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A Letter from Dr. Phillips

Happy New Year! The perfectionist in me loves the fresh start, the clean slate, another chance to go around the sun and maybe get it right this time. But that’s not the human way, is it? The fresh start becomes a middling oops, the clean slate an interesting attempt. And yet, the earth continues its journey around the sun, in an endless loop, that we celebrate once a year and call a beginning.

I nevertheless refuse to brush off the new year as arbitrary. I want to say thank you for a wonderful year as your concierge chiropractor. I love being able to help you feel better in your body and do more of the things you love to do. And while any practice performed by humans proffers imperfect results, I appreciate the opportunity you all give me to strive toward excellence in the name of your health. I love the power of chiropractic and I love sharing it with you.

May your hopes be fulfilled and your health be renewed in 2025. Happy, happy new year!

Yours in health,

Announcements

Heads up! Sequoia Chiropractic will be closed Monday February 17 through Friday February 21 for Dr. Phillips to visit family in Chicago.
Sequoia Chiropractic’s home visit hours are MTWF 9am-3pm. Established patients may also schedule home visits on Tuesdays and Thursdays 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.
Care to share a few words about your experience with Sequoia Chiropractic? Leave a review by searching for “Sequoia Chiropractic Pasadena” on Google or Yelp. Even a sentence or two helps others feel confident choosing Dr. Phillips as their chiropractor.

Sequoia Chiropractic offers a free service exclusively for newsletter subscribers: Receive a focused nutrition consultation with Dr. Phillips via phone or video call. To get started, fill out this form. You’ll receive personalized advice on foods and/or supplements for a healthy foundation based on your unique needs and goals.

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Book Recommendation

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

The Four Tendencies

Gretchen Rubin

For anyone trying to figure out how to make new habits stick, this book offers the foundational insight to choose strategies that will work for you specifically. Author Gretchen Rubin describes a personality framework based on how individuals meet inner and outer expectations. Inner expectations are those you set for yourself and outer expectations are those coming from other people. There are four tendencies:

Upholders meet inner and outer expectations
Questioners meet inner expectations
Obligers meet outer expectations
Rebels meet neither

Yet there’s no moral judgment for one tendency or the other—each is capable of setting and reaching goals once they know how they tend to work.

For example, I’m a rebel. I abhor structure and can make all sorts of plans only to scrap them at the last second and do something different. Yet I am a successful entrepreneur currently holding two other paid positions who can be on time, productive, and caring to those around me. Until I read The Four Tendencies, I constantly tried to be more disciplined and structured, thinking that was the key to getting where I wanted to be. Rubin showed me I was swimming upstream and that a different approach would serve me better. By embracing my natural tendency to rebel against set expectations, I learned to appeal to my values in order to accomplish what really matters to me. Of all the personality frameworks I’ve explored, this one helped me the most. Each tendency has its own strategies for building habits and motivating oneself. You can even take a quiz online to find your tendency and get started.

Health Affirmation

When I was a kid my mom used to say there is no such thing as a bad day, only a day with bad moments. When the crud of a day starts to snowball, it’s time to pause, take a breath, and reset. If a day is neither bad nor good, then any moment is an opportunity to begin anew and try again for something better. To really make it stick, imagine drawing a line on the ground and walking over it to demarcate the start of something new.

Nutrition Spotlight

Over Christmas I had a nasty case of the flu. My saving grace: honey. 🍯 Honey is amazing. Honey is what eased the sore throat, the coughing, the abject misery of being sick for a week straight. Without it I don’t know what I would have done! And formal studies show similar results. Here are the three ways that I use and recommend honey for fighting upper respiratory bugs like the flu.

The original Ricola cough drops are the ONLY ones that eased my cough enough to sleep at night. Don’t mess with the sugar-free ones because they just don’t work! (Your dentist may try to convince you otherwise, but one week of honey post-toothbrushing will not destroy your oral health.)

I’ve relied on Traditional Medicinals Throat Coat Tea for years. Don’t be swayed to try one of the new variations with eucalyptus or echinacea. Get the original version with slippery elm and add honey to it. It tastes delightful and feels so soothing.

Pei Pa Koa cough syrup is a honey herbal concoction I recently discovered and it works better than Robitussin, Mucinex, even my Albuterol inhaler. This is the good stuff. You know when you have that tickle in your chest that keeps you coughing? Not after taking your pei pa koa. And you know how hard it is to cough up all that junk rattling your lungs? Not after pei pa koa.

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

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One More Thing

Handwashing is an important habit that keeps illness at bay. I was delighted to find my favorite Zum bar soap at Vons of all places! It smells amazing, and it doesn’t dry out my hands no matter how often I wash them. I used to prefer the scent lavender-mint, but now I’m partial to frankincense and myrrh. You can also find Zum soap at Whole Foods or online.

See you in February!