When I was in college I was addicted to Diet Coke.  I mean really addicted.  When my roommates and I were moving to Hidden Cove Apartments one Summer we looked for two things when we chose the location of our specific apartment: the proximity of the swimming pool and the location of the nearest Coke machine so that we would always have that supply of Diet Coke just a stone’s throw away.  My bedroom was actually the dining room of a huge 3 bedroom apartment so I was closest to the sliding glass doors that led out onto the patio that was adjacent to the pool and drink machine.  I must have consumed at least 6 or 7 Diet Cokes a day.  If only I had known what I was putting into my body then I would have reconsidered.  The only saving grace for me was that I didn’t consume full sugar drinks.  I was also lucky that I was not allergic to aspartame, even though the side effects of it are severe enough.  Many people suffer today from a range of illnesses that can be traced to soda consumption.  It is a public health problem that needs attention from all of us when we consider our own future health and that of our children.

According to the American Journal of Public Health, the average American consumes over 56 gallons of soft drinks per year.  In the year 2000, more than 15 billion gallons of soda were sold in this country.  That is an alarming amount given the fact that each twelve ounce can of soda contains on the average 10 teaspoons of sugar, 150 or more calories, caffeine, and multitudes of artificial preservatives and coloring.  The soft drink industry is the single heaviest user of refined white sugar in the United States.  For those who prefer the diet variety as opposed to the full sugar ones aspartame promises a whole list of its own potential health hazards.  (Try soda with Splenda if you simply must have it on occasion.)  The consumption of carbonated beverages has been linked to an increase in obesity, diabetes, osteoporosis, and various urinary tract maladies.  In spite of all of these facts, soft drinks amount to over one quarter of all beverages consumed in the United States.  The soda marketing in our country is, of course, aimed straight toward our children and teenagers.  Carbonated soda adds more sugar to the average two year old’s diet than cookies and ice cream combined.  Teenagers are the highest consumers of soft drinks because they have easy access without as much parental control.  Look in the breezeways of high schools.  Drink machines are everywhere.  The drink companies make deals with schools in many areas in order for the machines to be placed there.  They pay a certain percentage of profits to some schools.  Teenage boys consume an average of 3 or more cans of soda per day while ten percent of them admit to 7 or more cans per day.  Girls average 2 or more cans per day with ten percent of them admitting to chugging down 5 or more cans in a day.

Some of the components of soft drinks are:

Sugar – sugar increases insulin levels in the body which then increases blood pressure, obesity, heart disease, and diabetes just to name a few.  A twelve ounce serving of soda contains in excess of 100 percent of the Recommended Daily Allowance of sugar.  Tooth decay is definitely increased with higher soda consumption.

Aspartame – This is a chemical which is used as an artificial sweetener in diet sodas.  “The blue stuff” has at least 92 different health hazards associated with its use, including brain tumors, birth defects, emotional disorders and many more.

Phosphoric acid – This chemical has been suspected of hindering the body’s ability to absorb calcium and other nutrients.  This can lead to osteoporosis, a major public health issue for many people today.  Phosphoric acid may also neutralize the hydrochloric acid which is normally present in the stomach in order to facilitate proper digestion of food.  If food is not properly broken down in the stomach, the body cannot absorb the nutrients it needs from the food we eat.

Is the message pretty clear?  Drinking excessive amounts of soda can be an enormous health risk.  Spin-off illnesses as well as those directly attributed to the consumption of excessive amounts of soda cost our health care system untold millions annually.  You can easily improve your health and the health of your family by eliminating or severely restricting the amount of soft drinks you consume.  Increase your intake of pure water to help unload some of the toxins your body has undoubtedly accumulated by drinking too much soda. (Tea is not water.)  Make yourself healthier and reduce the burden on the public health system by stepping up your responsibility level for your family’s well-being.  Treat your body well.

This week’s column will wrap up my thoughts on sleep.  We have examined the importance of getting the adequate amount of sleep, doing the right things to improve your quality of sleep, and setting the proper environment for restful sleep.  The next subject on this list is choosing the right equipment for the best sleep.  The mattress you choose, the pillow you use, and the sheets on which you snooze all make up the difference in feeling well-rested and feeling as if you were just awakened from too short a nap.

I bought a new mattress about a year ago.  I thought it would be a simple process.  I’d just go into a mattress store, try a couple of the floor samples, and bingo I would buy the perfect one for me.  Nothing in my life has ever been simple, so what was I thinking?  Three months later I made my choice.  Every time I talked to a different salesperson about mattresses I got a different story about which one was right and which ones I should avoid.  There is a dizzying amount of information out there about coil counts and mattress ticking, box springs versus platforms, latex versus memory foam, flip versus non-flip, and the list goes on.  One guy in a store in Atlanta told me it doesn’t matter which one you get because they are all the same anyway.  I learned that the truth is mattresses vary greatly in quality and price so you must do your homework before you buy.  First of all, go ahead and swallow the fact that a good mattress is not going to be an inexpensive mattress.  You should spend one third of your life in bed, so make sure you spend it in a place that supports your good health.

Cheap mattresses can cause you to be in poor spinal health, and that leads to many more ailments than you want to know about.  Set the upper limit of your mattress budget then start shopping.  The perfect mattress is whichever one will make you feel supported and help to keep you in the same position all night.  Tossing and turning create a restless sleep and contribute to back pain throughout the night and upon arising.  Sleeping on a sagging, infirm, or worn out mattress will actually weaken your back muscles.  If the back muscles are weakened the normal curves of the spine can become distorted.  Pain follows this distortion and sleeping like this will aggravate an old injury or might even cause a new one.

What is the best mattress?  The answer is a firm one.  What constitutes firm?  Firmness is a subjective issue.  You have to decide for yourself what is firm for you. The one I finally decided on is one that is very firm underneath but has a 4 inch latex pillow top.  It offers the best firm support but feels very soft and conforming to my body.  Here is a list of what definitely suggests your mattress is not firm according to the American Innerspring Manufacturers Association:  soft or sagging spots where springs give less support; creaks, groans, and other noises that indicate worn out springs; cracks and damage to the frame that weaken the foundation; general wear and tear on the mattress cover itself.  Regardless of what your mattress warranty says, the average lifespan of a good quality mattress and box springs is 8 to 10 years.  If you have persistent discomfort that occurs only while or after sleeping it is a good indication that you need to change your mattress.  Most reputable companies offer a 15 or 30 day trial sleep period for your new mattress.  Go into the stores, lie on every one in your price range, then pick the one that feels best to you.  Lie down for more than a minute or two.  See how it feels under your body.  Take it home and try it out.

As far as pillows go, I personally sleep on a Tempur-pedic pillow that is made of the memory foam designed by NASA.  This pillow is expensive (the one I use costs $150) but worth every cent.  Since I began sleeping on this pillow my neck has felt over 50 percent better in the mornings and I have a difficult neck to deal with daily. I recommend it to my patients who have neck problems. I have slept on this particular type of pillow for 6 years now and will not ever be without it.  I have since bought a travel sized one to use when I am on the road.  The best sleeping positions are either on your back with a pillow under your knees or on your side with a pillow between your knees.  The pillows that are best for stuffing under or between your knees are down pillows.  They are easiest to form fit to your body and last for 4 to 5 years before they need to be replaced.  If you are allergic to down, find a hypoallergenic micro fiber pillow to substitute for the pliability of down.

Finally, in the words of a good friend of mine, “Life is just too short to sleep on cheap sheets.”  I remember going to visit a friend when I was in high school and I slept over for the night.  We slept in twin beds and I distinctly remember the feeling of those little balls of fabric rolling under my skin as I tried to sleep.  Those are called “pills” and are exceptionally uncomfortable.  They happen if the thread count of your sheets is lower than 200 threads per inch of fabric.  Trust me.  It matters.  Look at the thread count of the sheets you buy.  If it is less than 200, leave them on the shelf.  I prefer 400 thread count or more.  They provide a luxurious feeling and are very soothing to the skin.  Being born in the South, of course I still believe that cotton is king.  Buy cotton sheets.  The higher thread count cotton sheets feel like silk beneath bare skin and will encourage you to sleep better than any lullaby ever could.

So there you have it.  I have relayed my opinions and some facts that I have dug up about sleep and the right equipment for it.  Create a luxurious bedroom environment and rest up plenty during this winter and always.  Treat your body well.

Pain is for most people in the world absolutely no fun.  Pain medications work in the brain to shut off the signals from the body to the brain that something hurts, so as a general rule I don’t want to use them.  I want to know when something hurts so that I can do something about it.  Sometimes, however, pain medications are vital. There have been very few instances in which I have found it necessary to use heavy duty pain medication since I developed a more holistic approach to life, but one of those instances happened when I got shingles.  I thought I was coming apart at the seams.  It was during one of the most stressful periods of my life when I was preparing for my National Board Examinations that I woke up one morning with a very odd tingling feeling on my right side and just a few hours later felt excruciating pain in the same area.  The pain was indescribable and my skin looked normal.  No redness was there.  No scratches were there.  Nothing was evident that would be a logical cause for this horrible pain I was feeling.  I went to an instructor of differential diagnosis at school and asked her what she thought.  As it turned out she told me it sounded to her that I was getting shingles.  Lo and behold, the next day a rash appeared and I could not bear even to have the weight of a bed sheet on the skin in the area of the rash.  Misery was mine.  I had never felt any pain like this before and thought that I would surely die.

Shingles is caused by the same virus that causes chicken pox.  If you have ever had chicken pox, the virus lies dormant in the nerve roots near your spine and might lie dormant forever, never causing a moment’s worry beyond the initial outbreak of chicken pox.  However, in certain cases the virus can be reactivated.  Certain illnesses, aging, and periods of high stress can all cause a reactivation of the chicken pox virus.   If the chicken pox virus (herpes zoster) becomes reactivated it causes shingles rather than another case of chicken pox.  Shingles causes neuralgia, or nerve pain, that can be severe.  It also causes a rash which develops usually on only one side of the body since shingles follows a dermatome, or nerve pattern, on the skin.  The rash will develop into blisters in a day or so, and it can take weeks for the blisters to heal.  The time during the healing is usually a very painful one, and at certain times the blisters can be contagious to others.  If others who have not been exposed to the chicken pox virus are infected with the virus during an active stage of shingles, though, the condition that erupts will be chicken pox and not shingles.

Treatment of shingles is difficult.  There are some antiviral medications on the market today, but shingles is hard to predict if you have never felt the initial symptoms before.  The antiviral medications can reduce pain and the otherwise untreated duration of the shingles outbreak, but will not prevent the condition from developing.  When I had my experience with shingles seven years ago I saw a medical doctor who gave me narcotic pain relievers in order for me to get enough relief to go to sleep.  Just turning over in bed was excruciating, and I could not sleep because I was afraid to have a need to turn over during the night.  Aveeno oatmeal baths were very helpful in relieving the itching as the rash healed. Aveeno also helped in drying up the spots so that they would go away sooner.  A friend of mine in school was very involved in Chinese medicine and gave me some awful smelling salve that made me feel better if only temporarily.  I tried everything.  The last thing I tried was, I believe, the very best treatment of all.  One of my nutrition professors told me that an amino acid called L-Lysine when combined with vitamin C was extremely successful in speeding up the rate at which the virus returned to dormancy.  I raced off to the health food store and loaded my basket with Lysine and vitamin C and began a regimen of that.  Within two days the pain was completely gone.  The actual rash took a bit longer to heal completely, but the unpleasant symptoms that I was having were resolved. I finally was able to sleep without the numbing medication.   I have since run into other people who have reinforced the opinion that the Lysine cure works.  It certainly seemed to help me, and if I even think that I feel anything that closely resembles the tingling precursor to shingles, I immediately begin taking it again for a few days until I think the coast is clear.

You might be at risk for shingles if you have ever had chicken pox and are over the age of 50, have any autoimmune disorder, have any immune system weakening disease, or are under excessive amounts of stress.  The early symptoms include flu-like symptoms without the fever of the flu, unexplained itching, tingling, or extreme pain in an area where a rash will develop a few days later.  Get educated about it and pay attention to your body.  If there is no reason for you not to take Lysine or vitamin C, try it.  It is better to try the combination of them than to endure the misery of shingles.  Treat your body well.

In my last column I discussed how important it is to get the proper amount of sleep and to develop regular sleeping habits for a well- rested feeling.  Many of us go until we cannot anymore then fall down in bed for as many winks as we might be lucky enough to get.  As I wrote last time with age our health depends on, among other things, a good sleep regimen.  Part of getting the right amount of sleep is setting the proper environment for it.  I never really thought about consciously making an effort to set the mood for great sleeping until I started looking into this series of columns on sleep.  There are entire businesses which are built on creating the right sleep environment, and that goes well beyond just good mattresses and pillows.  Those are also essential, but that is another subject for another week.

Most sleep experts agree that the proper bedroom environment is something to think about when we are trying to determine what it is that is preventing us from feeling rested when we awake from sleeping.  There are some people who have physiological limitations which keep them from sleeping well, but for the vast majority of us a few simple things can be done at home to make for better rest.  Noise level, temperature, humidity, light level and, believe it or not, décor and cleanliness of the room all play roles in the quality of your sleep.  I fall asleep fairly easily but if any noise occurs in my immediate environment I awaken instantly.  That is annoying.  I have oak trees which hang directly over the area of my house that includes my bedroom.  You can imagine how much fun the acorn rainy season was for me and my attempts to get sleep.  I have on my bedside table a pair of those squishy earplugs that form to your ear canal and if I can’t block out the noises I have to insert them.  They’re cheap and readily available at drugstores everywhere.  Another way to block out the dripping faucet noise or the barking dog across the street is to create some “white noise” in your room.  Ceiling fans’ whirring works and so does a room air conditioner or humidifier.  If you aren’t pleased with these the gadget stores like Brookstone and Hammacher-Schlemmer carry machines which have sounds like ocean waves, rain, or just low-level static that will lull you to sleep.  Whatever remedy works, it is vital to keep the noise level down if you want to go to sleep easily and stay asleep.  Television and radio noises and light from the television actually create a more stressful environment and should not be used to help fall asleep.

Some people are light –sensitive and couldn’t sleep with a pinhole of it present if their lives depended on it.  If this is you, use heavy dark draperies to block out light that comes into the windows and some sort of draft-dodger to keep out the light that sometimes comes under the bedroom door.  As goofy as you might think they look, eyeshades actually help to keep out extra light and can help if you are trying to nap when it is light outside.

It is healthier to sleep in a cool room.  Whether it is winter or summer a cool 65 degrees is the perfect temperature for sleeping.  Studies have shown that being too hot can create restlessness and even induce nightmares.  If you feel too cool at this temperature a blanket will help but breathing is easier and you will sleep much better with the room at 65 degrees.  The ideal humidity level is somewhere between 60 and 70 percent for a good night’s rest.  Humidifiers are available to keep this level steady and are more necessary for us in the South in winter.  These machines will also help create the “white noise” effect and induce deep, comfortable sleep.

When you are decorating your bedroom, keep a few simple thoughts in mind.  If you want a restful sleeping space, your refuge should be painted in colors that bring about in you feelings of peace and tranquility.  Blues and greens are popular choices because they bring inside the colors of water and trees.  Try sleeping in a bright red and orange room.  The difference in the quality of sleep is palpable.  The best, most restful sleep is found in a soft blue or green room as these are much more soothing colors.  Go to the paint aisle of any decorating store and pay attention to what mood changes might occur as you consider one color over the next.

Keep the room free of junk and clutter.  Piles of laundry, stacks of reports to be read, trinkets and knick-knacks all create feelings of stress.  Walls cluttered with multiple busy photographs or meaningless space-filling hangings will make you feel as if the room is closing in on you.  Keep the space as free of clutter as possible including floors and walls.  A friend of mine has a grandmother who is a hopeless packrat.  She has a house that is unbelievably cluttered to the point of having trails through “stuff” so that you can walk from one room to another.  My friend’s little brother had nightmares of suffocating every time he spent the night with their grandmother because he was afraid the piles of things would fall on him at night and no one would be able to find him.  Although that seems irrational the feeling of being swallowed up by clutter is a very real one.  Pay attention to the clutter in your sleeping space and check it out for yourself.  A neat and orderly space is definitely more conducive to quality sleep.

Making a few changes in the room in which you sleep will definitely increase the restfulness you feel after the necessary 6 to 8 hours in bed.  The right sleeping environment might not be something you have thought about before, but will guarantee a better night’s rest.  Treat your body well.

When I graduated from Chiropractic school in 1998, I was convinced that my practice would be full of wellness-minded people who wanted to get their bodies up to optimum performance and keep it there.  The philosophers at our school promised a Utopia in which people sought our services in droves because they wanted to maximize their human potential. Pain management was not going to be an issue. I was not going to take automobile accident cases because I had been convinced by some of my colleagues that there was an awful stigma associated with taking these cases and there wasn’t much in the way of correction that we could do for these patients anyway.  Boy was I wrong.  It is hard to admit when you are wrong, but I was dead wrong.  We have many wellness-minded people in our practice, and most of them are reaching their physical potential and keeping it.  Unfortunately some of them have been in automobile accidents.  They needed us more than ever after the accidents happened, so by necessity I have learned how to treat people with whiplash injuries and a host of problems that result from seatbelt injury.

Three times in the past week alone we have seen patients who were already members of our practice get involved in automobile accidents and bring in very bad injuries from seatbelts.  Seatbelts are designed to protect your life in the event of an impact, but in many instances they cause injuries to the shoulder girdle and create severe pain, bruising, and muscle tearing when an automobile accident occurs.  Most of the time when a seatbelt causes injury, it is from a rear-end collision, a rollover, or the type of impact that the crash test dummies get to experience in all of those funny commercials.  The injuries we have seen in the past week are far from funny, however.  One lady has an enormous bruise from her clavicle, or collar bone, all the way down below one of her breasts.  Another person has a bruised neck, painful rib cage from bone bruising, and muscle spasm so severe in her shoulder that it hurts to move it.  A mother and her two children were involved in a t-bone accident where someone ran a red light and impacted their vehicle at a high rate of speed.  Her six year old boy had a seatbelt injury that was so bad that his head was tilted to one side and his entire spine was curved to one side.  His muscles were in such spasm that it hurt him for me to palpate them.  He was complaining of pain, but as he said, “They told me I was fine at the hospital.”   It was lucky for him that his mom brought him in anyway.  I saw him for the first time after the accident last Thursday and he was 80 percent better after just one treatment.

It is absolutely essential that injuries after motor vehicle accidents be handled as soon as possible after they happen.  If that little boy’s mom had left him in the physical shape that he was in after their wreck, he could have very easily developed a scoliosis that would have plagued him for the rest of his life.  If his neck had been left to be tilted to one side, nerve pressure would definitely have been an issue and headaches, localized pain, and muscle imbalance would certainly have followed.  Physical trauma is one of the main reasons we degenerate.  If your body has been traumatized and left to heal on its own without repairing and correcting the problems caused by whatever impact you have suffered, the body senses instability and does what it innately needs to do: tries to stabilize it.  This translates into scar tissue formation and in some cases extra calcium deposition that might result in painful spurs down the road. Chiropractors help repair the damage that has been done by trauma every single day.  If treatment is started within 72 hours after the injury, the healing time is cut in half and the chance for complete recovery without future problems is greatly increased.  Many of the people I see are suffering from degeneration caused by old physical trauma that was left untreated.  If some of these injuries had been treated sooner, the degeneration would by no means be as bad as it is now and in many cases would not be there at all.

While it is still true that chiropractic takes people who have nervous system interference caused by vertebral subluxations and helps them to realize their full human potential by releasing that interference, it is also true that those whose bodies have suffered trauma need chiropractors.  The sooner your body gets its problems corrected, the better your future will be.  Treat your body well.

There was a time last weekend when I thought my chronic sciatica was going to act up.  We were in Chicago for a conference and were prepared for temperatures in the upper 70’s and lower 80’s since that is what the most accurate weather in the universe – up to the minute satellite forecasts from The Weather Channel – told us.  I was so excited to be able to pack only Capri pants and sleeveless tops with my open-toed Birkenstock sandals because that meant only one suitcase and I could avoid the long lines at baggage claim by using a carry-on.  On Thursday morning I needed to call into the office to check in and couldn’t get a good signal on my phone inside the Marriott in downtown Chicago, so I stepped outside to see if it was better.  This Southern girl almost came undone!  On May 13, it was 45 degrees and raining.  My teeth were chattering as I stood outside in the cold with hardly anything on in comparison to the mid-westerners I was watching walk by.  My body almost went into shock.  It was a good thing that the best shopping in the mid-west is on the Magnificent Mile in Chicago, because my task was set before me and I needed some clothes.  I feverishly ran up Michigan Avenue looking for anything with long sleeves that might still be on the racks in the middle of May.  This power shopping is what got my sciatic nerve upset.  I had not prepared my body for the physical demand of running in the cold with the wrong shoes on, and soon the tell-tale pain was shooting down the back of my right thigh.  This was a forecast of a more accurate nature because we have seen no fewer than 25 people this week with sciatica and I thought it would be appropriate to visit the subject for those of you who might be suffering with it.

Sciatica is the name for the condition which involves inflammation and pain that result from irritation of the sciatic nerve.  As wide as your thumb, the sciatic nerve is the largest nerve in the body.  It originates at the roots of the nerves that stem from the lowest segments of the spine and travels through the muscles of the buttocks, the back of the thigh and calf, down the leg, and to the sole of the foot.  This makes it one of the longest nerves in the body.  Since its path is so long and tortuous, there are many opportunities for damage to it to occur.  Pain associated with sciatica can vary widely depending on where the damage occurred, what activities of daily living aggravate it, and how long the problem has existed.  Most often it is characterized by a burning pain that goes from the buttocks down the back of the thigh and into the leg.  Occasionally sufferers report that the pain is so severe that they can’t put weight fully on one foot because the nerve is irritated on the sole of the foot.  Tingling sometimes accompanies the pain, but will come and go erratically.

The two types of sciatica that we deal with regularly are those that are lumbogenic (originating from one or more of the lumbar vertebrae) or musculogenic (originating from a muscle).  If the pain is lumbogenic, the cause is usually a slight bulge in a disc which is putting pressure on the nerve roots from which the sciatic nerve originates. This is treated by first discovering which segment is causing the problem then systematically adjusting that segment to decrease the disc bulge and thereby remove the pressure from the nerve roots.  The pain is usually better immediately, but might take a few days to go away completely due to inflammation that has built up in the area.  Several adjustments along with the use of a strategically placed ice pack usually take care of the problem.  Rehabilitation is necessary to prevent the return of lumbogenic sciatica.

Musculogenic sciatica can be trickier to treat.  We must first isolate exactly which muscle is causing the problem.  If a lower back or large buttock muscle is the culprit, it is due to spasm in the muscle and should be treated with trigger point therapy and muscle stimulation to ease the muscular tension and inflammation.  If another small muscle in the buttock is causing the problem, it is generally too lax and is therefore lying directly on the sciatic nerve.  The most common offender is the piriformis, or pear-shaped, muscle.  This muscle must be lifted off the nerve and exercised so that the irritation goes away.  There are specialized techniques which exercise this particular muscle.  Muscle stimulation, ice, and rehabilitation are all necessary to maintain the correction of musculogenic sciatica, and lifestyle alterations have to be made to prevent its return.

If you are prone to have exacerbations of sciatica, taking off in a dead run in 45 degree rainy weather is certain to leave you wondering why you were temporarily insane.   As some of the members of our practice can attest, so can kamikaze gardening, cleaning out the attic, driving for hundreds of miles without stopping, and just about anything else that you know deep in your heart you have no business doing.  Lucky for me I was in a room full of chiropractors for the whole weekend, so I did not have a full-blown flare-up.

I will never trust The Weather Channel again, however, even though it gave me a great excuse to do some power shopping.  Treat your body well.

My last column was about roller coasters and being cautious when you ride them.  Some people who read it were amazed that a free spirit like me would be so careful and avoid something like a roller coaster as a way to fulfill my thrill seeking drives.  My thrill seeking has taken a turn that is more like a self-challenge than a desire to be scared out of my wits or to risk my own health for a moment’s pleasure. This past week 5 members of our staff traveled to Colorado to embark on some team-building exercises and I thought I would share our experiences and maybe even challenge some of you to expand your horizons and push the limits of what you think you might be capable of in order to achieve a sense of confidence beyond your current awareness.  There is no substitute for the feeling that you have actually done something that you thought was too much for you or something that you were afraid to tackle.

A few years ago I went to a place in the Rocky Mountains called Glenwood Springs.  It is a quaint mountain town that boasts a one million gallon mineral spring-fed swimming pool that is 400 feet long and 100 feet wide, supposedly the world’s largest hot therapy pool (100 feet long by 30 feet wide), and an area where there are caves that mimic a steam room naturally.  I loved the way I felt after enjoying the time I spent there, and vowed to return someday.  It was time to go on a team trip, and I persuaded our staff members to choose Glenwood Springs as a destination for it.  The spa-like offerings of Glenwood appealed to everyone.  A promise of a spa day to include herbal body wraps, full body massages, and unlimited time in the mineral spring water pool and vapor caves was all it took for the gang to jump on board and fall in love with the idea of a Rocky Mountain getaway.  The only things I left out of my original description of the trip were the possibilities that we would go on a whitewater rafting adventure down the Colorado River and a rigorous hike that meandered one and a half miles through a portion of Glenwood Canyon and up to a lake that was created by a geological fault – mostly vertical, rocky, and very challenging.

Did I fail to mention that the youngest member of our traveling team is 30?  When I outlined the adventures of our trip I met some silent stares and comments like, “I’ll be waiting on y’all when you get back.”  One of our staff members mentioned the fact that heel spurs and leg cramps would certainly keep her from making a hike like the one I described.  Her husband even warned her not to attempt the hike.  Our office manager who is also my mom said, “I’m not going rafting.  I don’t like being in the sun and I’ve never done it before.  I’ll go for the walk but I’m not going rafting.”  So off we went – the divided and unsure group that we were.  I pretended to be completely confident in what we were about to do, but I myself had never been whitewater rafting.  I had made the hike to Hanging Lake, but the river I had never attempted.  I was going to test myself if I expected everyone else to.  I made the reservations for the rafting trip to be on the first day of our five in the mountains.

All five of us showed up to the rafting company slightly apprehensive but ready for our limits to be tested.  The trip was a three hour adventure that would take us over some exciting rapids on the Colorado River and would require that we sign a waiver of liability that took all responsibility for injury off the shoulders of the outfitters.  That made me nervous, but we had to sign the waiver if we were to go on the trip.  We suited up in our huge orange life vests and took off for a beautiful trip that none of us would ever forget.  It was fun and we all helped to paddle the boat down the river and through the rapids which were much milder than any of us had imagined.  No sweat.  We had handled the first hurdle of our challenging trip hands down.  We celebrated our first victory and all built a little confidence for the next round.

Hanging Lake was next.  We all started on the trail early the next morning, and it seemed too mild at first.  It was a concrete path that wound along the banks of the river and led to a trailhead that went immediately up onto a rocky course that would challenge the very fibers of our beings.  For the next three hours, we struggled uphill, over boulders, and through very rugged terrain that required us to give each other a hand at more than one turn.  We were pulling on each other and stopping so that each of us could rest and get water.  Everyone was cheering each other on and offering encouragement all along the way.  When we finally reached the top and there was a breathtaking view of a beautiful blue lake and a rock which spouted icy cold water from its belly to form a gorgeous waterfall we were in awe of what we saw and what we had accomplished.  No one could believe how far we had come or what we had endured to get there.  Our victory was huge, and we celebrated it together.  All of us had photos taken at the base of the mountain when we came down to show people what we had done.  Everyone commented that if we could climb that mountain there is nothing we can’t do.

The upshot of this whole trip is that we all broke barriers that we had placed before us.  No one drowned.  No one was too sun-scorched.  No leg cramps or heel spurs got in our way.  Mountains were not too high for us to climb.  Fear was replaced by camaraderie and trust in each other.  We truly had the best team building experience of my life.  I appreciate the people who work in our office in ways that I have not before.  I challenge you to find new ways to get to know yourself and the people around you.  Go out of your comfort zone and try something you said you never would.  Trust in those around you to help you widen your horizons.  You will be glad you did.  Treat your body and your spirit well.

It’s the time of year when people begin to make those trite New Year’s resolutions that seem never to come to fruition.  “I’m going to exercise every day.”  “At midnight on December 31^st, I quit smoking.”   “I’m going to lose weight.”  There are hundreds of them, I am sure, but the thing that always bugged me about empty resolutions was the fact that I never understood why I didn’t comply with my own wishes.  I figured it all out and, of course, the answer is complicated.

There is a big difference between goals and resolutions.  According to World Book Dictionary:

goal: a thing for which an effort is made; thing wanted

resolution: a thing decided on; thing determined; the power of holding firmly to a purpose

To make a resolution one needs to be really sure about the level of commitment to seeing it through.  To set goals one needs to come up with a list of things he wants and figure out a plan to get them.  These can change frequently and do when goals are reached. New ones have to be set.  Goals keep one going in a positive direction.  They are things for which an effort is made.  That means that if the effort is not quite enough to hit the intended mark, just go back to the drawing board and try again.  Nothing is lost in this game of goal setting.  Just keep trying.  On the other hand, resolutions are much more serious, and guilt is attached to not achieving the intended level of resolve.  Resolutions cannot be made in five minutes before the toast and the big peach drop.  Serious time and thought should go into the process.

If, for example, your resolution is to quit smoking, you must decide just why you want to quit.  If it is for the wrong reason, it should be a goal and not a resolution.  Otherwise you will set yourself up for failure right off the bat.  If you want to quit for very personal health reasons or because you are tired of the negative aspects of smoking, chances are good that a resolution to do so will work.  If you are quitting because your significant other want you to, make it a goal to quit by a certain time, but don’t resolve to do it by then because you might not make it.  If it is a goal, you can always change the targeted quit date as it comes around if you are not personally ready to give up the smokes.

For those in the Christian faith, tomorrow is Easter Sunday – the end of the 40 days of Lenten sacrifice, the celebration of the resurrection of Christ, and a very important day in the ecumenical calendar.  It also marks a period of renewal for people who have been in a reflective space for the past 40 days.  Renewal is essential for all of us no matter what the origins of our faith set forth.  Without the promise of renewal we can sometimes fall into ruts and lose the focus that is the driving force behind aspiring to reach our goals.  The high periods in our lives make the low ones much easier to tolerate.

Although it is sometimes difficult to discipline ourselves to regroup, the world is full of hints that it is a good idea.  Tides ebb and flow, dawn follows darkness, and spring makes way for warmth and beauty following cold, dreary winter.  There is only so far down something can go before up is inevitable.  We should take the time to look at our lives and assess the direction in which we are traveling periodically in order to assure that we are getting where we want to go.  There are simple things we can do in the spirit of renewal that will make a huge difference in our lives and the lives of others.

There was a movement not too long ago where people were encouraged to practice “random acts of kindness” and watch what happens. When I lived in Savannah I was a member of a group of people who got together periodically and held discussions similar to a mastermind group and we wanted to participate in this movement to see how it affected our lives.  We decided to make a conscious effort to perform at least three acts of kindness for a stranger every day for a month, and then we would get together again to compare notes.  I would do unusual things like pay for someone’s meals anonymously at the deli or pay for someone behind me at the gas station.  I actually paid a parking bill at the airport once for a man who drove a much nicer car than I did at the time.  It isn’t about giving to those who don’t have.  It is about giving to others just because.  I picked up trash that someone threw on the ground at the bank, smiled at the usually grumpy cashier at the movie theater and wished her a great day, and went out of my way to hold the door at the mall for whoever was coming in after me.  As much as I despise the cigarette butts that people thump out the windows of their cars and don’t consider it littering, I picked up some of them from the street in front of my house. I started to acknowledge people whose jobs I usually took for granted and thanked them for making my life better.  What I found during this exercise was that my life was generally much happier and I felt more compassion toward others.  I also learned that it is very difficult for someone to be grouchy and obstinate toward me when I am sending out smiles and genuine caring for others.  Compassion and good will from others started to filter down to me.  My life didn’t seem to have as many difficulties as it did before.  It was as if I had won the emotional lottery.  Colors became brighter, the little things that make me smile seemed to happen more often, and life for me developed a deeper meaning.  The little roadblocks to getting where I wanted to go seemed to fall away.

While I am not consciously exercising the three random acts of kindness every single day, I have discovered that the urges to be more kind in general have stuck with me.  There is truth to the assumption that people will treat you as you treat them.  The person you are actually kind to might not return the kindness, but someone else in your travels will.  Outflow equals inflow.  Try the exercise and see how it changes your life.  This is not to say that everything in life will be hunky-dory suddenly just because you have decided to be a more kind and thoughtful person.  The thing to look forward to is that it will put a new face on the entire experience of life for you.  Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.”  What would happen if everyone decided to take part?  What if your acts of kindness began a wave of exponential kindness in Milledgeville?

Disappointments in life are inevitable.  The best thing about them is that somewhere following the disappointment there will be something amazing that will happen to make up for it.  Look for the amazing things in life to rejuvenate you and breathe new vision into your ordinary days.  My wish for you is that this time of renewal is one that will bring about lasting life changes that you can carry forward and spread to others.  Happy Easter.  Treat your body and your spirit well.

In recent months, we have been given opportunities to sponsor several different charity events – Relay For Life, The March of Dimes walk, Light of Hope for CASA, and the “It’s Reigning Cats and Dogs” auction that will benefit ARF.  We took the opportunities that various organizations offered for many reasons.   Sure, it’s good advertising and a lot of fun to participate in these events, but the real spirit of our donations goes much deeper than that.  I thought I’d share some of those reasons with you in anticipation of upcoming community activities and perhaps spark additional interest in them.

When we were approached and asked to become the first corporate sponsors for the 2002 Relay For Life , there was no lag time in our decision because our practice is full of cancer survivors and they touch us in ways that are inexplicable.  When I see the smile and hear the fresh sarcasm of a 12 year old leukemia survivor I am grateful that she gives me the chance to keep her nervous system clear and free of interference.  A wonderful couple who are both survivors honor us with the opportunity to take care of them.  They are in their sixties, and still as in love as they were the day they met.  When she talks about him her eyes have a sweet glow and when he talks about her, he tenderly insists on referring to her as “Mama”.  A very special and important person to Milledgeville and to the readers of this paper is a welcome sight every time she graces our office with her presence.  She smiles when she really doesn’t want to and shares big fish stories with us.  We can always count on hearing a great big unmistakable belly laugh from one man who is retired but still working hard grooming his yard to make his wife, also a survivor, happy.  A single mother who spends her mornings and afternoons riding a school bus to chaperone difficult children says we are the only doctors who listen to her and treat her like a human being.  A young woman who was terrified to see a chiropractor before she came to us is also a survivor.  Now she looks forward to her adjustments and shares with us her love for Big Mike and the Booty Papas.  More than anything, these people and their courage inspire us to be involved with Relay.

While it doesn’t get the publicity today that it once did,  March of Dimes has always spearheaded research for prevention and treatment of birth defects of all types.  My practice partner, Dr.Tracy Green, has a very special reason for supporting March of Dimes.  In 1974, her baby brother Holland was born with cerebral palsy.  With support from March of Dimes, Holland received the three surgeries that he needed in order to be able to walk.  In 1980 Holland was pictured with Mary Ann Mobley as poster child for March of Dimes and was featured on the nationally broadcast telethon.

There is a very unique individual who is a member of our practice who has a heart full of love to give a group of fortunate foster children.  She works full time, coaches basketball and track, and still finds time to devote to children who would otherwise not have loving parents.  Court Appointed Special Advocates recently held a candlelight vigil for those children who are the victims of neglect and abuse.  People who truly make a difference in the lives of these children are all around us, and they deserve our support.

As for the ARF auction, we believe that animals deserve a humane existence, and will do all that we can to support agencies who are willing to give of their time, talents, and treasure to see that this is provided for the animals of our community.

The world in which we all live is no longer an “I” world.  Helping each other is not only noble but also necessary for a functional society, and it is a spiritual truth that that which you give comes back to you many times over.  Part of the mission statement for graduates of Life University, from which Dr. Green and I graduated, is “To give, to love, and to serve out of your own abundance”.  It is our pleasure to do so, and our promise to you that if you will latch onto a cause and support it, abundance will be yours.  Treat your spirit well.