Polyvagal Theory is a relatively new field of study in healthcare, and it represents another layer of Above-Down-Inside-Out healing here are Prior Lake Spinal Care.
Within a couple weeks, most people begin noticing an improvement in the symptoms that prompted them to begin their chiropractic care here. But was it merely the pain or symptom(s) that really caused them to start their chiropractic in the first place?
By the time new folks are halfway finished with page one of their intake forms, they realize (if they didn't already) that there has been a disconnect. A disconnect from themselves, others or something else.
See, most people circle at least two of the following on the line that says "Does your problem affect your: Sleep / Work / Daily Routine / Sitting / Driving".
Most people know that chiropractic is a wise drug-free approach to helping with various symptoms. They do not want to go the route of of pain medication, needle injections and muscle relaxers. Some have been told that they're going to need orthopedic surgery at some point and they want to delay it for as long as possible. Everyone's original motivation for starting care here at Prior Lake Spinal Care is a little different but, at the root, it's pretty much always related to a dis-connect in how they're able to get along at home or at work, and they see chiropractic as a means to helping them re-connect via better brain-to-body communication. All good...
Now, every day at work and home we must perform and do our best - both for ourselves and for those that count on us. This can present a "fake it 'til you make it" paradox that, if we're not careful, can disconnect us even further from WHY we get up and do what we gotta do.
Pain and health challenges have an emotional counterpart. Since the show must go on at the speed of business, or to the tempo of the toddler that needs a new diaper at the most inconvenient time, we have no choice but to act "as if" and tackle the next item on our to do list. This can go on for years.
For the person in pain, the more they do the more they hurt. Yet the to do list is always there...sometimes getting longer and longer.
Since our emotions are connected to our thoughts and actions and, since we need to carry out our mission each day at the office and/or at home, we can tend to "shut off" our emotions since the job has to get done no matter how we physically, emotionally or mentally feel.
The problem is that when we shut off those emotions it can be easy to get lost and disconnected with the highest priority things in life. We can forget why we get up each day and "push". We can easily forget what if feels like to be "pulled" and motivated or inspired to have breakthrough, continually unfold, make the most of our talents and trend upward and to the right in the areas of life we feel we are uniquely meant to excel in.
Polyvagal Theory says that we are always in one of three predominant emotional states or modes: social engagement, fight/flight, or "freeze".
Polyvagal is comprised of two parts, "poly" which means several and "vagus", which refers to the vagus nerves that exit the base of the skull, pipe down through the neck and then spread out to influence every tissue and organ all the way down to the first part of the large intestine. The vagus nerves play a major role in carrying out the survival mechanisms which help us to be resilient and overcome challenges - whether physical, mental, emotional, or social.
It was classically understood that someone is either in rest/digest mode OR fight/flight mode at any given moment in time. The classical sabre-tooth tiger example says that our brains are programmed to take a fight or take flight from a predator if we happen to be caught off guard. However, when encountering a dangerous situation in the wild, animals will often freeze momentarily, in hopes that the predator will not see them. They may make a fast calculation...to run away, fight the other animal or sometimes even lie down and play dead.
Playing dead would be the freeze mode of polyvagal theory. It is thought that this is primarily regulated by the dorsal or "back" portion of the three main branches of the vagus nerves. It's okay to be in this mode for short term survival when encountering a physically dangerous situation like a predator in the wild, but if we're not careful we can stay in this mode even though there is no real physical threat or reason to stay there. Chronic freeze mode or activation of this section of the vagus nerves is related to a wide variety of health problems.
Polyvagal Theory is helpful because it tells us that our emotions are always in flux and that pain and other health challenges can make it easy to get lost in the "woods", masking over our emotions as a result of the pain, health challenge or other stressor that we've had to adapt to.
One application of Polyvagal Theory would be carefully controlling our breathing. If we're aware that we're not in the social engagement state of being, then we can pause and focus on our breathing. Unlike most other nerves in the body, the vagus nerves have a much higher percentage of body to brain signaling than brain to body. Therefore, breathing exercises can help to calm our minds down before beginning an important task. In a way, it's kind of like the baseball player coming to bat may take a deep breath to calm his nerves so he can focus all of his attention on the upcoming pitch. It's a bit more complicated than that, yet it's the same physiology of body to brain and THEN brain to body.
The chiropractic adjustments performed at Prior Lake Spinal Care help our brains better connect to our bodies so that we can adapt better in real time. For best results, a holistic (wholistic) approach to healing through careful introspective activities such as journaling, meditation practices and focused breathing are all helpful tools that can help with the recovery process central to your chiropractic care here. The good news is we have excellent resources to help you get back to experiencing breakthrough - not just beyond the pain, but also for helping you remember how to truly feel pulled even as you push from day to day toward the top of the mountain, whatever that may be for you.
We live our lives through our central nervous systems so proper brain to body communication is essential. Here, we do this not only by maximally correcting the alignment of your vertebrae, but also by helping you regain your momentum unto a brighter and better future. That's why Dr. Pietrek likes to say he helps fix spines and change minds.
For other resources on this topic, check out our Above-Down-Inside-Out Method for Approaching Mental, Social, and Spiritual Well-Being here: https://www.priorlakespinalcare.com/adio/ and to learn more about Polyvagal Theory by Stephen Porges visit here: https://www.stephenporges.com/
This is the do-it-yourself module of Posture and Mobility from Above-Down-Inside-Out (A.D.I.O).
Here, we will be discussing 7 "primal pattern" movements, developed by holistic health practitioner Paul Chek.
Chek is well-known for his rehabilitative programs for athletes and helping prevent injury for non-athletes.
The premise behind "Primal Pattern Movements" is that if you couldn't properly perform these movements and you were in a hunter and gatherer culture, you could starve. Broken bones and severe sprains were not easily mendable without modern medical procedures, so proper body and spinal mechanics were essential.
For us, the primal pattern movements or 'functional movements' are all about healing from past injury, preventing setbacks with spinal-related conditions, and helping you to be aware of any movement weaknesses you may have. For example, if you notice that your right knee buckles inward whenever you squat down, then you may need to focus on foam rolling the glutes and calves on that side in order to free these motions up.
All you need is a stick and a dumb bell or kettle bell. This video demonstrates all 7 movements from the side and front: lunge, squat, push, pull, bend, turn and gait (walking, jogging, and running).
Many of you have noticed that I've been compiling a thick stack of PDF's, videos, handouts and jargon about the neurology behind the improved "brain-to-body" connection experienced through chiropractic care. But did you know this SAME one-to-the-other pattern is also apparent in computer systems, cell biology, brain biology, electrical engineering and more?
It all has to do with a thing called "functional integration".
Functional integration is the basis of a 10-patient "mini-study" we're doing (it's a secret and I can't tell you what it's all about, or else I'd ruin the placebo). It's goal is to not only help demonstrate the awesomeness of the care provided at Prior Lake Spinal Care, and it supports the position that we can include "FI" components in our daily routines, which serve to help us re-gain autonomy over our mental/emotional, social and spiritual health domains.
Above-Down-Inside-Out is about improving your own trajectory. It will be a unique webpage on our main website, with a different background, look and feel. I consider it insider information. The general public is NOT looking for a chiropractor that can help them discover their algorithms, develop better internal leverage to be a better "doer" of what they know to be true. That's okay. This isn't for everybody.
It's for people that have most likely enjoyed getting out of pain, and want to experience maximal recovery in the other three factors of health - mental/emotional, social and spiritual health - all of which may or may have not been impacted by that physical pain or the CAUSE of the pain.
There are 3 waves to A.D.I.O. There is the spinal adjustment itself, it is the hands on do-it-yourself part, and more of a headspace part which is about helping you create autonomy in your own health journey.
Physical pain has an emotional experience attached to it. Not only is it more difficult to be happy when you're in pain, there are "fight or flight" hormones that go every where in your body when you experience pain, which can then spill over into stressed out thoughts and stressed out actions. The more we know this enemy, the better we can beat it.
You could learn many of these principles on other websites, but our lives have overlapped and this will be organized in such a way that maybe our stories will overlap as well, hoping that you can feel a little more pulled in some of the areas you've been pushing.
Everyone truly has a story. My job is to help you carry that out as well and as long as possible with a well-balanced spine.
I've dedicated my life to this upper cervical chiropractic work, and it's played a huge role in how I view the four pillars of health as defined by Dorland's Medical and Webster's dictionary: physical, mental/emotional, social and spiritual.
The new resource page is anticipated to be done within a couple months.
Can certain foods help relieve neck pain? We've worked with many neck pain sufferers in the Prior Lake area, and noticed that certain foods may help reduce symptoms.
Here’s the list:
Consuming these foods on a regular basis may help reduce your neck pain symptoms. Over the years, we helped numerous neck pain sufferers finally get to the cause of their neck pain. Many of these individuals were like you and thought they tried everything. But once misalignments in the upper neck had been located and precisely corrected, the resulting improvements in quality of life have frequently been life-changing.
We are here for you and ready to help.
[clickfunnels_clickpop delay="0" id="umafzhvdxrh6c1jt" subdomain="drjames21491b"]Your Content[/clickfunnels_clickpop]Wellness chiropractic in Prior Lake is in high demand. According to the top Google search, wellness is defined as the state of being in good health, especially as an actively pursued goal.
Here, we believe that there is a direct relationship between the resilience of one’s spine and their potential for true wellness.
When the spine is in alignment, there is better mobility in the whole body. When we move better, we feel better. Plain and simple. Joseph Pilates said “You are as old as your spine.”
We know that you value your health, and we strive to make it an enjoyable pursuit.
You may just be trying to stay on top of your game OR you may be trying to break through to that next level. Either way, upper cervical chiropractic care is one of the most resourceful things you can do for your health, and your health is your greatest resource.
We don’t add or subtract anything. Our Prior Lake chiropractic office simply removes nerve interference in a very unique and gentle way.
Have you ever sat on a stool that just wasn’t right? The higher it is the scarier it is—especially if it doesn’t have a back to it.
With the spine, the stool can be wobbly but you might not know it right away. If you catch yourself bending in an awkward position and hear a popping noise and your original pain returns it’s safe to say that you lost your adjustment at that moment in time. But usually it’s more subtle.
Brain fog or inability to pay attention to the task at hand, feeling “run down” and more easily stressed out also may be signs that you’ve lost your adjustment. These are delayed responses, some times taking up to weeks to appear after the spinal subluxation returns. Because of this, they’re not the best indicators as to whether or not you need an adjustment.
One thing is for sure, when you do get adjusted the thing we monitor here above all else is the leg length differential or hip level. The part of the brain that controls this is the vestibular nucleus.
Now, to get to the vestibular nucleus, we had to go by way of the brain stem and cerebellum. At the speed of sound, the cerebellum also affects the amygdala (stress and anxiety center), the hippocampus (our memory and learning center), and the hypothalamus (the main player in our hormonal system). That’s why it’s not uncommon for someone to come in because of lower back pain and they notice they’re handling stress better and sleeping better!
Fixing the wobbly stool makes all four legs work better.
Dr. Pietrek sees patients from all walks of life re-gain their body's normal function. If you'd like to learn more about his chiropractic procedure, please visit here. If you'd like to set up a free consult over the phone or in person, please contact us here.
A few centuries ago if a common person defied a mean king or queen, it was "off with their head".
Dr. Pietrek, chiropractor in Prior Lake, says that apparently they figured that was the quickest way to "off" someone was to go straight to the nerve connection source. How does this compare to how long you could go without other necessities, such as food, air and water?
We all know that the brain and spinal cord controls everything in the body, but with heart disease being the number one killer in this country, and with all the surgeries that can be performed on the heart and kidneys (which you have two of) and, in fact, you can actually get part of your liver removed and it will commonly re-grow once again - but very rarely will a person actually get brain surgery. As such, the central nervous system doesn't get enough credit.
So, we're going to give the central nervous system (CNS) some airtime today and play a little game, called "How Long Can You Go?"
How long can you go without food? Well experts say that you can go all the way up to 10 or 15, even up to 40 days without food.
What about water? Most experts say you can go about 3-7 days without water.
What about air supply? You can go up to about 5 minutes without air.
And about 3-5 days without sleep.
But what about nerve supply? You could only go about 3 seconds before you're absolutely DONE!
Now, imagine if a new bustling town is being developed. New restaurants, business parks and a retail area gets constructed. Then a major highway gets installed a month later.
Imagine a couple years later if the nearby freeway didn't have any entrance or exit ramps feeding to and from this new town?
The new little town wouldn't get "fed", it would starve out and businesses would shut down and people would need to move.
In the same way a compressive lesion, scar tissue, or a benign or even cancerous tumor inside the body can be occurring, and this could cause a restriction on the blood and nerve flow going to various organs.
But a far more subtle yet COMMON problem is the subluxation in the spine, which MAY be affecting the organ's nerve supply - which MAY be affecting one of your loved ones right now.
One of the best ways to demonstrate the importance of a healthy-functioning nervous system is to observe what happens when a person has a spinal cord injury.
Now, we know that quadrapalegics do not have as long of a lifespan or as high of a quality of life as parapalegics. Full parapalegics are not as well off as partial parapalegics, which are those who have partial use of their arms or legs.
In the same way (assuming you are not confined to a wheelchair) we all fit on the line somewhere between perfect health and being very sick.
I had a patient in this morning, as a matter of fact, who started with diarrhea and it was clearing up over the few weeks ago she's been here. Then she started to have some lower back pain and she had mistespped and fell and bumped her head, but she is doing better once again.
She told me this morning that her lower back is more flexible, she doesn't have headaches anymore and that she feels like her old self again.
I asked her "what's the next level for you?"
She said what do you mean?
I said, "Well, you're doing so much better now. Your digestive system is working better, you're not in pain and you're moving better. You've graduated by several levels in your overall health picture. What's next for you?"
What are YOUR health (life) goals?
The best kinds of goals to set are the ones that make you a better person in the process.
Better nerve supply, better you!
Dr. Pietrek agrees with the Hippocrates' saying "All living systems are either growing or dying." We live our lives through our central nervous system and we cannot replace our spines and spinal cord, like we can with many other parts of our body. Our chiropractic system works by tapping into your inherent resilience through specific chiropractic adjustments.
We know that each person's spinal alignment (misalignment) is as unique as a fingerprint. Optimizing nerve flow by integrating the postural control center of the brain with the tonal muscles of the spine is one of the most resourceful things you can do for your health and well-being, thus prepping yourself for that next life breakthrough. This is what Dr. Pietrek refers to as ROI (resilience, optimus (optimized you), integration).
Our mission is to provide the best chiropractic care in Prior Lake. Our mission is simple yet profound. Education is part of the unfoldment process and that's why we have so many youtube videos. We believe you already have a good idea of what it takes to get and be healthy. We're just here to connect the dots. Nature needs no help, just no interference.
To learn more about Dr. Pietrek's chiropractic method, please visit the NUCCA website at NUCCA.org and to schedule your free consultation over the phone or in person, please contact us here.
Properly hydrating gives you the best chance to maximally hold your chiropractic adjustments in Prior Lake. A healthy spinal disc is 90% water, while a degenerated disc has 30% water or less. Disc health depends upon proper spinal mobility (alignment) and water intake.
“Vital waters” is broken down into two parts. “Vital” waters are fruits and vegetables that contain vitamins, minerals, and enzymes that your body can’t make on its own, and “water” for the water that you drink.
Recently, the FDA changed the food pyramid to back up what nutritionists have been saying for years- fruits and vegetables are the foundational food group, not breads and cereals. As mentioned, raw and slightly cooked fruits and vegetables contain several key ingredients you need to thrive, and thereby help you maximally hold your chiropractic adjustments in Prior Lake. Here’s a description:
Drinking water and proper hydration is important because of its many functions: transporting nutrient and oxygen into the cells, moisturizing the air in the lungs, assists with metabolism, protecting our vital organs, helping organs to absorb nutrients better, regulating body temperature, detoxifying, and protecting our joints.
As you can see, water is a very busy molecule in our bodies which is why it needs to be constantly drained and replaced. But how much should you be drinking in an average day? What temperature is best? And what is the best kind of drinking water?
The amount of water we drink each day really depends on our body’s needs. A professional sumo wrestler will need more water than a librarian. People who are trying to lose weight (assuming they’re actually overweight) will usually be more dehydrated to begin with than individuals who are at a healthy weight and thus should be drinking a higher percentage of water compared to their body weight. Healthy discs are about 90% water, while those affected by years of degeneration can have as little as 0-10%. In other words, the disc is practically gone! As a general rule, a person’s body weight in pounds, divided by two is the number of ounces of water a person should drink each day. This could seem like a lot at first, but it is worth ensuring that your joints and tissues are properly hydrated. If you find yourself having to go to the bathroom a lot after two weeks of this, then you can cut back a little to a more comfortable amount. Lastly, people with kidney conditions should be careful to not over-drink water.
Room temperature water is usually the best. If you drink a large glass of cold water, then try to hula hoop a half hour later, chances are that you will hear the water still sloshing around in your stomach. This is because your body will not absorb or pass the water until it is heated to near body temperature. The problem with drinking cold water is that you’re spending energy to heat the water now and therefore, it makes you tired after a while. So, use your energy to use a little of both the blue and red spouts at the water cooler and don’t forget that it’s also a water heater! One of the few exceptions to this rule is when athletes are performing under severe weather conditions in the heat and water is needed as a coolant.
As for the best kind of drinking water, that is a difficult question to answer because although real spring water is best for most people, bottlers are allowed to say that theirs is spring water while it comes from the municipal tap! Your best bet is to get a reverse osmosis filter for your home (see http://www.mercola.com).
What’s not controversial is that the names and labels on the bottles are just wonderful- Deer Park, Aquafina, Ice Mountain, Ozarka, Zephyr Hills, Poland Spring, Clearly Canadian, and Dasani. What’s also for certain is that your body’s pH (measured in urine and saliva) should be at least a little alkaline. Water ionizers and adding certain salts to water can have many health benefits. The trick is not only in getting to this point, but staying at the point where your stomach is acidic enough and doesn’t become over-alkalized, which can cause problems with breaking down your food, especially if you’re a meat-eater like most. For more information on alkalizing see drrobertyoung.com.
Now that you know why consuming vital waters is vital to your health, it's important to remember that a properly moving spine that isn't stiff or locked up is another key to proper hydration of the spinal discs. This is because a "pumping motion", much like a sponge, is necessary for allowing the water to get into the spinal discs.
At Prior Lake Spinal Care, Dr. Pietrek utilizes the NUCCA method of chiropractic (NUCCA.org). We know that, in order for spinal discs to degenerate, there first must be an injury that knocks the spine out of proper alignment and therefore alters its center of gravity. THEN and ONLY THEN, the centers of motion become altered. Most chiropractic methods focus mainly on restoring the proper motion to the joint. The NUCCA method focuses on re-establishing one's relationship to gravity, which then improves mobility. The intention is to accomplish this with as few spinal adjustments as possible.
To schedule a free consultation with Dr. Pietrek in person or over the phone, please contact us here.
When it comes to better holding your chiropractic adjustments in Prior Lake, it's important to remember that the same power that made the body is the same power that heals the body - and MAINTAINS the body.
The opposite of peace is stress and, since stress makes up the reason of about 75-90% of all doctor visits every year (at least indirectly), let's talk a little about stress first.
Stress is not good or bad in and of itself. If it's long term stress that a person experiences generally that's bad because it can lead to autoimmune problems, weight gain, osteoporosis, cancer, and a variety of lifestyle diseases.
Here's an example of a good stress response: We're walking down the jungle and all of a sudden a sabre-toothed tiger jumps out of the woods and attacks us. We don't even have to think about it and our bodies undergo a series of chemical reactions which causes our pupils to constrict, the blood to rush out to our extremities, our heart rate goes up and all of a sudden we are able to take flight from that tiger or fight the tiger which is known as the “flight or fight” response. I would personally lie down and play dead, but that's just me.
Above is a short term stress response which allows the organism to adapt so that there's a long-term preservation. This is a survival instinct.
Here's an example of another stress response. Imagine that it's late at night and you hear a noise and your dog hears that same noise, barks a couple of times and then goes back to sleep. You lie awake, thinking “Hmm, I wonder if that was a raccoon knocking over the trash can? Was that the wind? Was it the boogie man? Did I forget to put the leftovers away? And your mind just keeps on racing about what could be, and should be, etc.
That's an example of a bad response. We tend to think that that noise was the boogie man and our dog just goes back to sleep and, as they say, “sleeps like a dog”.
The definition of stress is “a specific response by the body to a stimulus as fear or pain that disturbs or interferes with the normal physiological equilibrium of an organism.” Again those first few words were “a specific response”.
Now if I were to ask you to have a seat at the edge of a table with your legs hanging over the side and I had a rubber reflex hammer and asked you relax your legs and I was going to go and tap the tendon right under the kneecap. What's going to happen to about 90% of the population is the quadriceps muscle will contract and the lower leg will extend outward. But if I then asked you to contract your quadriceps and hamstrings muscle as I tapped your patellar tendon, you could most likely control that reflex and barely respond to the reflex hammer. And what I want to submit to you is that stress doesn't happen to us but stress is the result of us not adapting correctly.
And so the key question is “how can we increase our adaptability?” To answer a question with a question “how can we create peace?”
Now, the human mind is very interesting to study and it's even more complicated than the entire internet, but we can really only focus on one thing at a time. So it's really a losing battle to think about decreasing stress or preventing stress, just like trying to think of anything but a pink elephant. No matter how much you try, you're not going to eliminate that thought of the pink elephant as long as you keep telling yourself “I don't want to think of the pink elephant.” And not only that, it's pretty much impossible to have no stress in our lives. Everything is a process and, overall, we are either on the “peace” side or the good side of the mud pit that you don't want to fall into or you're on the side of too much stress. But to be as peaceful as possible and to build up our resilience which is what this is all about, we're going to focus on creating peace.
Focus. I had a psychology teacher in high school one time who said that boredom is due to the lack of concentration. And if that is true, well, then the opposite of that must be true as well. In other words, no matter how boring something may seem at the time, if we choose to really really really –I mean really focus on it and engage as many of our senses as possible then we can actually make it exciting. If you can somehow make watching paint dry an exciting experience –if, that is -then you are being very resourceful.
Hope. Hope is the expectation that tomorrow will be better than today. Unforeseen challenges can cause us to lose our way, get frustrated and get off track. Because of this, it’s important to continually top-off our supply of hope so that our default emotion can be joy, which is an inner peace despite outward circumstances.
It’s not possible to feel happy and excited all the time because our brains simply cannot continually create and maintain such a cascade of hormonal releases. Instead, joy is the emotion we are seeking because it is the most sustainable and resourceful of emotional states. Without hope, we cannot have joy.
Organization. In the movie “Mrs. Doubtfire” Robin Williams, while playing the role of Dad says to his son “You're the man of the house now. Don't be messy.” How we establish or maintain a special place for our ideas and notes and things for our personal development has so much to do with our mental health.
A cluttered life is going to give us a cluttered mind and if you're like me, the most cluttering thing is paper. Receipts, invoices, warranties, owner's manuals, kids' report
cards, the list goes on and on. The best solution to that problem is finding a home system for inputting that information into your computer or your laptop. They sell them online –you can go to Best Buy or Staples now and get a scanning unit for your home that puts that paper information into your computer and you can store it in separate files without much additional hardware or software. And then you would just take that information and you would have it backed up offsite in case you every have a problem with your computer. The backup system is secure and it can be stored in three separate physical locations offsite via satellite. The best system that I can think of –and that I use –is Carbonite.
Next is planning. Planning, or setting goals, developing strategies, and outlining tasks of an objective is important not only because we need to be prepared for certain things but also because it's useful in managing our physiology.
Imagine that you're a head coach in professional football and you have staff review game film of your own team and the next opponent for the game next week so that you can go and develop a strategy to beat this team. You know that your own best players are worth a lot to the franchise and they have a lot of talent but, for whatever reason, they just haven't been playing up to par lately. They do a good job in practice; they're committed to the team, they embrace their role on the team and they're on board with the coaches’ philosophy, but maybe they're just not playing well under pressure and during actual game time.
Above is a perfect example of planning by physiology. This is a strategy taken from sports psychology book but you can relate it to any area of your own life. So you can think of a situation that you commonly encounter that makes you uneasy or fearful, maybe it's certain social situations, maybe it's family gatherings, maybe it's seeing a clown at a parade or public speaking.
Think of that situation and all the negative things that could come out of it. For example, if it's public speaking then maybe it's the possibility of the audience not understanding a joke or forgetting what you were going to say. And you just let your mind wander and drift toward all of these negative things to the point that you can feel the changes in your own physiology –maybe it's your blood pressure, your heart pounding, maybe you're sweating a little bit. But once you have that physical response you know that you're putting yourself into “state” and that you have been real with yourself. Now, maybe these aren't rational fears but nevertheless they probably feel like a movie that you have run in your head over and over and over already in the past in the theater of your mind.
Write all of these fears down and then next to it you write the exact opposite of that. Maybe it's everybody accepting what you're saying or people laughing and just having a good time...whatever it takes to put yourself at ease in that situation. And you meditate on that until your own physiology slows down. Maybe you're breathing through your nose and using your diaphragm while lying alone in dark room for 12-15 minutes and you eventually notice your heart rate slowing down. Therefore, in a couple of hours or next week, or in a couple minutes when you're ready to “take that stage” you're more likely to have that calm and relaxed response as opposed to the uneasy and stressed out and fearful state.
Execution. How many times have you sat around a pool and heard a small child yell, “Mommy, Daddy, watch me!” Then they race over to the pool and they jump in the deep end and as soon as they get out they ask if their parents saw what they did and Mom and Dad proudly say “Yep”. Just because that child's parents acknowledged what they did they get a tremendous sense of accomplishment, confidence and esteem because they were maybe afraid to jump in at one point and now they're ready to take it up a notch next time and maybe try it without floaties or a tube around their waist and they have a powerful sense of momentum.
Momentum is important for us adults as well for creating peace and practicing good execution of our goals. One of the best and easiest ways to practice good execution and experience a sense of momentum in your life is to have a prioritized and time-blocked list of things to do. When we accomplish those bullet points on our list and we cross if off that gives us a sense of momentum and accomplishment just like the swimming child and that's important because, in terms of productivity –and assuming that we're doing what we love to do and doing it with a sense of purpose –the only thing that really matters at the end of the day is what gets done.
Last but not least is time management. How we redeem our individual minutes will ultimately determine our level of success in the various roles that we play in life. I'd highly recommend reading a book on time management, and I think that most books and seminars on the subject will say pretty much the same thing overall or at least have a couple lessons in common, that being procrastination is really bad and have a list of goals for the day. But I recommend the time management book by Dan Kennedy because he has a great view on eliminating two types of distractions –ones that we have control over and ones that we don't have control over.
Most time management lessons don't take into consideration that nobody is perfectly efficient because there are distractions out there that are beyond our control and Kennedy teaches a realistic way to handle those distractions gracefully and budget them into your time bank which makes for less frustration when those distractions do happen.
It's also important to keep a journal once in a while to log how you're using your time. All you have to do is for a week at random times set your cell phone to chime at various times during what you consider to be your “peek productive hours”, stop and write down what you're doing and then go back and evaluate after a week or so how you're doing in terms of being focused and moving toward the goal line. You may be interested to find out at the end of your study that you may not be as focused as you thought you were and this is problem because what it means is that inevitably you would need to work even harder with the fewer hours that you have left in order to reach your goal. And this of course creates stress which is the opposite of peace.
In conclusion, just remember that you are in control of how your body responds to any given situation. Stress is the result of not adapting appropriately and calmly and you are in charge of your perceptions and paradigms from which you view things. What you think might be a barrier or speed bump or obstacle very well may be a springboard and an opportunity.
When your spine's on your nerves, other things can get on your nerves more easily. This is why holding your chiropractic adjustments in Prior Lake is helpful for long-term stress prevention.
To learn more about Dr. Pietrek's chiropractic methodology, please visit NUCCA.org. To schedule your free consult over the phone or in person, contact us here.