Norman Doidge’s first book, The Brain that Changes Itself, was a game-changer. It shone light on the revolutionary discovery of neuroplasticity: that the brain was not hardwired as previously thought. This new idea stood in stark contrast to centuries worth of thinking that told us we were born with all the brain cells we would…
When it comes to diet, there are a lot of voices out there telling us what to eat, but since books like “The 5:2 Diet” burst onto the scene a few short years ago, there are now voices telling us how to eat. Mark Mattson, a Professor of Neuroscience at The Johns Hopkins University and…
We’ve known for a long time that some petrochemicals pose not-so-good news for health. We have seen research revealing that some BPA’s (that hide in certain plastics) bind to oestrogen receptor sites and fool the body into thinking it contains more oestrogen than it does. And we have long held notions that cosmetics and perfumes…
Few of us haven’t had some sort of encounter with motion sickness. Some suffer aboard boats or carnival rides, while others have had to pull the car over on a drive through sweeping hills so a partner or sibling can ‘have a talk to Mother Nature.’ Motion sickness is a fact of life for many…
Something happened at about the same time as the 1980’s opened for business. Low fat, no fat and skinny food and drink alternatives started lining the shelves in supermarkets. Diet soft drinks reigned supreme, all so the general population could enjoy all the perks of food but without the calories. Promising a reduction in heart…
“When you turn on the stress response, and you can’t turn it off, now you are headed for disease,” said chiropractor and author Joe Dispenza in his recent Ted Talk [1]. But Joe wasn’t talking about tangible, real-time stressors. He was talking about the human capacity to turn on the stress response by thought alone. …
Career planning starts young, sometimes even occurring in childhood as youngsters pretend to be doctors, nurses, mums, dads, builders, dancers and an assortment of superheroes. These dreams, while cute in the carefree days of childhood, can often carry over into the more serious career planning process that takes place later. But how do you encourage…
Robert Waldinger has presided over a 75 year Harvard study that looked at a simple yet oh-so-complex topic: what keeps us healthy and happy over the course of our lifetime? The results throw an interesting light on health, happiness, relationships and priorities. At a recent Ted Talk, Waldinger spoke of a survey of millennials (those…
Enter the term ‘superfood’ into a search engine and you’ll get a plethora of slick articles telling you all about the ten superfoods you need to be eating to cure all your health issues, the fifty must-have superfoods you need in your pantry, and the list goes on. These antioxidant rich foods are praised for…
Leading nutrition sources have some good news for us. Studies suggest that consuming a handful of nuts per day may reduce the risk of developing heart disease by 30-50% and reduce the risk of death from heart disease by around 20%. “This is based on the high proportion of healthy monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats in…
A couple of years ago, Spinal Research got an exciting funding application that we were all too keen to get behind. At the time, debate was raging around the use of chiropractic adjustments during pregnancy and infancy. Dr. Heidi Haavik and her co-investigators, Dr. Jenny Kruger and Professor Bernadette Murphy were keen to investigate whether…
Sometimes you encounter a story that feels eerily like a movie, with a plot that’s unfolding right before your eyes. This one involved a chance meeting in Addis Ababa, the Capital of Ethiopia, when Australian Chiropractor Dr Bronwyn McNamara dropped in to a local clinic while on a humanitarian trip. At the time the chiropractor…
Sleep matters. This statement alone will cause gasps of surprise from … absolutely no one. But the degree to which sleep matters has been a topic of intense study for years. A recent study turned up some rather concerning findings – that the total amount of sleep has shrunk to around seven hours per person,…
Over the last decade or so, the world of genetics has undergone quite a paradigm shift. The new science of epigenetics has emerged, and with it our health realities have started to change. We were no longer doomed to the health pitfalls that lurked in our family tree. In fact, there are many things we…
The British Journal of Sports Medicine recently released a paper on exploring the impacts of sedentary offices, highlighting the problem of sitting all day. The study urged employers to change the culture of their workplaces in order to increase the health and wellbeing of their employees. The findings put forth in the paper (titled The…
Can you sit down on the floor and then get back up again without using your hands or other supports? It might seem like an odd question, but a study in the European Journal of Preventative Cardiology has found that this simple exercise may predict longevity. The study took 2,000 respondents ranging in age from…
Say the word “meditation” to practice members and you’ll get different reactions every time. Typical responses range from “I’m too busy for that” to “that religious nonsense? Not for me.” For generations, meditation’s strongest associations were with yoga, Buddhism and the like. However, research emerging over the last few years is showing that meditation has…
