5 Daily Habits for Every Healthy Family #5

Everyone wants their family to be healthy.  Often that means making lifestyle changes and forming habits that promote overall health. Once you’ve decided to commit to a change, where do you start? The good news is that there are a handful of healthy habits that any family can adapt and grow with.

Here is Daily Habit #5: Trust in Your Healthy Design

Your Family is Designed to Be Healthy!

The healthiest families I know are ones that understand and trust that each of us was designed to heal and be healthy. What does that mean? When we cut our finger, the cut heals, without any outside intervention. Anything we can do to facilitate that healing potential will lead to increased health. Our instantly gratified society demands answers fast, but sometimes the simple answer is that time is required to heal and be healthy. 

What does a habit of trusting your healing potential look like? In one word: restraint. Often, we feel the need to “do” something in a situation when our health is being tested or in any situation when we are challenged. Letting go of control is possibly the most difficult thing to do in our success driven society. Even more than letting go of control, we need to wrap out heads around the fact that we never had it. Life is a gift and with that gift comes our ability to be healthy provided there is no interference to our innate potential. Our life and health are so intimately intertwined that we need to approach any health intervention with great delicacy. It is our human nature to want to help, to intervene. 

However, I would argue that many of the health care interventions that are considered commonplace today are actually going against our healthy design. One of the best examples I can give is using fever reducing medication. When our body becomes under attack from a virus, bacteria or other foreign toxin, the body intelligently raises our temperature to stimulate our immune system to fight off the invader. When we intervene with fever reducing medication, we are fighting our body’s own defenses, which will actually prolong the illness. Letting the fever run its course allows our body to defend itself and heal. It takes trust and patience, but it works. We’re designed that way.

My Son and I Enjoy A Healthy Meal Together

Just to use a personal example of trusting the healthy design of the body, I would like to use my son, who is approaching two and a half years. He has not been artificially immunized through vaccination. He has never taken an antibiotic or any medication. He regularly gets licked in the face by our two dogs. He crawled all over our UN-bleached floor. He regularly eats things off the floor and/or restaurant table. He still breastfeeds on a daily basis. We co-sleep.  He likes to have his spine checked on daddy’s adjusting table (but only occasionally gets more than a tickle adjustment).

He has had two fevers and one illness (rotavirus) to date. Both fevers were due to his teeth coming in, which makes perfect sense: open holes appearing in his mouth could very well lead to infection, so the body alerts the immune system with a fever so it’s prepared. His rotavirus experience, while not pretty (vomit and diarrhea never is), lasted only about 36 hours. How did we treat it? With lots of fluids and breast milk. He has never had an ear infection, doesn’t have allergies or digestive issues, and sleeps like a teenager. 

While trusting in the healthy design takes practice and patience, it is very rewarding when you see your family’s health thrive because of it. We are all designed to be healthy. We just have to believe that and act accordingly.

Choosing to have a healthy family is a great resolution. Making small changes into healthy habits is the best way to see lasting improvement in your family’s overall health. Check in next month for 5 Questions Healthy Parents are Asking.

Dr. Dan Turo is the owner and chiropractor of Turo Family Chiropractic located in the North Hills of Pittsburgh, PA. Follow him on facebook and twitter.

5 Daily Habits for Every Healthy Family #4

Everyone wants their family to be healthy.  Often that means making lifestyle changes and forming habits that promote overall health. Once you’ve decided to commit to a change, where do you start? The good news is that there are a handful of healthy habits that any family can adapt and grow with.

Here is Daily Habit  #4: Show Appreciation

Forming a habit of appreciating your family will reap more rewards than could ever be counted in a lifetime. There are many people, myself included, that are constantly striving for self-improvement on a daily basis. This drive is often a wonderful too; however, many times I catch myself critiquing (even just in my head) how a situation or a person could have operated differently or more efficiently. 

Now, there is nothing wrong with striving for future improvement. But if you never stop to show your appreciation for the people in your life, especially your family, you will breed feelings of resentment and even depression.

Showing appreciation for family members may involve a hand written note, a bouquet of flowers, a long embrace, engaging in an activity that you know they love (even if it may not be your cup of tea), or even actively listening with your undivided attention (see #2 regarding technology). 

Once you decide to show appreciation for your family, they will show more reciprocated appreciation for you. Your household environment can transform from toxic and hostel to loving and gracious before your eyes.

Choosing to have a healthy family is a great resolution. Making small changes into healthy habits is the best way to see lasting improvement in your family’s overall health. Check back later this week for Healthy Habit #5!    

Dr. Dan Turo is the owner and chiropractor of Turo Family Chiropractic located in the North Hills of Pittsburgh, PA. Follow him on facebook and twitter.

5 Daily Habits for Every Healthy Family #3

Everyone wants their family to be healthy.  Often that means making lifestyle changes and forming habits that promote overall health. Once you’ve decided to commit to a change, where do you start? The good news is that there are a handful of healthy habits that any family can adapt and grow with.  

Here is Daily Habit #3: Save and Invest

  

The families that build wealth together will also build health together. Financial inexperience is one
of the single greatest causes of distress in our lives. This stress leads to weight gain, digestive and sleep disorders, heart disease, cancers and many more modern day diseases. Without a basic understanding of finances, our families will experience a lot of unnecessary stress. 

The habit of saving and investing does not have to include an E-trade account and knowledge of the stock market (although it may). Simply setting a family goal to save a specific amount of money for a specific purpose will build unity and accomplishment within your household. The money may be used for any number of things – a family vacation, education, new appliance, or donation to a charity. 

Start the habit of saving and investing with your family early on for it is a skill your children need to see to learn. The purpose and passion it ignites will lead to an abundance of wealth and health.

Choosing to have a healthy family is a great resolution. Making small changes into healthy habits is the best way to see lasting improvement in your family’s overall health. Check back later this week for Healthy Habit #4!   

Dr. Dan Turo is the owner and chiropractor of Turo Family Chiropractic located in the North Hills of Pittsburgh, PA. Follow him on facebook and twitter.

5 Daily Habits for Every Healthy Family #2

Everyone wants their family to be healthy.  Often that means making lifestyle changes and forming habits that promote overall health. Once you’ve decided to commit to a change, where do you start? The good news is that there are a handful of healthy habits that any family can adapt and grow with.

Here are Daily Habit #2: Actively Participate

This habit is simple. The more activities that engage our families physically, mentally, socially, and spiritually, the healthier we become. Technology is a wonderful thing and allows us to connect with friends all over the world. But it can also make us completely oblivious to the people sitting right next to us including our spouses and children. It is even scarier to see my two year old son glued to a piece of technology with absolutely no acknowledgment of my presence when I am calling his name. I hear teenagers and husbands are just as bad, if not worse.

I am guilty of this too. My wife can carry on an entire conversation with me giving blind acknowledgements, but if I am on my phone or computer, at the end of the conversation I have no recollection of what just transpired. 

I argue that families who step away from the technology (TV, internet, phones) for an hour or two each day and engage in a board game, puzzle, church event, or brisk walk will be much healthier than families who do not. Technology has changed our world for the better, but it has also become an addicting habit for many people. If you want a healthier family, then you need healthier habits. If this seems like a big step for your family, then start simple: tossing the technology aside for just an hour each evening and engage in an active activity that is agreed upon by all.  Make it a rule that phones are not checked during dinner (or until the dishes are washed!)

Choosing to have a healthy family is a great resolution. Making small changes into healthy habits is the best way to see lasting improvement in your family’s overall health. Check back later this week for Healthy Habit #3!  

Dr. Dan Turo is the owner and chiropractor of Turo Family Chiropractic located in the North Hills of Pittsburgh, PA. Follow him on facebook and twitter. 

5 Daily Habits for Every Healthy Family #1

Everyone wants their family to be healthy.  Often that means making lifestyle changes and forming habits that promote overall health. Once you’ve decided to commit to a change, where do you start? The good news is that there are a handful of healthy habits that any family can adapt and grow with.

Here is Daily Habit #1:  Prepare and Share Meals 

A Meal Full of Veggies and Protein is Always a Winner

We are constantly pointing fingers as to the cause of the obesity crisis in our country. One link that I see is the loss of families sitting down to a prepared meal at least once per day. We are constantly on the go trying to get to the next item on our checklist. Eating has become just one more activity that needs to be completed as quickly as possible, rather than the sharing of a meal with good company. Meals that are prepared at home are not only much healthier, but also tend to be cheaper than grabbing fast food.

It's no surprise that a meal made at home will have better ingredients than one grabbed from the drive thru. Some benefits of a home cooked meal include promoting nutritional choices, limiting the amount of grain and dairy, knowing exactly what is in the meal (no extra ingredients like MSG, soy, preservatives, coloring, butane, or glycol that you may find in fast food favorites), and portion control. Not to mention enjoying a glass of water that you can super-size on your own, free of charge.

Meal preparation takes planning. We all have schedules that are pulling us in multiple directions. Coordinating schedules at the beginning of the week (maybe a Sunday afternoon or evening) will allow you to determine on which days and at what times meals can be shared. If there are days throughout the week that meal prep time is at a minimum, consider taking that Sunday afternoon to prepare a few meals that can easily be reheated come meal time. Or make the crock pot your new best friend. 

Avoid eating in front of the television regularly. It interferes with quality conversation and provides an environment for fast pace and mindless eating. If done often enough, eating while watching TV becomes a habit.  This will lead you to believe that you always need to have something to snack on while watching. If family TV time is a regular at your house, start the habit of eating meals at the table and set aside only one night a week for your “TV dinner” as a treat.

Choosing to have a healthy family is a great resolution. Making small changes into healthy habits is the best way to see lasting improvement in your family’s overall health. Check back later this week for Healthy Habit #2!

Dr. Dan Turo is the owner and chiropractor of Turo Family Chiropractic located in the North Hills of Pittsburgh, PA. Follow him on facebook and twitter.