Zeno, Achilles, and the Tortoise

Regular Chiropractic Care and Long-Term Wellness

When you are engaged in the process of enhancing your overall health and well-being, it's important to pay attention to the details. This implies taking care of what's going on beneath the surface as well as what you may easily notice and observe. As most of us know, when we finally become aware of symptoms, that particular disease process has been going on for quite a while. For example, dizziness and nausea in a person over the age of 50 may likely represent undetected, and therefore unmanaged, high blood pressure. Similarly, the onset of sciatica usually represents the final outcome of a longstanding process of spinal nerve irritation and spinal joint dysfunction. Chiropractic care is a unique method of health care that investigates the causes of a person's biomechanical symptoms, analyzing and detecting the spinal nerve and joint progenitors of such problems. Regular chiropractic care helps reduce nerve interference and restore spinal function, thus helping you and your family attain greater levels of health and well-being.

The Eleatic philosopher Zeno, writing almost 2500 years ago, famously propounded several paradoxes purportedly proving that various conceptions of the physical universe were false. The most famous of these involves the Greek hero Achilles and a tortoise, stating that if the tortoise started ahead of Achilles in a race, the fleet-footed Achaean warrior could never catch the plodding turtle. Zeno also claimed to prove that a moving arrow is actually at rest. His main purpose was to defend the philosophy of the "one" of his great teacher, Parmenides, as against the "many" of competing philosophies such as those of Empedocles, Anaxagoras, and Democritus. Parmenides wished to demonstrate that reality is a unity, and that the world as interpreted by the senses is unreal. Zeno's paradoxes have stumped many thinkers over the ensuing millennia. The main flaw in his brilliant puzzles is that he blurred the distinction between "discrete" and "continuous" phenomena. We can put the solutions to Zeno's paradoxes to work in our understanding of the best method by which to approach our philosophy of exercise.

Many of us prevent ourselves from beginning an exercise program by focusing on the daunting perspective of the necessity of doing exercise for one's entire life. We allow the enormity of the ongoing, continuous nature of such an enterprise to deflate our resolve. The result of this flawed point of view is that we stop ourselves before we can even get started. But if we radically modify our interpretation of the "continuous" nature of the work to be done and instead approach our exercise activities from the "discrete" standpoint, we would then be able to take each exercise session on its own merits. Whole and complete in itself, today's exercise only needs to be done today. Tomorrow's exercise, which when it arrives is now "today's" exercise, is done similarly. Do today's work today. Over time, the discrete method results in a continuum of results. We accomplish our long-term goals step-by-step, giving our full attention, focus, and concentration to what needs to be done right now, today.^1,2

Once we become willing to take on this deeper understanding of the nature of the process of exercise, the next step is to investigate and choose our preferred types of exercise activities. The good news is that, other than making sure we're doing both cardiovascular and strength training exercises, the specific type of exercise doesn't matter. As long as we're doing some form of cardiovascular exercise on a regular basis, whether we run, walk, swim, bike, or cross-country ski is up to us. Similarly, as long as we're doing some form of strength training on a regular basis, whether we use kettle bells, medicine balls, or a combination of free weights and stationary equipment is our choice. The key, overall, is to avoid Zeno's critical error, and be well aware of the distinction between "discrete" and "continuous" events. This empowering distinction will be of value, not only in terms of exercise, but in all aspects of life.³


1Innes KE, Selfe TK: Yoga for Adults with Type 2 Diabetes: A Systematic Review of Controlled Trials. J Diabetes Res 2016;2016:6979370. doi: 10.1155/2016/6979370. Epub 2015 Dec 14.


2Skórkowska-Telichowska K, et al: Nordic walking in the second half of life. Aging Clin Exp Res 2016 Jan 23. [Epub ahead of print]


3Haider T, et al: Yoga as an Alternative and Complementary Therapy for Cardiovascular Disease: A Systematic Review. J Evid Based Complementary Altern Med 2016 Jan 19. pii: 2156587215627390. [Epub ahead of print]

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The Platonic Ideal

Regular Chiropractic Care and Ongoing Wellness

Regular chiropractic care is an important component of any health, fitness, and wellness program. Whether you're engaged in upgrading your diet, beginning or enhancing a program of regular, vigorous exercise, or launching a meditation or awareness practice, regular chiropractic care helps provide the physiologic framework by which you can achieve the greatest benefit from your wellness activities. In order to derive optimum benefit from your diet, fitness, and wellness programs, your nerve system must be functioning at peak capacity. Your nerve system is your body's master system. Accurate and timely flow of information is required between your nerve system and other systems, such as your digestive, hormonal, and cardiorespiratory systems. Interruptions in the flow of these signals or miscommunications will prevent you from obtaining maximum value from your healthy diet and exercise activities. By detecting and correcting spinal misalignments that cause nerve irritation, regular chiropractic care helps ensure that all your body systems are working together in harmony. As a result, regular chiropractic care helps you and your family achieve long-term health and well-being.

Plato's Ideas were perfect templates, of which everything we perceive are tangible representations. But the Ideas were not to be found in the world around us. Rather, they were conceptions of rational thought, transcendental objects of knowledge existing in a realm beyond our own. And yet, Plato's Ideas continue to be a source of inspiration and wonder, more than 2400 years after he first described them. These ethereal notions continue to function as critical guideposts, significant markers along our various life journeys, standing for ideal outcomes we are striving for and hope to achieve.
For example, we all have our own ideal image of what physical fitness is supposed to look like. These ideal images may vary from person to person, but each image ultimately derives from a Platonic Idea of physical human beauty, strength, and musculoskeletal proportion. Our conundrum, if we care about health, wellness, and fitness, is how we're going to go about achieving our ideal. As we proceed along our path to optimal physical fitness, it's very important to keep in mind that the Idea, as such, is not an actual part of our world. We will fail if we seek to achieve such perfection. A reasonable goal is to do what needs to be done and continue to do our best in all such endeavors.
A primary major access to physical fitness is starting and maintaining a healthy, nutritious diet. Such a diet involves making consistent choices from all of the five food groups, that is, fruits, vegetables, grains, protein foods, and dairy products. Each of us has our own specific preferences, and some of us may have specific requirements, such as being gluten-free or lactose-free, but the requirement for variety and obtaining the nutrition provided by each group remains the same for everyone. Importantly, international health agencies strongly recommend eating five portions of fresh fruits and vegetables every day. In the United States, this recommendation has been termed, "Five to Stay Alive".
A healthy diet, maintained over months and years, provides across-the-board benefits for fitness and wellness. When combined with a program of regular vigorous exercise, healthy eating results in conversion of unneeded fat to lean muscle mass, weight loss, and an enhanced sense of well-being. Research consistently demonstrates that a healthy diet reduces the risk of high blood pressure, heart attack, and stroke.¹ A healthy diet reduces the risk of cancer, diabetes, and obesity.² Thus, a healthy diet not only helps us achieve our own representation of the Platonic Idea of physical fitness. A healthy diet helps us achieve our own demonstration of other important Platonic Ideas, those of happiness and harmony.^3
1Koutsos A, et al: Apples and cardiovascular health--is the gut microbiota a core consideration? Nutrients 7(6):3959-3998, 2015
²Esposito K, et al: A journey into a Mediterranean diet and type 2 diabetes: a systematic review with meta-analyses. BMJ Open 2015 Aug 10;5(8):e008222. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2015-008222
³Richard A, et al: Associations between fruit and vegetable consumption and psychological distress: results from a population-based study. BMC Psychiatry 2015 Oct 1;15(1):213. doi: 10.1186/s12888-015-0597-4

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Dr. Parrish Skrien has been freeing people from pain in the clinic in Mankato, MN. As a Chiropractor with experience, Dr. Skrien is committed to promoting optimal health and well being of  patients.
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Dr. Skrien uses a "whole person approach". This approach to wellness means looking for underlying causes of any disturbance or disruption (which may or may not be causing symptoms at the time) and make whatever interventions and lifestyle adjustments that would optimize the conditions for normal function. Using this unique approach, Dr. Skrien is able to help you to accelerate and/or maintain your journey to good health.
Dr. Skrien has been in practice since 1993, and is a graduate of Palmer College of Chiropractic. He is a Certified Medical Examiner for DOT Exams #3288071785, and specialises in the Gonstead Technique.  He has been in the Mankato area since 1996, and in his current location since 2005. He is dedicated to helping his patients reach their optimum health in a drug free manner. He treats patients of all ages from newborns as young as a day old to patients in their 90's. He has a number of athletes under care ranging from grade school, high school, college, and the weekend warriors. He has helped some of them get to their personal best including  try outs for the Olympic games, and pro baseball.

Peventive Health Care

Health Statistics and You

Preventive Care is the Best Care

In health care, an ounce of prevention is worth very much more than a pound of cure. If you can prevent health problems from happening, you save a great deal of time, effort, and money. Also, by avoiding the frequently ongoing stress and anxiety associated with treatment of a chronic illness, you and your family conserve precious, irreplaceable personal resources such as peace of mind. A comprehensive preventive care program incorporates a healthy food plan, consistent regular exercise, and regular chiropractic care. Regular chiropractic care, focusing on the spinal column and targeting nerve interference, is a key resource in your health care program. Regular chiropractic care provides the framework so that your body can function at peak efficiency, thus helping ensure your long-term health and well-being.

We are awash in numbers, thanks in large part to the proliferation of personal mobile devices and the wrong-headed use of so-called big data.¹ But applying statistical tools to the same set of data can support competing theories and lead to contradictory results. Such conflicting outcomes, known as antinomies if you remember Philosophy 101, cannot logically co-exist, and the field of statistics gets a bad reputation as a result. But big data can provide substantial value for people as individual patients. The key is to set some ground rules and understand the limitations of statistical investigation.
First and foremost, it's important to gain some clarity regarding the concept of false positives in regards to health. This statistical construct is familiar to all of us, although we may not be aware of it. If one of your doctors sends you for a laboratory test and the results are "positive", you'll be sent for follow-up tests until a final determination is made. If the final test turns out "negative", then the earlier results represented a false positive. The test results said you had the condition or disease, but in fact you did not.
False positives create numerous serious problems, not the least of which is the emotional toll of stress, anxiety, and fear experienced by the patient and her family and close friends. This is especially true when the suspected disease is a malignancy or other serious, life-threatening condition. It's useful and empowering for people to learn that 5% of all test results are falsely positive right from the start. Medical tests are designed this way. The 5% false positive rate is a necessary part of statistical analysis. It's built-in to the statistical design. In other words, test values that represent "normal" are obtained by cutting off the bottom 2.5% and the top 2.5% of a large sample of results from people who are "normal" for the thing being tested, such as white blood cell count or hemoglobin level.
Thus, 5% of normal people automatically have false positive results. Another way of stating this outcome is to consider that if you undergo a panel of 20 blood tests, one result (5% of 20) will be positive no matter what.
The vast majority of patients are not familiar with the statistical concept of false positive results.² With a basic understanding of this construct and its implications, patients could ask their doctors meaningful questions such as, "What do the test results mean?,", "Have you considered the possibility of a false positive result?," and "How will the additional tests you're recommending affect decision-making in my case?"
Posing such questions is tremendously empowering for you, the patient, and helps reestablish equity in the doctor-patient relationship.³ As a health care consumer, a little knowledge goes a long way. Gaining more than a little knowledge by reading articles on diagnostic methods and health care decision-making will further strengthen your own process as a patient.
¹Bates DW, et al: Big data in health care: using analytics to identify and manage high-risk and high-cost patients. Health Aff (Millwood) 33(7):1123-31, 2014
²Paddock SM: Statistical benchmarks for health care provider performance assessment: a comparison of standard approaches to a hierarchical Bayesian histogram-based method. Health Serv Res 49(3):1056-73, 2014
³Stacey D, et al: Decision aids for people facing health treatment or screening decisions. Cochane Database Syst Rev 28;1:CD001431, 2014

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Rice and Beans

Regular Chiropractic Care and a Healthy Lifestyle

The importance of making healthy lifestyle choices is becoming increasingly well known. Vigorous exercise, a healthy diet, and sufficient rest are key components of a healthy lifestyle, regardless of a person's age. But in order to get the most out of the good things you're doing on your own behalf, your nerve system must be functioning at full capacity. Nerve signals, messages between your brain and the rest of your body, need to be transmitted accurately and on time. "Service interruptions" result when spinal misalignments and nerve irritation are present. Your musculoskeletal system and digestive system are prevented from working efficiently. Such problems may lead to pain, symptoms, and even disease. Regular chiropractic care corrects spinal misalignments and helps reduce and resolve nerve irritation. As a result, regular chiropractic care helps maximize the benefit of all healthy lifestyle choices, enabling everyone to achieve greater levels of health and well being.

Rice and beans is a well-liked combination of foods that is not only delicious, but also good for you. Other well-known examples of food combinations, such as corn and lima beans (succotash), tomatoes and avocados, and even orange juice and oatmeal, provide benefits beyond those gained by eating these sound nutritional choices individually.¹
For example, the combination of rice and beans provides complete dietary protein (containing all the essential amino acids we need to build all the other proteins in our bodies). Similarly, the succotash combination of lima beans and corn contains high concentrations of essential amino acids. When you combine avocados and tomatoes, the fat from the avocado helps your body more efficiently use heart-healthy and cancer-fighting antioxidants such as lycoprene contained in the tomato. A heart-healthy breakfast consisting of real oatmeal, such as oatmeal made from rolled oats or steel cut oats, and real orange juice (not from concentrate) provides a potent combination of phenols that are associated with reduced atherosclerosis and cancer. ^2,3
These combinations are specific examples of the more general principle of food combining by which you combine proteins and complex carbohydrates at every meal. When you combine these complementary sources of nutrition on a regular basis, you retrain your body's metabolism. By consuming a "slow-burning" energy source, you're providing high-quality fuel for the next three to four hours. Several very good things occur as a result. Energy utilization is optimized, that is, your body gets more benefit out of every calorie it's burning. Additionally, insulin levels are stabilized throughout the day. Over time, food combining helps a person become a leaner machine and helps reduce the likelihood of developing type 2 diabetes. These benefits are especially important for people who have been told they are hypoglycemic or pre-diabetic. Of course, you should always check with your doctor to make sure a food combining strategy is right for you.
When you add a program of regular, vigorous exercise to your food combining lifestyle choice, you obtain even more profound benefits. The vigorous exercise you're doing raises your body's basal metabolic rate. Your body begins to burn calories even when you're asleep. Owing to the increase in lean muscle mass you're gaining from exercising over time, you're burning more calories throughout the day. You find yourself craving more nutritious foods, that is, those that will provide higher-quality nutrition, such as the nutrition contained in such combinations as rice and beans and oatmeal and orange juice. Thus, your positive lifestyle choices contain their own positive feedback system. The better choices you make, the healthier you become, and the healthier you want to be. The long-term results are enhanced health and well being for you, your family, and your friends.
¹Liu RH: Health-promoting components of fruits and vegetables in the diet. Adv Nutr 4(3):384S-392S, 2013
²Hu D, et al: Fruits and vegetables consumption and risk of stroke: a meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies. Stroke 45(6):1613-1619, 2014
³Thomburg KL, Challis JR: How to build a healthy heart from scratch. Adv Exp Med Biol 814:205-216, 2014

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Avoiding Diabetes

Avoiding Diabetes

Regular Chiropractic Care and a Healthy Lifestyle

Regardless of the prescription medication you may or may not be taking, regular chiropractic care helps provide a strong platform for managing the effects of chronic disease. Although the ultimate causes of chronic diseases such as high blood pressure and diabetes are largely unknown, nerve interference may be reasonably postulated as a key contributor to the development and maintenance of these conditions. If as a result of nerve interference, your body's cells, tissues, and organs are not receiving timely and accurate information from your brain, then a host of symptoms may develop. Over time, chronic disease may be the unwanted outcome. Regular chiropractic care helps eliminate nerve interference by detecting, analyzing, and correcting spinal misalignments that result from normal, everyday circumstances involving work and stress. By helping restore spinal function and reducing irritation to the nerve system, regular chiropractic care provides an environment in which chronic disease is less likely to flourish and your health and well-being can be maximized. Click here to find out how we may help

The worldwide type 2 diabetes epidemic has been thoroughly documented.^1,2 Yet despite extensive study and analysis, there has been little actual progress in slowing the spread of this chronic disease. Numerous medications such as metformin and glyburide are available to help counter the severe problems that result from unchecked diabetes. But if the person with diabetes doesn't assist in the process of getting well, the disease will continue on its unrelenting course. There are many important  steps a diabetic patient can take to improve his or her health status. Better still, these same steps may be implemented by healthy persons to ward off type 2 diabetes in the first place.
In type 2 diabetes, the cells of your body become resistant to the effects of insulin. Normally, the hormone insulin promotes the absorption of glucose from the blood by muscle cells and fat cells. With insulin resistance, glucose fails to be properly absorbed by these cells and blood levels of glucose rise. Over time, some of this excess glucose is converted into fat, increasing the person's weight, causing high blood pressure, and placing undue stress on the heart. Further, prolonged exposure to excess glucose damages small blood vessels and nerve fibers, leading to significant pain along large nerve tracts (neuropathies), loss of circulation to and even amputation of a lower limb, kidney disease, kidney failure, eye disease, and blindness.
Thus, diabetes can be devastating for both patients and their families. The annual public health costs related to diabetes treatment are huge. Diabetes costs in the U.S. were $245 billion in 2012, representing $176 billion in direct medical costs and $69 billion in lost productivity. Worse, in 2012, 9.3% (29.1 million) of Americans had diabetes, up from 8.3% (25.8 million persons) in 2010. Costs of diabetes to patients, families, and society continue to rise.
The only feasible method of combating the worldwide diabetes epidemic focuses on individual initiative. Medical treatment, by definition, arrives after the fact, typically years after the diabetes process has been set in motion. Prevention is the best strategy. Adopting a lifestyle that, indirectly, leads to appropriate utilization of insulin rather than insulin resistance offers a real, effective solution to diabetes prevention. More than 20 years of research has demonstrated that 30 minutes of vigorous exercise a day, combined with a healthy diet and sufficient rest, will substantially assist a person in avoiding chronic diseases such as diabetes.³ Personal accountability and personal responsibility are called for. It is up to each of us to make such choices in the best interest of ourselves and our families.
¹Vollenweider P, et al: HDLs, Diabetes, and Metabolic Syndrome. Handb Exp Pharmacol 224:405-421, 2015
²Skrha J: Diabetes mellitus--a global pandemic. Keynote lecture presented at the Wonca conference in Prague in June 2013. Eur J Gen Pract 20(1):65-68, 2014
³Orio F, et al: Lifestyle changes in the management of adulthood and childhood obesity. Minerva Endocrinol 2014 Dec 17. [Epub ahead of print]

The Fast Lane

Regular Chiropractic Care and Core Fitness

Many exercise-related injuries are caused, in part, by deficiencies in core muscle strength. Weakness in core performance leads to a lack of biomechanical support for movements such as bending, lifting, pushing, and pulling. You're not aware of such lack of support until, for example, you attempt a dumbbell squat or try to run a little faster in an interval training session. Even a simple exercise such as a lat pulldown or triceps pressdown requires sufficient core stabilization. A strong core is critically important for a successful exercise program. The core muscular system consists of numerous inner layers of sheets of muscle and a vast array of small muscles that help maintain coordinated movement among your spinal bones, pelvic bones, and hip joints. By detecting and correcting spinal misalignments that cause nerve interference, regular chiropractic care helps ensure that your core muscles are receiving the nerve information they need to function properly and help you get the most out of your exercise time.

Driving fast is not necessarily a good thing. We want to get where we're going as quickly as possible, but we also want to arrive safely. If we drive too fast, we may encounter all sorts of problems. If we drive too slow, we're wasting time and may be causing traffic problems behind us. These competing considerations will both be fulfilled by maintaining an average velocity that is at or close to the posted speed limit. We want to find the "sweet spot," the happy medium that both saves time and helps keep us safe.
The same principles may also be applied when we're exercising. We want to improve, get stronger, and build more endurance as soon as we can, while simultaneously avoiding injury and staying healthy. Very often, these goals may conflict. It's important to ensure that we're exercising efficiently and making certain we're deriving the greatest benefit from our exercise time. These benefits are obtained by a steady approach, one that focuses on incremental gains accomplished over time.¹
It's natural to want to arrive at a desired outcome quickly. But as with any other form of training, whether learning to play the piano or becoming a competent chess player, substantial time is required to produce long lasting results. In the case of exercise, trying to hurry the process will usually cause an injury. You'll be set back at least weeks, if not months, and you'll have to start over, pretty much from the beginning.
For almost all of us the "tortoise" approach, rather than that of the "hare" in the well-known fable, will produce the health benefits we're hoping to achieve from our daily exercise. If you've never walked before and want to incorporate this aerobic activity as part of your exercise routine, start with a 10-minute walk. This doesn't sound like much, but that is precisely the point. Start by doing a little and build up gradually and consistently. Within 6 or 8 weeks you'll be doing 30-40 minute brisk walks several times a week, which will represent a very good aerobic exercise program. Incorporating strength training into your routine will employ a similar method. For each of your exercises (such as bench press, one-arm row, squat, toe raise, shoulder press, biceps curl, and lying triceps press), begin with a weight with which you can comfortably do 10 repetitions. If you can't do 10 reps, the weight is too heavy. Start with that weight and do 3 sets per exercise. Build up gradually by increasing the weight by 5%, if possible, each week or every 2 weeks. After 10 to 12 weeks you'll be noticeably stronger and your metabolism will begin to be more efficient.^2,3
By progressing slowly and steadily, you will build a solid base and make consistent and possibly substantial gains in your exercise routine. You will get where you want to get safely and effectively. The long-term outcome will be enhanced health, wellness, and well-being.

¹Marongiu E, Crisafulli A: Cardioprotection acquired through exercise: the role of ischemic preconditioning. Curr Cardiol Rev 10(4):336-348, 2014
²Huxel Bliven KC, Anderson BE: Core stability training for injury prevention. Sports Health 5(6):514-522, 2013
³Granacher U, et al: The importance of trunk muscle strength for balance, functional performance, and fall prevention in seniors: a systematic review. Sports Med 43(7):627-641, 2013

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