Dr Aaron Rossi in Marietta

For those of you who are looking for Dr Aaron Rossi, you can find him in Marietta.

1335 A Canton Road Marietta Georgia 30066

(770) 955-1100

He is available on Tuesdays and Thursdays 3:30-8:00pm and Sundays 12:00-6:00pm.

Looking forward to seeing you.

Sleep Strategy

Can't go to sleep?  Can't stay asleep?  Here is a strategy to get a better night sleep:

Part 1 During the Day

From Ch.3 of "Move Your DNA"

by Katy Bowman www.katysays.com

A) Do more activity.  Use your body in any way you can and it doesn't need to be exercise.  Movement is key.  Any little thing helps; take the stairs, park further away, manually grind your coffee.  Also, sitting at the computer or in your car all day long, then spending an hour or two exercising - DOES NOT undo the effects of sitting all day.

B) Get into the Sun, often.  The sun is not our enemy, and the human race is designed to be in it.  Sunlight provides vitamin D and a lot more than that as well.  It's still just beyond science's grasp of understanding, but it is known that sunlight has other essential qualities to human health beyond Vit D.  And the more sunlight exposure during the day leads to better sleep.

C) Work with purpose.  When your emotions are satisfied with how you spent your time during the day, your mind will shut up better at night.  Enough said.

D) Oscillate between engagement and disengagement.  Your brain has a "high" and a "low" mode while awake and asleep.  High Awake is when you're alert and going - the way we spend nearly all our waking hours, driving, talking, reading, texting, etc...  Low Awake is day dreaming, chilled out, stillness,, but not bored (if you feel bored you're still in high mode).  High Asleep is when you're sleeping shallow, and possibly dreaming.  Low Asleep is deep sleep, even past the dreaming state, the time of most productive body/brain recovery.

So, here's the problem; your brain is made to make habits, and if you spend all your time in high mode when you're awake, your brain makes a habit of it all the time.  And it's much harder to fall asleep at night, stay asleep, nor get the best recovery from your sleep.

The answer is to give your brain more practice at switching.  A five minute moment, spread here and there through the day, when you are still and quiet.  Breathing slowly and deeply, will act like mini practice sessions for your brain on how to not stay stuck in high mode.  In essence creating a well used neural pathway to reach a state of disengagement, and not be habitually locked into engagement.\

An adjustment is soft and gentle
enough for people of all ages.

E) Try Chiropractic Care.  A chiropractic adjustment to the spine is gentle and often feels good.  It has many positive effects related to sleeping better.  Probably more than anything else the chiropractic adjustment helps a brain relax and overcome the habit of being over engaged (D).  And as mentioned above (A) your brain needs stimulation from activity and the effect a chiropractic adjustment has on the brain helps with that.  Lastly, people hurt less, usually a lot less, when getting chiropractic.  And not hurting certainly helps with sleep.  No surprise there.

Part 2 Pre-Bedtime 

A) No stimulates, sugar, caffeine - obviously.

B) No beverages at least one hour before sleep.  If you are woke during the night because you have to pee, this advice is particularly for you.  Give your kidney's enough time to filter it out so you have better chances of a less full bladder all night.

C) Turn off the electronics.  At least one hour before sleep for adults, two hours for kids, the visual stimulation has been shown to cause more delay in falling asleep, and more tossing and turning - a hint of less restful sleep.

Part 3 In Bed (no, this is not a fortune cookie)

A) Rub your eyes just like a child does.  When you put pressure on your eyes it will slow your heart rate and signal your nervous system to relax.  It's called the occulo-cardiac reflex and it's why children do it innately.

B) Progressively relax.  Bring your attention to your feet.  Notice them, and feel if your are holding them in any particular position.  Notice if you are using any muscle action in your shins and calves.  Keep doing this all the way up your body.  Anywhere where you notice your muscles are working, tune into the area and relax them, slowly melt into the bed.  This will also help if you're mind keeps going and going on tasks, or ruminates on worries.
This will give a useful place to put your minds attention, because sometimes it's far too difficult to think about nothing.


C)  A Dark Environment.  Your brain believes it's time to sleep when it's dark, time to wake when it's light.  TV and other electronic lights will disrupt your brain's patter of activity.  Blue light has the most disruptive effect, and that disruptive effect is worse on women.  In fact the chances of breast cancer increase for women sleeping with light pollution in their sleeping environment, blue light being the worst.  In my own experience with people, it's working at night and altering the natural human sleep cycle that is TERRIBLE on health.  It will slow someone's healing as much as anything else I've seen.


Resources:
Mercola.com
Power of Full Engagement Jim Loehr & Tony Schwartz
Move your DNA by Katy Bowman
The Great Courses, Stress and your Body, by Robert Sapolsky PhD
Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor PhD
The Great Courses; Mysteries of Human Behavior by Mark Leary PhD
The Great Courses; How Colors affect you by Professor William Lidwell
Ultralongevity by Mark Liponis
Spark by John Raty MD
Mindfulness by Helen Langer PhD
Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi PhD

Learning Disabilities and Learning Delays; Lectures at Dekalb County Library

   It's easy to think that all the functions of your body and mind are initiated by the brain.

  But that's only a small piece of the full picture.  In order for anything to happen, the brain must know the world around it.

  That comes from the senses.

  We're taught in school that we have 5 senses, but that too is not accurate.  We have much more than that.  Beyond the 5 we know about there is a broad category that makes up a 6th sense.  Yes we all have a 6th sense!!  

  Sadly it's not quite as cool as Spidey Sense but it's still enormously important and has a disproportionate influence on the brain, our lives and our health.

  It's called proprioception.

It is the sense of our body's position, and movement.  Every moment of your entire life your brain is taking in this awareness.  Asleep or awake,, moving or still.  And it is the key sense that becomes distorted more than any other by our modern lifestyle.

  It's the integrated function of that sense that overwhelmingly influences Sensory Processing Disorders.  And in turn how the concept of sensory processing disorders give rise to the host of learning disabilities; dyslexia, autism and ADHD.
  I lecture on this topic from time to time at my local library.  We will discuss what things you can do on your own to facilitate improvement and how Chiropractic care plays a roll in the correction of some of the originating distortion in the brain.

  Where:

Tucker-Reid H Cofer Library

5234 LaVista Rd

Tucker GA 30084

770-270-8234  

click here Google Map to library

  When:

Contact the library to see when future dates are planned.

  Why:

The ability for a child to functionally and adaptively, grow their mind and improve their ability to learn is Obviously a big deal.  1 out of 6 children have challenges with this, and if I can help, I will try.

A Sensitive Adjustment for a Sensitive Nervous System

  I consumed a great book recently; Quiet, by Susan Cain, among the many significant things I learned, was about some fascinating research on the natural born sensitivities of the nervous system.  According to a Harvard child psychologist, Jerome Kagan PhD about 15-20% of 4 month old babies' nervous systems were wired a little tighter (my simplification) and were more sensitive to new sensory input.  As these children became young adults they were healthy and turned out fine, the point though, is that the highly sensitive ones were slightly more than twice as likely to be introverted rather than extraverted.
  So, this got me thinking; if about 1 out of 5 people actually are more sensitive to stimulus simply because their nervous system is built that way, maybe they need a different kind of chiropractic adjustment?  There are over 200 formalized techniques to deliver a chiropractic adjustment, but in a very broad oversimplified way of looking at it, chiropractic adjustments come in two varieties;  segmental and tonal.  Segmental means the individual bones - or segments - of the spine and the curvatures of the spine are addressed.  It's usually done with more force and in more areas of the spine, the stereotypical adjustment that makes a lot of noise is in this category.  Tonal is a type of adjustment that addresses more of the tone and subtle adaptability of the spine, usually with less force and sometimes in fewer areas of the spine.  (I know many of my fellow Chiropractors reading this are cringing at how ridiculously oversimplified this is). This is a much less common way of adjusting.  I probably deliver 1 out of every 50-100 adjustment exclusively this way.
  Now, the whole point to any chiropractic adjustment is to affect the nervous system in a positive pro-healing, pro-adaptability kind of way.  And maybe 1 out of 5 of my patients has a nervous system on the more sensitive side.  So I've been paying closer attention to how people identify themselves, as an introvert particularly.  And using that as a clue to see if they would be someone who would benefit more from the softer adjustment or an adjustment in less areas.  Ultimately I think it's more than 1 out of 5.  Based upon my experience, even before this book and new idea, I suspect it's 1 out of 3 or even more that would benefit more from "less" - less areas of the spine and less force.  Maybe this is why it's called "practice".  It's always a process of learning and growing.

Back pain is a signal - Here's what to do about it

Before I pass on the following advice, I'd like to be clear about how I personally use Chiropractic care as well as how I recommend using it - for the overall improvement of body, mind and mood function, for the overall improvement of health and immune system and for the overall improvement in quality of life.

Using Chiropractic for the relief of pain only is like going to a nice restaurant and buying an expensive meal, just for the sake of sitting in a comfortable seat.  You miss out on the most valuable aspects of the experience.  I have an older post that gives more detail about this idea, look here.

Having said that many people are still suffering with a lot of pain, and the good news is, there is a lot you can do on your own to help yourself in a very effective way.

1) Get up and move more.  Every hour stand up and change body positions.  Sitting all day at work, in the car, on the couch and at the table is terrible for you, in many ways.

2a) Stretch in the morning.  It does not need to be formal or fancy.  Just a big ole' fashion grunting spastic stretch is great.  Can you picture your baby, dog or cat as they wake up?  What's the first thing they do?  The reason it feels so good, is because it is stimulating your brain in the right way, and your brain rewards you by feeling good.

psoas muscle

2b) Stretching upward specifically helps a particularly important muscle called the psoas.  It attaches at the lower spine and connects to the top of the leg, on both sides.  When it flexes it bends the leg up, like being in the sitting position.  So when we spend all the time we do seated it shortens that muscle, and it pulls on the spine, overtime this increases the chances of the spine functioning poorly and with it more pain.  So, stretch up...  And grunt, it always helps me.

3) Check this out: Foundation Training and do the training daily.  For the most part, pain is a desperate request from your body saying to you "we're not doing something right!"  Follow this training and begin to use your magnificent body in line with the way you were designed.  Also this video can help to avoid common mistakes when doing this exercise.  I personally have gotten a lot from this exercise.  I know the developer of this work has written a book.  I'm sure it's good, in fact quite good, I just can't speak from experience about it.

If you're interested in learning more about this work go to Mercola.com, an indispensable tool to living healthier.

4)  Regarding books I do have experience with is Pain Free by Peter Egoscue.  Very helpful stuff, particularly the chapters related to the low back and pelvis.

Blood Pressure

I've been asked frequently about high blood pressure recently and what can be done about it.

  I've spoke on this subject several times and done extensive research on the subject.  I can boil down my 5 most important things to do to address the cause of high blood pressure. 
  Remembering that blood pressure going high is a symptom of other things and there's not much point in treating it as a stand alone problem.  I even go so far as to say high blood pressure in it of itself is not a problem, it's actually the innate intelligence of the body attempting to regulate and balance out a problem.

5 things that make good changes in your body, that can lower elevated blood pressure:
1) avoid all aspirin, Tylenol, nsaids and eat way less sugar.
2) practice diaphramatic breathing as an ongoing habit
3) meditate daily, 15min+
4) get chiropractic care - that specializes in the care of the upper cervical area.
5) eat more beats with their greens, sweet potato (not yams), cultured veggies and get more sunshine as well - no sunblock.

Health is a state in process

The latest idea I'm bringing to focus in my office is a more accurate understanding of health.

Health is not a fixed thing that you do or do not have.  That you have lost or found.  Broken or repaired.  Health is a state, and is constantly in process.  Applied properly, Chiropractic moves the process forward, where ever the state of health currently is.

It takes diligent applied effort to achieve mastery at work.  It takes conscious, frequent attention to make family life harmonious.  It takes concerted regular action to make health flourish.  And there is no upper limit of achievement, fulfilment or expression of these or any other worth while endevor.

Chiropractic and the Brain

1) The brain functions in patterns, repetitions or habits.  Some patterns are set to initiate protective mechanisms.  Some patterns are for growth and repair.

2) All funtional patterns of the brain have expression in the body.

3) The default brain patterns are for growth and repair.

4) Protective patterns that are activated for a prolonged period of time are damaging to the body and the brain.  A subluxation is an expression of this prolonged, damaging, protective pattern.

5) The chiropractic adjustment of the subluxation gives feedback to the brain, which can alter patterns.

6) Adjustments can interupt or initiate protective patterns.

When does the process end?

I had the pleasure of working with a great couple as new patients in my office today.  After we went through the things I usually do and a few things I specifically did we sat down and talked a little more.

She said that what we spoke about made sense, and that she understood that the care I was suggesting to her was a process.  And then she asked "but when does the process end?"

I answered her in two ways; 1) chiropractic is like anything else you can do in life that delivers ongoing benefits.  Exercise, dating your spouse, sleeping well, showering all help ongoingly, and so does Chiropractic.  2) I told her in my own life I don't get adjusted because I'm in pain, or have some ailment to treat.  I get adjusted because I want optimize my nervous system, my health and my life.

So ultimately, even though you are free to stop when ever you want.  There is no end to the process.

Chiropractic explained in 5 steps

In my time as a Chiropractor, based on my own observations, education before and after college, research study and experience the following 5 steps explain Chiropractic as simply, completely and congruently as I can.

1) A Physical event takes place and causes some kind of a distortion to the spine. 
This can be a quick trauma or slow repetitive strain in bad posture.  The first of these events is often at birth or very young while a baby is developing.

2) Protective mechanisms kick in.
From step 1 if a bone in your spine were to go completely out of place it would either paralyze or kill you depending on the location of the bone.  The natural survival mechanisms can't have that, so in an instant, small muscles and reflexes engage, locking down portions of the spine preventing life threatening harm.  The lock down mechanism is good for temporary survival, but will alter nervous system function and is bad for full thriving when prolonged, even minimally.

3) The brain makes a habit out the protective mechanism.
The brain is nothing if not efficient, relatively quickly turning new learning into automatic habits.  This means that the nervous systems' responses (step 2) to any stimulus significant enough or repetitive enough (step 1) can pattern itself into the circuitry of the brain.  Whenever a stress experience occurs step 2's protective spinal lock down will kick in along with the rest of the body's fight or flight mechanisms.  Importantly the triggering stress doesn't need to be the same physical event (step 1) to trigger it.  It can be any non-physical threatening stress - an angry boss or a traffic jam - and that can return the physical lock down mechanisms to the spine as readily as a physical trauma. 
What I have been describing, in essence, are a few of many aspects of a subluxation.

4) The Chiropractic Adjustment breaks the habit.
The adjustment to the spine affects the entire nervous system, lighting up the brain with activity.  This kind of increased activity is a resources, and with it the brain can create new responses and break old habits.  Over time the responses that were good for short term survival, but compromising of ongoing health can refresh.  The pattern, negatively prolonged, is interrupted.

5) The benefits of Chiropractic care are dependent on how often you do it.
While the before-and-after comparison on health can be highly dramatic for some with only one Chiropractic Adjustment, repetition will provide cumulative benefits.  While the optimum frequency of adjustments varies, overall cumulative benefits are the common effect over time.  There is no upper limit to the benefits of Chiropractic care when applied as an ongoing lifestyle.  Every properly applied Chiropractic adjustment will measurably affect the function of your nervous system.  Research, big and small as well as multitudes of patients have reported; cognitive, emotional, digestive, immune, reproductive, hormonal, sensory, strength and balance positive changes, including an overall increased sense of wellbeing. 

I think of Chiropractic care as a key part of my strategy to bring out my best, and give the most from my life.  I eat, exercise, rest and love consciously.  I know my purpose and work towards it and I get adjusted regularly.

Chiropractic and your Nervous System

  When someone has regular Chiropractic care why does it help their entire health?
  A Chiropractor works on the spine because the spinal cord  threads it's way through it.  The spinal cord is what links your brain down to every organ and every part of your body.  And the spinal cord links the body up to the brain to give it all the feedback it needs to make sure everything runs smoothly.  So, while Chiropractors are about the spine, it's for the sake of the nervous system and in turn the whole person.


Your busy nervous system, hard at work.

  People do come to Chiropractors to get out of pain - but why settle for such a small slice of pie?