5 Key Elements to Achieve Optimal Health and Wellbeing in Te Puke

NB: This blog is written by Dr. David’s wife Sally.

If you’re reading this article, you are either interested in Chiropractic in the Te Puke area or you are already a convert!

If you’re already under Chiropractic care, what was your reason for seeking out a Chiropractor in Te Puke? Were you in pain? Or were you seeking to optimise your health?

At Te Puke Chiropractic, Dr. David Guest see both types of patients. Often, the patients who come to them in pain, end up staying under care when their pain is long-gone, because they like to protect their investment in the spines and keep working to reach their full health potential.

When I first met Dr. David, my health was terrible and up until that point, I’d always taken an Allopathic or Medical approach to my health challenges. It was all I knew.

Chiropractic immediately improved my lower back complaint and my frequent headaches. However, the unexpected side effect of Chiropractic was the opening of my mind to a new way of thinking about health and my body. I realised there was no ‘magic pill’ for my health. Not even Chiropractic provides that one-size-fits-all solution.

So, when I committed to a ‘Chiropractic lifestyle’, it opened me up to trying a myriad of Eastern and Western healing modalities to complement my Chiropractic care. I realised that a one-pronged approach wasn’t going to create the optimal health I was seeking and as a result, I have literally spared no expense and gone to great lengths to create both physical and psychological balance in my life.

I have learnt so much along the way; I can talk like a nutritionist, give great advice to my friends and provide a detailed rundown on dozens of therapeutic procedures.

So, which therapy is most effective? Acupuncture? Naturopathy? Medicine? The answer is simple. It’s whatever works for you. And how do you know what works for you? A good place to start is to ask yourself what intuitively ‘feels right’.

In 2008, I was desperate for answers. I was experiencing unexplained neurological symptoms including the feeling of ants crawling over my face, vertigo, nausea and lots of floaters in my eyes. I wasn’t kidding before, when I said my health was terrible! The medical profession had no answers. An MRI of my brain showed nothing untoward.

That was the real start of my journey back to wellness. The whole experience has opened my eyes and my heart up to a new way of thinking about my body and my health.

In medicine, the patient presents to the Doctor with a set of symptoms. The Doctor (hopefully) makes a diagnosis and prescribes a pill (or pills) to treat those symptoms. Often, the symptoms are looked at in isolation and the prescribed medication only covers up the effects rather than finding and remedying the root cause.

Our bodies are the most amazing, intricate, quivering balls of energy. It just does not make sense to me to look any anything in isolation. Covering up a symptom with a medication is like continually replacing a fuse that keeps blowing with a bigger fuse, rather than calling in an electrician to fix the fault.

There is definitely an important place in this world for medicine and medication, however, as we watch disease and auto-immune disorders rise exponentially, major questions have to be asked about our approach to the treatment of our human frame.

We all know sayings like, ‘prevention is better than the cure’ and ‘an apple a day keeps the Doctor away’ and yet in our fast food world where everyone wants a ‘quick fix’, many of us aren’t willing to consider alternative answers for our health and wellbeing. I know this, because I was one of those people!

In my view, there are 5 Key Elements to achieve optimal health and wellbeing in Te Puke:

1. Empowered and connected mind-set;
2. Optimised mind-body connection;
3. Mindful physical input;
4. Plenty of physical output; and
5. Prioritised mind-body restoration.

Now, there are many ways to implement these Key Elements into your life, so this is where it’s really important to ask yourself what feels right for you. For me, these are some of the actions that I take to continue my healing journey:

1. Mindset: Cultivating an empowered mindset where I focus on ‘what’s working’ rather than what’s ‘not working’. Seeking out gratitude, being present and looking for ways to add more joy and fun to my life.
2. Mind-Body Connection: regular Chiropractic adjustments. By having a Chiropractor remove misaligned vertebrae in my spine, my nervous system is able to function optimally. Our brain communicates through our nerves and any pressure on those nerves affects the communication pathways to our organs, muscles, tissue and cells.
3. Physical Input: a whole/real food diet, avoiding preservatives, additives, refined sugar and gluten where possible. Moderate dairy and starches, but mainly good quality meat, vegetables, nuts and seeds. I drink when I’m thirsty. I strive for an 80-20 approach, as I Iove my wine and like to indulge in ‘naughty’ foods from time to time.
4. Physical Output: a combination of Squash, Yoga, Hiking/Walking, Bike Riding and Breathing exercises. Plus lots of social connection.
5. Restoration: As much sleep each night as my toddler allows, time-out to relax at least once a day and at least 1 full recovery day from exercise. Daily meditation.

When it comes to apply these 5 Key Elements in your life to achieve optimal performance, what feels intuitively right to you? ~ Sally G X