Achieving your health goals is possible if you make them realistic and attainable. Small changes to your daily routine can help you reach your goals.
The health benefits of eating a healthy diet are huge. What are some simple and realistic things people can cut out of their diet or things they can easily add to make their diet healthier?
Dr. Ben Rauch: Nutrition is so important in health. One easy thing people can cut out is refined sugars in their drinks. So, things like sodas, things like sugary filled energy drinks, even juices can be really high in sugar content. Refined sugars add to a lot of inflammation in the body. So, replacing them with things like water that’s been infused with fruits or even one of my favorites is cucumber and mint, those kinds of drinks are much better for the body and reduce that inflammation actually.
For people that struggle to find the time or energy to exercise, what type of exercise should they be doing and what is the minimum amount of time they should exercise every week?
Dr. Ben Rauch: Every single person is different. So, the type of exercise that you need to do is body dependent. Some people are really beneficial to see a lot more aerobic exercise, things like jogging or walking. Other people do much better with weightlifting. So, it just depends on the type of person that you are as far as the type of exercise. But the research shows that 30 minutes of elevated heart rate daily leads to a significant decrease in cardiovascular disease. So, 30 minutes daily, elevated heart rate.
Is trying to improve your posture a good, realistic health goal?
Dr. Ben Rauch: Posture is the external window to the spine, so it shows us how the spine could be aligned, it also shows us a lot about the muscles that are surrounding the spine. So, working on those muscles, training ourselves constantly to have that better posture is the same as working out in the gym or trying to get that strength in our body. You have to work at getting our posture better, so making sure that your head isn’t too far forward compared to your shoulders or that you’re sitting up straight so that the low back isn’t curved too much, that’s really important.
Lowering stress can improve our overall health. What are some realistic goals people could set to help them lower their stress level?
Dr. Ben Rauch: Stress is one of the major killers in our environment and everybody handles stress differently. Some people are very high functioning in high stress situations, other people can’t handle any stress at all. But some good things to work on as far as reducing that stress is definitely focusing on our breathing. I like to do something called box breathing. It’s when you inhale for a certain amount of time, let’s just say five seconds, then you would hold for five seconds. You would exhale for five seconds and hold for five seconds. So, you would make a box and that really focuses on that breath. Another great thing is cold plunges, focusing on inhaling and exhaling actually through the nostrils. And that’s one good way to help to reduce stress as well.
Visiting a chiropractor may not be at the top of people’s new year resolutions, but can you explain how and why receiving chiropractic care can be a realistic goal for people?
Dr. Ben Rauch: Most people who are setting New Year’s resolutions are looking to better their health, and there’s no better way than receiving that chiropractic care because chiropractic care focuses on removing subluxations in our spine, which cause interference in our nervous system. And our nervous system is the control and coordinator of every other system in our body. So, when you focus on removing those interferences in the nervous system, the rest of the systems of the body can function and work better.
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If you are interested in speaking with Dr. Scott Gardner visit www.gardnerfamilychiro.com or call 973-614-9256 to schedule an appointment.
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