Celebrating connections during the Fal River Festival

The Fal River : connecting people for centuries.

This week sees the Fal River Festival return to Falmouth. Now in its 11th year, the festival is a celebration of everything that makes living in this part of Cornwall great.

From live music and outdoor theatre groups to art exhibitions and world-class watersports, the Fal River Festival kicks off the Cornish summer festival season and is a chance for visitors and locals alike to embrace the connections between people and places, history and culture and experience how they are tied together and shaped by living life on these beautiful waterways.

On a very practical level, and when we look at the different sports taking place on the river, chiropractic is great for sailors, paddle boarders, swimmers and gig rowers. Not only does it improve function and performance but it also reduces the risk of injury.

But chiropractic treatment is much more than that. Being connected and being present are two of the building blocks chiropractic is built upon. The festival is a celebration of connections and chiropractic is a way of enhancing how connected we are and we feel, not only with ourselves, but with the environment around us.

When the brain and the body are better connected (a state achieved through regular chiropractic care) then the body and the mind will function better. Our nervous system controls every aspect of how we experience the world and in order to experience it fully, we need that system to be healthy and free from blockages.

When we’re more connected, our awareness and sense of purpose is heightened. And through this better connection, we appreciate what we’re doing fully and in present-time. So this week we celebrate connections, whether they be connections formed by the love of a Cornish river or the connections we can feel when our mind and body are in perfect sync.

If you’d like to see how chiropractic can help you be more connected then we’d love to see you. Pop in for an initial consultation, a report of findings and your first adjustment, all for £14 (usually £68). Just mention the Festival offer when you book.    

Be your best, 

Simon

Such a Scilly offer...

I’ve recently started checking a number gig rowers. Like any form of rowing, gig rowing is notorious for putting unnatural strain on the back and spine. 

Two things quickly became clear with the rowers I’m helping. Firstly, rowing causes a significant amount of pain throughout the body and, secondly, chiropractic care for rowers can enhance performance alongside helping the body and brain deal with pain through better healing.

Chiropractic is much more than alleviating back pain. It’s the art and science of ensuring your nervous system (the master controller) is functioning correctly and your brain and body are able to communicate effectively with each other. 

You’ve probably just got back from a wonderful weekend in the Scillies, with most of you rowing at least 4 races (5 for the veterans and superveterans!). You’ve just put your body and nervous system through a whole world of stress and, if I can, I want to help you get back on track.

That’s why I’m doing a special ‘Scilly’ offer for all rowers which includes an initial consultation, a report of findings and your first adjustment, all for £14 (usually £68). 

Please do get in touch if you’d like to find out more or book an appointment and help that body repair after a wild weekend.

You can book online here, email me simon@myliving-room.com on or call on 01326 617290.

I am Simon Finemore a Chiropractor and a native of Cornwall recently moved back and opened a cool boutique practice in Falmouth Marina on North Parade. We have been open about 6 months and things are going really well...

Ketogenesis, Ketogenic, Ketosis... what?

Very simply Ketones are organic chemical compounds that your brain, heart and muscles can use as a fuel source for your mitochodria to produce energy. Ketones are made in your liver but can be taken as a supplement which increases available ketones for use by the body in the absence of glucose. Ketones may well be the primary fuel source that your body used throughout our evolution in the absence of excessive glucose. If you think about it we have only really had freely available glucose in our diets in the last 100 yrs where we have seen consumption per person per year multiply 100 fold in the west. 

The way I explain it to my clients is that its a bit like comparing burning petrol for fuel (glucose) and burning logs (ketones). Petrol is easy to light and burns impressively but it soon burns out and you require more to keep you going. Logs are harder to light but burn longer and don't create as many nasty combustion products as petrol (the end products of using excessive glucose as a fuel are called AGEs : Advanced Glycation End-products http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3704564/).

The probable benefits of switching your body to a ketone currency (increasing available ketones and decreasing glucose) are :

Suppression of appetite which can help you loose weight

Improved athletic performance

Improved cognition (your brain loves ketones)

Neuroprotective effect - ketones may protect the brain from age related degeneration

Anti-carcinogenic effects (in mice at least) as cancer cells cannot use ketones well and it seems to promote cancer cell death

Some anti-inflammatory properties have also been observed 

The negatives associated with a ketogenic approach are:

Possible bad breath in Ketosis 

If you take too much MCT oil (Medium Chain Triglyceride oil made from coconut and palm oils - the C8 Caprylic Acid form would seem to be the best at promoting ketones) can cause disaster pants (unexpected improved transit of the contents of your bowels). Powdered forms of MCT are available and seem to be even better at promoting ketones but currently are expensive.

Personally I use Bulletproof coffee with added MCT oil in the morning to provide my exogenous ketones (fatty coffee - no carbs)  

For more information you can listen to various podcasts by Dominic D'Agostino

http://www.dominicdagostino.com

Beautiful Morning at Falmouth Marina yesterday (home of LivingRoom Chiropractic)

Falmouth Marina 

Today it's raining, but yesterday... 

Beautiful Falmouth Marina a great environment to be as a Chiropractor @ LivingRoom, great Staff at Premier Marina's, Marina bar upstairs, free parking for clients, Cutting Edge hairdressers if you need a trim, Ancasta yacht sales when you are buying your first yacht and much much more...

Come down and check it out! 

Dem Bones, Dem Bones

A lot of bones moving through space and time... 

Q: So what positions and moves all those bones in synchrony? 

A: Your muscle system. 

Q: So what makes your muscles move your joints?

A: Your nerves. 

Every muscle in your body is connected to a nerve that feeds back information to your brain about tone and stretch and position. This is how your brain builds up a picture of what is happening to you in space and time. The quality and clarity of this feed back determines the quality and clarity of feed back to the muscles, like a loop or a circuit. The better the feedback the better the movement patterns, efficiency and performance of your muscles, your joints and your body. 

Your network of nerves connects to every square centimetre of your body. Every sq. cm. of YOU is connected to a nerve that feeds up to a trunk of nerves that enter the spine in between each vertebra and then the enter the spinal cord and on up to the brain. 

That is why Chiropractors focus on how the spine works because we want the connection between you, your nerves and your brain to be as clear as possible. A spine that doesn't work as well as it should can confuse the nerve communication up to the brain and back down again. 

The clearer the nerve communication throughout YOU the better you work, the better you heal, the closer you are to your full potential and the less injuries and ware and tear you will accumulate over time. 

We are made of many things that are made of many cells but every cell, every organ is connected to the one under your hat (your brain). 

INSPIRATION is better than DESPERATION

Both of these sitting postures are poor. 

It is rarely the accident or the unusual lift that causes problems but your daily grind or habits that are the cause. 

If you watch most 5 year olds they bend and squat like olympic weightlifters; they have perfect form. As soon as we force our children to sit for long enough they start to loose those natural movement patterns and bend, lift and sit abnormally (like most adults). 

It's better to be inspired by great posture, great health, feeling well than to wait until you are desperate for help to correct an established problem caused by an established habit. 

Try to lead by example and inspire others to choose different daily habits. Come to see your Chiropractor for inspiration, not through desperation. 

Inspiring Posture 

Link between your Gut, your Vagus nerve and the incidence of Parkinson's Disease

The marvellous Vagus Nerve 

There was an interesting Danish study recently published that suggested a significant association between gut function and the incidence of Parkinson's Disease. The study found that those people who had had their vagus nerve severed in the past had a significantly lower incidence of developing the disease. 

This may suggest a possible link between gut health and resultant pathological effects on the brain. Further evidence that you should consider the health of your gut and indeed the type of bacteria that lives within it (your 'microbiome') as of the utmost importance to your general health and longevity. 

Bulletproof Coffee back in stock at LivingRoom Chiropractic Cornwall

Mmmmm Bulletproof Coffee - clean, stimulates you and tastes great 

I use Bulletproof Coffee most mornings blended with MCT oil and grass fed butter to keep me in fat burning until lunchtime. Tastes great, makes me feel great and the evidence for the benefits of Ketosis and fasting with exogenous ketones is growing. 

Complimentary Initial Examination for Children (under 18 yoa)

Our children are our future and at LivingRoom we think it's really important that as many children are checked in order so that any spinal dysfunction can be addressed as soon as possible. 

Call 01326 617290 or book online www.myliving-room.com

What is Sciatica? How can Chiropractic help?

Sciatica often originates in the Spine

As you can see from the diagram above true sciatica more often than not originates in the spine. Your sciatic nerve is made up of a number of spinal nerves that descend together down the leg. Irritation of any of these spinal nerves can cause irritation and symptoms in the sciatic nerve.  

Your spinal joints lie just behind your main nerves that exit through the spine. If your joints are unhappy they can become inflamed and irritate the nerve, this can affect the ability of your brain to receive vital messages from your leg and to send vital messages down the nerve to your leg. Nerve irritation can also give you sciatic pain which can go along the length of the sciatic nerve all the way to your foot. 

If you spinal joints have been dysfunctional for some time this can lead to stress on your spinal discs which can in turn can make a disc injury more likely. Your spinal disc sits directly in front of the major nerve that exits from the spine. So just like joint inflammation, disc inflammation can cause irritation to your spinal nerves and then your sciatic nerve. Disc injuries can be very small (annular tear) or more significant (full prolapse) but either way they can irritate the spinal nerves depending on how much inflammation occurs. 

Therefore in order to help you with your sciatic nerve pain we often need to reduce the irritation and inflammation in and around the spinal nerves that go on to make up the Sciatic nerve. This means we have to address any dysfunction in the joints and discs of the spine. If the spine is happier, the nerves that exit the spine will be happier, inflammation will decrease and so will your nerve pain. The key is finding the cause of the irritation (often the spinal joints) and not just attempting to treat the symptoms.  

As Chiropractors we aim to improve the function of the unhappy spinal joints by the application gentle and specific hands on techniques called Chiropractic Adjustments which stimulate normal nerve reflexes local to the spinal joints and allow the joints to function better and to begin healing. 

Happy joints = happy nerves = happy body = happy brain 

OCTOBER 2015 is Friends and Family Month: First Visit is only £15 (normally £40)

Disclaimer : none of the machines illustrated are used in LivingRoom or recommended by Simon Finemore DC. Any tests carried out during your first visit are not represented in this illustration. 

During October you can book in your friends and family for an initial consultation with Simon for only £15.

You can find out if you have any problems that we can help you with and how we would go about that (consultation takes about 45mins). 

LED lights only in LivingRoom Chiropractic Cornwall

View fullsize

LED lights in LivingRoom do not emit any blue light that stimulates and irritates your brain. They only emit yellow and orange tones which allow you to feel more comfortable and relax. 

Great time at Goodwood Revival

Bumped into Ant Anstead on the dance floor in the Doom Bar tent after a great sunny day of racing at Goodwood Revival 

Running - a software upgrade

Forefoot Running in Finland 

Running/Movement/Exercise provides essential feedback to the brain from the receptors of your body. It is like feeding your nervous system and brain or giving your operating system an upgrade. The more food/upgrades your nervous system gets the better able it is to communicate clear instructions to the body. More than 50% of all this brain food comes from the receptors in your spine. The less subluxations you have in your spine and your joints, the clearer the information your brain receives. 

Amount of Movement/Exercise (-number of subluxations) = quality and quantity of essential feedback to the brain = quality and quantity of instructions from the brain down (ABOVE DOWN INSIDE OUT) to the body. 

Red Arrows at Falmouth Week

Beautiful Day yesterday watching the Red Arrows perform for Falmouth Week on North Parade 

Open Afternoon Chat Friday 7th 5-7pm

We are having an opening event on Friday 7th August from 5-7pm where you can pop in and chat with Simon, check out the LivingRoom, have a drink and some strawberries...

Come in and say hello...

Saturday Morning Chiropractic

LivingRoom Chiropractic Cornwall in Falmouth is open to check you on Saturdays too - pop in after breakfast ...