by Michael Oppelt, D.C., Faculty Clinician, Palmer Chiropractic Clinics
Not all stress is the same, and how we react and respond to it is the difference between good stress and bad stress. The key to managing stress is to have a strategy to help counteract your body’s natural responses. Following are simple tips that can help you more fully enjoy your life and the people around you.
1. Positive Perception: Every grey cloud has a silver lining, so always identify the positive attributes of a troubling situation.
2. Nutrition: Making good food choices can go a long way toward managing stress. Teas such as Oolong and Chamomile have long been acknowledged as positive mood and immune-system promoters. Fruits like oranges, apples, bananas, and lemons are all packed with immune-boosting nutrients. Omega 3 fatty acids are now placed in foods from eggs to pasta to juices, so buying foods with the omega difference is a big step toward mood and immune support.
3. Motion: Staying active and in motion is essential to keeping your muscles strong and your joints mobile. More importantly, it helps your heart and lungs supply your brain and body all they need to keep you alert, happy and healthy.
4. Vitamin D: Is sun in a tablet. Five thousand units a day is a great mood stabilizer.
5. Deep Breathing: Taking time to bathe your brain in oxygen is always beneficial. Inhale slowly for eight seconds, hold the breath for another eight seconds, and then exhale slowly for eight seconds. Intentional, focused, deep breathing helps to calm nerves and improves respiration by increasing the concentration of oxygen in your circulatory systemically.
6. Laughter: Laughing is the best natural mood boost the body has to offer! The idea of laughing may sound silly, however, finding the cracks in the chaos can cheer you up and perhaps deliver a beneficial attitude break that’s the difference between an overwhelming day and a good day.
7. Chiropractic Care: Adjustments are brilliant at maintaining joint mobility, muscular balance, aiding pain-free motion and restoring restful sleep cycles.
By following all of these steps, including a chiropractic health plan, you’ll cope much better with stress all year long. As always, remember Palmer Chiropractic Clinics are available to help with your back questions and back-care strategies.
Dr. Oppelt graduated from Palmer College in 1994. He has been part of the Palmer Clinic Faculty for 19 years. The Palmer Chiropractic Clinics provide safe, effective, affordable chiropractic care to approximately 170,000 patients each year. Learn more at palmer.edu/clinics.
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