Heart Disease is the leading cause of death in the United States and more than 50% of adults living here suffer from high blood pressure. By implementing minor changes and heart healthy choices, you can decrease your risk of cardiovascular health issues. The 5 steps below will help you achieve a healthier you.
Regular Upper Cervical chiropractic care. The Atlas or C1 vertebra relies on soft tissue and ligaments to keep it in place. It is extremely common for the Atlas to become misaligned. Many people never experience pain or discomfort in the upper cervical region; however, they may experience a variety of systematic symptoms from neck and back pain to high blood pressure or even memory loss. A misalignment of the Atlas leads to restricted flow of spinal fluid from the brain to the rest of the body. An upper cervical adjustment is a non-invasive and drug-free procedure that can improve the flow of spinal fluid and help restore the body back to its normal state, eliminating many of the systematic symptoms.
Diet plays an important role in heart health. You can improve your heart health by lowering your sodium intake, saturated & trans fats, red meat, and sugar intake. You should base most of your diet around fruits, vegetables, low-fat dairy products, poultry & fish, nuts, legumes, and non-tropical vegetable oils. By practicing healthier eating habits, you can lower cholesterol, triglycerides, and plaquing in the arteries which will in turn improve blood pressure and decrease your chances of a cardiovascular related death or illness.
Get regular Exercise. According to the American Heart Association, 150 minutes a week or 30 minutes of exercise 5 days a week can improve your heart health as well as lung function and circulation. A few exercises to consider would be brisk walking, hiking, swimming, fitness class, team sports, or dance. The key to staying active is to find something you like and to change it up to reduce the chances of losing interest.
De-stress your life. When you are faced with a stressful situation or emotional discomfort our bodies release adrenaline and cortisol (stress hormones.) This can affect your nervous system as well as your cardiovascular health because the release of these two hormones puts our bodies into “fight or flight mode.” This causes the heart to beat faster and the blood vessels to constrict. Finding ways to alleviate stress in your everyday life can positively impact your blood pressure and overall physical and mental health. The most important thing to decrease stress in your life is self-care. You only get one body in this life; you need to take care of it.
Proper nutritional support. It’s important to drink plenty of clear fluids as dehydration can cause your capillaries to constrict. Increasing your omega-3s can have a positive effect on your heart health as well as decreasing stimulant intake, such as caffeine and nicotine.
Here at Humfeld Chiropractic & Nutrition Center, we offer a variety of services that can help lower your blood pressure and improve your cardiovascular health. We offer Upper Cervical chiropractic adjustments, which from the above recommendations, helps improve high blood pressure by correcting the flow of spinal fluid from a misaligned Atlas. Next, Bio Energetic Synchronization Technique is a system of balancing the body, mind, memory, and soul energy fields through touch of key pressure points allowing the body to heal by removing interference. Finally, Nutrition Response Testing is a very precise and scientific, non-invasive system of analyzing the body in order to determine underlying causes of ill health.
We also have two tests here in the office that can assess the health of your cardiovascular system. The Heart Rate Variability (HRV) Exam measures the change in the time interval between heart beats. The HRV test measures how much the heartbeat varies and can be useful in diagnosing a variety of medical conditions. The Digital Pulse Analysis tests your pulse strength, the elasticity of your arteries, the stress in your small arteries, inflammation in peripheral arteries, resting heart rate, dehydration and blood pressure, aortic value function, arrhythmia, and will give a biological age of your arteries!
We believe in reducing the need for pharmaceutical medications by treating the underlying causes. With proper nutritional support you can greatly improve your heart health. We offer a variety of healthy, natural supplements along with essential oils in our office that many of our patients have found useful in treating and/or relieving conditions and symptoms.