.Most people that walk through our front doors get some help or relief, but not everyone. Sometimes there is too much deterioration and the body is too weak to get better.  Working with the body is very inexact, but there are a few rules that do apply.

#1 The body will do the best it can with what it has. Hummm, sounds like a good rule for life in general. If your day was tough, check this video out.

If you get hurt and your diet isn’t filled with good clean vitamins, minerals, proteins, fats your body will still try and repair itself but in a weaker way because it doesn’t have enough building material.

Mass produced food is the lowest grade food on the market. It is stripped down in nutrition for storage and transportation. The human body is incredibly adaptable and can survive a long time eating out but it does progressively get weaker when not nourished.

Injuries can take longer to heal, colds come on faster and stay longer, degenerative diseases, like arthritis appear and cause problems and the list can keep going.

#2 The longer you wait to get help, the more chronic a problem becomes.

Let’s say you get hurt. A little pain, nothing to bad. The body will adapt and “do the best it can” Pain goes away, cool. After a few more injuries the body will run out of the ability to adapt and the lingers a little longer, not cool. This is where we see 90% of our patients.

Most people who come in get some relief in a few weeks or even a few months. They may need to get a tune up every so often, but they live happy, well adjusted lives. I’ve gotten adjusted every week for the last 15 years because I feel so much better afterwards.

The most dangerous words

“I thought it would go away”

If pains are lingering and not going away, the red flags should be going up. The longer you let problems exist, the more chronic they become. The more chronic, the more difficult they are to treat and the longer it takes. Sometimes miracles happen, but we can’t count on them.

I remember the first time I had to tell a patient “I don’t think I can help you” She was 90 and her spine was literally falling apart. Since she didn’t have any other options, the medics had done all they could with her, I agreed to at least try. She was ready for anything, and she was willing to do anything to get some relief. She got her relief and with an adjustment every week and lived pain-free almost until she died. To her, that meant a lot that she wasn’t in pain.

#3 Attitude means everything.

I have met some real sourpuss’s in my life and they rarely if ever get better, because they always need something to complain about. Watch the video at the top again. They say if we all had our problems represented by playing cards and we all showed our hands at the end of the game. Most of us would keep the cards we were dealt, rather than take someone elses.

If a happy positive attitude is not yours by nature, never fear it can be learned. You don’t need some magic happy pill. This is just a reframing of lifes experiences and how you percieve them and starting your day with good habits and filling it with good activities and good people.

Count your blessings.

I know this or that bad thing happened to you and there was nothing good about it. BULL, every dark cloud has a white lining and the sun shining behind it. A positive attitude in life can see the sun through the cloud. It may take you YEARS to see the sun, but every dark cloud that has rained on me has been somekind of blessing. I’ve had to get some big umbrellas, but the more I look at something bad as having a positive side the better I get at it.

Start your day with a smile on your face and looking forward to doing something you love that day. If that seems impossible then start looking for the answers to why you can’t do that. Maybe you need a new job, a new friend, a new counselor, a new menu, a new house, a new book to read. If you are crabby in the morning start looking for ways to fix it. Your body will thanks you.

Misery love company.

People don’t go to bars at 3:00 in the afternoon to talk about how great life is.

Like attracts like.

Fill your life with good people, and that may be tough, but it is critical for a good day and a healthy body. That may mean a new church, new friends, or even a new spouse. That may be dramatic but I have seen the healthy benefits in patients who needed to make the tough changes.

In summary, if you eat some good wholesome food, don’t wait for problems to become chronic, and have a good attitude about health and feeling good there is no stopping you from feeling good and being healthier.

Health is a daily activity. You can’t wait until you’re 80 to start thinking about being healthy.

Enjoy the day. If this helped you, send it on to people you care about.

Dr. Altman

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“Well son, I think you should dig ditches because you don’t have the smarts to do….”

You can fill in the rest.

I think a guidance counselor should be renamed to a dream counselor.  I know that is a way too lame name, but I couldn’t come up with anything else.

I think we as adults could use a dream counselor visit every 6 months.  I know that sounds like a MLM training class, but it could be useful.  I need help calling it something else, but the idea is sound.  Dream just conotates  something that isn’t really possible.  My dreams of flying aren’t going to happen.

A goal is often too vague, ie…I want a new car.
Lame… For starters it is too general.  What kind of car, make, model, color, year, MPG, trim, and when do you want it by and how are you going to obtain it.  It has to have a deadline.  I think you can skip this as well.

You son- need a mission.   What are you willing to die for.  That may be extreme, but you get the idea.  You need something that will get you out of bed and ready to take off.  If someone beat you to a pulp, what would give you reason to get back up.  If you have that kind of mission and desire nothing else will matter.  You will make it happen.  I wish my guidance counselor would have helped me find my mission.

Hiking your way to the future.

I love to hike in the mountains with my family.  The mountains along with the ocean really give me the perspective of being insignificant and humble.  I think that is why some of the best CEO’s still backpack.  It keeps you in perspective.  Your mission is like a long trail through the woods.

Pick a path and stay on it until it is complete, or you realize that you want a different path with a better view.  If you read the Robert Frost poem “The road not taken”, yesterday, he made the clear observation that “way leads on to way”.  You will never go back to who you were and will likely never go back to where you started from.

If you don’t have a trail, map, compass, or GPS, and are just going out in the woods for a 8 hour hike.  There is a good chance most people will be hopelessly lost.  Even if you have a trail, the more you wander off, the more likely you are to get lost.  This is you life.  What path are you walking on?  The more you wander the less likely you will complete your mission.

What is your direction?____________________

Your path?___________________________
Why are you getting out of bed?________________________________

Is that a good enough reason?______________________________

When you work you are a flute through whose heart
the whispering of the hours turns to music.  To love
life through labor is to be intimate with life’s inmost secret.
All work is empty save when there is love, for work is
love made visible.
-Kahlil Gibran

Can you get up and smile about what you are doing tomorrow?

Are you loving what you do?  Can you feel the music of your work?

Kahlil calls this “life’s inmost secret”.  This is often hard to do and sometimes impossible at some moments.  I think if you work in Haiti right now this would challenge you.  Through out my life I haven’t always had the jobs I long for, but I have always worked towards that.

Life is too short to hate what you do for work.  Just think about spending 8 hours with mental negativity and mayhem going on in your brain everyday.  That is tough on the body.  Remember health comes from a good mind, body, and spirit.  So what do you do?

You only have two choices:

#1 Get going and do what you love to do.  The money will follow.  Your mind “health” craves this.

#2 If you can’t change your job right now, you must change how you “think” about it.  Don’t waste another minute hating it.

If you don’t do one of those two things you are sacrificing 1/3 of your health.  Would you throw 1/3 of your money away.  Get the matches and strike them up and start burning your dollar bills.  What if you’re stuck?  Can’t find a direction?  Can’t find your purpose?

A few tips for you:

#1 Change your routine.  Get off the treadmill of life and just sit still and be quite and keep your environment quite for just 5 minutes.  That’s it.  Let your brain run wild and let it go.  Don’t stop it, don’t control it, just let it wander.  Give it time and you’ll be surprised.

#2 Prepare for rain.  If you want to be a weather man, you need to study clouds.  If you want to be an artist, you need to spend some time drawing.  Spend some time everyday on what you want.  Watching T.V. doesn’t count unless you want to be a potato or a an actor.

When you are inspired by some great purpose,
some extraordinary project,
all your thoughts break their bonds;
Your mind transcends limitations,

….You discover yourself to be a greater person
than you ever dreamed yourself to be.
-Patanjali

Love what you do one way or another.  Your health depends on it.