Wellness and Resiliency
By Dr. Joshua Kiely, DC
This blog idea has been bouncing around my head for a while. It’ll be short, but I hope it helps shed a light on how I approach chiropractic care, wellness, and the all-important concept of resiliency.
Many of my chiropractic patients are surprised when I ask them about their hobbies, talk about sleep, or ask if things are going well at their job. We talk about weightlifting, walking dogs, their weekend at the cottage, the 10k race they are training for and the summer camp their kids are at.
By having these conversations, I get an idea of the whole person I’m working with and what really makes them tick. I want to find out what their approach to health is, but also their approach to challenges in general.
Injuries Are Not Failures
I’ve seen incredible changes in people when they stop seeing an injury or pain as a failure, but instead as a challenge to overcome and learn from. Wellness is more than just doing a couple of rehab exercises or laying around for 30 minutes while someone attaches a machine to our back. It’s an attitude shift that prioritizes resilience and long term health.
Resilience Leads to Better Health
Resilience is our ability to bend without breaking, and to get back up when life knocks us down. My job as a chiropractor in Kanata is to help provide the tools, assessments, and strategies to improve resilience and help patients get back to the things that matter most to them.
Sometimes a good hike with the dog can do more to improve our wellbeing than any amount of hands-on therapy.
I’ve seen patients absolutely excel in treatment when they focus on being consistent with the simple things.
Spending time in nature
Walking daily
Eating an extra vegetable at lunch
Getting coffee with a close friend
Sleeping an extra hour
These are all examples of the small actions that can have major impacts on our wellbeing. These tiny steps toward better health add up over time and dramatically improve our resiliency.
Being Resilient Means Being Flexible
There are no secrets to better health, and unfortunately nobody can improve our health for us. It’s work that we all have to put in. There are times when it’s impossible to do things perfectly - young kids, sickness, divorces, and stressful jobs will knock everything out of whack. The key to better health is developing the skill of failing without giving up.
When life gets hard, workouts are off-track, sleep is a distant memory, and everyday feels like a slog, we simply do the best we can. That might mean we only get in a 10-minute walk after dinner or even taking 10 seconds to practice deep breathing and calm our nerves. The most important aspect of better health is to keep moving forward and finding ways to overcome the obstacles that will stand in the way of better health.
Chiropractic Care Can Be Part of Wellness
Promoting wellness is not some marketing hype to get people back in the office every week. Wellness means taking the steps and performing the actions that will keep us healthy, happy, and away from the doctor’s office for as long as possible. Of course, it never hurts to have a solid chiropractor who’s got your back when life does get a little bumpy.
