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A Letter from Dr. Phillips

I left work (tutoring) on Tuesday evening, January 7th, once the power went out for good, and I was nearly bowled over by the wind. The handful of steps it took to reach my car left me with bits of dirt in my eyes and fighting against the pressure of the wind to expand my ribcage and breathe in.

Little did I know that just two miles away it was raining embers. I was focused on navigating downed trees, but soon realized the smell of smoke permeating my car and the faint orange glow of the sky as I traveled north toward home.

Inside, I frantically stuffed necessities and irreplaceables in a duffel, trying not to trip over the cats in our light-less apartment. My family was lucky: our power was restored a few hours later, and no evacuation order came for us. But that doesn’t mean I was exempt from the fear and sorrow.

In chiropractic we say that spine segments become dysfunctional from the three “T”s: Trauma, Toxins, and Thoughts. The fires encompass all three.

Trauma: physical harm to the body, such as an accident or injury, which also encompasses physical stressors that result from a threatening situation, such as being displaced, and without basic necessities (sleeping on a floor, being without electricity, gas, potable water, food, etc.)
Toxins: chemicals we encounter that tax the liver and negatively impact the body, such as the smoke and ash filled with lead, arsenic, and asbestos from all the structures that burned
Thoughts: the way we assess the world around us, impacting our emotions and how our bodies respond; the increased demand to problem-solve, make decisions, and process emotions which increase muscle tension and impact sleep quality

I’m sure we all have a story of how the fires impacted us. That impact bores down to our core: our nervous system. Chiropractic adjusts the nervous system so that it can heal from physical trauma, coordinate functioning of organ systems, and ease the stress held in the body. Wherever you are, whatever your story, I’m here to help.

Yours in health,

Announcements

Sequoia Chiropractic will be closed to home visits Monday February 17th to Friday February 21st so that Dr. Phillips can visit her family in Chicago. If you need to get ahold of her, you can still call or text 626-346-0977.
Sequoia Chiropractic’s home visit hours are MTWF 9am-3pm. Established patients may also schedule home visits on Tuesday and Thursday 7pm-8:30pm. If you have a new injury that needs urgent care outside of these hours, call or text 626-346-0977. Feel free to leave a voicemail or text ANY TIME and Dr. Phillips will return contact as soon as possible.
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Book Recommendations

To find the list of current and previous books featured in the newsletter, head to Sequoia Chiropractic’s bookshop.org storefront.

All About Love: New Visions

bell hooks

All About Love is … all about love! bell hooks was a writer and social critic on gender, race, and class. What sets her apart from so many social critics is the ethic of love that undergirds her work. If you’ve never read any bell hooks, start with this book. It addresses the power of love in thirteen chapters that span all kinds of relationships, not just romantic ones. She touches on love and work, love and greed, love and spirituality, to name a few. It’s difficult to fully explain what this book is about because individual sentences can feel profound while the gestalt effect is beyond words.

To give you a taste of what you’ll find, here’s her definition of love: “the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.” It’s a definition that gets specific and gets me thinking. You’ll find plenty more to think about if you choose to read its entirety.

Chain-Gang All-Stars

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

With February being Black History Month, I present to you a novel of Black Literature that I think has the potential to become a classic. From the individual thoughts, to the interpersonal dynamics, and the actions of groups, the writing feels true to how people actually think, feel, communicate, and behave. On top of that, the story is both creative but not implausible as far as speculative fiction goes. The premise is Hunger Games-meets-the inherently racist prison-industrial complex, in which prisoners fight to the death for their freedom on TV, at the profit of the prison owners. When officials change the rules of the game, two women prisoners, life partners belonging to the same “chain-gang,” now have to fight one another. The novel leads up to that fight, alternating perspectives and timelines across characters, to an ending unpredictable yet inevitable.

Health Affirmation

When I meet resistance, I soften my approach.

While examining a patient’s neck, I found a stubborn muscle knot. Rather than increase the pressure I applied, I lightened my touch. Several seconds later, I felt the knot melt away. A softer technique works for muscles knots, and for so many other things in life. When you face frustration, remind yourself that a gentler method may lead to the outcome you wish for.

Nutrition Spotlight

Why do chiropractors give nutrition advice? As a chiropractor I believe in providing whole-body care, and nutrition allows me to offer a more complete version of health to you, my patients.

Chiropractic is simultaneously broad and specific. It’s specific when adjustments target particular problems within nerves, muscles, and joints. You point to your pain, and I adjust the spot to facilitate healing. At the same time, chiropractic provides a holistic foundation for health, ensuring that your brain and body communicate optimally to coordinate the functions of the body. It’s what makes chiropractic so beneficial for the immune system, the autonomic nervous system, and the rest of body systems.

However, chiropractic is not a cure-all. It works mechanically, and energetically, but not chemically (at least, not directly). If you are missing essential nutrients, or not absorbing such nutrients as they travel down your digestive tract, then chiropractic cannot make up for that deficiency. Even advanced medicine wouldn’t be the fix you need; it comes down to nutrition.

When my husband has episodes of gastro-esophageal reflux disorder (GERD) he takes Okra Pepsin, a capsule filled primarily with okra, which soothes the lining of his digestive tract. For migraine prevention, I recommend a trio of supplements: magnesium, riboflavin, and the herb butterbur. When someone is facing stressful times, I recommend Drenamin to give the adrenals a boost through the stress, and then Cortisol Manager to recover from the stress and support sleep. When a patient asked for a food (rather than a supplement) that would help her gallbladder, I suggested beets, both root and greens. These nutritional fixes round out the chiropractic adjustments to provide you with true whole-body care.

So when you have your chiropractic visit, ask me your nutrition questions! I’m happy to answer them, and I’ll follow up via email if your question involves a more thorough answer. You can also sign up for a nutrition consultation anytime.

To receive Dr. Phillips’ expert nutritional guidance and personalized recommendations, sign up for a free 15-minute nutrition consultation by tapping the button below.

Schedule Your Free Consultation

One More Thing

A long time ago, before chatGPT and the like, the only AI we had to speak of were tiny neural networks. Computer scientist Janelle Shane kept a blog about the tasks she trained neural networks to do, along with the wacky outcomes. Enjoy this post from 2018 on the results of training a neural network to generate candy heart phrases.

If you continue to peruse the archives or wander over to her instagram page, you’ll find posts on neural network-generated recipes (macabre!), paint color names (believable), “Botober” drawing challenges (like Inktober, but uncanny valley), and more.

Who knows, maybe you’ll find a bot-created Valentine’s card for all the people you love to laugh with!

See you in March!