Simple as it may seem, getting enough quality sleep is one of the most important things you can do to safeguard and improve your health. Here are six reasons you need to get sufficient sleep, according to the Harvard Women’s Health Watch:

1. Learning and memory: Sleep helps the brain commit new information to memory through a process called memory consolidation. In studies, people who’d slept after learning a task did better on tests later.
2. Metabolism and weight: Chronic sleep deprivation may cause weight gain by affecting the way our bodies process and store carbohydrates, and by altering levels of hormones that affect our appetite.
3. Safety: Sleep debt contributes to a greater tendency to fall asleep during the daytime. These lapses may cause falls and mistakes such as medical errors, air traffic mishaps, and road accidents.
4. Mood: Sleep loss may result in irritability, impatience, inability to concentrate, and moodiness. Too little sleep can also leave you too tired to do the things you like to do.
5. Cardiovascular health: Serious sleep disorders have been linked to hypertension, increased stress hormone levels, and irregular heartbeat.
6. Disease: Sleep deprivation alters immune function, including the activity of the body’s killer cells. Keeping up with sleep may also help fight cancer.

Healthguide.org offers these tips on getting and staying out of sleep debt:

While you can’t pay off sleep debt in a night or even a weekend, with a little effort and planning, you can get back on track.

• Aim for at least 7.5 hours of sleep every night. Make sure you don’t fall farther in debt by blocking off enough time for sleep each night. Consistency is the key.
• Settle short-term sleep debt with an extra hour or two per night. If you lost 10 hours of sleep, pay the debt back in nightly one or two-hour installments.
• Keep a sleep diary. Record when you go to bed, when you get up, your total hours of sleep, and how you feel during the day. As you keep track of your sleep, you’ll discover your natural patterns and get to know your sleep needs.
• Take a sleep vacation to pay off a long-term sleep debt. Pick a two-week period when you have a flexible schedule. Go to bed at the same time every night and allow yourself to sleep until you wake up naturally. No alarm clocks! If you continue to keep the same bedtime and wake up naturally, you’ll eventually dig your way out of debt and arrive at the sleep schedule that’s ideal for you.

Make sleep a priority. Just as you schedule time for work and other commitments, you should schedule enough time for sleep. Instead of cutting back on sleep in order to tackle the rest of your daily tasks, put sleep at the top of your to-do list

Here are some delicious, nutritious dishes you can include in your summertime menu:

Jalapeno-Lime Corn on the Cob (Courtesy of Rachel Ray)

Ingredients:

1 stick butter                                    1 teaspoon sweet paprika

1 lime, juiced and zested              1 clove garlic

1 small jalapeno, seeded              1 slice bread, of any kind

6 ears corn on the cob, husked    Coarse salt

Directions:

Combine butter, lime, jalapeno, garlic and paprika in food processor and pulse process until smooth. Place on waxed paper or plastic and roll. Place in freezer until ready to serve. Cook corn by boiling, steaming or grilling. Cut disks of butter and rub onto corn, nesting the butter in a slice of bread to apply it to the hot corn. Season ears with salt (and fight over the hot buttered bread slice!)

Asparagus, Artichoke and Mushroom Saute with Tarragon Vinaigrette

(courtesy of Giada De Laurentis)

Ingredients:

Vegetable Saute:

2 tablespoons olive oil          1 bunch asparagus (1 pound), sliced into 3-inch pieces

1 large shallot, sliced            8 ounces mushrooms, sliced

1 clove garlic, minced         1 (8-ounce) package frozen artichoke hearts, thawed

1/2 teaspoon salt                  1/2 pint teardrop tomatoes, halved

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Tarragon Vinaigrette:

6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

3 tablespoons white wine vinegar

2 tablespoons chopped fresh tarragon leaves

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Directions For the Vegetable Saute:

Warm the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the shallot and the garlic and cook until tender, about 2 minutes. Add the mushrooms and cook until golden, about 5 minutes. Add the asparagus and artichokes and cook until the asparagus is tender, about 5 more minutes. Turn off the heat and add the tomatoes, salt and pepper and reserve.

Directions For the Tarragon Vinaigrette:

Combine the oil, vinegar, tarragon, salt and pepper in a glass screw-top jar. Seal the jar and shake vigorously to mix the vinaigrette. Toss the vegetables with the vinaigrette and serve.

Farro Salad with Grilled Eggplant, Tomatoes and Onion (courtesy of Bobby Flay)

Farro is a food product consisting of the grains of certain wheat species in whole form.  It is sold dried and is prepared by cooking in water until soft, but still crunchy (many recommend first soaking overnight). It may be eaten plain, though it is often used as an ingredient in dishes such as salads and soups. It is sometimes ground into flour and used to make pasta or bread.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups farro

1/2 pint grape tomatoes, washed and sliced in 1/2

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1/4 cup chopped fresh dill, plus more for garnish

3 Japanese (baby) eggplants, halved   Olive oil, for brushing

1 small red onion, peeled, halved, and thickly sliced

Sherry Vinaigrette, recipe follows

Directions:

Cook farro in a large pot of boiling salted water until just tender, about 15 minutes. Drain well and place in a large bowl. Heat grill to high. While the farro is cooking, brush the eggplants and onion slices with oil and season with salt and pepper. Grill for 3 to 4 minutes on each side or until just cooked through. Remove from the grill and cut into 1-inch dice. Add the eggplant and onions to the farro along with the tomatoes and dill. Pour Sherry Vinegar over the farro mixture and stir to combine. Garnish with additional dill. Best served at room temperature.

Sherry Vinaigrette:

1 small shallot, finely chopped

1/4 cup sherry vinegar or balsamic vinegar

2 teaspoons Dijon mustard

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1/4 cup chopped fresh dill

1/2 cup olive oil

Whisk together the shallot, vinegar, mustard, salt, pepper, and dill in a small bowl. Slowly whisk in the oil until emulsified.

Easy, fun recipes like this combine healthy ingredients with interesting new flavors your family will enjoy! You can find lots more at www.foodnetwork.com.

People want to know – what does it take to be healthy? What habits and behaviors are likely to lead to more vitality? How do we avoid getting sick, and spend more of our time being well?

There are three basic steps each of us can take to walk the path of good health.

First, we need to learn to eat right. Providing quality fuel for this human machine is critical in maintaining and developing the best health possible. While there are many styles of good eating, there are a few simple guidelines we must all respect:

–       eat enough but not too much

–       stick with fresh whole foods over processed foods

–       avoid toxic substances like preservatives, food additives and colorings

–       strike a proper balance between proteins, fats and carbohydrates

–       drink water

–       supplement with vitamins and minerals from natural sources

Second, we need to think right, creating a healthy mindset that helps us deal with the stresses of our lives effectively.  Developing supportive self-talk, practicing meditation or just quiet introspection, and sleeping sufficiently can lead to a better attitude and more happiness.

Third, we need to move right, through appropriate exercise, proper breathing, good posture and maintaining your structure and nerve system with chiropractic care. Including yoga, stretching or martial arts helps to create balance and coordination.

Addressing these three basic needs, eating right, thinking right, and moving right, will lead to a better quality of life with less illness and more productive time throughout your life. Take the responsibility to notice where you could improve, and make good decisions to enhance your lifestyle – it will pay off for you, as it has for millions of people who are adopting the wellness way of life.

If you’ve ever watched your favorite sports team play without one of their star players because of injury, you know about the frustration they must feel when they go out onto the field of battle undermanned or short-staffed.

Often the player is sitting on the bench, and looks okay to you – but the team doctors’ evaluation says that this player is not fit to play at this time, no matter how he or she might look on the outside, or even how they feel. The doctor knows to look for certain signs and details that make the player ready or not ready to perform, especially when re-injury would extend the disability and cost the team even more time without that player. Going back too soon might create an even bigger problem, and it’s the doctor’s responsibility to make that judgment call, to tell the player, “Careful, now!”

At times, your Doctor of Chiropractic may also ask you to refrain from certain activities. In the beginning of your care (for many injuries and in certain situations), you would readily agree to the wisdom of “not doing” and “not participating” in such activities.

 But then, when the miraculous healing process begins, and you start to feel much better, you may begin to wonder if the doctor is being overcautious. Doesn’t the doctor understand that you have to … have to what? You fill in the blank. When you are feeling better, your nature is to want to return to your normal daily activities and habits … but it may be premature to do so.

 Your doctor of chiropractic knows how to deliver your program of care, and how to advise you on what you need to do, and not do. This is why you have chosen to work with this particular doctor. Your chiropractor is an expert, and you greatly benefit from his or her experience in situations like yours. If you go back to “normal” activities too soon, worse injuries are possible. And, too often the re-injury complicates the recovery, sometimes making it tougher to get well.

 So, if your chiropractor asks you to refrain from doing things that you may feel ready to do, please follow the doctor’s recommendations – when your chiropractor tells you to be “Careful, now,” it is probably good advice you should strongly consider following.

How Chiropractors Help People Get Well and Stay Well

 Understanding that a chiropractor is looking for disturbance in the nerve system caused by subluxations, spinal bones that go out of place, is only the first step to comprehending what a chiropractor can do for you and your family.

 Throughout your life, you are subjected to all kinds of stresses – some of them are based on mechanical stresses and trauma, like injuries, car accidents, slips and falls, and other types of physical insults.

Some of the stresses you encounter are chemical stresses, like poisons in the air and water, household agents like hairspray, insecticides and detergents, food additives like preservatives and colorings, and the by-products of faulty eating, like excessive sugar or fat or not drinking enough high quality water. Such habits reduce the raw materials needed for proper health and body function, and risk contaminating or polluting the body much like a lake, river or ocean may become toxic and filled with inappropriate substances.

 Finally, we can be stressed for psychological reasons, where we interpret our daily experiences to be harsh, harmful, difficult or painful, and this brings about responses in our minds and bodies that do not serve us, that do not move us toward health and wellness, but rather toward poor body function  and disease. While “psycho-somatic” illnesses were once dismissed or relegated to those with serious psychological issues, we now know that even small interruptions in healthy thinking can produce health problems.

 Some chiropractors concentrate entirely on the adjustment of the spine and correcting subluxations, to counteract the effects of stress on the spine and nerve system directly and exclusively. These doctors may or may not make specific recommendations about diet and emotional support, but they invariably see the value of addressing these issues, even if it means engaging other professionals to advise you on these relevant topics.

Other doctors of chiropractic include counseling on nutrition and psychology, either themselves or through other professionals they refer to, on site or not. This gives you a chance to develop your team of health and wellness advisors, so you can feel prepared to handle any of these types of stress and minimize the negative effect on your health.

That’s why you will benefit more by being an active participant in your health and wellness care – knowing that you need a proper blend of structural care, nutritional advice and psychological support gives you the power and responsibility to be as healthy and well as you wish to be.

In fact, that is the technical difference between health and wellness. Health is what happens when your body is working right, but wellness is a deliberate choice to make things even better – improving nutrition, improving your mindset and worldview, and of course keeping your spine and nerve system healthy, with chiropractic care, appropriate exercise and avoiding traumatic injury.

 Everyone has a slightly different and unique blend of these factors, and you will discover that personal blend by pursuing some of these habits and behaviors mentioned above. You can be healthy, and you can move yourself toward wellness – get regular spine and nerve system check-ups and adjustments when necessary, refine your diet and avoid or eliminate toxicity in your surrounding environment, and strike a sensible balance between family, work, leisure and other personal issues so you can maintain a positive mental attitude.

Apply these ideas, and you will get the most out of your chiropractic care, and help your chiropractor to help you to get well and stay well the natural way.

These three sources of stress, trauma, toxins and thoughts, are responsible for many of the maladies we suffer and the disease process that comes about as a result. That’s why your doctor of chiropractic is interested in addressing all of these, to varying extents based on his or her particular specialty and focus.

Dear Patient and Friend,   

No doubt when you go to any of your assorted doctors and health advisors, on occasion he or she uses a term you are unfamiliar with or do not understand. So it goes with your chiropractor, who is trained in a very special and unique healing art that differs from anything else available, and because of that, the terminology a chiropractor uses is also different from what you may have heard your doctors say before.

 One of the words you may have heard your chiropractor use is the word “subluxation”(pronounced sub – luck – say’ – shun), a technical term that describes the main problem a chiropractor looks for and aims to correct. When a bone in your spine goes out of position and disturbs the nerves it’s supposed to protect, it’s called a subluxation, and while it causes many health conditions and problems, no other kind of doctor has the tools for finding and correcting it.

 That’s why developing a relationship between your family and the chiropractor of your choice is so vital – if no one else fixes this problem, and so many people have it, only a chiropractor can advise you and care for you properly.

 A subluxation prevents normal healing and body function by disrupting the control mechanism of your body. The brain uses the nerves like wires; to connect to all your body parts, and if anything interferes with that control, your body parts don’t know what to do and can’t work properly. This direction from the brain is responsible for regulating your body and healing it when it needs repair, which is the reason why chiropractic care has such far-reaching effects on our health and wellness – it helps the body to work better overall, so all of the various body parts are brought into harmony with all the other parts, which leads to not only healing any problems, but better health in general.

 How do you know if you have a subluxation? Well, you don’t – sometimes they cause overt symptoms, like pain or illness, and frankly, sometimes they don’t. Like diabetes, heart disease and cancer, often the early stages of subluxation have no tell-tale signs whatsoever.

 That’s why it’s so important to get periodic chiropractic examinations for yourself and your family, even if you’re feeling fine – an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.