New Year New You - Adam Kay Chiropractor
Adam Kay Chiropractor Radlett
Are you sticking to your resolutions?
With the first week of the new year over, it is at this point where a lot of people's resolutions go out the window.
My new year's resolution is to improve my emotional wellbeing. Emotional wellbeing is a very important aspect of health and is often overlooked. Health is achieved with balance of the following stresses:
Physical
Nutritional
Emotional
Traumatic (try to keep this at 0%!)
Even spiritual
A lot of people I speak to focus on the first 2 stresses and although they may exercise and eat well, they still complain that they feel lethargic and less than 100%. I recommend to my patients that in order to reduce the emotional strain on their lives, they must do the following... Breathe correctly - Using your diaphragm to breathe allows you to breathe more efficiently and use the whole of the lungs. Rather than short and shallow breathing which uses the upper shoulders to breathe. I see a lot of patients reporting with neck and upper back pain as they are not breathing correctly. We often feel compelled to offer our time to work commitments, family, friends, and our own (often unrealistic) expectations of what we feel we should be doing each day. This can mean we are not dedicating enough time for ourselves. My advice is to dedicate a small amount of “me time” each day to focus on relaxation techniques. E.g. the yoga breathing exercise above. I tell my patients that whenever they feel stressed to take 10 big breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth with this yoga breathing technique. I also recommend listening to relaxing music, going for a walk/run, reading a good book. It is all too easy to lose focus on what really matters and what it takes for you to be happy. I hope this small snippet of advice helps you focus on improving your emotional wellbeing. I wish you a happy and healthy new year and look forward to seeing you soon. Dr Adam Kay