you.
3. Exercising.  We were made to move and not sit all day.
4. Having a healthy attitude.  Getting rid of the ‘stinking thinking’ and clearing your mind.
5. Finally, and most importantly, having an optimally functioning nervous system.  After all, the nervous system controls and coordinates every cell, organ, system and function of the body.

Chiropractic care delivers on all five of these essentials to help you maintain your health and more importantly get the most out of life.

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