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The simple sight of an airplane or the thought of an airborne voyage can be enough to set some back-pain sufferers jittering with anticipation. The plane is one of the worst places for backs because of the confined spaces and poorly designed chairs. It is unfortunate that people actively avoid travelling to their dream destinations because they simply cannot put themselves through the pain of a flight. At Espinosa Family Chiropractic, we want to help you overcome this pain and get on the plane. To this end, we offer chiropractic adjustment to ensure that your back is free of subluxation and muscular imbalance that could contribute to debilitating pain. From here, we offer you our expertise on making the plane a more comfortable place to be:

• Standing up: every 20 minutes while the seat belt sign is off, stand up and walk down the aisle and back. While you’re up, keep your legs straight and reach for your toes. 
• Stretching: from the chair, perform gentle neck twists, shoulder rolls and leg lifts to break the cycle of accumulating tension. 
• Hydrating: drink plenty of water on the plane, to keep joints hydrated and reduce the chance of cramping. 
• Using the complimentary pillow: to create as close to a properly supported resting position as may be possible, place the pillow in the curve of your lower back and sit up straight against it.

These tips will help you keep your blood circulating, helping to improve every function and system in your body. Utilizing proper posture will also help you prevent further degradation to the joints and structures of the back. For more help on creating a more comfortable travelling experience, give our office in Sacramento a call at (916) 457-8825.

Dr. Raymond Espinosa, D.C. 

Vacation raises the spirits. boosts energy levels, and strengthens the mind’s resolve. It offers a crucial respite to the many days of work that pile on both mental and physical stress. So, are you headed to the mountains for a camping getaway? to a tropical beach to do nothing but read books and swim? or to a city you’ve always wanted to see to breathe in the culture and experience some culinary delight? Whatever your plan, these tips can help maximize your enjoyment and minimize your pain: 

• Always factor in some rest! It is easy to get carried away trying to see every last thing, which leaves you mentally spun out and physically exhaustive. Balance the sight seeing with taking your time in restaurants and truly relaxing. 
• Get a good pair of walking shoes: you often end up walking more than you ever imagined. A good pair of walking shoes will prevent a lot of damage to your joints and leave you feeling spry!
• Bring your own pillow: hotel pillows are often inadequate and can leave your neck feeling stiff and sore after what was supposed to be a relaxing night. 
• Posture: keep it in mind! Don’t let this trip contribute to the degradation of your spinal structures or supporting muscles. Stay upright and smile! 
• Stretch: whether you are travelling by plane, train or automobile, find time to break the monotony and release the accumulating tension with a few well-timed stretches. 

If in doubt, call our office before your trip and schedule an examination. We can ensure your back is properly aligned and free of nerve-impinging subluxation. At the same time, we can work together to create a plan for spinal health on your travels. Give our office in Sacramento a call and see how we can optimize the enjoyment of your vacation. 

Dr. Raymond Espinosa, D.C. 

Pain limits movement: this we know to be true. Pain is often enough to discourage people from exercising completely, to the detriment of their rehabilitation. Excluding more severe injuries, successful rehabilitation often depends on keeping your body moving. Benefits of more flexibility include:

• Prevention of injury 
• Better balance and coordination 
• Easier aerobic exercise
• Improved athletic performance 
• Easier everyday movements 
• Faster rehabilitation
• Less likelihood or re-injury
• Less pain 

We do not propose that the average person needs the flexibility of a contortionist; however, everyone can use a little more flexibility in their life. Healthier joints and longer, stronger muscles become all the more important as we age. So, how does chiropractic help? We realign joints to reduce pain and immediately restore range of motion. This makes stretching for flexibility less painful and more effective: stretching will elongate your muscle fiber, from the middle of the muscle to the point where muscle meets tendon. 

Don’t let pain stop you from moving! It is a dangerous cycle whereby one encourages the other: pain encourages less movement, while less movement leaves you vulnerable to injury. For help reducing pain and adding more flexibility into your life, give our office in Sacramento a call. Helping you live a prosperous, pain free life is our prerogative. 

Dr. Raymond Espinosa, D.C. 

Sinuses can be your friend or foe depending on how well they are working: it is generally agreed that the function of sinuses (the air-filled cavities in the forehead and cheek bones) is to conduct the drainage of mucus from the nasal passageway by allowing air to circulate freely. However, as anyone who has had a sinus headache knows, a sinus blockage can be problematic: as mucus builds up, less air can flow through and thus less drainage occurs. This creates a veritable breeding ground for bacteria which causes infection. This infection that causes inflammation and swelling, we know as sinusitis. 

Symptoms of sinusitis include: 

• Fatigue
• Stuffiness
• Achy jaw
• Full ears
• Pressure in the cheeks and forehead

Symptoms are usually the worst in the morning, after you have reduced further any chance of drainage by lying horizontal all night. A sinus headache can make for a pretty crummy way to start the day. At Espinosa Family Chiropractic, we seek to determine whether a structural cause may be the source of the blockage. Subluxation, particularly in the cervical region, can interfere with nerve supply to the sinuses.

We ensure that the spine is free of subluxation through specifically targeted adjustment and tap around the sinuses to encourage them to drain properly. Furthermore, people who regularly suffer from sinus headaches can benefit from more movement: exercise improves circulation and lets the air flow, making breathing easier. Other ways you can effect an improvement on a sinus infection is through proper hydration and consumption of anti-inflammatory nutrients. 

For more tips on how to fight the pest that is sinus infection, give our office in Sacramento a call. 

Dr. Raymond Espinosa, D.C. 

At Espinosa Family Chiropractic, we believe in a holistic approach to health: from this perspective, a chiropractic adjustment to relieve pain and re-establish balance is only the beginning. To continue the path of healing and improving wellness, it takes a coordinated effort between exercise, nutrition, sleep, posture and a host of other factors. For many people, this seems overwhelming but we urge you to fear not: if you are serious about making changes to improve your health, we are here to help. 

Corrective exercise is an invaluable element of chiropractic care. It improves the effectiveness of a spinal adjustment by going further: strengthening the muscles and connective tissue that keep your back balanced and healthy. Often, a quick examination will reveal that lower back and core muscles are strained without a person’s awareness. This type of muscle strain can be relieved with stretching and light aerobic activity, simple movements that get the muscle groups moving. 

A program for corrective exercise should be detailed to the individual: it is important to note that if you have suffered a serious spinal injury NO exercise should be undertaken. However, most conditions involving mild to moderate back pain will improve with appropriate exercise. We start slow: doing stretches and exercises that you feel comfortable with in small doses. We then introduce more advanced stretching and exercise as your strength and flexibility returns. 

If you are tired of back pain creating a drag on your life, give our office in Sacramento a call at (916) 457-8825

Dr. Raymond Espinosa, D.C. 

One of the greatest benefits of chiropractic is how it improves range of motion, impacting flexibility, reaction speeds, balance and coordination. It’s no wonder that many athletes swear by chiropractic to keep them on top of their game. At Espinosa Family Chiropractic, we see the impact that sedentary lifestyles have on the standard human’s flexibility: it is a very sad sight and we are here to change that.

When we sit in front of the computer all day, then watch TV all night, our muscles are training themselves to achieve only the range of motion necessary to sit, and generally not with good posture. Age and weight are other factors that conspire to limit the seemingly unlimited range of motion we once enjoyed as children and young adults. Poor flexibility leaves us more susceptible to injury, makes everyday movements more difficult, limits our athletic performance and makes recovering from injury less successful. 

Through chiropractic adjustment, we target spinal joints that may be out of alignment, creating pain and limiting your motion. Once we get you moving again, we help you implement a personalized plan that combines corrective exercise and flexibility stretching to keep you limber for a long life. 

Dr. Raymond Espinosa, D.C.

At Espinosa Family Chiropractic, spinal adjustments form the basis of our practice; however, our expertise extends to the realms nutrition and corrective exercise for those seeking total wellness. Immune function is certainly improved by ensuring the proper alignment of the spine, but to live a long life free of pain we need to be eating well, sleeping restfully, and strengthening our body properly. While not everyone is willing to upend their diet, adhering to some simple principles can change the way you feel and impact positive immune function and mental health. 

• Eat organic: At one time, the adage, “an apple a day keeps the doctor away,” may have been universally applied to all apples. Today, however, you want to ensure that your apple hasn’t been sprayed with pesticides during the course of its growth. Less pesticides, more nutrients. 
• Less alcohol: A great way to reduce your caloric intake, especially for beer drinkers. Reducing body weight is a great way to lessen the burden on the lower back.
• Focus on raw ingredients: Juice contains more sugar and fewer vitamins than the fruit it supposedly comes from. 
• Hydrate: A large percentage of Americans are chronically thirsty. Do you drink your eight 8 oz. glasses a day? An easy way to start getting more water in your diet is to purchase a 1 liter water bottle and drink it down twice throughout the day. 
• Eat less processed food: These contain all the wrong kinds of sugar and fats. Making the effort to cook with wholesome ingredients may take an hour longer but save you years of pain.

Nutrition and chiropractic care are complimentary in their quest for wellness: call our office in Sacramento today to start creating a dynamic plan that incorporates nutrition and chiropractic care.

Dr. Raymond Espinosa, D.C. 

Summer is a time to feel fine: plentiful sunshine, longer daylight hours and rich, colorful surroundings make us feel immediately happier. At Espinosa Family Chiropractic, we love summer because it gets people outdoors, exploring the things that truly make them happy after a winter that can sometimes become monotonous. Here are a few ways you can take your well-being to the next level during summer.

• Get plenty of vitamin D; it is free, after all. One of the most crucial components for immune system functioning and bone health is also the one which many Americans lack the most. Apply some sunscreen, grab a bottle of water and relax in the sun
• Stay hydrated: Pay attention to water and sodium levels in your body: we sweat more during the summer which means you probably need to drink more water than normal.
• Eat well: Local produce is abundant and often cheap. With farmer’s markets operating quite frequently, there is no reason to ignore all the vitamins, minerals and other nutrients which await you with some finely colored produce.
• Exercise, differently. Hiking in the mountains, swimming in the lakes, all of these become available during the summer season.

Relax: use the summer to focus on removing stress from your life. It is a great chance to reset, and we want to help you in this endeavor. Give our office in Sacramento a call at (916) 457-8825.

Dr. Raymond Espinosa, D.C. 

Gardening season is in full swing: with temperatures and spirits high, more people leave their winter skin on the couch so they can get growing. Gardening and chiropractic are complimentary: gardening is exactly the type of activity that gets people off the couch, to the benefit of their mind, body and soul. However, some of the motions involved can put strain on the back, especially if there is a pre-existing subluxation. At Espinosa Family Chiropractic, we offer prevention and treatment modalities that keep you in a state of enjoying gardening without the hassle of pain. 

Avoid aches and pains this gardening season by following these easy tips: 

Warm up: Stretching for less that 5 minutes before you get down and garden can keep your body limbered and strong against the kind of twisting, bending and dipping motions that are most frequent while gardening. 

Take breaks and drink water: Step back and enjoy the fruits of your labor while having a gulp of water or two. Make sure you are replacing the water that you shed so you don’t end up feeling exhausted and headache-y at the end of the day. Keeping properly hydrated makes all the functioning systems of your body work more efficiently. 

Avoid twisting unnecessarily: Keep your spade in front of you, to avoid twisting behind you to reach it. 

Lift properly: large loads are sometimes unavoidable in the garden, so make sure that you observe proper lifting etiquette by lifting with your legs and whole body as opposed to bending and lifting with the back. 

Mix up your tasks: Remaining hunched over on your knees for a long period of time encourages muscles to tighten and strain to occur. If you can, mix it up by doing small tasks and moving from patch to patch of your garden to keep muscles limber. 

If your back is not letting you enjoy gardening the way you used to, give our office in Sacramento a call. We can identify and correct misalignment, and speed the healing process of damaged tissues and strained ligaments. 

Dr. Raymond Espinosa, D.C. 

There is a high correlation between people who commute regularly or drive for a living and those who have spinal disorders. This is because the driver’s seat is not the best place for backs: very rarely are car seats engineered with a proper resting position in mind, and if they are, it may not be properly adjusted to the individual. So we must take a proactive approach to protecting our musculoskeletal integrity when driving regularly. Here are some ways you can make your daily commute more conducive to a healthy back:

• Lumbar support: whether it is built-in or whether you must add it in, using something that promotes the natural curvature of your spine will save you from the problem of slumping or slouching. 
• This being said, you must still take frequent breaks, depending on the length of the journey. Even sitting with perfect posture without moving for hours leaves you stiff and sore. Make sure you are hydrating regularly, and take breaks to breathe in the scenery. 
• Head positioning is very important. While you should always have your eyes on the road, make sure you are not craning your neck forward, amplifying the weight of your head to the spine and muscles in the neck and shoulders. Try to keep it centered above the spine with the chin slightly tucked. 

Don’t let driving put a drag on your spinal health. If your back feels sore or out of sorts no matter what kind of good things you are doing for it, there may be an underlying spinal condition that needs evaluation. At our office in Sacramento, we provide you with adjustments to keep your spine in alignment and slowing the advance of degenerative decay. Find out how our form of corrective chiropractic can optimize your well being by calling our office today. 

Dr. Raymond Espinosa, D.C.