Teaming Up for Optimal Health

Prevention is often regarded as being the most sensible and effective approach to healthcare. This is not true. Making your heath decisions based on prevention is like driving your car in reverse. Instead of heading where you want to go, you spend your time and energy avoiding things that might happen. There are literally thousands of illnesses and diseases that you might reasonably be fearful of. Which ones do you choose to protect yourself from?

Of course if diabetes runs in your family, you will want to take specific preventative measures to avoid wearing out your pancreas. But what about all the rest of you?

If not prevention, what is an effective strategy for living a healthy life? The first step is to understand  is: you are either getting healthier or getting sicker. There is nothing in between.

Once you have an idea of what to look for, what once was invisible (the little ways in which you are getting sicker) becomes obvious. Hopefully when this realization occurs, you decide that you want to do something about it. So the second step is to take (active) responsibility for your health. (Believe me, whether you decide to take responsibility or not, you ARE responsible. Look at it this way: when you get sick, it’s you that gets sick, not the doctor.)

Like I said, unless you are truly unusual, when you finally do start paying attention to yourself you will find plenty of evidence of what you need to do in order to improve your health. So you have already begun to implement an effective health promoting strategy simply by paying attention to yourself.

But is ‘paying attention’ really that simple? Yes. Start by paying attention to the simple things. Do you sleep well? Do you have problems digesting your food, urinating or moving your bowels? Do you have pain for no obvious reason, or pain doing things that used to be easy? Can you bend over or walk up the stairs without getting out of breath? Do you breathe easily and deeply? Do you brood? Is one side of your body tighter or weaker than the other? There are countless little things that can and do go wrong.

Not only are these ‘little things’ painful or annoying or embarrassing, they are informative. They communicate two things. First they tell you something is wrong and needs to be corrected. And second, to the educated person, they give clues to the nature of the problem and a direction towards solving it.

So here is where you might want or need an expert, such as a doctor. But the job of the doctor is to help you correct the problem, not help you avoid its unpleasant symptoms. Because chiropractic has a positive understanding of what health means (‘the free flow of vitality in accordance with the design of the human body’), a doctor of chiropractic can help you move toward health, not merely away from sickness. This is what we mean by corrective care. If you want or need help for that you are much better off seeing someone who when they look at you ‘sees,’ not the possibility of disease, but the potential for health.

To make an appointment for a health evaluation call 860-257-8388.  If you want more information about getting healthier go to 'Wellness Care: the Triad of Health.'