The pillars of health: What is a healthy diet I can’t believe it is already December!  Like most other people, this month is one of the craziest of the year.  The holidays seem to stress us all out to no end, dealing with the best and the worst of humanity at the same time!  Since last month, I was writing about the ways you can stay healthy and sane through the holiday.  I thought that I would take this month and start preparing you for your new years resolutions.  We will be talking about the pillars of health and the things that can make you have an amazingly healthy new year.

No matter the disease or dis-ease or dysfunction a person may be experiencing there are fundamental things that they can change that will help them recover.  Everything from low back pain to seasonal depression and even cancer have a few things in common.  These things are the basic flaw of modern life and the overall human condition, and it is what is a healthy diet.

So, the first pillar that we will talk ...

Happy Thanksgiving Week!

I've been talking about ways to keep yourself healthy during the holidays. And let's be honest—sometimes it's our family members causing most of the stress.

But here's what I want you to understand: meditation isn't just about feeling zen or being spiritual. It's a physiological intervention that directly affects your stress response system.

When you meditate consistently—even just 20 minutes per day—you're not just relaxing. You're reprogramming your HPA axis and restoring adrenal fun...

Winter Dehydration Could Be Wrecking Your Health

Winter hit hard this week. Arctic air pushed down from Canada, and most of the U.S. is locked in freezing temperatures.

Cold weather brings an unexpected health problem most people miss: dehydration.

You're not sweating. You're not exercising outside. You don't feel thirsty. But your body is losing water faster in winter than it does during summer heat.

Here's why winter dehydration happens, what it's doing to your health, and how to fix it.

Why You Dehydrate in Winter

Summer dehydration is obvious. You sweat. You see it. You feel it. You drink more water instinctively.

Winter dehydration is invisible.

The mechanism:

Cold air holds less moisture than warm air. When temperatures drop, relative humidity plummets. Your body contains more water than the surrounding air, which creates an osmotic gradient.

Water evaporates continuously from your skin and lungs. Every breath you take releases water vapor. Every inch of exposed skin lo...

During the holiday season, our bodies are dealing with a lot. Everything from colder temperatures, shorter days, longer nights and not to mention all the increased emotional stress that most have to deal with between shopping, travel, and family. One of the hardest yet most important things is to maintain you sleep hygiene.

Hygiene is an excellent way to refer to the routine that we all have before bed. When we use the term hygiene, we think of our morning rituals like showering, shaving, brushing teeth. These habits are usually so ingrained in us that it was difficult to start our day without them. While some of us do have our night time routines, like brush your teeth, feed the dogs shut off all the lights, or read a few passages or pages in a book.

We don’t think about them as much as we should; the morning habits are set up to get us ready for our days. The shower makes sure we don’t have offensive body odor, brushing our teeth makes sure people can stand talking to us, getting d...

The holidays bring unavoidable stress. Family gatherings. Shopping. Travel. Financial pressure.

You can't eliminate those stressors. But you can stop amplifying them.

The biggest amplifier? Blood sugar chaos.

Here's what most people miss: your adrenal glands can't tell the difference between a blood sugar crash and an emotional crisis. Both trigger the same cortisol release. Both deplete your stress reserves.

During the holidays, you're already maxed out managing unavoidable stressors. Why add fuel to the fir...

As the holidays approach, one of the hardest things to do is stay healthy. It starts with Halloween candy and colder temperatures. Continues through Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years Eve celebrations. Throw in a few holiday parties, some travel, dealing with families both good and bad and the end of the financial year for most people. 

This is by far one of the most stressful time of the year! With this in mind over the next few weeks we are going to talk about thing you can do to make it through this holiday season with your health and waistline intact. 

Cook at home as often as possible during the season. When I was going through my Chiropractic program, I valet parked cars nights and weekends. The busiest time and when I would make the most money by far was the holiday season. We would double some cars that we parked from November to Christmas; it wasn’t because it was colder outside, it was because the restaurant would seat twice as many people. 


This increase in our desire...

TMJ dysfunction creates symptoms throughout the body—not just jaw pain. Because the temporomandibular joint sends approximately 35% of all sensory input to your central nervous system and connects mechanically to the upper cervical spine, sphenoid bone, and hyoid complex, dysfunction here cascades into seemingly unrelated problems.

For a comprehensive explanation of how TMJ affects whole-body health, see: Can TMJ Cause Other Problems?

Here are the ten most common signs of TMJ dysfunction:

1. Headaches and Migraines

Headaches are the most common symptom of TMJ dysfunction. Tension headaches from overactive temporalis, masseter, and pterygoid muscles. Migraines triggered by trigeminal nerve irritation (the trigeminal nerve innervates the jaw and is the primary pain pathway for migraines). Cervicogenic headaches from upper cervical compensation.

Clinical example: Patient presented with 32 consecutive days of migraine-type headache. Multiple ER visits, two neurologists, MRI and CT sca...

Most people say "I have TMJ" when describing jaw pain. That's like saying "I have knee" instead of "I have knee pain." TMJ stands for temporomandibular joint—the hinge connecting your jaw to your skull. We all have two of them. What people mean is TMJ dysfunction: the joint isn't moving correctly, muscles aren't firing in proper sequence, or structural compensation has developed.

Why does this matter? Because TMJ dysfunction doesn't stay isolated to your jaw.

The Neurological Reality of TMJ Dysfunction

Your TMJ sends massive sensory input to your brain—approximately 35-40% of all proprioceptive information processed by your sensory cortex comes from the jaw and surrounding structures. This is why neurologists mapping the homunculus (the brain's representation of body parts) show disproportionately large areas dedicated to the face and jaw.

When TMJ mechanics are disrupted, that distorted sensory input affects motor control throughout the body. This isn't theoretical. We see it clin...

I get asked all the time how the heck do you explain what you do. It’s not just for patients looking for an explanation of Applied Kinesiology and Chiropractic for their family and friends but also from chiropractic students. I thought I would finally take a post to talk about what I do and how to explain what I do.

Honestly it all depends on how I feel when someone asks me what I do. The normal answer is that I am a Functional Chiropractor. Who treats patients structurally with chiropractic and uses Applied Kinesiology and functional neurology to balance the acupuncture meridians and assess them nutritionally which helps them find them get better fast and more effectively.

That explanation is in no way all-encompassing of what Applied Kinesiology or Chiropractic can do. But when I tell people who I help patients find the impediments to what is keeping them from healing and removing them I always get a look like I’m crazy. For some reason, people seem to have forgotten that the body ...

I got a nice little birthday present yesterday.  The CDC announced that there is a wait for it, confirmed case of Ebola here in Dallas.  Consequently, EVERYONE on Facebook lost their minds and posted that they were going to die. 

The funny part to me is that Erin has had a mild cough this week and lost her voice over the weekend.  She is significantly better but still has a very slight cough, but she has to get on a plane tomorrow, I wonder if they will let her get on? 

I thought I would head off the questions before I got them.  I know someone is going to ask, do I need to worry about Ebola? So, let's talk a little about what Ebola virus is and how deadly it can be.  Ebola virus disease (EVD), Ebola hemorrhagic fever (EHF), or just Ebola is a disease of humans as well as other primates triggered by an Ebola virus. 

Symptoms start two days to three weeks after contracting the illness, and the indications, usually, include having a fever, a sore throat, muscle discomfort and headache...