Common Pain

Among the most common pain spots on the body are the chest, shoulders and upper back. You know this pain well and you see others experiencing it, too. It seems like when one of these areas gets tight, the others follow suit.

Pain can arrive in the form of nagging shoulder pain, neck pain, pain behind the shoulder blades, pain in the chest and, soon, headaches. Anti-inflammatories or analgesics are OK in a pinch. Massage and chiropractic are good, too. The best bet, however, is to release the stiffness before it gets worse and pain sets in.

Neck, chest and shoulder stiffness usually comes from poor posture and stress. Often people are hunched over their desks on a computer all day and this elongates the muscles in the shoulder while compressing the muscles in the chest. When your muscles are all jammed up, they hurt. No worries: When you’re in a jam, use the jamb to release the pain.

The door jamb, that is.

Feel Your Pain

The first thing to do when experiencing shoulder, chest and upper back stiffness or pain is to try and feel it. This lets you better understand the tightness and where it originates.

If your neck hurts but not your shoulders, for example, then the pain may be from sleeping in an uncomfortable position. If your shoulders hurt, it could be from sleeping with your arm above your head or from stress. Additionally, the shoulders could be tightening because of shortened chest muscles, or pecs. These get short or contracted when the arms are held close in front of the body for extended periods of time when typing, writing, driving or reading. Postural and behavioral changes go a long way to prevent the tightness and pain from returning.

When the chest muscles tighten, they cause your shoulders to round forward. This gives you what personal trainers often call “turtle back.” This just means your upper back and shoulders are hunched forward, which causes pain as they keep your chest muscles in a constant state of tightness or contraction and your shoulders in an extended position. This makes your shoulders contract in an effort to pull them back to a normal position. The prolonged contraction leads to trigger points, those nasty knots you feel in your shoulders. They are painful.

Painful Dilemma

When experiencing chronic shoulder, chest, and upper back pain, many grab for NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs), hot compresses and showers, chiropractic adjustments, and acupuncture. Others opt for massage and some even go so far as to get physical therapy. The best advice I can give on any pain issue is to start low-tech and try the least invasive approach first. Often times, the simplest thing is the fastest solution.

In this case, it’s stretching in a doorway. Here are five ways you can do it:

Doorway Stretch One:

• Stand with feet parallel and just behind the doorway.

• Place your right forearm against the doorway frame. Make sure your arm is held at a 90-degree angle with palm flat against the jamb.

• Step forward with your right foot through to the other side of the doorway. Do not move your arm. You should feel a nice stretch across your right pectoral (chest) muscle. Hold for 20 seconds.

• If it is too painful to hold this position, take a shorter step forward.

• If you do not feel the stretch, then turn your torso toward the left while keeping everything else in place.

• After 20 seconds return to the starting position by stepping back with your right foot.

• Repeat on the left side.

Doorway Stretch Two:

• Stand with feet parallel and just behind the doorway.

• Place your right forearm against the doorway frame. Make sure your arm is held at a 120-degree angle with palm flat against the jamb.

• Step forward with your right foot through to the other side of the doorway. Do not move your arm. You should feel a nice stretch across your right pectoral (chest) muscle. Hold for 20 seconds.

• If it is too painful to hold this position, take a shorter step forward.

• If you do not feel the stretch, then turn your torso toward the left while keeping everything else in place.

• After 20 seconds return to the starting position by stepping back with your right foot.

• Repeat on the left side.

Doorway Stretch Three: 

• Stand with feet parallel and just behind the doorway. Or, if you are too tall to allow a full arm extension toward the top of the doorway, kneel behind the doorway.

• Place your right forearm against the inside of the doorway frame.

• Slowly slide your arm up along the inside of the doorway frame. You should feel a nice stretch across your right pectoral (chest) muscle and around your shoulders and rotators.

• If you do not feel the stretch, lean slightly forward and that should do the trick.

• Hold for 20 seconds then return to the starting position by slowly sliding your arm back down the frame.

• Repeat on the left side.

Doorway Stretch Four:

• Stand with feet parallel and just behind the doorway.

• Place the palms of both hands flat on the back of the jamb, forearms held parallel to the floor.

• Slowly allow your upper body to lean forward and hold for 20 seconds. You should feel a stretch across your chest, along your ribs and/or between your shoulder blades.

• After 20 seconds return to the starting position. This is the warm-up for the next stretch.

Doorway Stretch Five:

• Stand with feet parallel and just behind the doorway.

• Place your forearms flat along the back of the jamb, triceps held parallel to the floor.

• Slowly allow your upper body to lean forward and hold for 20 seconds. You should feel a stretch across your chest, along your ribs and/or between your shoulder blades.

• After 20 seconds return to the starting position.

There are many ways a door jamb can be used to stretch the upper and lower parts of your body. These are just a few examples to get you started. The secret to the benefits of these doorway stretches is doing them slow and steady. Correcting your posture and moving every hour away from your desk also helps prevent the chest, shoulders and upper back from tightening. But if they do, these stretches are a doorway to pain relief.

It may also help you live longer. Analysis of data from research called the Copenhagen City Heart Study shows that the men in Copenhagen who jog live, on average, 6.2 years longer than non-joggers. Women increase their life expectancy by 5.6 years.

“The results of our research allow us to definitively answer the question of whether jogging is good for your health,” says, Peter Schnohr, chief cardiologist for the study. “We can say with certainty that regular jogging increases longevity. The good news is that you don’t actually need to do that much to reap the benefits.”

The researchers found that joggers secured the best health benefits when they jogged one to 2.5 hours a week undertaken in several sessions. They recommend keeping up a moderate pace, just slightly breathless but not totally out of breath.

“We found that loads that were quite heavy and comparatively light were equally effective at inducing muscle growth and promoting strength,” says researcher Cam Mitchell.

The research, published in the Journal of Applied Physiology, challenges the widely accepted dogma that training with heavy weights — which can be lifted only six to 12 times before fatigue — is the best avenue to muscle growth.

“Many older adults can have joint problems which would prevent them training with heavy loads,” says Mitchell. “This study shows that they have the option of training with lighter and less intimidating loads and can still receive the benefits.”

“There is a lot of work on the beneficial effects of visiting natural environments, but our findings suggest it is time to move beyond a simple urban versus rural debate and start looking at the effect that different natural environments have on people’s health and well-being,” says researcher Mathew White.

Getting Healthier

Many of us, especially those in their 60s and older, just don’t get enough exercise like aerobics, weight lifting or yoga for health. Yet, if we did, we would undoubtedly be healthier and more vibrant.

Osteoporosis (brittle bones) or even osteopenia (thinning bones) is a problem as we age. A lack of balance leads to falls that cause broken hips and fractured pelvises. Muscles lose their tone through lack of use. Blood pressure rises as a result of daily and lifetime stressors. All of these issues, as well as many others, need to be addressed. A lack of time or resources means most people can’t do everything they need to do, so taking prescription drugs to cope with physical weakness becomes the norm.

Drug Avoidance

It is simply healthier to avoid drugs whenever possible. And for issues like osteoporosis, cardiovascular health and muscle atrophy, various aerobic and anaerobic exercises need to be done. I don’t mean to discuss time management, though. I actually want to teach you a way to do more with less. Save time with an exercise set I developed that incorporates two ancient Chinese methods: Qigong and kung fu.

For this set of simple wellness exercises, I combined the “standing pole” Qigong exercise with the “pole rolling” exercises of kung fu. By doing this exercise set for as little as 10 minutes per day, you can effectively and safely increase your heart rate, expand your lungs, get your blood moving, tone and strengthen your muscles, build bone density to reverse or prevent osteoporosis, and improve your balance. You will work on six areas at the same time, and it requires only a weighted pole and enough space to stand. Talk about time management and doing more with less!

To get started, you need a weighted pole. You can use a standard 10-pound bench press bar, if you have one. I prefer to use the padded strength bars available at most chain sporting goods stores. These are great because they are padded and come in various weights, like 6 pounds, 9 pounds, etc. If you are out of shape, then starting with a lighter pole is better. For more robust individuals, a heavier pole is great. Either way, you can work your way up in weight and time.

Here’s what to do:

1. Begin by standing up with your feet a shoulders-width apart, knees bent.

2. Hold the bar in both hands, palms facing out, with arms by your side for one minute to get used to the weight.

3. Curl up the bar and hold it as close to your chest as possible for one minute.

4. Open your hands and slowly let the pole roll down your forearms, stopping at the bend in your elbows. Hold for one minute.

5. Slowly extend your arms forward while rotating out your elbows, balancing the pole across the crook of the elbows. Hold for two minutes.

6. Slowly tilt your forearms down a bit to allow the bar to slowly roll onto your wrists. Hold the bar in this position for two minutes. You can use your thumbs to keep the bar from rolling past your wrist.

7. Slowly roll the bar back up your arms to the elbows, turn your palms up and raise your hands to eye level. Hold this position for two minutes.

8. Rotate your elbows out and grasp the bar with both hands in the middle.

9. Hold the bar vertically in front of you with outstretched arms. Hold for one minute.

10. Finish by putting the bar back down.

Key Pointers:

• When you get into your posture, do not move. With knees bent, even slightly, the muscles in the legs are firing.
• With the weight of the bar and the unmoving posture, you experience isometric training. The bar is load bearing and helps lay new bone to improve bone density.
• The longer you hold up the bar on your arms, the more difficult the exercise becomes. As your muscles get tired, the bar seems to become heavier, and your muscles have to work harder to keep the bar up.
• When the muscles are firing and the weight feels heavier, the lungs and heart increase their activity. So even though it looks like you are doing nothing, you are increasing your heart and lung functions incrementally but not overtaxing these organs.
• Holding the posture and pole still is difficult and requires concentration. This is where meditation comes in. This is a great time to practice some mindfulness breathing. As you breathe in and out slowly through your nose, mindfully examine the various sensations in your arms, hips, legs and feet. Feel the balance shifting and the blood moving.

This exercise set is simple and easy to do, yet is powerful. It combines meditation, energy work, kung fu, isometric exercise, strength training and endurance in a comprehensive wellness set that helps promote your overall wellness. Give it try!

On the other hand, endlessly watching TV during your downtime boosts your genetic tendency toward obesity by about 50 percent.

“While previous studies have looked at how physical activity affects genetic predispositions, this is the first study that directly looked at the effect of the sedentary behavior of television watching on the body mass index (BMI) of individuals with a genetic predisposition to obesity,” said Qibin Qi, Ph.D., study author and a post doctorate research fellow in the Department of Nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health in Boston.

“In our study, a brisk one-hour daily walk reduced the genetic influence towards obesity, measured by differences in BMI by half. On the other hand, a sedentary lifestyle marked by watching television four hours a day increased the genetic influence by 50 percent.”

“We now have evidence that physical activity is an important part of the daily maintenance of glucose levels,” says Missouri University researcher John Thyfault. “Even in the short term, reducing daily activity and ceasing regular exercise causes acute changes in the body associated with diabetes that can occur before weight gain and the development of obesity.”

Thyfault’s most recent study shows that low levels of physical activity lead to elevated levels of postprandial glucose (PPG), the spikes in blood sugar that occur after meals. PPG is a risk factor for the development of type 2 diabetes and has been associated with a greater risk of cardiovascular disease and death. Thyfault found that when healthy individuals reduce their physical activity by about half for three days, their PPG responses to meals double.

“It is recommended that people take about 10,000 steps each day,” Thyfault said. “Recent evidence shows that most Americans are only taking about half of that, or 5,000 steps a day. This chronic inactivity leads to impaired glucose control and increases the risk of developing diabetes.”

Recently, a study of 11,000 pregnant women found that those who own dogs are 50 percent more likely to get the recommended 30 minutes of brisk walking a day than those without canines. The research was conducted by scientists from the University of Liverpool, in partnership with Mars Petcare.

According to researchers, this suggests that owning a dog may encourage people to get more physical activity.

“We found that owning one or more dogs was associated with pregnant women taking part in brisk walking on a regular basis, helping them to achieve the recommended 150 minutes of activity a week. Findings suggest that ownership of a dog provides some motivation to go for a walk, even during pregnancy,” said researcher Carri Westgarth, Ph.D.

Since obese mothers sometimes have difficult births, it’s important to explore factors that may encourage pregnant women to remain physically active.

A Self-induced Problem

Millions of headaches strike Americans each and every year. As a matter of fact, hundreds of thousands of headaches pound inside the heads of people daily. Most of these episodes are completely preventable and are caused by the choices each headache sufferer makes. Yes, I am saying that we create, cause and trigger our own headaches. And because of that simple truth, you can stop doing what you are doing and prevent your headaches from ever coming back. That’s a fact.

Serious biological conditions that cause headaches, such as meningitis and tumors for example, are rare. Only about 12 percent of all headaches are caused by them, and those are confined to a very small proportion of people with those diseases. Headaches caused by physical trauma, such as a fall or impact, are not typical and also not thought of and treated in the general way other organic headaches are. So, if we remove serious disease and physical trauma from the headache equation, then we are left with 80 percent of headaches being self-induced.

Accountability

Headaches do not just appear out of thin air. We’d like to think they do, of course, because no one wants to be held accountable for their own pain. People who suffer chronic headaches (and I was one of them for more than 30 years), often feel like victims powerless and dependent on drugs and various therapies to lessen the suffering.

Rethink the situation this way: You can be considered cured of chronic headaches if you successfully prevent them from occurring. The cure is in the prevention, not in a response to the symptoms or in a therapy to reduce the symptoms. No amount of drugs or other therapies can ever cure your headaches because these measures are not designed to stop them from occurring.

To be sure, you are responsible for keeping headaches away. Only you can head them off by not doing the things that cause them in the first place.

Nasty Headache Triggers

The group of triggers that set off headaches consists of a range of lifestyle habits. If you can avoid the triggers, you can prevent the headaches.

A partial list of the main things known to trigger headaches (including migraines) includes:

• Oxygen Deprivation: Lack of oxygen sets off negative changes in blood and cells and the ability of the organs to fulfill their functions. This leads to headaches. Oftentimes, people do not get enough oxygen because of shallow breathing that results from stress or overeating (which presses the diaphragm and makes it difficult for the lungs to expand). At other times, a sinus condition or simply sleeping with your face in your pillow limits your oxygen supply.

• Chronic Dehydration. Dehydration means your body lacks the water it needs for optimal health. When that occurs, the liver and kidneys can’t process and remove toxic waste material properly and these problematic substances continue to circulate in the body. This causes inflammation and pain as well as tightness and detrimental changes in blood vessels. Headaches result. Simply drinking enough water throughout the day and avoiding diuretics (drinks and medications that cause you to lose water), is the key to staying adequately hydrated.

• Poor Food Choices. We need food to live; and if we only consumed live food like whole fruit, vegetables and whole grains, we would be healthier and less headache-prone. However, many foods are fermented, cured, preserved and altered in such a way that is unnatural for our bodies to break down and process, which causes headaches. These foods include wine, cheese (and other dairy products), lunch meats, sugar, coffee, soda and simple carbohydrates. This category includes any food that changes our body chemistry in a negative way (including trans fats, sugars, nitrates, sulfides, etc).

• Improper Exercise And Insufficient Rest. Exercise is essential to good heath because it introduces fresh oxygen to the lungs, works the muscles, moves the blood and releases feel-good hormones. However, too much exercise or overly strenuous physical activity takes a toll on the body. When you engage in repeated muscle contractions (playing tennis too hard, lifting very heavy weights, throwing a shot put), you experience a rise in blood pressure matched with the muscle contractions. That creates an environment ripe for tension headaches. Additionally, if you don’t rest enough, the body cannot repair, relax and attain a normal state of homeostasis. Too much sleep and not enough exercise are also headache triggers. Finding your right balance is essential.

• Somatic Imbalances. Imbalances occur from unevenly developed muscle groups and postural issues that can cause tension in the body and trigger headaches. Sports that promote one-sidedness, like golf and tennis, are key players in the headache equation. The body must be balanced. Swinging rackets and clubs with both arms equally is a key to distributing stability. While this does not happen during competition, make it a point to do an equal amount of swings from both sides in practice for health reasons, even if symmetrical exercise doesn’t seem to advance your skills. Sitting or sleeping hunched or crooked also leads to imbalances in the spine, hips and shoulders that cause headaches. Being mindful of posture and body development can help.

• Stress And Thought Patterns. Psychological stress and the way in which we think about ourselves, our health and our issues in life are hidden headache triggers. Stress wreaks havoc on the body in all of its functions. Without reducing and controlling stress, you can’t hope to prevent headaches. Maintaining thoughts like “this will never work,” “no one can help my headaches” or “I’ve tried everything and nothing works for me” relegates you to an inescapable cycle of pain. Using methods to reduce stress, reframing the way you see the world and altering how you relate to your headaches can promote your efforts at preventing them.

In my report next week, I’ll detail how to identify which of these are your most important triggers and how to curb or eliminate them.

A Grim Reality

The 2012 American Stroke Association (ASA) conference painted a grim picture of how strokes are devastating Americans. This unfortunate situation correlates with our rising obesity epidemic among a sedentary population.

The ASA’s large, nationwide study of stroke hospitalizations analyzed Federal data from hospitals in more than 40 States by gender and age. This amounted to data covering 8 million stroke cases per year and compared the stroke rate of 1994-95 with 2006-07.

Despite improved education, access and technology, the stroke situation is discouraging. In fact, this analysis shows that stroke prevalence is dramatically rising.

These frightening statistics show an alarming increase of stroke particularly among men. However, if you want to avoid being one of these stroke victims, you can make the appropriate lifestyle choices.

Stroke Results

In both kinds of stroke, ischemic and hemorrhagic, the brain experiences cell damage resulting from lack of oxygen and nutrients that are normally delivered in the blood.

Ischemic strokes result from the buildup of arterial plaque, which is linked to the oxidation of LDL (bad) cholesterol. When plaque is deposited along the arterial walls, the blood vessels stiffen and lose flexibility. When the supply of blood and nutrients to brain cells are cut off, a stroke occurs.

Hemorrhagic strokes are caused by ruptured blood vessels inside the brain that deprive cells of ample glucose and oxygen. These strokes can occur because of hypertension (high blood pressure), aneurysms (weak spots in blood vessel) and trauma (head injuries).

You’re At Risk

Genetics play a role in susceptibility to stroke. In general, people of African, Hispanic and Native American descent are at higher risk than Caucasians. African-Americans, in particular, are often at risk due to sickle cell anemia.

Pre-existing medical conditions that put you at additional risk include elevated blood cholesterol, high blood pressure, heart disease, diseased arteries, obesity and diabetes.

By far, your lifestyle habits are the biggest contributor to your risk of stroke. Smoking and overconsumption of salt, sugar, fat, simple carbohydrates and alcohol make you more liable to experience a stroke.

If you don’t exercise regularly and undergo continual stress, you also have a bigger chance of having a stroke. But by simply having a consistent program of physical activity, implementing stress reduction techniques (meditation and exercise can lower stress levels) and eating more fruits and vegetables, you can fight your stroke risk.

Stroke Picture

Describing the stroke situation, Dr. Ralph Sacco, president of the American Heart Association, warns: “It’s definitely alarming. We have worried for a while that the increased prevalence of obesity in children and young adults may take its toll in cardiovascular disease and stroke.” Indeed, this is happening.

Parents who feed their children diets packed with salt, preservatives, fat and high-fructose corn syrup and low in whole grains and fresh fruits and vegetables are leading them down a path of increased stroke risk. Advertisers who tell us their products like sugary breakfast cereals, processed nutrition bars and diet sodas are safe and effective are also at fault. In fact, research shows that people who drink diet soft drinks daily are 49 percent more likely to have a stroke or heart disease than those who abstain from soda altogether.

Of course, rather than focusing on blame, you should focus on reducing your risk. Eat healthfully, exercise and practice stress relief. And teach your children the same healthy lifestyle habits.

Make the choice. It may save your life or the lives of those you love.