Category: pain management

Why your nervous system won’t let you relax (and it’s not your fault)

Posted on March 16, 2026March 16, 2026 by Dr. Daina Patel

You’ve been told to relax.

Maybe by your doctor. Maybe by your massage therapist. Maybe by someone who has never felt the particular frustration of trying to relax a body that refuses to cooperate.

Here’s what I want you to understand: you’re not bad at relaxing. Your nervous system is doing exactly what it was designed to do. It just hasn’t gotten the signal that it’s safe to stop.

What’s actually happening

Your autonomic nervous system runs on a simple logic: threat or safety. When it detects threat — real or perceived — it activates your stress response. Muscles contract, breathing gets shallow, your heart rate increases, your attention narrows. You go on alert.

The problem is that your nervous system can’t always tell the difference between a bear and an overflowing inbox. It doesn’t distinguish between physical danger and chronic financial stress, or between an immediate threat and years of accumulated emotional load. It just responds.

And when the threat signal has been running for long enough — months, years, sometimes decades — your nervous system learns that staying on alert is the default safe position. Not because you’re anxious or broken. Because it adapted to the conditions it was in.

That adaptation shows up in your body as chronic tension. Shoulders that live near your ears. A jaw that’s clenched even when you’re sitting still. A neck that never fully releases. A lower back that braces for impact even when you’re lying in bed.

This is not a character flaw. This is a nervous system that learned to protect you and then never got the memo that things changed.

Why “just relax” doesn’t work

Telling yourself to relax when your nervous system is in threat mode is like telling your immune system to stop fighting an infection. You can want it. You cannot will it.

The nervous system responds to inputs, not intentions. What that means is you can’t think your way out of a threat response. You have to give your body a physical signal that it’s safe.

That’s what the breathing, the humming, the warm shower, the slow gentle movement are doing. They’re not relaxation techniques. They’re inputs — specific, physiological signals that tell your nervous system: the threat has passed. You can let go.

What actually helps

Vagus nerve stimulation is the most direct path. Your vagus nerve is the main pathway of your parasympathetic nervous system — the rest and digest response that’s the opposite of fight or flight. Stimulating it sends a direct signal to your brain that it’s safe to downregulate.

Humming, gargling, cold water on your face, slow exhalation, gentle movement — all of these stimulate the vagus nerve. None of them require equipment, appointments, or significant time. They require consistency.

Predictability and pattern help too. Your nervous system calibrates based on what it can predict. When you have consistent inputs — a morning routine, an evening routine, regular sleep times, regular meals — your nervous system has less to monitor and less to respond to. That predictability is itself a safety signal.

Reducing sensory load matters more than most people realize. If you process sensory input more intensely than average — and a lot of people with chronic tension do — then reducing input is a real intervention. Quieter environments, lower lighting, fewer simultaneous demands on your attention. This isn’t weakness. It’s working with your nervous system instead of against it.

The thing that takes the longest

The hardest part isn’t learning the tools. It’s staying consistent when you can’t immediately feel the results.

Because the nervous system doesn’t update in one session. It updates with repetition. Every time you do a breathing exercise and nothing terrible happens, that’s a data point. Every time you hum before bed and wake up slightly less tense, that’s a data point. Slowly, incrementally, your nervous system learns that safe is possible.

It took time to build the pattern. It takes time to change it.

You’re not behind. You’re just starting.

Ready to start? Download my free nervous system reset guide here.

Disclaimer: This post is for educational purposes only. Please read the Disclaimer here.

Why you wake up tense (and what to actually do about it)

Posted on March 16, 2026March 16, 2026 by Dr. Daina Patel

You slept. You should feel better. But you wake up with your shoulders already creeping up, your neck already stiff, already bracing for the day before it’s even started.

Sound familiar?

This isn’t a mattress problem. It’s not a pillow problem. It might not even be a sleep problem.

It’s a nervous system problem.

What’s happening in your body overnight

Your nervous system runs your body on autopilot. It controls your heart rate, your digestion, your breathing — and your muscle tone.

When you’re in a threat state — what’s called sympathetic dominance — your muscles stay partially contracted even while you sleep. Your body is preparing to respond. The Accessory Nerve, which controls your trapezius and SCM (the big muscles in your neck and upper back), is directly wired to your survival brain. When threat signals are running, this nerve keeps those muscles slightly activated.

You wake up holding tension you carried all night.

This is why you can do everything right — good mattress, right pillow, going to bed at a reasonable hour — and still wake up stiff. The problem isn’t the sleep environment. The problem is what state your nervous system is in when you get into it.

The morning matters more than most people think

What you do in the first few minutes after waking sets the tone for your nervous system for the rest of the morning.

Don’t reach for your phone first. I know. But every notification, every piece of news, every message that needs a response is a signal to your nervous system that the threat is real and present. You’ve been asleep. Your stress response is already somewhat dampened. Let it stay that way for a few minutes longer.

Breathe before you get up. While you’re still lying down, take 5 slow belly breaths. In through the nose, out through the nose, belly rising and falling. This stimulates the vagus nerve and shifts your system toward parasympathetic before you face the day.

Move gently before you move fast. Your joints are stiff in the morning because synovial fluid — the natural lubrication in your joints — hasn’t circulated yet. Gentle movement, not aggressive stretching. Cat-cow, gentle neck rotations, rolling your ankles, taking a slow walk to the kitchen. Give your body a few minutes to warm up before you ask it to perform.

Temperature can help. A warm shower activates the vagus nerve through the skin. It also helps your muscles release tension that built up overnight. The heat increases circulation and your nervous system interprets warmth as safety.

Humming or singing in the shower — you already know this one if you downloaded the guide. The vibration of your vocal cords directly stimulates the vagus nerve. Your shower is actually one of the best places to do this. Nobody can hear you, you’re already relaxed, and the warm water is already working.

What won’t help

Aggressive stretching first thing in the morning is probably not doing what you think it’s doing.

If your tension is driven by a nervous system in threat mode, stretching doesn’t release the threat signal. It might feel good momentarily because it fires certain receptors that temporarily override the pain signal. But as soon as you stop, the tension comes back. Because nothing you did changed the reason it was there.

This isn’t to say movement is bad. Movement is essential. But the type and timing matter. Gentle, joint-level movement in the morning is more useful than forcing your muscles to lengthen when they’re trying to protect you.

The bigger picture

Waking up tense every day isn’t just annoying. It’s information.

Your body is telling you that it doesn’t feel safe enough to fully release overnight. That’s not a character flaw. It’s a pattern — one your nervous system learned, probably over a long time, and one it can unlearn with the right inputs.

Start with the mornings. Two minutes of breathing before you reach for your phone. A warm shower with five minutes of humming. Gentle movement before coffee.

Small inputs, consistently. That’s what actually changes the pattern.

Want the full reset toolkit? Download my free guide here.

Disclaimer: This post is for educational purposes only. Please read the Disclaimer here.

Your evening routine is either resetting your nervous system or keeping it on high alert

Posted on March 16, 2026March 16, 2026 by Dr. Daina Patel

You’ve probably been told to “wind down” before bed.

Maybe you’ve tried the magnesium, the lavender, the no-screens rule. Maybe some of it helps a little. Maybe you still wake up tense.

Here’s what nobody tells you: winding down isn’t just about what you do. It’s about what signal you’re sending your nervous system before you ask it to sleep.

If your nervous system doesn’t feel safe, it won’t fully switch off. Not because you’re bad at relaxing. Because it’s doing its job.

Why you wake up tense

Your body does its repair work at night — but only when it feels safe enough to do it. If you go to bed with your threat response still running, you’ll sleep lighter, wake more often, and get up with tension that was never released.

Your shoulders and neck are especially vulnerable here. The Accessory Nerve — the nerve that controls your trapezius and neck muscles — is directly wired to your survival brain. When your nervous system is in vigilance mode at bedtime, this nerve stays partially active. You don’t fully let go. By morning, that tension has been building for hours.

What an actual reset looks like

The goal isn’t to relax harder. It’s to send your nervous system a signal that the threat has passed.

Humming, singing, or gargling — even for one minute. The vagus nerve exits the neck around the level of your vocal cords and the vibration directly stimulates it. This is the fastest way to manually shift your nervous system state without doing anything complicated.

Slow, low breathing — not deep breathing in the way most people think about it. Belly breathing, not chest breathing. Your diaphragm should move, not your shoulders. Try 5.5 seconds in and 5.5 seconds out. This specific rhythm maximizes Heart Rate Variability, which is one of the most reliable indicators of how regulated your nervous system is.

A safety anchor — identify one thing that signals safety to your body. A person, a memory, a sensation, a place. Not to force positivity. Just to give your nervous system a reference point for what safe feels like. Return to it deliberately before sleep.

Reduce sensory input — your nervous system processes everything. Bright light, loud sound, screens, even conversations that activate your thinking brain — these are inputs that keep your system running. Dim the lights. Lower the sounds. Give your brain less to process in the 30–60 minutes before bed.

Avoid threat inputs — news, difficult conversations, problem-solving, anything that activates your stress response. Your nervous system doesn’t know the difference between a real threat and an email that upset you. Both activate the same response.

The part nobody says out loud

If you’ve been in chronic tension for a long time, one good evening routine won’t fix it overnight. You’re not broken — your nervous system has learned over time that staying alert is safer than letting go. That’s not something a single meditation or breathing exercise undoes immediately.

What it does is start sending a new signal. Consistently, repeatedly, over time. That’s how nervous system patterns actually change.

Think of it like training. You don’t get stronger from one workout. You get stronger from consistent training over time. This is the same.

Start with one thing tonight. Hum in the shower. Breathe slowly for two minutes before you close your eyes. Return to something that feels safe.

That’s enough for tonight.

Want a simple tool to reset your nervous system tonight? Download my free guide here.

Disclaimer: This post is for educational purposes only. Please read the Disclaimer here.

How stretching is actually making your pain worse

Posted on March 16, 2026March 16, 2026 by Dr. Daina Patel

You may have felt an ache or pain and the first instinct you probably had was to stretch, right?

What if I told you that stretching is *probably* not the answer?

That it might actually be making your pain WORSE?

Hear me out for a minute.

What does stretching do for us?

When you feel pain, sure, stretching might temporarily feel good. It should! Stretching relaxes your nervous system and sends a different input so it can be a temporary distraction from the pain. It hits certain receptors in the area you stretch which then sends a signal to your spinal cord to the brain and may even release endorphins or oxytocin to make you feel good.

But as soon as you stop, the pain comes back!

Why tho?!

Because you still haven’t addressed the reason why the pain is there in the first place. By ignoring this, you continue to do (or not do) the thing that’s making you feel pain – whether it’s from poor movement patterns or body biomechanics, lack of movement, repetitive movement, etc.

So the longer you keep stretching and ignoring the reason you have the pain in the first place, the more that pain will continue to bother you. You will become more and more sensitive to pain, meaning you require less of the thing that causes pain for you to actually feel it.

I’ll also let you in on a little secret – your “tight” muscles might not actually be tight at all. They might be weak which makes them feel tight. This is most likely the case with the typical “tight” muscle. I know it doesn’t make much sense but I promise you that stretching a weak muscle will NOT help in this case. You have to strengthen it if it is weak.

I know you didn’t want to hear it but I can’t keep something this important from you.

What to do instead of stretching

If you start adding strengthening exercises into your routine instead of just stretching, you’ll get better faster and have longer lasting pain relief.

If you are already doing an exercise routine, workout, or getting in any movement that naturally incorporates stretching while ALSO simultaneously stregnthening (my fave is yoga for this), then you likely don’t really ever need to stretch.

Mobility exercises feel like stretching but they are actually adding movement into the joint (because movement comes from joints, not from tight muscles. So if you keep stretching to increase range of motion, you will never achieve it. Stretching a muscle doesn’t change it physiologically so you might temporarily feel an improvement but the reason the muscle is tight (aka protecting your joints or protecting you from further injury) has not been addressed so the muscle will just go right back to the same position as before you stretched it.

Adding gentle movement to the restricted joint which makes you feel like you have tightness in your muscles or like you are stiff or have reduced range of motion. This will increase mobility in your body, help you move freely, and feel less tight.

Did you learn something new? Send me a DM on Instagram here. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

P.S….I never stretch, I mobilize.

Read the Disclaimer here.

Can stress cause pain?

Posted on March 16, 2026March 16, 2026 by Dr. Daina Patel

In short, yes.

Keep reading to learn how and what you can do to reduce pain.

The Autonomic Nervous System

To understand the link between stress and pain, we have to talk about the autonomic nervous system. This system regulates our stress response.

There are 2 parts to this system: the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system.

The Sympathetic Nervous System

(aka the fight/flight/freeze response)

This is our first reaction to a stressful situation. It is extremely helpful when faced with a dangerous situation, like being faced with a bear.

Where this response becomes an issue is when it comes up in day-to-day situations like getting a stressful email, worrying about an upcoming work meeting, scrolling through IG, or wondering whether or not lifting that laundry basket will “throw out” your back again.

What initially happens when you feel stressed is the adrenaline starts rushing. This happens pretty instantly. You may notice this or you may not.

At about 10 minutes after the stressful situation, we start producing the hormone cortisol. Cortisol is important and we need it but when too much is produced or when it is constantly produced, that can lead to more inflammation. Inflammation leads to increased pain sensitivity so we tend to feel more pain.

Back to the question – can stress cause pain?

So YES, if you were wondering – can stress cause pain.

On top of that, when we feel stressed, we also tend to tense up our muscles, increase blood pressure, heart rate, etc. and lead to other long-term problems.

AKA nervous system dysregulation.

Short term this stress response is protective, but we don’t want this happening unless it’s absolutely necessary!

Long-term, this continuous response can lead to persistent pain (where it becomes hard to find pain relief), constant tight and stiff muscles, burnout, constantly feeling tired, and always being in fear of what will happen next AKA feeling anxious.

The Parasympathetic Nervous System

(aka the rest & digest response)

The rest & digest response is where you want to shift your body to when in a sympathetic (fight/flight) response. This is where you feel calm, can lower inflammation, reduce pain, and just feel overall more comfortable in your body.

As the name suggests, this is where our body can rest and digest our food.

In a true rest state, our body can actually heal. This is where you can eliminate toxins causing inflammation, reduce overall inflammation that is leading to pain and pain sensitivity, and actually start the repair process for any injuries.

Feeling stressed while you eat affects your digestive system, causes food to not properly be digested, reduces nutrients absorbed, and causes inflammation, all leading to pain!

How to shift from a sympathetic to a parasympathetic state

There are many things that can help us shift into a restful state. It depends on what you are willing to try and what you enjoy. What works for someone else may not work for you so I encourage you to try different things. The key is to be CONSISTENT regardless of what tools and techniques you use.

Stimulating the vagus nerve is the fastest way to feel a difference and shift from a sympathetic to a parasympathetic state.

*IMPORTANT NOTE: Remember that consistency is key because we are actually rewiring the nerves in your body. Telling them that you are safe. When your nerves are constantly firing and telling your brain there is pain or danger because you are constantly in a flight-or-flight response will take time to unlearn. This is why you want to keep repeating what you do on a daily (or more than once a day) to rewire the brain and have longer-lasting results. Only then will you see that you are less likely to tense up and feel more pain in the body after something stressful. We are working a muscle and it takes time and patience to train it and make lasting changes. So while you may feel temporary relief with these vagus nerve activities, remember to do them even when you are feeling good. Build that resilience. Train your brain.

Breathwork is one of the easiest ways to stimulate the vagus nerve and it doesn’t take very long. You can feel a difference in only a minute. Pair this with meditation (if you want) and get better results. Learn how to do either or both here.

I created a guide that you can download for free right here with some more of my fave ways to relax and it has kept me out of pain for several years!

Low Back Pain – Get Back In The Game

Posted on August 10, 2022August 10, 2022 by Dr. Daina Patel

Originally written for The Whole Family/EcoParent Magazine

It’s a real pain and quite common to have a sore low back. According to one study, within a six month period, 50 percent of participants experienced low back pain! It is by far the most frequent issue I treat as a chiropractor.

A sedentary lifestyle, poor posture, joint dysfunction, arthritis, disc issues, and your daily activities are all contributing factors in back pain. Your feet can also be to blame. Fallen arches and joint issues in the feet might affect the way you walk and cause increased stress on the joints in the back. Wearing flat shoes without any arch support might also make the back feel worse. With all these conditions playing a role in back pain, it’s no wonder so many suffer from it—so how can you prevent it or get your poor aching back, back on track?

WALK IT BACK

Even if you are one of the lucky ones who hasn’t experienced back pain before, keeping your back strong can help to reduce the chances of injury in the future. Movement and exercise are the best way to help relieve back soreness or pain, both of which can be done in the comfort of your home and around your busy schedule. No fancy equipment or gym membership needed! Do it as a family and start healthy habits early with your kids.

Workday workouts

Getting in any kind of movement in your day can be beneficial, including walking. Many people sit at desks and commute for long periods of time. Adding just 15–30 minutes of walking a day can be helpful. As well, if you must sit at a desk at work, make sure that you’re comfortable and that your chair has lumbar support if you are in severe pain. Take frequent breaks, at least once per hour, to get up and stretch for a minute or take a short walk.

Mindful mobility

Learning proper movement through the spine is important before you start doing intense workouts or lifting weights. Mobility exercises and yoga poses like cat-cow, downward dog, child’s pose, sphinx pose, hip hinge, and lumbar twist are helpful for encouraging slower and better movements through the joints.

Core control

Core strengthening exercises are some of the most important things you can do to relieve low back symptoms. Planks, lunges, squats, glute bridges, and bird-dog pose are all excellent core strengthening moves to try.

Low Back-to-Back Pointers:

Take a Breather: Being able to take full breaths while doing exercises is key for avoiding injury. If something is too painful to perform, try adjusting your form or doing modifications, do fewer repetitions or sets, take a break, or stop altogether. Exercises may feel uncomfortable to perform but should never be painful or cause you to hold your breath.

Perfect Your Posture: While doing any exercises, it’s important to keep your back in neutral position and your core engaged. To find neutral position, find the middle between the cat and cow yoga poses. To engage the core, pretend as though someone were about to punch you in the stomach – the reaction you have is similar to how it will feel.

That’s a Stretch: While stretching feels good in the moment, there’s little evidence to support that it actually helps with pain long-term.

BACK TO HEALTH

Plant-based performance

Along with movement and exercise, eating a well-balanced, healthy diet ensures you are getting all the nutrients your body needs in order to perform optimally. A primarily plant-based, anti-inflammatory diet can help support reducing pain symptoms. Make sure to include: lots of veggies, fruits, legumes, garlic, ginger, turmeric and other herbs and spices. Click here for anti-inflammatory recipe inspo!

Remedy for relief

When you’re suffering from back pain, you may find it beneficial to supplement with anti-inflammatory magnesium. Managing or reducing stress, using heat, and meditation may also help reduce inflammation, relieve tight muscles, and bring about relaxation.

Call on your chiropractor

It’s a good idea to get checked by your chiropractor and get a proper diagnosis so you know exactly what is causing the pain. In some cases, it may not actually be coming from the back and can be referred pain coming from elsewhere in the body, requiring a different treatment. Click here to learn more about working with me.

Note: If you are experiencing numbness or tingling in the groin area or are having trouble going to the washroom, call 911 as it may require urgent medical attention. As always, consult your healthcare provider before making changes to your health.

Incorporating meditation into a daily routine to help relieve aches and pains

Posted on April 5, 2021August 10, 2021 by Dr. Daina Patel

Does meditation actually help to reduce pain?

In short, yes. Meditation may help reduce chronic pain.

But it’s not a direct link. The type of pain you have matters when taking this into account.

People living with chronic neck or back pain (usually 3 or more months), end up suffering from other things such as depression or low mood as well as other mental health issues. Dealing with these on top of chronic pain can become debilitating because it ends up being a never-ending cycle. The depression leads to feeling more pain and the pain leads to feeling worse.

One thing that has been shown to help reduce that pain and disrupt this cycle is meditation.

Many people run away at the thought of meditation but I assure you, if you can be in a place where you can just focus on your breath, that is meditation.

You don’t need to do anything fancy for it to be called meditation. In fact, it doesn’t even need to be called a meditation. It can be me-time, alone-time, quiet time, nature time, or relaxation time. Just forget about what we call it because that’s the least important thing.

For you, just being away from others in a place where you feel safe and are away from stressful things or people might be enough. Or you may wish to be surrounded by nature as research shows that simply being in nature can have profound health effects.

I’m going to take you through a very simple meditation process that anyone can do anywhere:

STEP 1:

Find a place where you can be alone or undisturbed for at least 1 minute. This can be in your bed before you start the day or at the end of the day, in the shower/bath, in your car before you get out if you are alone or as soon as you get in, a quiet room in your home or work, a coffee shop, while on a walk, in a park, etc. The possibilities are endless.

STEP 2:

Connect with your breath. This means being aware of your breathing. Is it shallow up in the chest? Let’s move it down to the belly. You should feel your chest stay mostly still while the belly rises and falls. If it helps, place one hand on your belly and one hand on your chest so you can feel the rise and fall. This works better when you lie down on your back. Take breaths in and out through the nose, keeping the mouth closed. You can be seated, standing, lying down, it doesn’t matter.

STEP 3:

Do this for at least one minute. When you start feeling distracted, come back to the breath. Just keep focusing on the inhale and exhale.

Congratulations! You’ve meditated!

See how easy that was? Note how you feel now. Do it more frequently or for a longer period of time if you don’t feel different.

Breathing allows us to slow down our heart rate if it’s racing. If you are feeling stressed or in pain, your heart rate might be through the roof. That’s helpful if we need to run from a bear but not helpful if there isn’t any actual danger. It also directly affects your vagus nerve. When the vagus nerve is stimulated, it brings you into the rest & digest (parasympathetic) state of relaxation.

When we are stressed, it can tighten up our muscles, causing us to breathe through our chest (shallow breathing) and that can actually lead to neck pain and headaches.

Breathing also helps to reduce inflammation. When there is too much inflammation present in the body, this causes an increased sensation to pain. Essentially, you are just more sensitive to pain. It can take months to reduce inflammation but breathing is a quick way to do it.

Meditation has been shown to decrease inflammation in the brain which can improve our mood but also reduce the perception of pain. Reducing inflammation can reduce our body’s sensitivity to pain so we feel it less. It has also been shown to affect our neural pathways – this means the pathways created that focus on feeling pain get rerouted towards not feeling pain. The stronger we can make these new pathways (ie. meditating consistently), the less likely we are to experience the pain (or at least it won’t feel as bad as it once was).

By now you can see that meditation or simply finding some time for our breath can be so helpful and you don’t need anything fancy to do it.

GUIDED MEDITATIONS

If you enjoyed this and want to follow a guided meditation, click here to download my Sleep Guide so you can wake up tomorrow with less pain, which includes my Body Scan Meditation. It’s just 4 minutes long and it focuses on relaxing your entire body. You may feel a difference in your pain levels in just 4 minutes and it may help you sleep better too 😉

There are also plenty of apps out there that have some great guided meditations when you are ready. Some you can just have some background music to help you feel even calmer if you don’t want to listen to a voice and just want to focus on breathing. My fave app is Insight Timer.

Let me know how you feel after these meditations. I love hearing from you and seeing how these small things can make a powerful difference. Send me a DM here on Instagram.

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Disclaimer: This post is for educational purposes only. Please read the Disclaimer here.

How to set goals to relieve pain and actually reach them

Posted on January 13, 2021August 4, 2021 by Dr. Daina Patel

Goal Setting –

a topic that comes up every January (or perhaps December for my fellow ambitious entrepreneurs. I see you!)

You might be wondering, why do I need to set goals to relieve pain? Or, I don’t need this, I know my goal is that I want to get rid of the pain.

Okay, that’s cool and everything but the importance of setting a goal is to give you some direction, kinda like GPS, so you know where you are going. This helps you figure out which things you need to do daily or weekly to get closer to where you want to be.

Without actually setting a goal, it’s like getting in your car and just driving without a destination. While it’s fun and exciting along the way, you probably won’t know where you want to go.

Step 1: Choose where you want to go. This is your end goal.

In order to choose the right goal for you, many things come into play.

How much time do you have to dedicate?
How bad do you really want it?
Are you willing to make changes to your lifestyle or current habits?
How quickly do you need it to happen?

These are just a few questions you need to start thinking about.

When it comes to chronic pain, the shortest amount of time it takes (typically) to heal is 3 months to a year with a strategic plan working with a practitioner. Working on your own without any help, it could take 1 year to several years. Just some things to keep in mind when you choose your timeline.

You also want to make your goals SMART.

Specific – exactly what you want to achieve

Measurable – using objective measures to know when you have reached your goal or can see yourself making progress, for example a pain scale from 0-10.

Achievable – something that is actually possible for you depending on where you are on your health journey.

Realistic – you can’t hit your goals magically. There is work involved no matter what it is you want to do. How much effort are you willing to put in? It has to make sense with your lifestyle and what changes you are willing to make.

Time-bound – You want to have a loose deadline. It doesn’t need to be set in stone. This just gives you an idea of how much work it might take to get there. If you choose 3 months from now, you’ll be working a lot harder than someone doing the same thing as you but chooses the slow path of 1 year to reach the same destination. Neither one is wrong. It depends on what you want.

Take some time and write out what you want. Here’s an example below to give you some more guidance:

Jessica has been feeling pain for 4 years now. She has tried a bunch of stuff at home but she hasn’t really found anything that really takes the pain away. It is always temporary relief and she wants a better solution. An actual fix to the problem. No more band-aid solutions or pain meds. This is Jessica’s goal broken into it’s SMART components:

S – manage pain to the point where daily activities are pain-free

M – get down from 7-8/10 constantly to a 1-3/10 occasionally

A/R – I am willing to spend about 1 hour a day to reach this goal and make all the changes necessary by following a plan laid out for me

T – I can do this within 3-4 months since I am working with a coach or practitioner

Now that you have your end goal, we can work backwards from there to know what is needed to get to it.

Step 2: Figure out which areas you need the most support in

In this case, Jessica in the example above wants to speed things up as much as possible. Why be in pain longer than is necessary!? She’s willing to spend the money in order to save time and achieve better health so she can actually feel good. She’s done the whole lone-wolf thing and she’s over it because she’s in the exact same position as she was 4 years ago, maybe even slightly worse.

Jessica has an idea of where she is going because she set up her goal. Now when she works with her coach or practitioner, they can give her the next steps to take and in the right order so she isn’t wasting her time.

If you are doing this on your own, these are the areas that you will need to look at and make some changes for yourself:

Quick Pain Relief

Find something that works for you to relieve pain quickly at the beginning. This can also be helpful on the days where the pain gets worse and you feel like you are moving backwards in terms of progress.

Nutrition

Following an anti-inflammatory protocol or at the very least, removing the processed foods, sugar, and alcohol causing inflammation.

Your Environment

The environment you surround yourself in – both people and things. Are they toxic? Full of chemicals? Negativity? Try to avoid, minimize, or remove these from your life.

Get Aligned

Increase the positivity and get aligned with your soul. Gratitude and affirmations can move things forward here as well as looking at what you spend your time doing. Do you really love it?

Stress

Address the stress. Not stressed? Your body probably would tell you otherwise. Just because you don’t perceive stress mentally, it doesn’t mean your body can’t feel it physically. Meditation and breathwork can be really helpful.

Move your body every. single. day!

This is non-negotiable. It can be anything you love – walking, yoga, dancing, weight-lifting, running, whatever it is. Stretching is helpful but it won’t solve your problems.

Posture

It could be helpful to look at your posture. Change positions frequently. You don’t need perfect posture.

Sleep

Are you sleeping 7-9 hours a night? Do you wake up feeling stiff, sore, tired, or achy? Are you waking up through the night? Can you find a position to sleep in that’s comfortable? What bed and pillow are you using? Do you find it difficult to fall asleep? Try working on your sleep.

Support Your Entire Body

Make sure you are supporting your ENTIRE body and all its systems. Pain isn’t a separate thing. Everything you do/do not do can contribute to your pain. This is why you need a holistic approach to get rid of it for good. That includes your lymphatic system, liver, and guts.

Strengthen

Strengthen your body. Do specific exercises for the area of concern. If you have back pain, you need to do back-specific exercises. These don’t need to be boring or hard. Look into mobility exercises and core strength.

Supplements

Add in supplements once you’ve done the above. Work with your practitioner to choose what’s right for you and your specific needs. Popular ones can include magnesium, fish oils, and curcumin.

Now that you know what areas you might need to look at, focus on the top 3 things that are in need of the most support and start there. Once you hit those 3 goals, focus on 3 new areas.

Step 3: Break down the areas into smaller monthly, weekly, and daily goals.

For example, working on your sleep. Here is how you could break that down.

Lets say your sleep is totally garbage and you can’t remember the last time you slept well. This might be your current biggest priority. If you are willing to spend even 15 minutes a day working on your sleep, that’s better than nothing.

Breaking down that 15 minutes you’ve dedicated to sleep:

Monthly goal:

This month I want to go from sleeping at 1am to 11pm.

Weekly goal:

I will spend each week focusing on one particular habit to change in order to do this in one month – reducing screen time, incorporating a bedtime routine, blocking blue light, and reducing caffeine intake during the day.

Daily goals:

Week 1: Reduce screen time

no screens 1 hour before bed

Week 2: Incorporate a bedtime routine

incorporate relaxing things into a short bedtime routine such as meditation or breathwork

Week 3: Block blue light

install or setup blue light filters on all screens after sunset (including the phone, computer, TV, tablet, etc.)

Week 4: Reduce caffeine

no caffeine after 12pm each day

Now that you are sleeping better, you might notice that you have less stiffness in the morning, more energy throughout the day so you can get more done, you feel better when moving your body, and you are able to fall asleep faster. So many wins! Oh, and of course – less pain 😉

Be Consistent

After doing these tasks consistently (consistency is key), you start creating new healthy habits. For more info on how to create healthy habits that stick, make sure you read or listen to one of my fave books, Atomic Habits by James Clear.

This is how you make changes stick and this is how you get closer to your goals.

In no time, you’ll be feeling much less pain by actually focusing on the things that will get you closer to that goal instead of following the advice of Dr. Google or that Insta influencer with that bomb new unsustainable workout routine that has nothing to do with your health goals.

Need help? Book a free call with me. I’d be more than happy to help you how to get closer to your goals, even if that doesn’t mean working with me.

Disclaimer

What I can do for you as a chiropractor in a virtual appointment

Posted on October 27, 2020August 10, 2021 by Dr. Daina Patel

The Virtual Appointment

Yes, I said a virtual appointment with a chiropractor.

Chiropractors are known as doctors that adjust the pain away but I assure you, we can do MUCH more.

Adjustments are helpful to reduce pain quickly but that’s not the only solution. There are many things you can do at home for long-term pain relief.

No, it doesn’t feel the same, but passive treatments (where the doctor does all the work) only last temporarily. They don’t fix you or your pain. It’s only a matter of minutes, days, weeks, or months before it comes back.

What’s Causing Your Pain

Think about it this way: it takes many years of having poor muscle coordination, nerve impingements, muscle weakness, imbalances, or injuries before you even start to FEEL pain. That means something you’ve been doing (and you probably don’t even realize) is leading you to feel this way. Only YOU can fix this, helping your body to function at it’s best.

Healthy muscles don’t feel tight or sore or even have any pain associated with them.

Pressing on these muscles will only help relieve that pain for some time, but the muscle needs to be stronger in order to do it’s job properly. Without that strength, you body now has to rely on other muscles to do the job. After years of this muscle being weak, it’ll start to tear, cause pain and inflammation, be more prone to injury, and cause all the muscles around it to work a LOT harder. That means they will tire out and start becoming weak from overuse, painful, and inflamed as well!

As a chiropractor, I am trained to see these instabilities, muscle weaknesses, and areas that need some TLC. We can do all of that virtually. I can see you through a secure video call and we can develop a plan to address your health goals.

Sure, that one muscle might seem like it’s causing all your pain and that’s perhaps why that particular area of the body is also painful, but why did that happen in the first place?

Is is because when you sit at your work desk, it’s slightly more comfortable to lean to the right? Spending hours in your car with one foot moving, and the other resting, causing your hips to sit unevenly. Could that be causing your back spasms? Could it be that you’ve had recurrent ankle sprains on your left foot now you now experience right hip pain?

Your body functions as a WHOLE, not individual parts. That means the problem is functional and involves your entire body, not just one muscle.

There are so many factors that are in play, but I assure you, that one muscle is not the reason you have pain. Something is causing your body to compensate somehow and cause overuse or underuse of muscles, causing further imbalances. That is leading to weakness in muscles, maybe a few tight muscles, and microtears and pain and inflammation.

Skilled doctors are trained to see this; I am trained to see this. We spend years in school – I spent almost 9, not to mention my almost 6 years of clinical experience on top of that.

Plus, doing a thorough history and asking you a lot of questions on your intake form means we can get to what’s causing your problem much much faster.

And you can do this virtually. And you don’t even need to leave the house.

We can work together to find things that you can do at home to relieve some tension or pain at home, so you aren’t leaving your home if you don’t feel safe or spending time commuting. Think of how much time you can save!

There are SO many things that can be done.

Empower Yourself

This is for you only if you are actually ready to get better.

Because once we start, you’ll realize that your health is in YOUR hands and YOU have the power to change it.

Want that?

It’s okay if you don’t – not everybody is ready to change. If you are ready to start feeling better and take your health back into your hands and FIX the problem instead of throwing a band-aid on, hoping that it’ll just go away by itself or that someone else will fix you (because they can’t), then I’m here to help you.

If you would rather be in pain forever and not make a single change to your lifestyle, then I’m not the right fit for you, and that’s okay too.

But, if you’re ready to feel better, book a FREE 15 minute virtual Discovery Call (Ontario residents ONLY) with me and let’s chat. No strings attached and no obligation to you.

Book a free Discovery Call so you can learn about your body (Ontario residents ONLY).

Have questions? Check out the FAQ page and click here to see what services I offer.

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How to reduce pain flare-ups for neck and back pain quickly

Posted on October 5, 2020January 13, 2021 by Dr. Daina Patel

3 STRATEGIES TO HELP REDUCE PAIN AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE

Are you struggling with pain flare ups or re-aggravation of previous injuries causing pain that stops you from doing your daily activities? Keep reading to find out some of my strategies that may help reduce pain immediately.

Acute pain and pain flare ups can be annoying to deal with, especially if they prevent you from doing your daily activities, such as cooking or playing with your kids.

Knowing what works for you and your body can be critical in reducing pain during these stages. When pain happens, you’ll want an instant solution.

Keep reading to learn 3 different ways that may help in these situations.

The first step is always to get assessed by your healthcare practitioner to rule out anything serious. Once you know that it’s something you can deal with from the comfort of your own home, you’ll feel much more comfortable trying to manage your own pain. It also helps to get an idea of what types of treatments are going to be the most effective and you don’t have to experiment or play the guessing game, because that can take a really long time to figure out!

Remember to use your own judgement. If things feel worse, discontinue and see your healthcare practitioner.

1. HEAT/ICE

Heat and ice are easily accessible and you don’t need to buy anything fancy for this to work. You can use a shower or bath, soak a towel in water, something from your freezer, etc. to have an effect. There are even inexpensive products you can buy such as a hot water bottle or hot/cold packs you can throw into the microwave or freezer.

Heat helps to increase blood circulation to the area that has pain. It opens up the arteries and that may help with healing. It also helps tight muscles feel more relaxed. Heat can be a great way to reduce pain quickly. Keep in mind that it is not safe to use for all conditions and can also make things worse so it’s always best to see your practitioner. Discontinue using heat if you feel worse.

Ice can help to temporarily numb the sensation of pain at the site of an injury. It can also reduce swelling and constrict the blood flow temporarily. Once the body realizes that this area needs warmth, it sends a rush of blood flow to that area, allowing it to potentially heal quicker.

2. GENTLE MOVEMENT

A lot of times, pain increases due to sedentary behaviours or avoiding movement, which can happen if you feel like moving might make things worse or moving causes pain to increase. In most cases, moving is beneficial to healing. Not moving means we allow for our muscles to waste away because they need to be moving in order to be stronger. When the muscles go through a period of immobility, they get smaller and weaker. That means they can’t support your body and simple activities such as walking and gentle movement can become more painful. In the long-term, movement is essential to reducing and getting rid of pain but for right now, focus on easier movements just to get blood circulating.

Working with your practitioner will give you more specific exercises that will help you depending on where the pain is coming from and what parts of the body you need to add specific movements into.

Sometimes walking can be enough to help reduce pain. It helps to get blood circulating in general through the entire body and engages muscles that need movement. Even a few minutes can make a difference.

Some resting positions may also be helpful here, such as child’s pose, legs up the wall, lying down on your back with knees bent, or Savasana (corpse pose).

Gentle moving exercises such as cat-cow and knee to chest may also be helpful.

Depending on what is going on in your body, some of these things might work better than others.

None of these types of movements require more than 5 minutes!

3. CHIROPRACTORS

Chiropractic adjustments to areas where joints are not moving well or muscle work in the areas where pain is originating from can help to temporarily reduce symptoms of pain, speeding up healing. It also releases endorphins which make you feel good and your body also produces oxytocin which helps relieve pain.

They can instantly remove pressure off joints and increase range of motion (ROM) immediately.

Initially, you may need more frequent adjustments until your body gets used to the new sensations from having better joint mobility.

Adjustments can very quickly reduce pain, especially if they are done as soon as you start to feel the pain. There are many other health benefits to adjustments besides instant pain relief.

WANT MORE STRATEGIES?

I created this quick reference guide that summarizes this post and provides a couple of extra ways that may help you to reduce pain. You can download it right here and refer to it the next time you need a strategy that may help to reduce pain quickly!

The key to using any of these strategies is consistency and practice. You’ll want to know how something works while you have relatively less pain so you aren’t thinking about the options you have. Once that intense pain or the flare-up hits, it’s hard to think. Practice so it becomes second nature and you know exactly what you need to do to start feeling better right away.

This blog is only for educational purposes only and is not to be taken as medical advice. Please read the Disclaimer here.