Great news from London today! Gyms can reopen on the 3rd December, with less office parties and overindulgence, this could be your healthiest Christmas ever! With winter weather, shorter days and options to exercise being somewhat limited at present, it is more vital than ever that we make the effort to do as much we can. The NHS recommends all adults should aim to be physically active every day. Any activity is better than none, and more is better still and ideally, 150 minutes of moderate exercise a week or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise per week.
These exercises should include strengthening activities that work all the major muscles (legs, hips, back, abdomen, chest, shoulders, and arms) on at least 2 days a week.

On top of this they encourage us to reduce time spent sitting or lying down and break up long periods of not moving with some activity. https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/exercise/
Do you meet this criterion?
 
Working from home has its advantages, but also its downfalls. Although I manage a run every morning and stretch/exercise at least 20 minutes per day, the vast majority of my day is spent sitting at my desk, which according to Dr James Levine, a professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic is not good for my health.

"Sitting is more dangerous than smoking, kills more people than HIV, and is more treacherous than parachuting. We are sitting ourselves to death. The chair is out to kill us.

With all the fears and health scares we are living through this year, you probably do not think about your chair as one of the biggest potential threats to your health. Research has shown that we can reduce our chances of cancer, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and back pain, with one simple lifestyle change: reduce the time you spend sitting.
Just as exercise cannot override the effects of a bad diet, research shows that although exercise is good for you, it does not negate the damage done by extended periods of sitting.

Professor Marc Hamilton, Ph.D., from the Pennington Biomedical Research Centre, “The cure for too much sitting isn’t more exercise. Exercise is good, of course, but the average person could never do enough to counteract the effect of hours and hours of chair time.”
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With plenty more desk hours ahead for me, I am investing in standing desk, if only to take some pressure of my lower back and lengthen my hip flexors to improve my posture, golf swing and running ability! Perhaps 2021 will be the year that we all sit less and move more, don’t forget, our body is a perpetual motion machine, movement is medicine, motion is lotion!

It is that painful time of year when my car needs a service and I hope that it does not hit my wallet too hard! A regular service and MOT are essential for our cars, even more so if you depend on it for your livelihood! I am pretty sure that when I look to get my next car that all important 'FSH' acronym will help with my choice as it signifies that the car has a full service history, which means it has been looked-after and more likely, a wise purchase.

Just as our cars are regularly serviced, we all have an annual check-up with a dentist to maintain our dental health, but what about your musculoskeletal health? On the whole, most people think of booking in for a chiropractic treatment when they are in pain or discomfort. But what about preserving good spinal health once you are out of pain? Having a regular maintenance treatment and or a spinal health check-up you can avert tension building up and nip spinal misalignments in the bud, preventing them becoming more serious and painful. A major study showed that on average, patients who have regular maintenance only have one more appointment per year compared to those who have a treatment only when they are in pain.  The startling difference is, however, that the latter group report up to 30 days more of debilitating pain per year than the “maintenance group”. In other words, a little maintenance doesn’t cost much more, but pays off in spades.
 
For those with a physical job, it is even more important, as your body is one of the main tools of your trade. Taking care of your spinal health is vital and we would recommend for those in physical jobs to have a treatment once every 3 – 6 months to help maintain optimal health.
As your spinal nerves deliver signals to every part of your body to enable it to function healthily, whatever job you do, even if it is sedentary, you can optimise your musculoskeletal and internal organ health by having healthy spinal function.
Discover how chiropractic can help you by booking a maintenance chiropractic treatment- you can replace teeth, but your spine is irreplaceable.

Book your appointment here

How we think and what we think has a huge impact on our life choices. Whether it is half full or half empty, impacts greatly on how we see our world. Considering the average human has 6,200 thoughts per day*, that is over 250 per hour, or almost 400 per hour if we exclude 8 hours sleep! In these difficult times with so many fears and uncertainties, it can be difficult to remain positive. If we are to believe the 2005 research on human thoughts per day the task becomes more arduous. This research found that on average that the participants thoughts, were 80% negative and 95% were the same repetitive thoughts as the day before!!
 
We are trying to help, by posting regular positive content and encouraging you to be consistent and create constructive routines. Having structure and a logical sequence in our lives, facilitates familiarity and security with what we have to do each day. It creates a flow to our day and helps instil good habits. Just like brushing our teeth every morning, adhering to a routine allows us to adopt constructive habits that match our goals and aspirations.
 
Here is my daily checklist that I am trying to adhere to during this enforced Lockdown, another to follow next week. What do you have on yours?

We will once again be closing the STUDIO doors for Personal training until early December. Nobody wanted a second lockdown, but I think it was inevitable.

So, what happens now?

THE GOOD NEWS, WE ARE OPEN!
As per the announcement on Saturday night from the Prime Minister, patients can leave their home for the following reason - for any medical concerns, reasons, appointments, and emergencies.

This guidance means that chiropractic clinics can remain open during the next few weeks of lockdown with careful adherence to the rules.

These are, and are not limited to, the following….
• Appropriate scheduling of patients to ensure the minimal number of people in the practice at one time
• Appropriate use of infection control and cleaning procedures, logged and recorded
• Appropriate minimising of contact with others, including front desk team members, for all patients
• Appropriate use of PPE for all team members
• Care of vulnerable patients (now deemed to be over 60s regardless of any medical condition and the under 60s with medical complications) Care can continue for these patients with extreme caution.
 
Appointments can be made via our online booking or by calling our reception team on 01453 873811
https://personalbest.neptune.practicehub.io/p/booking
 
With the clinic remaining open, this might be a perfect opportunity for you to have an MOT /Service to iron out any niggles so that you come back refreshed, repaired and prepared to take on December!