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Chiropractic Care Helps Support a Positive Mental Attitude

It's tough to focus on the positive when you have pain. Headaches, neck pain, and back pain can often take the joy out of what had started out as a beautiful day. Even when we have good tools, when we know, for example, how to return to the breath and find our center, physical pain can be insistent and continue to take over our attention.

Chiropractic care can help intervene in a cycle of pain and help restore normal function. By helping spinal joints work more effectively, chiropractic care removes many sources of physical pain. A more normally functioning spinal column leads to more effective function in the nerve system. All body systems improve and overall health and well-being increases. As a result, chiropractic care helps us focus and regain our positive mental attitude.

What's your worldview? Are you an optimist or a pessimist by nature? Do you always expect good things to happen or are you waiting for the other shoe to drop? Our mental attitude affects how we interact with others and how we respond to events and the comings and goings in our daily lives. Remarkably, our mental attitude also affects our health and well-being. How we feel, not only mentally but also physically, is significantly impacted by what has been termed our "internal guidance mechanism".

Back in the 1960s a plastic surgeon named Maxwell Maltz wrote Psycho-Cybernetics, a groundbreaking book that has been continuously in print for almost 50 years. Psycho-Cybernetics, one of the original self-help books, popularized the idea that the subconscious part of our mind is a goal-seeking mechanism. Maltz famously compared the subconscious to a guided missile, stating that the subconscious would do exactly what it is programmed to do. If you want to achieve a goal, Maltz proposed, visualize its successful completion. Visualize yourself driving that red sports car. Visualize the fun you and your family are having on your trip to Hawaii or Italy. Visualize living in your beautiful home. Provided that the instructions are clear, your subconscious will go to work to cause your goal to manifest in your life.

This wasn't mumbo-jumbo. Maltz was a scientist and made a very strong case for his theory, backed up by decades of interaction with his patients. Since then, of course, hundreds if not thousands of self-help gurus have sprung up, publishing books, giving seminars, and being interviewed in broadcast media. Maltz, Napoleon Hill, Norman Vincent Peale, Emmet Fox, and Ernest Holmes were the originals, the pioneers who promulgated the concepts and precepts of taking charge of your own life.

In terms of health, for example, attitude is critically important.^1,2,3 How do you respond, internally, if a nearby co-worker coughs or sneezes throughout the day? Have you noticed that if you think that you, too, are going to get sick, that in fact you do? But others, exposed to the same environment, do not. Is it possible that these others paid no attention to the ill co-worker, that they did not internalize the notion that they were being exposed to contagion? Such a scenario is not necessarily true, but it is possible. The conclusion could be that our thoughts matter. As Earl Nightingale, one of the pioneers of the personal development field, famously stated, "You become what you think about".

So what should we do? Think happy thoughts all day long? Not really. But it is important to remember that attitude counts. If we are more frequently seeing the glass as half-full rather than half-empty, it is possible that we are going to have a more productive, more successful, more fulfilled day. And, unbeknownst to us, our subconscious mind will build on those successes and help to bring us more success, personal growth, happiness, and well-being.

¹Matsunaga M, et al: Association between perceived happiness levels and peripheral circulating pro-inflammatory cytokine levels in middle-aged adults in Japan. Neuro Endocrinol Lett August 5, 2011 (Epub ahead of print)

²Layous K, et al: Delivering happiness: translating positive psychology intervention research for treating major and minor depressive disorders. J Altern Complement Med 17(8):675-683, 2011

³Sadler ME, et al: Subjective wellbeing and longevity: a co-twin control study. Twin Res Hum Genet 14(3):249-256, 2011

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Lectures

We offer these lectures free of charge, they are part of our community service outreach programs. If you are interested in having us come to your group, please feel free to call us to discuss your needs.

Call 388-0970 to reserve a seat for any of the following lectures.

March 8 - "Against the Grain: What if Everything You've Been Told About Health and Weight Loss Was Wrong?" Join us on March 8 starting at 6 PM for an information filled hour and a half. Come learn why the high grain-low fat diet is keeping America sick and what you can do about changing your health. Call the office to save a seat today.

April 16 - "Paleo Implementation 101" Join us starting at 6 PM to learn how to save time and money while decreasing your cravings and increasing your energy. We will review tips on how to shop, cook, exercise and sleep and stay sane. Call to reserve your seat - 388-0970.

April 28- "Chi Running Clinic" - Dr. Jason Wolstenholme will be back to provide Level I and Level II chi running clinics. Join us on April 28 and learn how to use gravity and biomechanics to run with greater ease and less stress. They are three hour workshops that will give you hands on techniques to revolutionize your running. There is a nominal fee for this class and the class size is limited. Call 388-0970 today to reserve your spot. Level I will begin at 9 and level II will begin at One and end by 4 PM. There is a discount for doing both levels in one day. Dr. Jason is also offering a 15% discount for anyone participating in the first annual TJM Run for Lung Cancer Research. You can sign up for the 5K online at Evenbrite.com, keyword: TJM.

all lectures are offered at McDaniel Chiropractic Center. 1330 Exchange Street Suite 105 Middlebury, VT