Posted by: Dr. Jessica L. Caruso

Think carrying a backpack is “no big deal”? Think again. The average child’s backpack weighs 12 pounds and gets lifted 10 times a day. That equals 120 pounds lifted each day. That works out to be about 21, 600 pounds lifted in a 180-day school year!!!

How exactly does carrying a backpack affect the spine? Common sense tells us that a heavy load distributed unevenly day after day causes stress to a growing spinal column. More than 50% of youths experience at least one low back pain episode by the end of their teen years. Repetitive activities such as hauling a heavy backpack over one shoulder each and every day can lead to serious postural misalignments and imbalances, creating subluxations of the spinal column. These subluxations may cause nerve interference, which can lead to a variety of symptoms and decrease a child’s immune response.

Carrying a heavy backpack in which weight is improperly distributed can result in poor posture; spinal column distortion; muscle strain; headaches; back, neck and arm pain; and nerve damage.

Proper lifting techniques are extremely important. The following is proper backpack lifting technique and should be demonstrated to your child:

Face the backpack before you lift it

Bend at the knees

Using both hands, check the weight of the pack

Lift with legs, NOT your back

Carefully slip on one shoulder strap at a time

NEVER sling the pack on one shoulder

Packing your child’s backpack properly can decrease strain on the spinal column:

Pack the heaviest objects close to the body

Place bumpy objects on the outside, away from the back

Having your child checked regularly by a chiropractor to remove subluxations and insure proper posture during the growing years is very important. Remember, “As the twig is bent, so grows the tree.”

Healing Hands Chiropractic is a full-service, holistic family wellness center located in Londonderry, NH offering chiropractic care, acupuncture, massage therapy, reiki therapy, yoga and meditation classes and pregnancy & birth classes. Our practitioners specialize in prenatal care, pediatrics, women’s health and family wellness.

Posted by: Jenny Everett King

My two-year-old likes to fold in half, place the top of her head on the floor, and say, “Look, Mom, I’m doing yoga!” If she has an audience (other than her proud yoga teacher mama), her performance usually leads to a discussion of “Wouldn’t you love to have that kind of flexibility!” At that point, I usually point out that most of us could have something approaching that level of flexibility, if only we would work to develop it.

Granted, most of us will never be able to put our heads on the floor when practicing a forward bend. The abilities of small children have as much to do with their proportions as they do with flexibility. But our lack of flexibility as adults has more to do with a lifetime of bad, tension-inducing habits than it does with aging.

Years of teaching have shown me that close relationship between daily activities and physical tension. Most runners have tight hamstrings and pain in the lower back, while many weight-lifters have tight chests and difficulty taking a deep, full breath. I usually see tight calves and toes (and the resulting lower back pain) among professional women who frequently wear high heels; I see wrist pain and tight hips among the computer set. Breastfeeding mothers often have tight upper backs and rounded shoulders. The list goes on. To make matters worse, most of compensate for our tight areas by over-using other muscles and joints, which in turn leads to more tension – a vicious cycle.

So, can we help our bodies out of this mess?

The first and obvious solution is to change our habits. No, I am not suggesting you change your exercise routine or quit your job, and I certainly would never tell a woman to stop breastfeeding her baby. But we can change the way we do certain things. Consider a change in footwear, for running or for work. At the computer and while nursing, be conscious of using good posture and changing position frequently.

The second part of maintaining and eventually increasing flexibility is simple: Use it or lose it. In yoga classes, we focus on undoing the damage from daily life as well as promoting general flexibility. I often have runners and avid hikers focus on their hamstrings, while a nursing mom may concentrate on opening her shoulders and chest in the same pose. Likewise, a high-heel-wearing executive might focus on her calves in Downward-Facing Dog, while someone on a computer all day might concentrate on opening his hands to take pressure off the wrists. That’s the beauty of yoga: Each pose works so many areas, that people with very different lifestyles can practice together and reap the benefits.

Healing Hands Chiropractic is a full-service, holistic family wellness center located in Londonderry, NH offering chiropractic care, acupuncture, massage therapy, reiki therapy, yoga and meditation classes and pregnancy & birth classes. Our practitioners specialize in prenatal care, pediatrics, women’s health and family wellness.

Posted by: Dr. Jessica L. Caruso

When I first graduated from chiropractic college, I moved to New Hampshire to take on an associate position. While working under this other doctor, I learned a lot about how to explain the power of chiropractic and the miracle of the human body to both patients and prospective patients alike.

One particular analogy always stuck with me when explaining the difference between health and sickness. I would be in a room full of people with the door shut. I would tell the people that on the other side of the door all the lights were out in the hallway and the hallway was left in pitch darkness. I would then ask the group what would happen if I opened the door- would the light from the room we were in seep into the dark hallway and make the hallway brighter, or would the darkness from the hallway seep into the lit room and make it dimmer? Every time I would ask this question, the answer was always, “Of course the hallway would become brighter.” So I would ask “Why?” I would get all kinds of answers about the speed of light and so forth. But never once did I get the answer I was looking for. I would wonder if never getting the right answer was due to our societal mindset of “healthcare.” I would then go on to explain that darkness does not exist but is merely the absence of light…just like sickness does not exist but is merely the absence of health. In order to make the hallway brighter we need to turn up the lights, not go into the dark room and pick out the “dark spots”! So why aren’t we turning up the light in our bodies? Turning up the health is the answer, not taking out the dark spots; taking out the gallbladder, tonsils, female reproductive organs, whatever the surgery du jour or surgery trend of the decade is.

Too many people are ignoring the signs their bodies are sending them! We are all born with an innate intelligence. Our bodies all have the ability to heal. However, we need to provide the environment for that to occur optimally. If someone breaks their arm, and decides not visit the ER to get the bone set and cast, their arm will heal. However, it will not heal optimally. This may be a drastic example. Most people cannot ignore the fact that their arm is broken, so why are we ignoring all the other signs. Headaches…not a deficiency of Excedrine like the commercials want you to believe. Getting a headache is your body’s way of telling you there is something wrong, something’s out of balance and in a state of dis-ease. If your oil light in the car came on and you decided to take the fuse out so the light turned off, does that mean the problem is fixed? Or does it make more sense to check the oil?!! We need to start treating our bodies at least as well as we treat our vehicles.

Chiropractic, yoga, reiki, massage and a regular meditation practice are all ways of enhancing the ability to listen to your body and make the appropriate adjustments your body needs. Stop turning off the lights and start turning up the health.

Healing Hands Chiropractic is a full-service, holistic family wellness center located in Londonderry, NH offering chiropractic care, acupuncture, massage therapy, reiki therapy, yoga and meditation classes and pregnancy & birth classes. Our practitioners specialize in prenatal care, pediatrics, women’s health and family wellness.

Posted by: Jenny Everett King

There is a commercial for a popular children’s product that ends with the line, “Motherhood means always giving one hundred percent.”

If that’s the case, then most of us are in trouble.

If motherhood meant always giving 100%, my child would never watch TV. She would never go to bed without a story. I would never forget to give her a vitamin supplement – no, even better, she wouldn’t need a vitamin supplement because her meals would be perfectly balanced to include the appropriate RDA of each and every vitamin, mineral, and herb for optimum two-year-old health. And it all would be totally organic, of course.

Well, in a perfect world, maybe.

Many of us take the sentiment of that commercial – that doing something at all means doing it perfectly – and apply it to other aspects of our lives, like diet and exercise. When it comes to our health, it’s easy to have an “all or nothing” mentality. Have you ever given up on buying some organic produce, since you can’t afford to buy all organic, all the time? Have you ever thought there’s no point in eating well for the rest of the day, just because you ate pancakes with loads of butter and maple syrup for breakfast? Or skipped exercise for the rest of the week, since you didn’t make it to the gym on Monday and Tuesday?

I have to confess that I have been guilty of all those examples at one point or another in my life.

But fortunately, health does not work that way. Wellness is not an “all or nothing” concept; in fact, it’s just the opposite: Every little bit counts. A chiropractic adjustment only once every two or three weeks is better than no chiropractic care at all. One yoga class a week is still good, even if you don’t have space to practice at home every day. Five minutes of meditation is beneficial, if your day won’t allow for a full half-hour. (Chances are, if your day is too busy to squeeze in a half-hour session, you’re really going to need those five precious minutes to yourself!)

In perfect world, I believe we should all practice yoga daily and have consistent adjustments according to our chiropractor’s recommendations. We should eat very little sugar and very many organic vegetables and whole grains. These are the sorts of recommendations patients and students often hear from us in the office, because we want to present you with an ideal. Sometimes, that ideal is daunting.

Make no mistake: You don’t have to be perfect in order to be healthy. Wellness, like motherhood, does not have to mean always giving 100%. Give your health the best that you are able to give it in this moment, and let that be enough.

Healing Hands Chiropractic is a full-service, holistic family wellness center located in Londonderry, NH offering chiropractic care, acupuncture, massage therapy, reiki therapy, yoga and meditation classes and pregnancy & birth classes. Our practitioners specialize in prenatal care, pediatrics, women’s health and family wellness.