Dr Sebastian Kverneland grew up in Stavanger, Norway, to a family of renowned engineers. But instead of following their career path, he has dedicated his life to the mechanics of the body.
And his practice, the Scandinavian Health Institute in Los Angeles, California, brings the holistic, science-based approach of chiropractic treatment of his homeland to clients in his adopted home city.
He says: “It is important for me that my work and my practice reflects the values Scandinavians are famous for — innovation, quality, and integrity.”
Back pain is one of the most common reasons for visiting the doctor and missing days at work, affecting more than 80% of us at some point in our lives.
And here Dr Kverneland offers his five top tips on how to keep our backs in the best shape — so ideally we don’t need a chiropractor at all.
GET MORE SLEEP
One of the main reasons a lot of people are experiencing back pain is actually a lack of sleep. When we sleep, the discs between the vertebrae rehydrate. During the day, when we sit and stand, gravity pushes down and the discs lose some of that firmness, the vertebra gets closer to each other, and that compromises some of that integrity. So over time, if you constantly don’t get enough sleep, backs can become arthritic. So getting enough sleep is extremely important for prevention of back pain and if you are struggling with back pain. Sleep is your body’s repair.
PRACTICE BETTER DESK HYGIENE
For people who work at a desk, no matter how correct your sitting position is, it’s not good for you. There’s been research to show that sitting at a desk is equivalent to smoking cigarettes. Making sure you sit in the best possible posture is important. But it’s also important to make sure that you get up, stretch and move around a little bit for a couple of minutes every hour. And make sure your monitor is high, so you look straight ahead at it and you’re not straining your neck or looking down at the computer. A lot of back problems, even headaches, are caused by straining the muscles. And if you have a phone call, make a habit of taking the call walking around. When you sit at a desk, it’s such a low energy activity that your body naturally goes into storage mode. So if you eat lunch, and then you go back to your office and you sit down, your body thinks, ‘Oh, you’re not using energy, we’re going to put this energy from the food into the fat cells.’ And if you can get a standing desk, you will fire a little bit of the muscles to keep better balance. We see that if you eat lunch and you go to a standing desk, you get rid of the blood sugar more efficiently. And how efficiently can you get rid of blood sugar is a great predictor of future health.
IMPROVE YOUR DIET
Obesity is going up and people are getting fatter. And back pain, as well as different kinds of cancer, is often linked to visceral fat around your stomach. When you have a lot of weight in your stomach area, that can strain your lower back because the weight is hanging forward. I have patients that come to me with low back pain, and I say, ‘I can I can be a painkiller for you, but the problem is obesity.’ Places where people live extraordinarily long lives, dodging disease and dodging pain, there is more of a pescatarian-type diet, where the main source of protein is from fish and vegetables. The Mediterranean diet is probably the most researched diet and these people live extremely long lives and do not take much medication at all. They live until they are 90 years old and they have a very smooth transition to death. If you’re unhealthy, the last 10 or 15 years of your life is going to be in pain, so you should try and avoid that. Lifestyle is such an important factor, but too many practitioners go for the easy, quick fix. And I also like something called the fast mimicking diet. When you eat food, your body has to put so much energy and focus into digestion. When you are fasting, your body doesn’t have to spend that focus on digestion. So the focus goes into repair.
EXERCISE… EVEN IF JUST SEVEN MINUTES A DAY
People who have stairs in their house have a quite remarkable, decreased risk of getting heart attacks. Exercise is very important, and a lot of people don’t find time to do so. But when you look at what is really necessary, it does not take that much time or money. You can do just seven minutes a day and get all the effects that you need. When you look at high intensity interval training, the physiological effects from doing that every day is remarkable. You strengthen your heart, you strengthen the lungs and you improve your metabolic fitness.
AND FINALLY… GET A CAT
There was a very surprising study lately that showed that people who have a cat have 40% decreased risk of getting heart attack. The reason for that is stress management, petting a cat is very relaxing. Researchers and scientists believe getting a pet is very good for your heart health in particular. They did a study with dogs and cats, and we believe that having dogs is extremely healthy because we have to take them for walks every day. But to their surprise, you had better effects having a cat. Extraordinary results.
