Simply Health and Wellness
Simply Health and Wellness is a podcast designed to encourage, uplift, inspire, and educate young families and the millennial generation concerning a holistic and vitalistic lifestyle approach to health and wellness.
Simply Health and Wellness
Pain-Free Travel: Car Ride Stretches, Anti-Inflammatory Nutrition, and Stress Reduction Techniques
The physical toll of modern living often manifests as persistent pain that affects our quality of life. Dr. Jagarin Knight Bryant addresses three major contributors to this epidemic: travel discomfort, poor nutrition, and chronic stress.
For those preparing for road trips or long commutes, proactive preparation makes all the difference. Getting a chiropractic adjustment before traveling creates a foundation for comfort, while specific pre-journey stretches like neck rolls and shoulder circles prepare your body for extended sitting. The doctor emphasizes the critical importance of regular stretch breaks—ideally every 1-2 hours—to counteract the forward-leaning driving position. These strategic pauses for backward bends, hamstring stretches, and shoulder mobility exercises prevent the stiffness and discomfort that typically accompany long journeys.
The conversation shifts to nutrition's powerful but often underestimated role in pain management. Your dietary choices directly impact inflammation levels—the driving force behind many chronic pain conditions. Dr. Bryant outlines an anti-inflammatory approach centered around fruits, vegetables, fatty fish rich in omega-3s, nuts, and olive oil. Equally important is avoiding the inflammation triggers: processed foods, refined sugars, and excessive red meat. Many patients experience significant relief when reducing dairy and gluten consumption, especially those with sensitivities. These nutritional adjustments complement chiropractic care by creating an internal environment conducive to healing.
The final segment addresses the physical manifestations of mental and emotional stress—particularly the characteristic tension that accumulates in the neck and shoulders. Progressive muscle relaxation techniques help your body distinguish between tension and relaxation states, while just 3-5 minutes of mindful breathing daily activates the parasympathetic nervous system and interrupts the stress response. Heat therapy and gentle stretching further support these practices. Dr. Bryant concludes by highlighting the fundamental neuromuscular connection, explaining why regular chiropractic care remains essential for addressing the root causes of stress-related tension.
Ready to transform your approach to pain management? Visit Mustard Seed Chiropractic in Smyrna, Georgia, where Dr. Bryant and his team can provide personalized care to help you achieve lasting wellness.
What's up, beautiful people, my name is Dr Jagarin Knight Bryant from Mustard Seed Chiropractic, located here in beautiful Smyrna, georgia, and on today's episode here on Simply Health and Wellness, we are talking about stretches for long car rides to help you prevent pain. We're also going to talk about the role of nutrition in managing chronic pain and then, last but not least, we're going to talk about stress reduction techniques for your neck and for your shoulder tension. Ok, so here we go. Long car rides. They can put a strain on your spine. You guys know this. You get in the car, you start riding and you can feel the discomfort. Same thing can be said for a plane or even if you travel train these days. Right, this causes the stiffness and discomfort when you're sitting for longer hours. There's a couple of stretches you can do here at home to help you. When you're sitting for longer hours, there's a couple stretches you can do here at home to help you. So, before your trip, you do need to start preparing your body, and there's a couple things you can do. First thing first go see a chiropractor. You need to get an adjustment. You need to get the body to rest, relax and restore, but then you can do some gentle neck rolls, literally rolling your neck from side to side. You can do some shoulder circles as well to kind of get the trap muscles and get the shoulder girdle kind of ready to be in a longer position for a longer period of time. But get mobility there. And then some forward bends, so literally just going down the stretch and touch the toes would be very nice to prep your body for a trip Right. So during your drive it would be wise also for you to stop every hour to two hours to stretch for a small break, for you to stop every hour to two hours to stretch for a small break. And so that's what I tell my patients is, if you're going for these longer trips, do not forget to take time to stretch, literally at each stop. I ask the patient to kind of bend backwards, if you will. So placing hands on the low back, gently lean back, the counter act, that forward position of driving. Also, do some hamstring stretches right. Put that leg up, if you will, on a bench and just kind of stretch things out, placing that heel on the bumper, maybe even on a curb if you need to Gently lean forward, and that will release some of the tension in your legs and your low back. And then, last but not least, some shoulder rolls rolling the shoulders backwards and rolling them forwards. That will help relieve some of the stiffness that's going on in the body. And then, last but not least, you got to stay hydrated for your trip. So dehydration can cause your muscles to fatigue and create more tension. So these are just some simple measures that you can use to help you ride at your destination feeling great. But just a small reminder that I want to give all of my patients, and even people who are not my patients, to just make sure that you are having a comfortable and enjoyable time by prepping your body for your trip.
Speaker 1:Okay, next topic we want to hit the role of nutrition and managing chronic pain. So something that I need you to know is when you eat. This significantly impacts how you feel. It's not just about your tongue and what you taste. What you eat significantly impacts the way you feel, especially when you're trying to manage chronic pain. So there's certain foods that can fight inflammation and there's other foods that really fuel inflammation and again, this directly affects your comfort and your mobility. So just a reminder here I want you to start building your diet, thinking of the foods that you eat around this anti-inflammatory process, if you will.
Speaker 1:So fruits, vegetables, fatty fish, if you will. They are rich in omega-3s nuts, seeds, olive oil. They contain many compounds that are natural to help reduce inflammation. Just a couple of foods that you can think of right there. Right, you want to avoid foods that increase inflammation, so processed foods, foods that you are ordering stuff from, these are things that there's been processes put into it to help it have shelf life and in the process of helping to have more shelf life, they retain longer in the body and chemicals in ways that they shouldn't. Also, think about refined sugars, think about excessive red meat just too much red meat. You want to have a balance there. Many people also find that reducing dairy and gluten can decrease symptoms. So if you have sensitivities to these areas, you want to decrease dairy and gluten as well.
Speaker 1:And then, of course, staying hydrated is the most important part. Again, dehydration pops up again. It can intensify pain perception and it does slow down healing. So, while nutrition alone may not eliminate your chronic pain, it is a powerful way to complement with your regular chiropractic adjustments and helping your body feel great and function at its best. These small dietary changes very small can lead to noticeable improvements in your day-to-day comfort. So just if you want some more personalized advice on that concerning you and your diet, come in see us here at Mustard Seed Chiropractic. We can help out with that, of course, give you a fantastic chiropractic adjustment and make the actual recommendation needed to help you hit your health and wellness goals.
Speaker 1:Last but not least, stress reduction techniques. We need this. All of us are stressed out at different points in time. We have to find ways to manage it and then reduce it. Long story short, if you have tight, achy feelings in your neck and shoulders, it's a direct response to stress, whether it's mental or whether our bodies are responding to this physical processing. It's particularly located in the upper spine and typically around the shoulders. So here's some techniques that we can do.
Speaker 1:Try to progressively do this muscle relaxation technique Deliberately tense up the muscle groups for about five or 10 seconds, get them really tight, squeeze the fist, do the details really, really really tight and then slowly release. This will help your body start to recognize the difference between tension and relaxation. Another one that I ask my patients to do is just mindful breathing exercises. It does wonders, trust me so literally, even right now, take a deep breath in slowly and then take a slow deep breath out. Deep breaths, while focusing on gradually relaxing your shoulders away from your ears, will significantly help your body get into a parasympathetic state, or rest and relax state. You can do this for three to five minutes per day and it will significantly reduce the muscle tension that builds up around the neck and shoulders.
Speaker 1:Last but not least, heat therapy. Get you a warm shower, take a warm bath. Think about a nice heat impact. Get one that will help the muscles relax whenever it comes to muscle tension throughout the day, and then you can follow up with a gentle stretch that will help you relax as well. And then, remember, the most important part is neuromuscular. That means nerves connect to muscles. Muscles don't move unless the nervous system tells it to right.
Speaker 1:So we want to remember that the chiropractic care is helping to reduce subluxations, tension pressure off of the nerves. When it does that, the body can communicate well and it plays an important role In managing your stress-related tension. You have to address the physical manifestations of stress If you're going to help your body heal, feel, function and adapt at its best. So hopefully this episode was helpful for you Again, preparing you for those long car rides, thinking about our nutrition and, most importantly, reducing the stress in this world. We need that. If you need a great chiropractic adjustment, you know exactly where to find us, here at Mustard Seed Chiropractic, located in Smyrna, georgia. Myself and my wife, dr Jessica, cannot wait to help. Our team is fired up to see you and your family. We hope to see you soon. Take care, have a blessed day.
