Archive for December, 2008

We spend a lot of time working with patients who have developed an injury or poor health through the stresses imposed by their occupation. There are many factors that must be considered to give a complete treatment plan.

How did the initial injury happen?
e.g. A lifting injury, picked up a large sack, forgot to bend knees and felt a twinge in the back

How are office ergonomics?
Lot’s of travel, but often need to fit into small spaces with cluttered floors… (which are occasionally on fire.)

Any dietary factors?
Excessive consumption of brandy and mince pies (nice case of raised cholesterol and liver cirrhosis)… thought about veg but always end up giving it to the reindeer.

Is stress a factor?
You try delivering gifts to every child in the world in one night and tell me how you feel!

If you have been helping Santa and are also suffering from similar aches and pains contact myself or Mathieu to book an appointment at the clinic on Uxbridge High Street (inside Fitness First).

While we will endeavour to keep the clinic open throughout the holiday season for anyone who has hurt themselves by lifting their over plumped turkey out of the oven(!), we will obviously be closing for a few days.

The clinic will be closed from Wednesday 24th to Friday 26th December, and also on Thursday 1st January 2009.

We will be available on the morning of the 31st for any urgent osteopathic appointments as well.

Have a fantastic Christmas break and good fortune in 2009, with best wishes from the osteopathic team at Bridge to Health.

Let me start this entry by clarifying that it is not meant as a guilt trip, and is no diatribe against your choices over the Christmas period…

“you must forego all pleasures and only eat sprouts for your Christmas dinner!” -

I’m no hypocrite, Christmas is an important time for celebration and reflection where we should get together with family and friends, take stock of the year gone and look onwards to the New Year and its new challenges. However we should note that during this time our health usually takes quite a hit and as always, prevention is better than cure. Some planning around this time should prevent the worst effects.

Start at full power

If our health is going to take a hit, it’s better to start at full strength so right now take extra vigilance in your lifestyle choices. Fend away potential illness by the most effective way we know, a healthy immune system.

• Boost your immune system with a good balanced diet, ensuring plenty of fresh ingredients, at this time of year we have a wide array of fantastic, earthy vegetables full of vitamins and minerals such as squash, parsnips, and the wide variety of greens which are in season now.
• Supplementing your diet can also help this but not as a replacement for good nutrition. There are several powerful immune boosters such as echinacea, propolis and the most effective, vitamin C.
• If you do feel you are ‘coming down’ with an illness, my personal cure is always fresh chilli and garlic (and plenty of it), although probably not before the Christmas party or you might clear a wide space on the dance floor…

During party season

If I suggest you drink less at the Christmas party, are you going to listen? If not, then at least minimise the damage you cause (both to your body and your reputation at the office).

• You need to maintain good hydration, so if you know you’re going out that evening drink plenty of fluids throughout the day and most definitely at the end of the night before bed.
• Make sure you eat a full meal before you start drinking and try to stick to one type of drink.
• The following day, get back to extra good habits, good food, plenty of fluids and some light exercise.

Into the New Year

By now we’ve drunk too much, eaten our body weight in mince pies and the body feels like it’s running on crude oil, not high-octane performance fuel. Most people have started a new year with a pang of regret about the previous couple of weeks, but that can’t be changed by then, so how do we get the body back up to full steam, and fast?

The body needs to flush out all the toxins you’ve been kindly storing and the lymphatic system will be working overtime.

• Some light exercise such as walking will provide the muscular pumping needed to clear the waste, preferably in the good fresh air, rather than up and down the Uxbridge high street, and this can also be effectively boosted by treatment aimed at stimulating your lymphatics and clearing the waste – see our January special health offer!

Back to diet, whatever you goals are for your dietary intake now is a good time to critically evaluate and improve your nutritional habits. “You are what you eat” so in order to maintain a healthy weight, a strong immune system and an active lifestyle, you must give the body the nutrients it needs and deserves. Improve your habits now!

As I said before, this is no lecture, I will be enjoying a healthy dollop of brandy butter on my Christmas pud! To be frank, this period of rest and indulgence is incredibly important and does bring with it some valuable benefits to health, but be aware of your body’s needs throughout and you will be able to start the New Year at full speed.

The dominant attitude towards health today is a curative, reactive one.

Indeed, we will sit and work all day hunched back in our chair staring at a computer screen, eat our ready-meal dinner (following on from our snack lunch sat at the desk), then slouch into a settee and watch the evening news and film, putting off exercising and losing weight until tomorrow or next week… and if anything goes wrong, we only need to pay a visit to our GP, who will prescribe a few pills and get us back in the saddle – fast!

Yet why are we spending so much time damaging rather than nurturing our health? And as the damage is often gradually done over a long period of time, how can we expect our doctors to instantly assess and “fix the problem” in the space of a five minute consultation?

As holistic osteopaths, we aspire to embody and share a very different health model.

For starters, we view the human body as nothing short of a miracle of design and execution, a true gift well worth nurturing and protecting from birth into advanced decades of age.

We also know from clinical experience and practice that the body naturally tends towards health rather than disease, and has an amazing ability to self repair and right itself if allowed to.

In effect, our view is that the best form of fighting disease is not a curative pill, but the preventive approach of attending to all the conditions underpinning excellent, long term health.

The underlying conditions of health are rather more wide-ranging than consuming the “five portions of fruit and veg” a day and walking for half an hour three times a week – which sadly most of us fail to do.

We are interested in promoting health as resting on:

• an alkaline, rather than acid-forming, diet ensuring that the right balance of food groups, vitamins and minerals is fulfilled;
• enough of the right source of fluids;
• a balanced exercise schedule, combining cardiovascular health, flexibility and muscle tone;
• minimising exposure to toxins, in very practical ways;
• postural awareness, work ergonomics and workplace exercise routines that tend to prevent workplace injuries
• good breathing awareness and practice;
• good sleep;
• the regular practice of relaxation and meditation routines

Six months ago, we encompassed these thoughts and recommendations into a short workshop called “ten tips to avoid the osteopath” and have been delivering it since in a wide range of settings – health spas, companies, old peoples’ homes, sheltered accommodation, clubs – in an attempt to promote a more positive, empowered approach to health in the community.

If you are interested in this workshop either personally or on behalf of a company or organisation (as well as personal consultations we also offer a range of structured services for employers: health workshops, ergonomic assessments and on-site osteopathic treatment) please contact Mathieu at the clinic on 01895 2000 50.