What are you waiting for?

There are two common approaches to health. One is restoring it from an undesired state and the other is maintaining it or preventing it from getting worse. Ironically when you are in pain, especially if the onset was gradual, you can frequently realize there were a lot of things you knew you should have done but instead neglected. Simple gradual measures could have been taken to maintain or preserve the body from declining towards pain, suffering or a crisis situation. So there is the sedentary approach towards health and there is the proactive approach towards health. Being proactive may include stretching, exercising, nutrition, chiropractic, acupuncture, massage and so on.  These things take a little part of your time each week but build a strong healthy foundation for you and your body to work through its environment. I know what you’re thinking, who has time for all that? I have kids, I have to be at work too early and/or leave too late. I’m too tired by the end of the day. I can’t fit one more thing into my life, I am already overwhelmed … You can list all the justifications on why you can’t and when you run out of reasons, now you can actually start taking a look on how you CAN incorporate these things into your life. When you are in a lot of pain, nothing else matters! You can’t go to work, you can’t sleep soundly, you can’t take care of the kids and actually, given the pain being bad enough, you can’t do much of anything. You become a liability to yourself and others as...

Is pain your driving force to take action?

Did you know only 20% of nerve fibers are dedicated to pain? That’s right, it is only 20%! So what do you think the greater 80% is dedicated towards? It’s Function! Now when we talk about function, it covers a wide spectrum of your body and how you operate it! That’s right it’s about body performance as well as your performance in your day to day life! Let’s break it down neurologically: There are the Motor Nerves which are responsible of sending information from your Central Nervous System (CNS) to muscles, organs and glands. They are responsible for conscious body movements such as curling your arm, jumping, squatting, walking  etc. Motor Nerves are also responsible for involuntary and/or subconscious movements of the body such as your posture, balance, stability as well as movement and activities of organs and glands for digestion, immunity, hormonal balance and so on. The other portion is the Sensory Nerves and they do exactly what their name states; they sense and perceive. These include the common sight, smell, hear, taste and touch as well as many other functions that provides information to enter into the CNS for processing and interpretation. So think about it. The focus of a chiropractic adjustment is all about reducing or ideally eliminating subluxations. Subluxations are nerve interferences. You can look at the function of nerves as a communication pathway. Similar to talking on the phone,  that communication can be full of static, it could be broken up -making it very challenging to understand, or it can be crystal clear. When focusing solely on pain, the big picture of possibilities are...

Have you ever heard of Esoteric Chiropractic?

One of the beautiful things available in a Collective is the sharing of ideas and experiences with like minded practitioners. In the Manhattan office I had an opportunity to provide a more esoteric form of chiropractic to the founder of Esoterra (office I operate out of in NYC). It is truly what I really love doing and it is about diving very deep into a specific aspect of an individual that is found to be limiting. After the session, she sat down and wrote the following: “Getting Rid of Limiting Beliefs with Chiropractic If you told me some years ago that it is possible to trace a belief that doesn’t serve me any good and release it from my body through chiropractic work, I’d think you are crazy. I was talking to Dr. Ara and shared that from young age I’ve been told that I’m weak. My mom would always remind me how vulnerable I am, my younger cousins would beat me up, kids at school, and so on. I told myself many times that I want to work out, and I have tried with very limited success because that belief that I just can’t be strong is in the background. Why do it then? I felt this disconnect between what my mind is saying consciously and what “program” is running in the subconscious, as well as all the memories stored in the tissues. Dr. Ara invited me to explore a quite esoteric form of chiropractic, checking where “I can’t be strong” belief shows up in my body and releasing it. From the chakra perspective it was mainly concentrated...

Footprints Leave Lasting Impressions

Have you ever had the opportunity to get feedback from the impressions your footprints have left on others? It’s quite remarkable when it occurs. We are so use to friends or family members only telling us about what they need or what to improve on, but there is nothing more validating and rewarding than when someone actually takes the time to say how you have impacted his or her life!  It’s a real assurance of self worth. I recall my very first mission trip. It was in Fortaleza, Brazil. It was September 2000. 41 Chiropractors came from all over the United States and entered into Fortaleza to help the common people break through their suffering. We all got transported  into a convent where arrangements were made for our basic needs (food, bathrooms and beds). We got divided into 13 locations and teamed up in groups of 3-7.  The itinerary was 5 days of work, 1 day of rest and fly back to the United States. Each evening we would be driven back to the convent and gathered in a big circle to share our experiences. And each night we would gather around and adjust each other. Actually, by the end of the first day, my body got in such a bad state that I was bent forward and couldn’t straighten up. I went too hard too fast with the intense volume of people I adjusted that day. First mission! Never had I worked on so many people in one day. It was intense, my body wasn’t use to working at that level and definitely had something to say about...

What Do You Do To Handle Bad Habits?

We all have them and they always creep up on us under the radar to do their bidding! So what do you do to handle bad habits? And what would you consider qualifies as bad habits? Some habits are relatively obvious to notice. It is easy to point out habits such as: eating things you are not supposed to, eating late at night, binge watching when you are supposed to get up early for work, procrastinating, being on social media way more than needed, excessive drinking, excessive smoking and so on, But what about the more subtle ones. You know, the ones that lead you to getting into these divergences in the first place? Maybe people may not even consider them a habit to begin with, but what is a habit after all? It is a particular way of acting that is done on a regular basis. I had a patient, actually a few patients who were having problems in their life. One had a problem with her husband, the other had a problem at work and the other had the problem of worrying about things that were not based on reality but only possibilities. The common “habit” these patients had were their approach to their situations in life. They would think in terms of problems not solutions. They would get stuck at this point and continue to talk or think about it in hopes for some sympathy or something. They would find themselves in a vicious loop of seeing things as an unsolvable situation caused by the other people or things. Have you ever considered this way of...