We have had a busy couple of weekends that have been great for furthering our mission to be as healthy as we can be! Last weekend Neil C, Neil F, Maddy, Steve Amber and I attended the United Chiropractic Association's annual spring conference in London. The first Speaker was Cyndi O'Meara author of the book Changing Habits, Changing Lives. She spoke about the difference between Nature foods and Chemical foods and the importance of keeping manufactured chemical based foods out of your diet. A great example was the difference between two cakes. The first cake was low fat and low calorie and the second cake had a higher fat and calorie content. Many people would look at those and presume they were doing the healthy thing and chose the first cake, the trouble is many people neglect to look at the actual ingredients!

First Cake

• Margerine
• Hydrogenated fat
• Cocoa flavouring
• Egg powder
• White Flour
• White salt
• White Sugar
• Preservatives

Second Cake

• Butter
• Organic free range eggs
• Organic Cocoa
• unbleached flour
• Sea salt
• Muscavado sugar

When you look at it like that it seems obvious which one would be better for you! Some of the real baddies to look out for include Aspartame (an artificial sweetner), E477 propylene glycol - the USA have recalled all medication that contained E477 but here in the UK it is still allowed in food, Sodium benzoate again has been banned in many countries, this time because of its effects on the kidney and liver but it is allowed into our food here in the UK.

Cyndi urged us all to become powerful consumers by acting on knowledge, reading food labels, choosing not to buy technology foods, being aware of GM foods, not supporting companies that do not support your families health.

The second speakers were Jennifer and Simon Floreani. Jennifer is the auther of Well adjusted babies and Simon is aiding the Australian government with a real shake up of the their health care system. They run an amazing family chiropractic and wellness practice in Australia and they covered many topics including pregnancy, birthing, vaccinations, breastfeeding and natural ways to boost immunity. We love treating families at County Chiropractic so it was great to get together with so many other like minded chiropractors from across the world

Jenny writes a great blog on her website

http://www.welladjustedbabies.com/blog/

Yesterday we spent the afternoon with Violetta Cope 'The Green Chef'. She runs fabulous courses on raw food and this was the introduction to bringing more raw, live food into our lives. Steve and I have been gradually bringing more live food into our meals over the last couple of years and have really felt the benefits in terms of better health and greater energy. It was great to have some new ideas especially things our 1 year old daughter Amber can eat as I am very aware of over cooking her veg to make them soft enough for her to eat. My favourite recipes we tried were a raw porridge and raw soup which I will definately be trying this week! Steve is just off to Reapers our local health food shop as we speak to buy the new ingredients we need. I can highly recommend Violetta's courses and hope that many of our practice members will take up her courses to boost their health and improve their lives. We hope that Violetta will soon be joining us at the practice offfering manual lymphatic drainage treatments as she is a real inspiration and will be a great addition to our fantastic team.

http://www.thegreenchef.co.uk/

Thanks for reading my blog

Rachael

Think, Feel and Be Well

On Thursday night last week we held the final talk in the ‘Free Health Talk’ series, which has been happening at St. Luke’s school as part of the Government’s “Skilled for Health” program.

Building on the success of ‘Genetics, Lifestyle and Health’; ‘Eat Well’ and ‘Move Well’; Thursday night’s talk was ‘Think, Feel and Be Well’. We had another great turnout with over 40 people coming along to hear myself and Will Williams provide some great tools for stress reduction, self-empowerment and personal transformation.

As a quick reminder, or a brief introduction if you couldn’t be there; the exercise that Will went through was fantastic and is provided below; and ‘The Five Essentials for Successful Meditation/ Mind Quieting’ that I went through is available to our practice members by following the “homecare procedures” link (where you will also find our basic and advanced Spinal Hygiene workouts – imagine the change in your life that is possible just by adding those two simple habits; spinal hygiene and meditation/mind quieting – amazing!).

The good news is that we are going to run all four talks again as part of the next cycle of Skilled for Health, which begins again on the 30th of April. I am just in the process of finalising the dates for the next run of talks and will let you know as soon as I have them confirmed. One of the great things about our being part of the Skilled for Health program is that Vicki Tearle, the Skilled for Health coordinator, has said that any of our practice members can do any of the S4H workshops! This is a really cool program so if you are interested in seeing what you can get involved with for FREE, you can get more details here http://www.st-lukes.devon.sch.uk/skilled4health/index.html

I hope that those of you who were able to come along enjoyed the talks and want to congratulate once again those of you who were able to make it to all 4 – my Wellness Warriors! I am looking forward to the next run through and hope to see many of you, and your friends and family, there!

Have a great day,

Neil Cox

The Power of Mental Movies

By Will Williams,
www.willwilliams.co.uk

There are countless studies to support the powerful influence of our imaginations over our immune systems, hormones, energy levels, and how we perceive the world. Expectations, or what we imagine for ourselves in our lives, influence the opportunities we recognise (or fail to), how we relate to others, and the actions we take.
So... how we use our imaginations is very important! Anyone who thinks they don't have much of an imagination... nonsense! We all do it, all the time. One of the key ways in which we imagine is through mental visualisations. As an example, everyone gets anxious at some time or another, and anxiety is the result of pure imagination. For example, if you're anxious about a future event, you're imagining it in a certain way. How are you doing it? If you find out, you can change it, and get different results.
Sound good? Good!Heres a quick exercise to get the ball rolling - if nothing else, I hope it gets you curious to learn more and experiment a little with your imagination.
1/ Think of a word that can be your symbol for accessing a great 'feelgood' state in just a moment. Perhaps something like energy, focus, fresh, or 'orange blossom'.
2/ Close your eyes, think about a time in your life you have felt fantastic. Really get into it. Visualise it. Notice what you visualise and how you do it. Can you see yourself in the picture, or are you looking through your own eyes? It is black and white, or colour? Moving, or still? Big or small? One big picture, or lots of little ones? Play around with them to get the feeling even greater - perhaps make the picture even bigger, brighter, sharper, put some favourite music in there. Whatever you like! When you get yourself feeling good - see your 'word' written over the picture, and hear yourself saying it to yourself in your mind. You might like to also "anchor" the feeling by pushing your thumb and a finger tip together (this associates the feeling to the touch). Do this a few times for a few different memories where you have felt excited, confident, or just fantastic.
3/ Now think about something you feel anxious about. How are you visualising it this time? Notice how its different. How are you making yourself anxious? Are you saying something to yourself in a negative, dreary way? Is the picture dark and blurry? Start playing with it! Get that imagination going. Make it brighter, see yourself as confident, comfortable. Whatever it takes! Hear yourself say that word again, push those fingers together, and let that associated good feeling flood into the anxious picture.
As you practice this, you'll notice the unique things you do to evoke certain feelings. It may be that you feel more comfortable when you are visualising as if through your own eyes, but vulnerable if visualising yourself from the outside.
Maybe you visualise people from your past who were critical, when you are feeling fragile. Perhaps you visualise lots of little disorganised pictures when feeling overwhelmed with a task. Put them all in order, followed by a single picture of the end goal, and see how much better it feels!

Thanks Will for writing the above blog for us. I hpe you find it helpful in refreshing some of the information you learned from both Neil and Will during the evening last Thursday. Look out for the new dates of the talks, we will keep you posted!

‘Move Well’ was a great success!

Last Thursday night saw a fantastic turn out of practice members and friends to Dr Neil Cox’s 3rd talk in a series of 4; Move well; exercise to fit our frame.

Neil shared with everyone the importance of movement and how movement is required for healthy cell function, whilst Violetta tempted everyone with her fantastic smoothies and delicious healthy snacks. Once again the energy and enthusiasm radiated throughout the room and everybody left with some health inspired tips and a new found commitment to increasing their levels of exercise – we can’t wait to see people skipping between lampposts whilst singing on the way into the clinic!!!

The evening ended with Dr Neil Finemore demonstrating some of the spinal hygiene exercises, and what a fantastic job he did! It was a very successful and well organised evening, well Done Neil Cox - you are an inspiration to us all.

Don't forget to attend the final talk in the series 'Think Well' on Thursday 19th March 2009 at 6.00 pm at St Lukes Science and Sports College. For further information just call the clinic on 01392 208496 or click here