Can chocolate help your pain?

Let me start by saying that i'm not sending you out on a candy binge! With that out of the way, please let me share some sweet news!

I recently came across a study that was published in the Journal of Neuroscience. (Just a little of my light reading :) that showed that when rats had a bulb lit under their cage they lifted their paws due to pain. Seems pretty straight forward right? I'm not a rat but I think I'd lift my paw too. Then they gave some rats chocolate and lo and behold the rats took longer to lift the paws. It seems as though the chocolate blunted their pain response in the brain and was providing some analgesia. Chocolate contains a number of compounds that are actually good for us, including a compound called anandamide which blocks pain temporarily. Interestingly enough though, in this study, while they were unable to reproduce the results with a number of other compounds that they tried, they saw a similar response to pain when the rats were given water!

OK so here are my takeaways from this:

 1) This study was done in rats so please don't break out the candy bars whenever you feel back pain, instead, maybe have a glass of water and definitely call your chiropractor.

2) This study may also be giving us some real insight into our so very complicated relationship with food! Wow!

Here are some real benefits of eating chocolate, dark chocolate without a lot of sugar and milk added in that is:

1) Chocolate is rich in antioxidants and studies show it is able to improve cardiovascular health!

2) Dark chocolate may increase satiety and decrease cravings, making it a probably the best part of a healthy diet!

3) Some studies show that the flavonoids in chocolate increase nitric oxide production. This may lead to many benefits including improved insulin regulation, improved blood flow to the brain and muscles and of course, possibly helping patients with ED?

4) This one I think is stating the obvious, but I'll mention it anyway: Studies show that chocolate helps reduce levels of stress hormones. Reducing stress hormones usually = more happy! I can definitely appreciate that benefit!

5) The benefits of chocolate seem to be never ending. From making you smarter in the short and long term,  controlling diarrhea, possibly having an effect on cancer and  alzheimer's to suppressing coughs and protecting your skin, including chocolate in your diet seems like a win win proposition!

So what to do with the leftover valentines day chocolates? Maybe an ounce or two of dark chocolate daily may be just what the doctor ordered!

Love and Pain

Hope you had a great Valentine’s Day! February is the month of love so I thought it might be a good opportunity to talk about something a little different from our usual subject matter but no less relevant to our overall health and wellness. We have mostly shared about topics such as mechanical neck and back pain and how our diets affect our pain and overall health and wellness.  May we talk a little about how the quality of our relationships affects our health and may even impact our pain?

Sometimes patients come in with neck pain, headache or back pain as their chief complaint but once we start treating and talking in the office, stress with relationships at work, relationships at home, with friends, family and even with self comes up as a major contributing factor. Sometimes, patients don't even realize until they start talking about it that these issues were bothering them so very much.  While some patients benefit from talking to a trained therapist, many just need a non judgmental listening ear.

Studies show that stressed relationships can contribute to various negative health effects including increasing the risk of having a heart attack. Studies also show stress to be worse for us than diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity or smoking.

Having worked in health care for almost 2 decades I see the effects of stress on patients’ health almost daily. Here are a couple of suggestions for keeping your relationships healthy, reducing your stress and even maybe improving your pain:

1)      Don’t take your important relationships for granted. Make time for them every day.

2)      Stay away from negative people. Spend your time with people who are uplifting.

3)      Do fun stuff with your loved ones. Family togetherness cannot be over rated.

4)      Talk to and listen to your loved ones.

5)      Be mindful of your stress and don’t “take things out” on your loved ones

6)      Make new friends: Get a hobby, join a class, volunteer all these things help us stay connected.

7)      Be gentle with yourself. Sometimes we can be our worst critics and all by ourselves cause our stress to skyrocket.

Please share your comments about this article and any of our other articles in our Facebook community: www.facebook.com/SaporitoChiropractic. We look forward to hearing from you and having you join us! 

Being Supermom

I have so many amazing things to tell you about today!

I’m certain you will agree with me that Moms are the cornerstone of our communities and that when Moms are strong and well supported the whole family and community at large benefit!  Well, over the past year we started the Mini Mommy-Summits to provide resources for our local Moms. Our community of Moms all seemed to have the same concerns: How can we have less stress and better time management skills? What are the best nutritional choices for our families? How can we attend to our self care without taking away from other aspects of our lives?

Most moms if they are anything like me feel like they are always rushing, being reactive instead of being proactive. Add to that concerns about the health and wellness of the family, not enough sleep let alone self care, and you have a real conundrum! What we have learned is that it doesn’t have to be that way. Imagine instead the utopian life where everything is planned and happens according to plan. The family is healthy in every way, and taking time to take care of Mom is always ok. Let’s face it though, the Mom who has things this much under control seems to be more the exception than the rule, and it’s no one’s fault. This just doesn’t seem to be something we talk about much and no one has been teaching us how to do this as Moms.

What I’ve discovered is that there are 7 steps to being a veritable SuperMom. I know this because, believe it or not, there was a time not so long ago when I was not so Super J. What I found is that applying the same things I learned in Chiropractic school and the things I learned while pursuing my master’s degree in clinical nutrition could be applied to my own life, and may in some ways have saved my life. That was truly one of those “healer heal thyself” moments!

So this takes me to my amazing good news: Mini MommySummits will be hosting our 7 week – “Being SuperMom Bootcamp” starting in March! We will be sharing EVERYTHING that has worked for us in 7 convenient teleclasses. Plus we will give access to an amazing Facebook group of Moms just like me who share their joys and triumphs, get help with their concerns and just generally support each other in a fantastic way. You may know someone who wants to be a part of this movement! I know I see one in the mirror every day. For more information about how to join us, just call us in office (860-589-1491) or e mail me:drdaviashepherd@hotmail.com – put SuperMom in the subject line! I can’t wait to hear from you!