“Where are you at?”

By: Dr. Joe Brannigan, DC

If you are not watching your position, posture and muscle tension, then you are in a fight or flight posture.  Are you looking for arthritic joints or are you going to attack your paperwork and someone in your office?  Please help yourself, family and co-workers to interact with your/ their body in a fully functional way.  Posture and muscle tension is an easy step toward maintaing a high output body at any age.  You are required to be objective.  First look at your position: Are you slumped over the desk or table like a limp noodle?, Second: Have you moved your position in the last twenty minutes?- see the first step, Third: How tight are your upper shoulders and neck?

I recommend that everyone continuously monitor their position, posture and muscle tension every ten minutes.  Keep your body moving in your seat to keep everything loose: side to side, figure eights, etc.  The movements can be small enough that your neighbor does not need to know what you are up to.  Finally, pull your head and shoulders back to reality, ideally align your ear with your shoulder.

These daily tips are to be combined with our MAP program: Maintenance, Adjustments and Posture.  You can have the body to do the life that you deserve, even up through your one hundreth birthday.  Call our office to help you make your next best chapter a reality.

Your first visit to Brannigan Chiropractic Center will give you an opportunity to find out if chiropractic care can help you. You will receive a thorough case history and examination to make sure that your condition will respond to our treatment protocol.

As a doctor of chiropractic, Dr. Brannigan utilizes natural healing, including chiropractic treatments, rehabilitation, therapy, acupuncture, functional neurology and nutrition.

On your initial visit, the doctor will will begin with a thorough history and examination. The Dr. may do some therapy the day of the exam for pain relief and to assess how you may respond to care. The doctor will review your findings in great detail and on the following day present to you the findings and proposed schedule of care. You will begin your adjustments on that day and any therapy treatments that your condition would necessitate.

Whiplash

Definition

An injury to the soft tissues of the neck that occurs from a sudden jerking or “whipping” of the head.  This type of motion strains the muscles and the ligaments of the neck beyond their normal range of motion.  Whiplash often occurs when a vehicle stops suddenly in a car crash or is struck from behind.  Either of these two actions causes things in the vehicle to be thrown forward – including passengers and loose items in the car.  A seat belt will keep a person’s body from being thrown forward, but the head may snap forward, then backward, causing a whiplash injury in the neck and back.  In addition to car accidents, whiplash can be caused by roller coasters and other amusement park rides, sports injuries, or being punched or shaken.  (Whiplash is one of the hallmarks of shaken baby syndrome).

Symptoms

Often, you feel pain and stiffness in your neck for the first few days following a whiplash injury.  Then, you feel better, but the pain and stiffness may come back several days later.  The discomfort you feel may involve surrounding muscle groups in your head, chest, shoulders, and arms.

Neck Pain and or Stiffness

Blurred Vision

Difficulty Swallowing

Irritability & Fatigue

Dizziness Pain Between The Shoulder Blades

Pain In The Arms Or Legs Feet And Hands

Nausea, Ringing In The Ears

Vertigo

Numbness & Tingling Pain In The Jaw Or Face

Treatment

Chiropractic care works on correcting complications and relieving pain associated with whiplash injuries. To see if chiropractic may be able to help you call 708-966-4413 today for a complimentary consultation.

Burn 45% more this year

Dr. Joseph T. Brannigan, DC

New resolutions provide the impetus for making a difference in your life this brand new year 2012.  We all need to fire up our calorie burning furnaces to enjoy a leaner, healthier best version of ourselves.  We can do the usual stuff that we think will help us regain our youthfulness or we can visit with the staff personal trainers to help us find what we can do on a regular basis that will engage us long into February.  I tell patients to find some activities that they like to do, that is the best exercise: you will do it if you like it.

My favorite aerobic exercises include those that are the best bang for the time involved: cross country ski machines, swimming, any exercise classes, walking the golf course and hiking.  The more muscles that you use, equals better calorie usage.  Alternate intervals of speeding up (15s) and slowing down (45s) (interval training) to allow the body to burn up to 45% of calories more than a flat pace throughout the workout, according to research.  It also helps to produce the “fountain of youth” hormone: growth hormone.

If you do 2# weights for 10 reps of resistance exercises for the past 2 years, you and your muscles are bored.  The muscles do not have to work very hard when you ask them to do the same jobs over and over without changing the workload in some way.  This is the reason why many people get frustrated with their workouts, nothing is changing!  Your body is telling you the same thing, nothing is changing and I am getting good at this- you burn less calories doing it therefore.

The training staff and I enjoy your questions as to how to reach your goals over a certain period of time.  My recommendation is to invest the time, money and energy into your health because the dividends feel and look better on you.  The Drs. and trainers will also set a safe resistance program that will help you to reach your goals in a much more timely manner

One goal that I set for patients is to gain more lean muscle % by reducing the number of calories by 100 per meal by leaving 2-3 bites at each meal (if you eat 3 big meals).  Then if you are able to do 30 minutes of aerobic activity for each day of the week, you burn approximately 200 calories.  The math is stacking up in your favor with about 500 calories per day outgoing, you will lose 1 pound of fat per week at this rate.  Many patients and seminar attendees that I have spoken to have felt like you and I have when we are told this wonderful math equation, we say, “it can’t be.”  The logic works however, 1 pound of fat equals 3500 cal.  If you were food diligent and worked as I have outlined above for seven days multiplied by 500 calories, you will lose a pound of fat per week.

I do not like the poundage scale all by itself, it measures the amount of force that you are pressing with, but it does not tell about the quality of the weight behind the force.  Are we measuring your buffet meal, 12 glasses of water or your fat weight loss or gain? We could never really tell, unless you see the Drs. and trainers with the measuring tape, fat loss monitor or dunk tanks.  If all of our clothing is one size fits all, then we need sized clothes and belts as monitors to help gauge how lean we are getting.

Dr. Brannigan is a local Orland Park Chiropractor who is dedicated to enriching the health of the community by helping you run longer.  Dr. Brannigan is accepting new patients and can be reached by phone at: (708) 966-4413 or email: BranniganChiropractic.com

We have been told that we take care of things that we prize the most, so they last.  Brannigan Chiropractic wants you to build your body to last and maintain it so you do not have to overhaul it later.  Resolve to “lean- out” your body and maintain it with Chiropractic Care at Brannigan Chiropractic Center, here in Orland Park.  We recommend that you have two treatments per month to keep your body as elastic as possible when we are older than 50, and one visit per month for those under 50.  We applaud you when you prevent joints from underperforming and getting them treated versus letting them cause pain before seeking intervention.

Maintaining your spine and joints has been shown in research to reduce your chances of nursing home attendance by 15% compared to not attending your chiropractic treatment in people 75 and older.  Although you would look good at a nursing home, you may appear stronger at home!  We are living longer and well up into our 80’s for an average life expectancy.  I propose that if we are living this long that we should be able to do the things that we like doing and at least be able to care for ourselves.

This same group in the study above was 21% less likely to hang out in hospitals.  Patients under Chiropractic care were also 23% more mobile in their community.  More likely to exercise vigorously.  We have much to gain by taking care of our best asset: our original Body!

Make a “New Patient Appointment” by calling our office Today!

We will fix what we find wrong, by Chiropractic Treatment, Big Results, Low Invasive, Great Investment in You!

To Your Health,

 

Dr. Brannigan & The Brannigan Team