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[21 Sep 2020 | Comments Off on Trouble Sleeping? | ]
Trouble Sleeping?

Then check this out. The team at Medical news Today just posted an article with 21 tips and tricks for improving your sleep quality.

Poor sleep has been linked to mental health conditions like depression, to reduced immune function, to weight gain, and to reduced healing capacity.

The thing I have done lately that’s made a big difference is I bought a pair of blue light blocking glasses. They were relatively inexpensive ($60-70) and I think they have really helped reduce the effect of TV or other devices at night. I …

Your Body »

[18 Feb 2020 | Comments Off on Studies say a slumped posture can cause you to DIE earlier. Is it true? | ]
Studies say a slumped posture can cause you to DIE earlier. Is it true?

Wow, that’s a pretty big call. When I first saw this study I thought it sounded a bit ridiculous. Just being excessively slumped is associated with dying earlier? Sounded a bit dramatic. Then I read the study, and a few other studies on this topic.

Slumping forward is one of those things that tends to happen as we age. I’m sure you have seen older people walking along, looking down towards the ground as their back arches forward.

As we age our backs become stiffer, the discs become a little …

Your Body »

[10 Mar 2016 | Comments Off on How to Breathe – 2016 Health Tip Part 2 | ]
How to Breathe – 2016 Health Tip Part 2

As you saw in my previous article , breathing can help improve the tone of the Vagus Nerve. This has been linked to reduced stress and anxiety levels, reduced heart rate, reduced blood pressure, and even reduced risk of dying from cancer.
A 2016 article talked more about the link between stress and cancer, saying that stress acts as a ‘fertiliser’ by increasing the number of lymphatic vessels draining from the tumour, but increase flow in existing vessels. “So not only do you get new freeways out of the tumour but …

Exercise, Your Body »

[10 Mar 2016 | Comments Off on My Number 1 Health Tip for 2016 | ]
My Number 1 Health Tip for 2016

My number 1 health tip for 2015 was to MOVE MORE, and no doubt you would’ve seen one of the countless articles talking about how bad prolonged sitting is for your health. Some articles called prolonged sitting worse for your health than smoking or obesity, and 60 Minutes did a great story which I posted outlining the benefits of moving more.
If 2015 was all about MOVING, 2016 is all about BREATHING. Well, breathing and Bruno Mars. I love that guy.
When we talk about breathing, in very basic terms we are …

Miscellaneous, Pain, Your Body »

[11 Oct 2015 | Comments Off on Vitamin D Slows Cognitive Decline | ]
Vitamin D Slows Cognitive Decline

A new study, which followed 382 75 year-olds for 8 years, has concluded that low levels of vitamin D “may accelerate cognitive decline in older adults”. The subjects were examined to test their episodic memory, semantic memory, visual perception, and executive function.
They found that participants with signs of dementia had lower levels of vitamin D than those with either no cognitive impairment or only mild cognitive impairment.Also, “insufficient vitamin D was linked to much faster declines in episodic memory (recollection of people, places, and events), and executive function (your ability …

Exercise, Miscellaneous, Your Body »

[16 Sep 2015 | Comments Off on Longer Work Hours Increase Risk of Stroke | ]
Longer Work Hours Increase Risk of Stroke

A new study has found that working more than 55 hours a week “significantly increases your risk of having a stroke”. abc.net.au broke the story this week, citing a study conducted on over 600,000 people over the past 8 and a half years.
Key findings of the study included:

People working 55 hours a week had a 33 per cent greater risk of having a stroke than people who worked a standard 35 – 40 hour week.
The more hours people worked beyond standard hours, the higher their chance of having a stroke …

Pain, Your Body »

[26 Jul 2015 | Comments Off on How many of us have Disc Herniations? | ]
How many of us have Disc Herniations?

As an Osteopath I see a lot of people with disc injuries. People are understandably concerned about doing damage to their discs, as they play an important role in the structural integrity of the spine, and live very close to nerves and the spinal cord, so they can cause a lot of pain and other problems.
There have been a number of studies where researchers take members of the general population and perform scans on them. they are trying to find out how many people actually have a particular injury. For …

Pain, Your Body »

[7 Dec 2014 | Comments Off on Is running bad for your knees? | ]
Is running bad for your knees?

Apparently not! Even I thought it was but the results of a new study (to read it click here) have found that “not only does running not cause osteoarthritis in the knee, it may even help to keep the problem at bay”.
The study followed 2863 people and found that “runners, regardless of the age they were when they ran, had less knee pain and osteoarthritis.”
This supported another previous study of 74,00 people from 2013 which “found that running significantly reduced the risk of both osteoarthritis and knee replacement.”
Some other choice quotes …

Pain, Your Body »

[25 Nov 2014 | Comments Off on What texting does to your neck – who knows where to find an aadvark? | ]
What texting does to your neck – who knows where to find an aadvark?

A new study has shed light on the impact of texting on the joints in your neck. A surgeon in the US used a computer simulation to measure the increased weight forces of the head on the neck as it bends further forward. The results were pretty dramatic. Here are a few choice quotes from the article:
“As the head tilts forward the forces seen by the neck surges to 27 pounds (12.2 kilograms) at 15 degrees, 40 pounds (18.1 kilograms) at 30 degrees, 49 pounds (22.22 kilograms) at 45 degrees …

Pain, Your Body »

[30 Jan 2014 | Comments Off on Spinal Injections | ]
Spinal Injections

New research has come out questioning the effectiveness of spinal injections. Titled “Time to reconsider steroid injections in the spine?”, the article in the latest edition of the Medical Journal of Australia lists the following points, which I’ll post for your consideration:

The largest of these showed marginal short-term (2-week) improvement in the steroid and local anaesthetic group over the saline group for the primary outcome (leg pain), an effect that was not sustained by 4 weeks.
Short-term relief is a common finding in studies that use local anaesthetic in the active group.
We …