Latest Cold Laser Research

Two new clinical studies show Low Level Laser Therapy may be effective for major depression and reducing fat.

1) Major Depression

A recent study reported in Behavioral and Brain Functions by respected Harvard researchers has revealed some startling findings regarding the treatment of depression and substance abuse. Many previous studies have reported beneficial effects from the application of low level laser therapy (LLLT) on neurological function and have reported beneficial effects applying it to the brain in stroke patients. The researchers gave numerous standard psychological tests to 10 patients, with  major depression (including 9 with anxiety, 7 with a past history of substance abuse, and 3 with post-traumatic stress disorder).

Subjects were then given four 4-minute treatments, placing the 810 nm cluster probe, the same wavelength as used in our office, on both sides of the forehead.  Lab tests, brain spectroscopy and psychological tests were given after treatment.  

70% of the patients experienced highly significant reductions in their symptoms following treatment, with the greatest reductions occurring at 2 weeks. There were no observed side effects. These eminent researchers have proposed that LLLT may be an effective treatment of depression and other psychiatric disorders. These findings are applicable to low level lasers like the one used in our office.  They do not apply to "hot" lasers, which have many more risks, especially close to the eyes. (2009, 5:46, 8 December 2009) 

2) Fat Reduction

In the field of plastic surgery, it is well known that hot laser liposuction can reduce fat in unwanted places.  However, newer research is showing that LLLT may also be helpful.  In this study they noted that electron microscopic images demonstrated the formation of small holes in fat cells subsequent to laser irradiation. They did a double-blind, placebo-controlled,  2-week LLLT trial and included sixty-seven volunteers between the ages of 18-65.  

The study added up the decrease in the combined circumferences of participants 4 body parts, the waist, hips, and thighs. The treatment group experienced a total loss of 3.51 inches, or about 1 inch for each of the four body parts. These data suggest that low-level laser therapy can reduce overall circumference measurements of fatty regions. (Lasers Surg Med.;41(10):799-809)

"Green" Holiday Gift Idea

Two Gifts For The Price Of One!

For the past quarter-century, during the holiday season, our office has donated its services in return for charitable contributions on the part of community and practice members. Together we have donated hundreds of pounds of dry goods to food banks, supplies to a teen art center, etc.

Since 2007 we have designed our donation program around the XanGo Goodness Meal Packs which:

• Provide life-saving nutrition to children around the world, whose damaged digestive tracts cannot tolerate normal food
• Are delivered via AmeriCares, which has 40 years experience delivering aid directly to people in need
• Come in large or small packs (35 and 17 meals, respectively); the large cost $90 and the small cost $45
• May be ordered directly from the AikiChiro Movement Lab (206-658-7658)

Each order comes with:

• A beautiful gift card and envelope that you can give to someone on your gift list
• A gift certificate for Network chiropractic or laser-shiatsu (see details below)

A large Meal Pack ($90) = a gift certificate for a complimentary initial chiropractic consultation or two 30-minute laser-shiatsu session

A small Meal Pack ($45) = a gift certificate for 50% off an initial chiropractic consultation or one 30-minute laser-shiatsu session

Whether you'd like to treat yourself or a loved one, we thank you for the opportunity to serve your health and wellness needs.
 

What are the odds?

According to Dr. James Chestnut, B.Ed., M.Sc., D.C., your odds of dying in a car accident on your way to getting a swine flu shot are much greater than your odds of dying from the swine flu. Support your immune system with chiropractic and optimal nutrition.

Leaves Fall

Rain returns,

Nights lengthen,

Air cools--

Time to cozy up with a good book (or ten)!

Improving Function After A Stroke

A 90-year-old woman suffered a stroke, and was left with weakness in her right arm, and she was unable to make a fist, pronate her forearm, or touch her thumb and index finger together. Her doctors said there was no more they could do for her, so her son brought her to our office.

After her third laser therapy session her grip was about 60% better, and she was able to pronate her forearm and touch her thumb and index finger together. Her son reports that she now practices making a fist on her own.

Research shows that low level laser therapy (AKA photobiomodulation) is indicated for healing neurons, including within the brain. Daily in our practice we are seeing with our very own eyes the research being validated, sometimes more so than we had imagined. 

Laser Helps Sinus Pain

Laser therapy has numerous applications. Here's one patient's story about how it has helped with sinus problems.

Recently, I began receiving cold laser treatments for my sinuses.  For years, I have experienced headaches and pain from the inflammation, having to sleep at night propped up on two pillows and snoring to a considerable degree.  Now, the snoring is greatly reduced, I’m down to one pillow and actually feeling no pain at times.  More improvement to come, I’m sure.     --Pat Stimac

We offer complimentary phone consultations (206-658-7658) so you can get your questions answered before deciding whether our treatment approaches might be right for you.

Science behind improving your Vigor

Here's a clip of Dr. Shawn Talbott, speaking about the research that went into creating this stress-busting formula. Over 80% of trial participants feel a difference after just one to two weeks. Discover your Vigor score at Eleviv. To order, visit my website.

Tired, Stressed, or Depressed?

In his book, The Cortisol Connection, nutrition scientist Dr. Shawn Talbott, writes about the effects of chronic stress on our health and sense of well-being.  Now, after five years of research and development, and four double-blind clinical trials, he has released a proprietary herbal formulation to restore our stress chemistry to its healthy, normal state.

How does this feel? People are reporting that they feel like they used to feel--happy, laughing, taking challenges in stride, staying in the present moment, not worrying about the past or the future, sleeping well... (Just ask their loved ones if they notice a difference!)

How is your vigor? Vigor is a scientific term defined as one's emotional, mental, and physical sense of well-being. Take the vigor test and then, if you'd like to "feel good again," contact me for a one-week trial size of the herbal formula.

Strengthening & Stretching for Busy People

Check out my listing on Teach Street to learn more about my new class. You will learn to safely stretch and strengthen your major muscles groups in a simple routine that takes just 20 minutes.

Dates:

Saturday, September 12

Saturday, October 10

Laser Light Speeds Healing

Your cells love light! How are they going to get it? Through low level laser therapy (AKA photobiomodulation)! More than 2500 research reports and more than 125 randomized, double-blind clinical trials have show effectiveness for a myriad of conditions from addictions to weight loss. Some of the common reasons laser therapy would be used in a chiropractic practice are:

• improving athletic performance
• stress reduction
• speed healing of sprains and strains (from sports injuries or accidents)
• reduce nerve pain
• arthritis (with restoration of cartilage as a side-effect)
• disc degeneration (again research shows actual healing of the disc tissue!)
  
• plantar fasciitis
• osteoporosis
• carpal tunnel syndrome
• headaches (tension and migraine)
• sinusitis
• TMJ

Meadowbrook Farmers Market

John and I had a lovely time at the Meadowbrook Farmers Market on the campus of the Seattle Waldorf School (2728 NE 100th Street). We saw old friends and made some new ones! Lots of computer users stopped by and we taught them the Y-W-T-L (Young and Well Throughout Life) and Aikido exercises to loosen up tight problem areas (neck/shoulder/upper back/wrist/elbow). Towards the end we offered John's Kiatsu services! Definitely a service to be continued at our upcoming dates on July 12, August 2 and 30, September 20, and October 11. 

Complimentary Initial Consultations

Thanks for your wonderful support of our Patient Appreciation Day. The complimentary initial consultations were a big hit, so we are extending the offer through August 31.

Meadowbrook Farmers Market

The Seattle Waldorf School is sponsoring a weekly Sunday farmers market (11:00 a.m.-3:00 p.m.) on their campus at 2728 NE 100th Street. I'll be there on June 14, July 12, August 2 and 30, September 20, and October 11.

This week's theme: Exercises for Core Strength and Computer Users. Come on by to say hi and stay for the fresh produce and delicious prepared food. Coupons for complimentary initial consultations, good through August 31, will be available at our booth.

26th Anniversary Patient Appreciation Day

Help us celebrate 26 years of chiropractic practice and 10 years of Network Care! And help us grow a healthier world by letting your friends and loved ones know about this event.

Each guest will receive:

• A complimentary Network session
• A coupon for a complimentary initial consultation
• A beautiful, hand-crafted bookmark ("Bookmark Time For Your Health!")

In addition to the above, practice members will receive a chance to win prizes based on the number of guests attending because of you:

• 1st Prize: One pair of Posture Control Insoles or $50 in chiropractic services
• 2nd Prize: One box (12 pairs) of Solemates, the world's smallest orthotic or $30 in chiropractic services
• 3rd Prize: Six XanGo Singles or $12 in chiropractic services

PLUS, REFRESHMENTS FOR ALL!

DATE: Saturday, May 30

TIME: 10:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.

LOCATION: 3511 NE 105th Street, Seattle

RSVP: Dr. Connie Amundson, 206-658-7658, connieamundson(at)comcast(dot)net

Hope to see you on the 30th!

An Easy Way To Get Your 12 Daily Servings Of Vegetables

The nervous system coordinates and controls just about every function in your body. Chiropractors adjust the spine. They do this because the movement of your spine has such a profound affect on your nervous system, and hence your general health.

Wellness chiropractors look at all the ways your lifestyle habits either promote a healthy spinal-neural system, or detract from it.  It comes down to two simple concepts: purity and sufficiency.

One of the best things you can do for your spinal-neural system is to eat lots of fresh vegetables. But because our soils are depleted, and most fruits and vegetables have only a fraction of the nutrients they did years ago, the federal government now recommends that we get 12 servings of fresh vegetables every day. Wow, that's a lot!

An easy way to add several servings of fresh vegetables to your diet is with the "Innate Salad." Take an array of vegetables (roots, greens, etc.), chop them into thumbnail-sized bits in your food processor, top with the juice of a couple lemons, and store in your refrigerator.  Now you're ready to add a dollop of your Innate Salad as either a side dish to your meal, or to your green salad.

Bon appetit!

Does No Pain Mean All Is Well?

Most people believe that if they feel pain, they have a problem, and if they don't feel pain, everything is okay. But nothing could be further from the truth.

To give you one example: half the time, the first symptom of heart disease is death.

Last week a practice member was in a relatively minor car accident. She kept saying she was "fine!" but I insisted that we do a re-exam to find out for sure. Fortunately, there was no evidence of tearing of her muscles or ligaments (which would have caused pain), but there were other distortions which would mostly likely lead to problems down the road, so I recommended a short course of corrective care.

Kudos to all who make the wise choice of getting a check-up after any injury, no matter how minor it seems!

Why A Small Tear Can Be So Painful!

Most people have experienced back pain at one time or another in their lives. You make a movement you've done a million times before, you feel a twinge of pain, and suddenly it's getting worse by the minute.

Many times the reason for this pain is that there has been a minor tear of the teeny-tiny deep (intrinsic) muscles of your spine. The deep muscles of the spine are over 50% neural tissue, and their purpose is not to move the vertebrae, but rather to constantly calibrate the need for stability vs. movement, so with a slight glitch in your spine, a muscle gets a minor tear which is then amplified to the larger muscles of your back, and before you know, you're in pain!

Chiropractic care (and I have found this to be especially true of Network Chiropractic) re-educates the spinal-neural system so that it is better able to constantly adjust to the demands of movement and stability that we constantly place upon ourselves.

Why Regular Care For Performing Artisits

A high percentage of my long term practice members are involved in the performing arts. Like athletes, singers, musicians, actors, and dancers know that in order to perform at their best they need to keep their bodies in peak condition at all times. They find that regular care keeps them healthy, physically fit, full of energy, and allows their creativity to flow through them without restriction. As one actor says, "I can honestly say that my health, coordination and enjoyment of life are better for having known and worked with Connie all these years."

Your Inner Surfboard

Einstein said, "Reality is an illusion, but a persistent one." What really surrounds us is nothing but waves: light waves, sound waves, pressure waves, which we interpret as color and shape, music and honking horns, a hug or the ground beneath our feet. But sometimes our bodies clamp down on receiving or perceiving those waves, and this may appear as physical pain.

Even our lives are waves; sometimes you're up and sometimes you're down. The trick is to find a surfboard and learn how to ride the waves. Network chiropractic care teaches you how to ride your inner surfboard.

Just last week a new patient presented with headaches and back ache, leading to insomnia. After a couple of well-placed light contacts, he immediately felt a sense of ease throughout his body. Those light contact simply showed him the way. The wisdom of his body did the rest.

Quality of Life

Imagine going through life knowing that no matter what happens, you have a tool for peace and happiness...

A landmark retrospective study from the College of Medicine at the University of California, Irvine, demonstrated statistically significant benefits for people under Network chiropractic care. Researchers identified improvement in these four domains of health and wellness: physical state, mental/emotional state, stress evaluation, and life enjoyment. Moreover, they found that there was no ceiling to these benefits; the longer someone had been under care, the better his or her quality of life.

Over the years I've found that my long-term practice members have an extremely high degree of life enjoyment (and a corresponding low tolerance for needless suffering). When life's circumstances become a bit more than they can flow with easily, they know that a sense of peace is just a few minutes away. Moreover they know that they have a somatopsychic tool, in Network Care, for mining the golden gifts from any life experience.

Joint Degeneration

Yesterday John and I hosted a reunion potluck of our old Aikido club. Word was spread via phone and internet grapevine, and people came out of the woodwork. It was wonderful to see people I hadn't seen in 10-20 years!

Everyone looks about the same (photo evidence to the contrary!), but everyone definitely does not feel the same. Many people talked about having to give up Aikido or other activities because of degeneration and pain in their hips, knees, or feet. However, in my experience, joint degeneration does not necessarily equal pain or loss of function.

One lady in particular comes to mind. She was over 90 at the time, and radiographs showed severe degeneration of her neck. She came to see me one day after sitting bolt upright upon awakening suddenly from a dream. In the process she tweaked her neck. This is a person, who, going strictly by the physical evidence, should not have been able to turn her head more than about 45 degrees. But within a couple of visits, her neck was once again moving a full 90 degrees in both directions.

Got Bliss?

If your cells are functioning at 100%, you'll be spectacularly healthy and have plenty of energy for everything you want to do in life. Unlike disease "management," health promotion is really simple, because there are just two primary causes of anything less than 100%: toxicity and deficiency.

If your spine is stuck, you have a deficiency of spinal movement. This means an increase in stress hormones (and all the toxic and deficient choices that go with feeling crummy). It also means a decrease in your brain's feel-good chemistry.

Nothing gives me greater joy than to witness the feeling of bliss that patients experience when their spinal movement is fluid and supple. If someone in your life fails to mention how great they feel most of the time, suggest a spinal check-up. There's enough suffering in life; let's have more bliss!

How Long Does It Take?

Most people, when they begin chiropractic care, have at least one question, "How long will it take?" The answer depends on what the real question is.  If the person is asking, "How long will it take to get rid of this pain?" that's entirely different from "How can you support me in staying active and healthy throughout my life?" The first person is oriented toward relief care, which may take as little as a few visits. The second person is oriented toward enhancing his or her quality of life, and has some idea that chiropractic can help achieve a lifetime of optimum health and happiness.

My goal is to listen deeply to my patients' questions and concerns before offering possible solutions, so that their treatment plans work for them.

Why Weekly Care For Optimal Health

Most of my practice members come for wellness care on a weekly basis, and have done so for years. Why? For most of them, it probably has to do with staying in peak performance for the demands of life in the 21st century. Here's the basic science behind why that makes sense:

1) 50% of your spinal cord is dedicated to proprioception (information about movement and position);

2) 50% of that comes from your spine and your ankles;

3) Proprioception hits your brain at the cerebellum, which is the coordination center for movement, balance, memory, learning, emotions, reducing stress, and your internal organs--in other words every function in your body is enhanced by spinal movement.

On the other hand, a lack of spinal movement (fixation) causes nociception (information about noxious stimuli). Nociception means:

1) A decrease in proprioception (all the good stuff);

2) An increase in the stimulation of the stress centers of your brain.

Moreover, research shows that the soft tissue degeneration associated with restricted joint motion starts to become permanent in less than two weeks. Hence, weekly care! 

Desk Ergonomics-New Ezine Article

A new ezine article has been accepted, You and Your Computer: Five Stages in the Evolution of Ergonomics.  Click on the link to read the full article, and find out what's the latest in living life congruently with our genetic heritage, and still earn a living!

Book of the Month

For years I have kept a mental log of my "Book of the Month" (taking month very loosely, it might be week, it might be quarter, depending). My book-of-the-month is something I am currently reading and find particularly useful, inspiring, or noteworthy. Today I am launching the translation of that mental log into the world outside my own head with today's posting. The End of Your World by Adyashanti initiates what will be a semi-regular feature of this blog. As the book jacket says, "uncensored straight talk on the nature of enlightenment."  Since we're talking about enlightenment, the less I say the better!  But my primary reaction so far is a huge sense of relief--the kind of relief I feel when I read or hear something that cuts through the murk of my daily thoughts (90% self-justifications and/or worries) and says something that I know deeply but have not articulated. To get a sense of Adyashanti's teachings check out the free downloads of his guided meditations, available at www.adyashanti.org.

1 Adjustment Is Worth 50-200 Biofeedback Sessions

A noteworthy recent study, A Four-Case Study: The effect of the chiropractic adjustment on the brain wave pattern as measured by EEG, showed that the positive effect of one chiropractic adjustment in producing a more balanced brain wave pattern was equal to 50-200 biofeedback sessions. The researchers concluded that "the chiropractic adjustment [placed] the subjects into a predominantly Alpha brain wave pattern. Alpha is the conscious, meditative state, classically associated with a greater degree of relaxation and health... We [also] noticed that the Alpha activity was also accompanied by an increase in general brain wave activity."

In practice chiropractors have long found that chiropractic adjustments decrease patients' stress and increase their sense of well-being. Thanks to these researchers we now have at least one pathway to explain this benefit.

My Journey Into and Out of S.A.D.

For many years I suffered greatly from Seasonal Affective Disorder (S.A.D.). Several years ago it had gotten to the point where, at the first sign of those low-hanging clouds, my body and mind cried out in despair, "How am I going to make it through the next ten months? Please, someone, get me out of this godforsaken hellhole!" It took awhile, but gradually I pieced together a solution, and for the past three years I have been complete free of S.A.D. symptoms. Now I can count on feeling happy and having plenty of energy all year long.  For the complete story, view my newly published ezine article, SAD No More - A Seven-Step Journey Out Of The Pit Of Seasonal Affective Disorder.

New Year's Resolutions

Do you really need one more person to weigh in on the value of setting goals, how to achieve them, and on and on (and on and on)? I know I don't! But there is one key that most advice-givers forget, and that's the part about having fun! Research shows that potentially healthful lifestyle changes do not actually yield the benefits we're looking for unless we enjoy doing them! So, if you're not having fun (which I define as a pleasurable physiological state of flow), then you might as well sit in front of the TV and eat bonbons! This year, treat yourself to something special: have fun!