Managing Holiday Stress: Tips from a Chiropractor

In this video, a chiropractor discusses the common stressors of the holiday season and how they can impact your health. Covering trauma, toxins, and thoughts, the video explains how the physical demands of holiday activities, increased consumption of sweets, and heightened emotional stress can contribute to vertebral subluxation. Tips include staying on top of chiropractic adjustments, maintaining a healthy diet, continuing exercise routines, and being mindful of extra holiday stress. The chiropractor also emphasizes the importance of taking high-quality vitamins and eating fresh produce to support your immune system. The video aims to help viewers manage holiday stress and maintain health during the festive season.

www.rockforddc.com

Transcript

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Hello, Dr. Brant Hulsebus here, and welcome to another edition of Ask the Chiropractor. Ask the Chiropractor is my little podcast that I do when someone has a question about chiropractic or chiropractic care, I try to answer. I'm a chiropractor here in Rockford, Illinois. I'm a proud graduate of Palmer College of Chiropractic, and I'm happy to be the team chiropractor of the Rockford Icehogs. Let's dive into it. Thanks for tuning in. Today I'm going to talk about holiday stress. As I'm recording this and when it's supposed to be released it'll be like the week before the Christmas season, right? So it's going to be like the beginning of the teens in December. So glad you could tune in, glad you're watching. Why does a chiropractor want to do a video about holiday stress? Dr. Palmer told us there's three things that make your back a lot or cause what we call vertebral subluxation. It's the three T's. Trauma, thoughts and toxins. And during the holidays, we tend to get a little bit of all three. Let's talk about trauma first. Everybody understands why if they have a trauma, why they might need to go to the chiropractor, right? I fell on the stairs. I, I just saw some of the possible concussion. If I fall hurt myself, I need the chiropractor. If I'm on my feet shopping too long, if I'm sitting in bleachers at a kid's holiday function, if I'm traveling from state to see all the family members, I did all of the above this weekend. So all those things count, right? And all those things are caused a little bit of trauma to your back. Good reason to get adjusted before you break down. Next toxins. I don't know about you guys, but this time of year, a lot more sweets find their way to my kitchen, a lot more sweets find their way to my office, a lot more sweets find their way to me. If you're enjoying a little bit of the holiday festive stuff, you're going to have a little bit more toxins in your system, and those toxins create inflammation, and inflammation creates joints being vulnerable and susceptible to injuries. So make sure that you're getting checked because, none of us are going to be perfect when it comes to trying to skip all those sweets that, and those treats that people bring to us and give to us. So we want to make sure you're getting checked to make sure you're not building up too much toxins. And the last one is thoughts, right? This is the time of year where everyone's running around. You might have all your shopping done. You might be on time to all your stuff. You might be good to go. But you try to drive down one of our main thoroughfooders here in Rockford, you're going to see people whizzing and zipping around, running late and rushing into this store. You're going to see people panicking at the stores. You're just trying to go in there, maybe buy some batteries at the local store. And you're going to see all kinds of people just having complete mental health problems as they deal with trying to do holiday shopping. So even if you yourself have done all the things you need to do to make sure that you're good to go for the holidays, we're surrounded by so many people who don't. So be prepared for that extra holiday stress. This is also the, so this is the time of year you want to try to do a little bit extra, right? I try to be extra nice, I try to be extra polite, and just go ahead and give yourself extra time. Extra time to do what? Extra time to get to point A to point B because there's going to be more cars on the road. Extra time to go into a store and grab something. Extra time to grab some dinner and carry out. Everything's going to take a little bit of extra time. Everything's going to go a little extra slow. Everyone's going to be a little extra testy. Again, this emotional stress can beat up on you, wear on you, and cause you to need to come in too. This weekend was a record. I did three house calls this weekend. I had three emergency calls just because random stuff, right? So everyone's dealing with extra this time. Make sure you don't skip your adjustment. This is the time of year when you made an appointment you forgot. Maybe there's no school that week. Maybe the holiday party you forgot about. Find a way to make it up. Life, these things happen. I have to reschedule my haircut this week because I've had something come up. Don't not take care of yourself. Make sure you're taking care of your health. Even though you might have some treats, make sure you're getting some good food in too. Make sure you're not just eating nothing but treats and make sure you still don't have quality meals. A lot of you know I go to the gym in the morning. I go over to our friends at Movement Fitness down the street from my clinic and I work out there in the mornings. And I gotta tell you we've had less and less people showing up in the morning just because the holiday is going on and this is a really bad idea during the holidays. Skipping your exercises, skipping all the things that make you healthy and strong. Because what happens then is we That recap is, between Christmas and New Year's, everything stops and comes to a dead end. And that's when everything comes back and hits us. And I got to be honest with you, right before Christmas and the end of the year is some of our busiest time here in the clinic. And I know like other doctors are busy because they put off doing the surgery until deductibles are met. That's not the case here. The case here is that people are just beating themselves up too much, and they're just doing too much, overtaking too much, and they're forgetting their normal visits, their normal routines. So take time to take care of yourself this holiday season. Don't skip your chiropractic visit. Don't skip your workout at the gym. Make sure you're still eating a good salad every day at some point. Make sure you find those things to keep yourself healthy, because you want to enjoy these holidays. You know what I remember is this is the Christmas I was sick. This is the Christmas I had a headache. This is the Christmas I was in discomfort. My back was bothering me. Stay healthy, stay strong, make your chiropractic adjustment, and take care of yourself. Don't forget, this is also the time of year where we live, where I'm doing this podcast, the ice and the snow show up. We just had our first ice storm. Maybe blowing off an adjustment on Tuesday, then having snow on Wednesday, you can't get to the office, now it's Thursday, next thing you know, it's Friday, you have a company party, and now you're falling way behind. I've just seen it happen. This is my 22nd holiday season as a practicing licensed chiropractor. I've seen this happen to too many people. They finally make it in that after Christmas is over or before New Year's. And they're just, they're struggling. And now they've got to be in a lot. And they don't really want to be in a lot during that time. They'd really rather rest. Take time off for yourself. Make sure you're getting adjusted. Make sure your family's getting adjusted too. Make sure the kids are getting in. We've got kids coming home from college. My daughter is coming home from college. One of our first stops going to be here at the clinic to get an adjustment. So make sure the kids are getting in to get seen too, especially the ones coming home from school and just take some time, keep yourself healthy. Other than that, it's a short podcast. Everyone knows these things, but sometimes we have to hear these things, so I'm just going to tell you these things. So I'm just going to tell you to have a very happy holidays and your chiropractor clinic, this chiropractor clinic will be open to take care of you during the holidays. If you find out your chiropractor is not close, not available during the holidays, you might want to look at their schedule, see when they're going to be around. We are, we're closed the day of Christmas, we're closed the day of New Year's. We're open all normal hours the rest on the eves are only open half a day but that's what everybody does. So make sure you find time to get adjusted make sure you find time to eat some healthy vegetables and fruit. Now remember those of you who haven't been doing your vitamins this is the time of year when your vitamin D levels get low vitamin D has to be with a healthy fat. I just signed out with a new supplement company looking at some of their products their daily vitamin has vitamin D in it. There is no vitamin I mean there is vitamin D in it but you're not going to absorb it you have to have it with a healthy fat. So if you have a daily vitamin that has vitamin D in it and that's your vitamin D, you're not actually absorbing it. They're allowed to put it on the label because it's in it, but it ain't getting through your gut. So make sure you're taking a good high quality vitamin D that's oil based. Make sure that you're taking a good vitamin C, making lots of vitamin C. And the only way to get vitamin C, in my opinion, is eating your produce. Almost every piece of produce has vitamin C in it. Vitamin C capsules typically have sugar in them. Now the sugar in the vitamin C capsule trumps absorbing the vitamin C, so the sugar has to be dealt with first. So if you eat a bunch of those vitamin C capsules all day long, thinking you're getting a lot of vitamin C, but you're really just doing, is you're raising your blood sugar. You're not getting any vitamin C at all. Now fruit's different. Someone's gonna always say, what about fruit? Fruit's different because it has fiber in it. The fiber slows down the sugar absorption until you have a chance to actually deal with the vitamin C. So it stages the way it goes through your gut, vitamin C, then the sugar. And the fiber again slows the sugar down to a rate where it's really easy for the body to deal with. Juice though, a different story, completely different story. The juice, there is no fiber. It's just like eating a candy bar. Juice is not a good source of vitamin C at all. Smoothies, that's different. You're gonna put the vegetables in there, you're gonna put the fruit in there, you're gonna blend, you're gonna drink the whole thing. The fiber is still in there. The only thing is you have to drink it then. You not drink it. You can't like sip on it all morning. That doesn't do the job. You gotta drink it right then and there to get the effects of the fiber. So make sure you get your vitamin C. Get raw produce each meal. You'll do great. You don't store vitamin C. You store vitamin D3. You don't store vitamin C. The vitamin D, by the way, in milk, that's a different vitamin D. That's not the one for our immune system. That's the taxi calc the taxi system to move calcium through your gut. It's good, right? You need it, but that's not the vitamin D we're talking about for health. So if you're drinking milk, tell me you're getting your vitamin D. You're getting D1, D2, not D3. D3 is the one you need to get. Make sure you're taking your fish oil, right? You got to take your fish oil, keep your immune system, keep your nervous system, excuse me, functioning on full capabilities. And like I said, those are some tips to get through the holidays there. All right. So if you have a question about chiropractic or chiropractic care, can a chiropractor help me with this? Can a chiropractor do anything with this or that? Ask a chiropractor. We're the only ones that truly know. Don't ask anybody else that didn't go to chiropractic school. And if I can answer a question for you, Leave a comment wherever you're watching listening to this. I'll get back to you. I'll tell you one more time. Happy holidays Still be on next week. We'll have another message for you. I don't know what it is yet I haven't looked at all my questions yet, but we'll be back next week. Thanks everybody