Did you get a good night of sleep last night? Maybe you’re unsure what a “good night of sleep” equates to. So let’s explore what good quality sleep really is, why it's so important for your health, and look at some good sleeping postures.
 
Firstly, let’s get straight into the meat and potatoes - according to The Mayo Clinic, this is how much sleep you should be getting:

Okay, so now you know how much sleep you should be getting which is awesome! Now that you know better, you can do better to meet your sleep goals; whether that be to increase or reduce how much sleep you’re getting. That's right - over sleeping can be as detrimental to your health as under sleeping! So try to get into that sweet spot range of sleep every night.

Did you notice that I wrote EVERY night?

Try to avoid putting yourself in a position where you create a sleep debt and are forced to catch up on sleep. Quality sleep is just as much about consistency as it is about quantity. Let's look at it another way; you wouldn't starve yourself until you're withered and then catch up on eating by going to an all you can eat buffet, right? Of course not, your body requires consistent energy from food to maintain its health.

​Sleep is the same way in that you should be getting consistent amounts every night. It's a time for your body to rest, replenish and regenerate to prepare for the all the mental, physical and emotional requirements of the following day.

All right, so now you know about the importance of quantity and consistency as it pertains to good quality sleep. But WHY is quality sleep so important for your health?

The Good:

• Learning and memory - Sleep helps the brain commit new information into memory and has been shown to enhance problem solving skills in both children and adults. 
• Regeneration - Your body produces more proteins when you're sleeping. These proteins form the building blocks for cells, allowing them to repair the damage caused by stress, UV rays and other harmful exposures.
• Athletic performance - A study of collegiate basketball players showed speed, accuracy and reaction times all improved when the athletes got proper amounts of quality sleep.

The Bad:

• Cortisol - Sleep deprivation has been shown to result in higher cortisol levels the next evening. Cortisol plays an important role in a variety of bodily processes including inflammation, sleep/wake cycle, and blood sugar levels. High levels of cortisol is also linked to lower back pain.
• Increased risk of depression - Chronic sleep deprivation has been shown to create a desensitization to serotonin receptors. Low serotonin levels influences mood in a way that may lead to depression.
• Stress - The body goes into a state of stress when it's sleep deficient. Stress is well researched to be a contributing factor to many diseases.

The Ugly:

• Heart disease - Too little sleep; as well as too much sleep, has been linked to increased risk of heart disease.
• High blood pressure - Sleep deprivation reduces your body's ability to regulate stress hormones which can lead to high blood pressure. HBP is the leading cause of death worldwide and is a major risk factor for heart disease and stroke.
• Diabetes - There's an increased risk for diabetes in those that either sleep too much or too little.
• Reduced immune function - Sleep deprivation suppresses immune system function. This could lead to a greater potential risk of developing cold, flu or other diseases.​

As you can see, consistently getting the right amount of sleep is an incredibly important part of maintaining your health! So you may want to think twice before you pull your next all-nighter; or the next time you tell yourself you'll just watch "one more episode" ​during a TV series binge when you've got responsibilities the next morning.

Let's talk about sleep posture next as I'm often asked if there's a "right way" to sleep. The short answer is, yes!

The right way to sleep is to be in a sleep posture that maintains and supports the natural shape of your spine. Let's take a look at the side sleeping ​posture below.

You may have noticed that there's a pillow in between the guy's legs. This can help reduce physical stress on the spine as you sleep. If you lay on your side right now, you'll notice that your leg against the bed/floor is flat and parallel, but then your other leg is bent at an angle because your knees have come together. That angle of your top leg puts extra pressure on your hip which transfers to your spine.

When sleeping on your side, your neck needs a little extra cushioning underneath it for support since your head is wider and thicker than your neck is. Be sure that your neck is in a neutral posture and does not bend towards either the ceiling or the floor.

Now if we look at a supine sleeping posture (laying on your back), you'll notice that there's a pillow tucked underneath the guy's legs. To better understand why that's there, go ahead and lay down flat on your back, relax your body, and pay attention to your feet. For the vast majority of you, you'll have found that both your feet flared outwards.

As your feet flare outwards this creates a chain reaction going up your leg. Your feet flare/rotate outwards, your shin bones rotate, as do your thigh bones and then your hips. That rotation puts a lot of pressure on your pelvis and lower back.

Putting a pillow or a bolster under your knees forces them to bend slightly. Because your knees are bent, it breaks the chain reaction and minimizes the foot flare and stops the rotation of the rest of the leg which prevents all the pressure at the hip, pelvis and lower back. You may find that when you wake up that the pillow under your knees is now on the floor or beside you. That's typically expected as most of us naturally roll and shift positions when we're asleep. It's not a problem though as the goal is to minimize the duration of the stress on our body.

Quality sleep is an incredibly important part of our health! We spend about a third of our lives sleeping, so that's a lot of stress on your body if you haven't been getting enough sleep, been over sleeping, or aren't sleeping with good posture. So have you been getting good quality sleep? And have you been practicing proper sleeping posture? It's never too late to have your spine checked! Click HERE to make an appointment.

​Join us for our workshop on Tuesday, July 23rd 2019 from 6:00 – 7:00pm, where you will learn a set of practices designed to maintain your spinal health.
 
As we guide you through a series of stretches and exercises, we will be discussing what spinal hygiene is, why it is so important, and how proper spinal hygiene practices can help with a variety of things including:

To register, go to the following URL and click on “Spinal Hygiene Workshop”.
​
https://thrivechiro.janeapp.com

We recommend you wear something that you feel comfortable in that is easy to move around in. And don't forget to bring water!
 
Please bring a yoga mat, if you don't have one we will have some available to rent for $2.
 
We are thrilled to be a part of such a great community! We are the only Chiropractic centre located conveniently in the Downtown Kingston Core and we want to help as many people as we can to get pain free and to have their health thrive!

Your trapezius is large surface muscle that spans across your back in a diamond shape. Its main function is to both move and stabilize your shoulder blades (scapula). By stabilizing the shoulder blades, the trapezius muscle can create movement of the spine. Its actions are as follows:

1. Elevates scapula
2. Retracts scapula
3. Depresses scapula
4. Rotates scapula upwards
5. Neck extension (when both sides activate in tandem)
6. Assists in ipsilateral lateral flexion of the neck (bending your neck sideways on the same side of the muscle)

The trapezius muscle is a common culprit for aches and pains in the upper back and along the top of the shoulders. Mental stress is a HUGE contributor to tightness and discomfort in this muscle group. When the trapezius is very tight in the upper fibres along the top of your shoulders and neck, then focussed pressure on that area (such as shoulder straps pressing down from wearing a heavy knapsack), may trigger a headache.

So if you're often stressed out or suffer from frequent headaches, you will definitely want to work on stretching out your traps! Below are some great trapezius stretches for you to try out!

Join us for our first workshop on Thursday, June 20th, 2019 starting at 6:00pm, where we will discuss the importance of proper nutrition. Launch your health goals by learning how nutrition can support healing at a cellular level! We will be covering topics including:

• Popular Diets – Do they work or not?
• Supplementation – is it necessary?
• Relationship between inflammation, insulin resistance and blood glucose – How does this affect your health?
• Cold pressed juice
• Should you eat organic?

 
Everyone is welcome! Please register online as space is limited. To sign up for the workshop, go to the following URL and click on “Nutrition Workshop”.

Your body is so good at taking care of you! Inside each and every one of us exists an innate intelligence that helps to keep us functioning and healthy. Think of innate intelligence as "the inborn wisdom of your body". Sometimes your body simply knows what you need, and what to do without you making any conscious effort.

Just think about it, when you get too hot then your body responds by perspiring to help cool you off faster. If you get something caught in your throat, your body forces you to cough to help remove the obstruction. When you get a cut or a scrape, your body coagulates the blood to stop the bleeding, and given time, your body will lay down new skin tissue to close and repair the wound.

​I have had the misfortune of fracturing a bone (my right arm... twice!), and both times my arm was put in a cast. The cast was great at preventing further injury or deformation, but it didn't fix my arm. Yet again, it was the innate power of my body that repaired and replenished the bone tissue to ultimately heal my broken arm. 

If you've ever had a cold or flu then you may have taken some type of medication to feel better. Those symptoms you're trying to alleviate are only the tip of the iceberg. While symptoms are very evident on the surface, they are often a result of an underlying condition with the root cause hidden deep underneath the surface. That's why it's important to seek out and correct the root cause instead of treating only the symptoms.

Your body is so intelligent that it even tries to give you warnings when your health may be compromised. Symptoms are warnings from your body that suggest there is more going on under the surface. Have you ever felt cold or chilly when you normally wouldn't at that temperature? Thermoregulation (controlling your internal body temp.) is the first thing to be compromised when you're falling sick. Symptoms are your body's way of warning you that you may be on the verge of becoming sick or unwell if you don't take any preventative measures.

As you can see, your body is very intelligent and it wants to keep you healthy and at your best. As long as your body is functioning properly, then the best doctor is you!

So if the best doctor is you, then how can a chiropractor help? First, it's important to understand that chiropractic care doesn't "treat or heal" anything. As you already know it's your body - your INNATE INTELLIGENCE - that does the healing. Chiropractors facilitate the proper function of your body by restoring spinal alignment. Proper spinal alignment helps to remove nerve interference. Your nerves control every single function in your body. As long as your nerve supply is free of interference, your innate intelligence can do its job to keep you functioning at your best!

If you're tired of treating only the symptoms and are ready to dig down to find the root cause, please click HERE to visit your friendly neighbourhood chiropractors!

Your quadratus lumborum is a deep muscle in your lower trunk that is responsible for a variety of actions:

1. Lateral flexion (bending sideways from your waist)
2. Extension of the lumbar spine (bending backwards at your lower back)
3. Assists the diaphragm with inhalation (aids in proper breathing mechanics)
4. Elevates the ilium ipsilaterally (lifts one side of your pelvis at a time)

The Quadratus Lumborum also plays an important role in stabilizing your lower back and these muscles are often working hard behind the scenes even if you don't realize it! Because this muscle group does so much work contracting and relaxing repeatedly throughout the day, they can often become VERY tight.

I actually had not realized just how tight my QL's had gotten until I started stretching them for the first time. From that point on I made sure that QL stretching was included as part of my Spinal Hygiene to maintain the health of my spine and to prevent risk of future injury. I continued to spend a few minutes each day stretching out this muscle and then after a couple weeks of stretching my QL's consistently, I felt like a new person! 

I'll describe some of my favourite Quadratus Lumborum stretches below.

None of the stretches shown should cause any pain or discomfort. If you feel any pain during your stretch, please stop and consult your Chiropractor, it might be time to have your spine checked. Click HERE to make an appointment.

Don't ever force the stretch. As you're reaching into the stretch, try to breathe out. As you breathe out, focus on keeping your QL and lower back muscles relaxed. As the lower back muscles relax, let gravity drag you deeper into the stretch. You should find that you're able to stretch further when you relax into the stretch. It just takes a bit of mindfulness, practice and consistency to stretch properly.

​Try some of these great quadratus lumborum stretches out for yourself and feel the difference it makes!