Trauma

By Dr. Michael Roth

 

Our physical bodies out-picture all our thoughts, feelings, beliefs and identities.  When these feelings are acknowledged and processed, our mind-body system functions properly.  However, when they get stuck in our bodies, physical dis-ease may occur.  Patients in my holistic chiropractic office often present with muscle tension, fatigue, insomnia, fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome or chronic pain. Often, these conditions are the result of past TRAUMA experienced by the patient.

Flickr photo credit lee Carson

What is trauma?  In my practice, trauma is an emotional insult that creates a charge in the nervous system. It is a one-time or repeated stress that gets lodged in the body and disrupts the flow of energy in the Triad of Health.  The greater the repetition of the event, the deeper is the charge.

Traumatic experiences often involve a threat to life or safety, yet any situation that leaves you feeling overwhelmed and alone can be traumatic, even if it doesn’t involve physical harm. It’s not the objective facts that determine whether an event is traumatic, but your subjective emotional experience of the event. The more frightened and helpless you feel, the more likely you are to be traumatized.

 

An event will most likely lead to emotional trauma if:

• It happened unexpectedly.

• You were unprepared for it.

• You felt powerless to prevent it.

• It happened repeatedly.

• Someone was intentionally cruel.

• It happened in childhood.

Flickr photo credit Marc Andre Lariviere

For example, let’s say that as a child at the dinner table, you spilled your milk and your father yelled at you.  In time, you develop an allergy to milk, a result of this unexpected event.

Experiencing trauma in childhood can have a severe and long-lasting effect. Adverse experiences in childhood generate strong emotions in children. Children who have been traumatized see the world as a frightening and dangerous place. When childhood trauma is not resolved, this fundamental sense of fear and helplessness carries over into adulthood, setting the stage for further trauma.

The cause of the trauma is not always obvious. Here are some commonly overlooked causes of emotional and psychological trauma:

• Falls or sports injuries

• Surgery (especially in the first 3 years of life)

• The sudden death of someone close

• A car accident

• The breakup of a significant relationship

• A humiliating or deeply disappointing experience

• The discovery of a life-threatening illness or

disabling condition

Photo credit Christy

Trauma disrupts the body’s natural equilibrium, freezing us in a state of hyper-arousal and fear. In essence, our nervous system gets stuck in overdrive.  Our innate fight-or-flight system can be overworked from ongoing, relentless stress.  This is especially true when trauma occurs in the early stages of life.  Persistent stress can trigger diabetes, heart disease, obesity, depression, and addiction later on.

I use protocols in my practice to uncover and clear past trauma that is stuck in the body and has resulted in illness and pain.  My patients are amazed at how much better they feel before they even leave the office!  Please call Crystal in our Ventura office (805-644-0461) to make an appointment with me and release that which is holding you back from optimum health and wellness.

My Life in Chiropractic

By Dr. Michael Roth

 

Hello! My name is Michael Roth and I am a holistic chiropractor licensed to practice in the states of California and Hawaii.  After I graduated from the Los Angeles Chiropractor College in 1984, I joined a well-established practice here in Ventura, California.  I wore a white jacket and applied hot compresses to my patients’ sore spots before I manually adjusted their backs and necks.

If needed, I attached wires to their skin to administer tiny electric shocks to help release tight muscles.  I would have several patients in different rooms at the same time, running back and forth in an attempt to meet everyone’s needs at once.  Often, I saw the same people three times a week, week after week, with the hope of eventually relieving their pain.

 

I learned that this very traditional form of chiropractic was not for me. I was frustrated with the low rate of complete healing that my patients were experiencing, despite repeated office visits.  I started to look at other healing modalities that I could add to my “menu” of wellness practices.

 

The first alternative modality I learned is called Neuro Emotional Technique. What makes NET unique is its focus on releasing patients’ emotional blocks stored in the body’s memory through simple chiropractic adjustments. It also relies on aspects as unusual as a five-element acupuncture model, acupressure points, and homeopathic combination remedies.

This technique started to give my patients the complete healing for which I was looking!  As I connected the dots in each individual’s healing process, I became more and more convinced of the importance their thoughts, beliefs and emotions had in their healing process. I was excited and wanted to learn more!  Now I also utilize CRA, QNRT, and NMT in the evaluation and healing of my patients.  (Visit  www.RothWellnessCenter.com  for more information on these techniques.)

 

In the past 25 years, I have dedicated myself to balancing each patient’s individual Triad of Health.  When the structural, chemical and emotional systems of the body are in sync, the body’s natural ability to heal itself is able to come forth and manifest wellness.   Healing the patient who has been suffering from chronic pain is one of my biggest joys!

 

I have witnessed incredible transformations in only a few sessions and I absolutely know I am in the right place at the right time and doing what I was put on this planet to accomplish! The mind-body connection is my specialty and my work continues to excite me to this day, 29 years after getting my Doctor of Chiropractic degree.

 

Please feel free to share my story with your friends and relatives and refer them to Crystal in my Ventura office to set up a free consultation. 805-644-0461. I want to make a difference in the health of the world, and it starts right here, right now!

 

Attitude Creates a New Path

By Dr. Michael Roth

 

Today  I offer the second of three selections from my book, Balancing Your Emotional Health. We continue our look at stress and the havoc it can wreak on our bodies. Stress is the number one underlying cause of many of the conditions I see in my patients in my holistic chiropractic practice. I specialize in the mind/body connection and I am constantly reminded through my work of how deep and tangible this connection can be.

 

Some people see their cup as half full, others half empty. Some people like change, others resist and fear it. Some see the unknown as full of potential, while others go into drama and trauma.

 

The secret is your outlook – your attitude – and how you perceive your reality. Some take stress and convert it into positive energy that drives them forward to success – that’s called eustress.

 

Others let stress wear them down until eventually they die and cease to exist anymore in our physical world. Outlook and perception are the keys you need to investigate.

 

Take a moment, and think about what could happen when stress is continued over years and years and years. Eventually you’re going to have problems with the various systems of the body: digestive, circulatory, reproductive, etc. Stresses result in disease – it’s plain and simple, and you won’t find one doctor on the planet that’ll tell you to increase your stress levels to improve your health.

Flickr photo credit Bernard Goldbach

Sooner or later, you’ll reach your stress limit and then a lot of things are going to degenerate. It could start with arthritis that affects all the joints of your body because you’re holding emotional stress. Most people report that arthritis (rheumatoid-type) makes it difficult to grasp things with their hands. Psychologically (or emotionally) arthritis of the hands relates to being incapable of grasping why something in life is the way it is.

 

Cancer is another stress disease, or stress-related condition that can be traced back to the root cause. When speaking to cancer patients, the question is almost always asked, “Are you depressed?” The answer, of course, is YES! Then, when asked if they had had depression before their diagnosis, the majority said YES again.

 

Depression, I believe, is the major cause of non-tobacco-related cancer. Therapies may treat the depression with expression, positive thinking, and positive visualization, along with allopathic or other medical choices. The key here is that the restriction of energy flow causes more stress which creates depression and disease in the human body.

 

What disease will stress cause you? None, I hope, but perhaps there is a science to this ill thought out plan of reaction to STRESS. Here is a chart of some common diseases with their possible emotional causes:

 

DISEASE                                                         CAUSATION

Arthritis                                                           Inability to grasp situations

Cancer                                                              Depression – lack of expression

Diabetes                                                           Lack of Sweetness (happiness) in life

Gallstones                                                       Suppressed anger, bitterness (gall)

Sexual dysfunctions                                      Guilt or shame

Skin Conditions                                              Inability to face life

Urinary system problems                            Inability to let go of hurts

 

This is the short list; the real list is actually endless. Either the causation is either related to stress, or some form of infection or toxic environmental reaction. Remember that your body reacts to your thoughts. You don’t have to accept any illness or disease into your body. Keep this in mind: your brain is the ultimate computer operating system; your heart is the ultimate power supply unit. You simply don’t have to accept anything that is not good for your health! Reject stress.

Flickr photo credit Celestine Chua

 

If you are wondering if stress may be the underlying cause of your dis-ease, I invite you to call Amber in my Ventura office at 805-644-0461 and make an appointment to discuss your issues.

 

If you enjoyed this excerpt and would like to purchase my soft-cover book, Balancing Your Emotional Health, please call the office or click here for more information.

Summing Up Stress

By Dr. Michael Roth

“Mind is where the action is… body is where the reaction is.”              — Frederick Eikerenkoetter (Rev. Ike)

In my holistic chiropractic office in Ventura, I often see clients whose conditions are aggravated or even caused by excess stress. This month’s article is an excerpt from my book, Balancing Your Emotional Health.

SUMMING UP STRESS

Flickr photo credit sandiegopersonalinjuryattorneydotnet

Over the last 50 years, many researchers (psychologists and computer language specialists) have compared the brain/mind relationship to that of a computer and its operating system (program that directs the computer).  When the program is properly written, fully functional, and free from flaws, the computer functions perfectly, giving accurate responses and producing valuable and necessary operations.

The mentally balanced human being functions perfectly when under conditions of no stress to low stress. Under conditions of high stress, the overload causes restriction to the flow of energy, which leads us to disease, illness, exhaustion, system breakdowns, etc.

Your own state of health comes from your most constant, deepest felt, emotionally based, thoughts. Negations, those diseased (dis-eased or lacking ease) thoughts, transmute themselves into sick cells and a sick body.

For example, if you tell yourself, “I can’t stand it when my boss does this or that”; your body simply responds with a “Yes, sir!” as if a soldier was respectfully doing what was ordered by the commander.

The body is the servant of the mind and it will obey the commands you just gave when you said, “I can’t stand…” That’s what your mind heard and therefore, created. It might takes a few months or maybe even several years, but the repeated negative thought will eventually give you a reaction that you don’t really want.

Flickr photo credit Trizoultro

Thus, the mind (or brain/mind) is where the action is, and body is where the reaction is. If you say you can’t stand something, expect back and leg problems.

WATCH YOUR WORDS – whether your thoughts are intentional or spontaneous, they will create some reaction. When the mind is directed by negative or fearful thoughts, the bodily response usually will be disease and/ or functional failure.

Fearful thoughts cause STRESS. The two combined (fear + stress) are as deadly as the most dreaded diseases of our time. Fear, caused by excessive and/or non-rational worrisome thinking, kills people everyday.

Flickr photo credit Nate Steiner

Stress is more deadly than any influence, viral infection, or any disease currently affecting humanity. Stress is responsible for 95% of the disease on the planet. Just as it drives people to smoke, drink, use drugs (legal and not legal) to manage it, if left unmanaged it leads to smoking, drinking, drug use, and life-threatening disease.

People who live in fear of disease are too often those who get ill. They who fear the worst can always discover it in their lives or in the lives of those they know.

When you are fearful, upset, anxious, or nervous, those stressful forces can begin the gradual breakdown of your entire nervous and immunological system and your entire body. Stress, caused by negative thoughts that include fear, guilt, shame, envy, jealousy, and more, will kill you if you don’t control it.

Negative thoughts open the body to physical disease by taking the Triad (the balance of the physical, emotional and chemical components of your body) out of balance by weakening the mental/ emotional side. They also weaken the immune system by blocking  the natural flow of energy within your body. It has been shown, time and time again, that fearful, unbalanced, disharmonious thoughts can lead to the stresses that damage your health.

 

When your mind is given pleasant and courageous thoughts, a world of wonder, beauty, health and happiness prevails. Positive, strong, pure, and healthy thoughts always bring health and vitality.

Most members of the medical profession have either heard or believe that positive thinking, happiness, and humor can reduce the effects of disease or surgery and aid in the recovery process.

If you possess thoughts that are impure, or if you have thoughts that lack a high vibrational quality, meaning that they are negative in nature and vibrate in opposition to your values and beliefs, you’ll have a body with toxins in your bloodstream, weakened antibodies, and you’ll get sick regularly with illnesses that are very difficult to remedy.

From a clean heart and mind comes a clean body. From an unclean one, comes a diseased and weakened body. Always remember that health or disease and the quality of your experience on Earth is up to you, your attitudes, and your thoughts.

Flickr photo credit Matt Madd

If you would like to make an appointment for an office visit, please call Amber in my Ventura office at 805-644-0461.

If you enjoyed this excerpt and would like to purchase my soft-cover book, Balancing Your Emotional Health, please call the office or click here for more information.

Chronic Pain and Blocked Healing

By Dr. Michael Roth

 

As a holistic chiropractor, I have worked with people to improve their health and well-being for over 25 years. I witness the power of the body to renew and heal itself on a daily basis.  Some clients come to me as their last resort in a quest to rid themselves of chronic pain.

 

What kind of pain is chronic pain?

 

Chronic pain persists. It is pain that lasts for at least a month longer than it normally would after an injury or illness. Some guidelines say it is pain that lasts for six months or more. It can also be pain that goes on for months or years as a result of a chronic condition. Pain is the top cause of disability in the United States. The longer you ignore pain, the harder it is to treat.

 

With chronic pain, signals of pain remain active in the nervous system for weeks, months, or even years. This can take both a physical and emotional toll on a person.

 

Chronic pain wears people down, causes fatigue and insomnia, and results in missed work and social isolation. Chronic pain may originate with an initial trauma/injury or infection, or there may be an ongoing cause of pain. However, some people suffer chronic pain in the absence of any past injury or evidence of body damage.

 

The emotional toll of chronic pain also can make pain worse. Anxiety, stress, depression, anger, and fatigue interact in complex ways with chronic pain and may decrease the body’s production of natural painkillers. Even the body’s most basic defenses may be compromised.  There is considerable evidence that unrelenting pain can suppress the immune system.

 

What can you do if chronic pain is interfering with your life?

 

It has been my experience with people who come to me with chronic pain, that something is blocking their healing.  Usually, that something has its origins in the person’s emotional arena.

 

All of us have suppressed our emotions at one time or another. In fact, most of us develop life-long habits of emotional suppression. We do not realize how emotions affect our body.  Our beliefs and ideas about ourselves and our world also impact our body.

 

My focus is on removing the emotional stressors that prevent your body from functioning at its best and living your life to the fullest. The procedures I use allow you to heal not only traumas from the past but also those emotions that were locked in at the time of the event, leading to chronic pain and disease today.

 

These non-invasive, gentle techniques affect change in the body at very deep, cellular levels, removing blocks that have up until now, prevented the body from completely healing and restoring itself. Chronic pain has no foothold when the healing energy is unblocked!

Flickr photo credit EU Webnerd

I am now Certified in Quantum Neurological Reset Therapy!

On November 1, 2009, I became one of the first ten doctors in the United States to be certified in Quantum Neurological Reset Therapy!  I have been using QNRT in my practice over the past year as I have been training in the therapy process and have seen outstanding results with my patients. As a holistic chiropractor, I have seen how unresolved emotional issues compromise my patients’ health and well being. Over the years, I have learned many techniques that address and release those issues and I can honestly say that QNRT is a giant leap forward in identifying and permanently releasing emotional traumas stuck in the body of which the patient may not even be aware!

QNRT is a non-invasive technique that is painless, simple, and extremely effective. The evaluation process connects the subconscious to the conscious, allowing me to get to the origin of the patient’s conflict, what year it started, how it was first programmed into the patient’s nervous system and the health or behavioral problems that have manifested as a result of running this program. Then, I use a nervous system tapping technique to neurologically reprogram the brain/relay access points.

The brain and the nervous system have incredible control over every aspect of our personal lives. They regulate the production of hormones, energy level, the quality of sleep, even the level of happiness one experiences!  As I have integrated QNRT into my practice, my patients are experiencing a greater sense of well-being as they have eliminated pain, stress and tension, and old patterns of emotional response; they have more energy, vitality and a general up-leveling of their quality of life!

Top 5 Tips for Preventing and Reducing Chronic Back Pain

 

by Dr. Michael Roth

Back pain affects over half of working Americans every year, according to the American Chiropractic Association. Causes of back pain are numerous, but many fit within a few simple categories. While some believe most people who suffer from it are those with arthritis or serious injuries, this is not the case at all.

Back pain often comes from doing something simple like bending over to pick something off the floor, having poor posture or twisting too quickly. Here are five tips to keep your spine safe and your back pain-free:

1. Watch your diet and exercise

It sounds so simple, but many people fail to realize that diet can be the best weapon against back pain. Carrying excess body weight puts large amounts of stress on the spine, so burning that fat isn’t just for looks: it can prevent and eliminate your back pain, too! Exercising also helps to strengthen the muscles around the spine, making it less susceptible to pain and injury.

2. Movement is key

Society has gradually declined into a sedentary state, due to incredible advancements in technology and innovation. However, this has had a tremendous negative effect on health in general, and needs to be corrected. Back pain is common among those who sit at their desks all day with poor posture, so be sure to take a walk and stretch every once in a while. (Yet another very simple way to prevent back pain: and it works!)

3. Lift properly

While it is possible to injure your back doing practically anything, lifting creates a lot of stress on the back so doing so improperly can produce horrible pain. Be sure to lift with the knees, not the back. By simply bending at the knees when lifting, stress on the spine can be reduced by as much as 90% or more!

4. You don’t have to be awake!

Even while you’re asleep you can take action to treat your back pain. If you sleep on your back, try putting a pillow beneath your knees for lower-back support. If you sleep on your side, this method can work too, by keeping your spine straight.

5. See your Chiropractor regularly

If the above steps just don’t seem to work, the best treatment for back pain is to see a Chiropractor. By making regular visits, you will find yourself reaching for pain medication less often, and you can learn some valuable tips about your back specifically, which most people would never know without a professional. These factors make seeing a Chiropractor worth it if all else fails.

Implementing these small, simple changes into your daily life will give you long-lasting pain-relief, without the use of harmful and expensive medications. So what are you waiting for? Start sitting up straight, exercising a bit more, placing a pillow between your legs while you sleep and maybe even seeing a Chiropractor. You’ll be glad you did.

Michael Roth, DC

Balancing Your Emotional Health