Tips to reduce your anxiety

More and more people suffer from anxiety and living with it is definitely not something easy.

Anxiety control is a long term process and even if there is no magical cure, a few tips can be integrated in our lifestyle to help to reduce the anxiety and live a more peaceful and happy life.

1.First of all the diet.

A diet rich in processed food, exciting like coffee, alcohol  is definitely related to increase anxiety.

In general but especially if you are subject to anxiety it is very important to adopt a healthy diet on a daily basis.

Eat a lot of leafy greens like kale, spinach, watercress. Foods rich in magnesium like dark chocolate, legumes like lentils, chickpeas… are the go to fight anxiety.

Reduce your sugar intake. Sugar creates a reactive hyperglycaemia in your body followed by a decreasing pic creating physiological reactions in your body: Stress. Your adrenals are secreting cortisol, the stress hormone which will make your anxiety worse. That is why it is very important to keep your blood sugar level constant and avoid hypo and hyperglycaemia phases…How do you do that? First by avoiding processed food rich in sugar with a high glycemic index like cakes, sweets, preparation with white flour in general. And privilege food with a low glycemic index with is not gonna create hyperglycaemia in your system: like vegetables, fruits (but it is better to associate them with some good fats like nuts, avocado when eaten as a snack), brown rice…

2. Respect yourself.

Are you the kind of person that would say yes even if they feel like saying no? Are you a people pleaser? Always putting the others needs before yours, always helping people but not even able to help yourself. You have to fill your own cup first because the greatest relationship you can have is with yourself first.

Do the things you want to do, take time for yourself, follow your dreams, live the life you came here to live.

3. Stop being a perfectionist .

Does everything have to be perfect around you? That is the best way to feel anxious. Life is not perfect so don’t try so hard to make it or you will suffer each time you don’t reach your high expectations. Accept that you are human. “You are allowed to be both the masterpiece and the work in progress , simultaneously ”.

4. Live in the present moment.

Be in the moment. Breathe. The past is in the past and the future is not here yet. so there is no need to overthink of what could have been in the past and what should be in the future. Of course it is great to have plans and dreams but feeling overwhelmed because you didn’t reach them yet, comparing yourself with other people’s life and driving you crazy with hundreds of tasks at the same time won’t help you to feel calm.

Meditation can be a good way to learn how to live in the moment. Even if it is just 5-10 minutes every day. There are plenty of ways to meditate, it doesn’t always mean that you just have to seat and do nothing. Going for a walk and practice mindfulness is great way to be focus in the now. Even practicing a sport, painting, playing or listening to music can be a way of meditating. In my opinion any activities where you are really focus on what you are doing are a kind of meditation, it is called mindfulness and it is all about being present.

Share with us your tips to deal with anxiety.

Deborah D.C

What you need to know about your nervous system

I believe knowledge is power and what is more powerful than understanding how your body works. You probably heard about the nervous system in biology class, a long time ago for some. So the topic of this month is a little refresher of what the nervous system is and how it works.

What we call the nervous system is the brain, the spinal cord and the nerves.

The Nervous System is the first structure developing in utero, before a heart beat.

The Nervous system controls what we think and feel, how we learn and remember, and the way we move and talk. But it also controls things we're less aware of — like the beating of our hearts and the digestion of our food.

Think of the brain as a central computer that controls all the body's functions. The rest of the nervous system is like a network that relays messages back and forth from the brain to different parts of the body. It does this via the spinal cord, which runs from the brain down through the back. It contains threadlike nerves that branch out to every organ and body part.

What Are the Parts of the Nervous System?

The nervous system is made up of the central nervous system and the peripheral nervous system:

• The brain and the spinal cord are the central nervous system. (CNS)

• The nerves that go through the whole body make up the peripheral nervous system. (PNS)

Bone protects the CNS from injury. It safeguards your skull or cranium the same way shells protect the soft bodies of snails and turtles. Vertebrae are the bones protecting your spinal cord. Unlike the skull which can’t bend, your vertebrae are flexible. The flexibility is why you can twist at the waist or curl up in a ball.

No type of boney armor surrounds your PNS. For example, have you ever had your arm fall asleep? When it does, you may not be able to move it or even to feel it for a minute or two. That happens because it’s been in one position too long and you have temporarily pinched a nerve. The pinch occurs due to lack of protection. That nerve is part of the PNS.

The central nervous system is like a computer that controls the body's functions, and the nerves are like a network that relays messages to parts of the body. 

How Does the Nervous System Work?

The basic workings of the nervous system depend a lot on tiny cells called neurons. The brain has billions of them, and they have many specialized jobs. For example, sensory neurons send information from the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and skin to the brain. Motor neurons carry messages away from the brain to the rest of the body.

All neurons, however, relay information to each other through a complex electrochemical process, making connections that affect the way we think, learn, move, and behave.

1.Intelligence, learning, and memory. 

As we grow and learn, messages travel from one neuron to another over and over, creating connections, or pathways, in the brain. It's why driving takes so much concentration when someone first learns it, but later is second nature: The pathway became established.

In young children, the brain is highly adaptable. In fact, when one part of a young child's brain is injured, another part often can learn to take over some of the lost function. But as we age, the brain has to work harder to make new neural pathways, making it harder to master new tasks or change set behavior patterns. But with stimulation, what we call neuroplasticity stills occur. That's why many scientists believe it's important to keep challenging the brain to learn new things and make new connections — it helps keeps the brain active over the course of a lifetime.

Memory is another complex function of the brain. The things we've done, learned, and seen are first processed in the cortex. Then, if we sense that this information is important enough to remember permanently, it's passed inward to other regions of the brain (such as the hippocampus and amygdala) for long-term storage and retrieval. As these messages travel through the brain, they too create pathways that serve as the basis of memory.

2.Movement. 

Different parts of the cerebrum move different body parts. The left side of the brain controls the movements of the right side of the body, and the right side of the brain controls the movements of the left side of the body. When you press your car's accelerator with your right foot, for example, it's the left side of your brain that sends the message allowing you to do it.

3.Basic body functions.

 A part of the peripheral nervous system called the autonomic nervous system controls many of the body processes we almost never need to think about, like breathing, digestion, sweating, and shivering. The autonomic nervous system has two parts: the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system.

The sympathetic nervous system prepares the body for sudden stress, like if you witness a robbery. When something frightening happens, the sympathetic nervous system makes the heart beat faster so that it sends blood quickly to the different body parts that might need it. It also causes the adrenal glandes at the top of the kidneys to release adrenaline, a hormone that helps give extra power to the muscles for a quick getaway. This process is known as the body's "fight or flight" response.

The parasympathetic nervous system does the exact opposite: It prepares the body for rest. It also helps the digestive tract move along so our bodies can efficiently take in nutrients from the food we eat. We call it as well the rest and digest system.

What health-related functions does the nervous system regulate?

As you have seen, the nervous system relates to nearly every aspect of our health and well-being. It’s involved in something as simple as closing your eyes to managing more complex processes such as critical thinking.

Other functions regulated by the nervous system include:

• Aging

• Body temperature

• Brain growth/development

• Breathing/heartbeat

• Healing/rehabilitation

• Hunger/thirst/digestion

• Learning/memory

• Movement/balance/coordination

• Puberty/reproduction/fertility

• Sensations – touch and hearing and the mental processes of interpretation

• Sleep

• Stress/bodily responses to stress

• Thought and emotions

The nervous system impacts almost every part of our body at every stage of the life span. Specializing in how it all works together is important so we can maintain optimal health.

Did you know that the main purpose of your chiropractor is to make sure your nervous system is functioning optimally? When was the last time you got your nervous system checked?