Maximized Living Radio with Dr. Greg O'Neill 11.2.25

The Right Curves!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, guys, welcome back to the show, Doctor Greg
O'Neal Maximized Living Radio. You're gonna have a great week
here talking about getting curves in the right places. Now,
you might think this is like a weight loss talk
or something like that. It is not. When I say curves,
people think of their hips, they think of trimming up.
But I'm talking about curves in the spine. One of

(00:20):
my favorite studies that was ever done. It was done
by the University of Texas about ten years ago, is
they showed silhouettes of female figures to men and then
men had to rate the attractiveness of that silhouette of
a figure. So basically they're like think of like a
cardboard cutout and then it's like light is shown on

(00:43):
it casts a shadow, and then men are asked, like
thousands of men are as to rate attractiveness based on
the curves of a woman's body. Now here's the funny
part of this is that universally across all you know,
ethnic backgrounds and stuff, there was one answer that was

(01:03):
the number one answer, and it relates to the spine.
So I'm not talking about the size of someone's buns.
I'm not talking about their hips from the front. The
universal answer that was number one that men found attractive
is from the side. So when when you look at
someone from the side, you want to have a forty
five degree curve. And they found that women in those

(01:26):
silhouettes who had a more close to a forty five
degree curve in the back from the side, men found attractive.
Now here's the other part to kind of equalize some
other factors, is they would also put on a woman
whose let's say her buttock was larger, or her buttock
was smaller. Her back could be flat with a large buttock,

(01:49):
or if you could have a curve with a small buttock.
It didn't they did all the different combinations, but it
remained the same is that the men preferred the woman
who had the curve in the back. Now, why am
I sharing that, You're like, okay, am I supposed to
do that to be attracted to men? No, But biologically speaking,
so you could see from both schools of thoughts. So

(02:09):
I come from like how God created our body. Thought
is that God created men to be attracted to a
woman with a curve in her back because she's more
likely to be able to bear children properly. And then
obviously this study comes from the more scientific evolution standpoint,
and their standpoint is is that over generations, your natural selection,

(02:31):
men are more attracted to women with a curve in
their back because they're more likely to bear children or
have less trouble bearing children. And the study went on
to show how when a woman stands having a forty
five degree curve in their back, they're less likely to
deal with child bearing issues than someone who doesn't. And
then you go even deeper, it's like, well why is that?

(02:53):
Why is that because when you have a curve in
your back, it supports everything in your lower back, including
the disks, the joints, the muscles, so like less likely
to have back pain, so less likely to have disability,
and then all the organ cells and tissues that the
nerve tissue comes out. So what does that mean is

(03:13):
that your brain then signals through your spinal cord and
spinal nerves through your spine. So what this study shows,
and what we've known for a very long time, is
that the structure of your spine dictates the function of
your nervous system, or it has a large influence on it.
So the saying is structure dictates function. Now, in the

(03:36):
dentistry world, this is well known. The structure of your
teeth is going to determine the function of your jaw
and your whole mile fascial area. So if your teeth
are all busted up and jacked up and crooked and
full of cavities, that's going to affect the function of
you being able to masticate or chew food and swallow food,
and that's going to affect your overall health. Okay, so

(03:58):
people kind of know that that's and not only that,
the structure of your teeth can also affect your overraal
health because it can leads into your blood and cavities
can lead to sepsis and infection or gingivitis and all
kinds of inflammatory disorders and even heart issues. That's why
people brush their teeth, take care of their mouth, take
care of their moral health, because that structure affects everything else. Now, similarly,

(04:21):
in your spine, the structure of your spine, the position
in the alignment of your spine, is going to affect
the function of everything in your body because your spine
and your nervous system are so intricately connected. So what
I'm getting at here is that you for men and women.
This isn't just about women. You have to have curves

(04:41):
in your spine in the right places. That's the title
of the show. Curves in the right places so that
your body can heal and function as close to one
hundred percent as possible, because when you lose these normal
curves from the side. Again, I'm talking about the side
of the body, this sagital plane. You want to have
a curve in your neck, you want to curve in
your mid back, you want to curve in your lower back. People.

(05:03):
The problem with this is people are sitting way more
than they ever have before. We have sedentary lifestyles mainly
because of our jobs. We go to work, people sit
the vast majority of the day. They're staring at computer
screens the vast majority of the day. We're commuting longer
than ever before because of the way that our suburbs

(05:23):
and driving and everything like that. People is going to
drive to work, then you're going to be sitting to
do that. So you think of the average persons. Chick,
you get up, you get ready for the day. You're
laying in bed, You get up, get ready. You're sitting
in your car. Now you're driving say it's twenty thirty
minutes up to sixty minutes. For some people, you go
to work. That person then sits all day long and

(05:45):
they get back on their car, they drive back home.
Then they get home, they sit on their sofa, they
sit on their recliner. So people are sitting the vast
majority of the day. What does that do to the
lower back? Well, right away, it takes away that curve
in the lower back. It takes out that curve. It
weakens your pelvic floor muscles. A lot of people have concerns,

(06:06):
especially women, about pelvic floor health. And one of the
first things that I say is you got it's from sitting.
From sitting too much. They're like, oh, is it because
they had babies, or it is because I'm getting old,
or is it because of blah blah blah blah blah,
Like no, no, no, you're sitting too much, and it deactivates
those muscles. It also tightens up your hip flexors, it
tightens up your hamstrings, and this leads to tension across

(06:27):
the lower back. Now, what do people do when they
have tension in the lower back. They take medications. Well,
they can do other things. It can try to stretching,
a massage, you know, they might try to do hot pack,
ice pack, things like that. But then people turn to medications.
They turn to advil, they turn to a leave, they
turn to tile and all. If that's not getting better,
they go to the doctor. They get put up prescription

(06:48):
drugs like Gavia penton, God forbid, they get put on
opioid drugs. And then these issues that are physical, you're
trying to correct them chemically, and that cannot work. It's
just incomputable those two do not go together. That's why,
even like I was sharing a few weeks ago, I
completely blew out my back. It was really bad. I

(07:09):
didn't take any medications. Why. Number one, it goes against
everything that I preach and teach, goes against just like
who I am. Number two, just from a pure logic standpoint,
it's not going to help. It's gonna actually it's gonna
hurt my body from the side effects and the direct
effects of the drugs. Then it's gonna silence my brain's
ability to connect with my body, and I'm not feeling

(07:30):
my body properly, and I'm more likely to reinjure it.
That's why you see people they're dealing with backtaing, they
take a bunch of medications. They've been sitting all week,
sitting in their car, sitting at work. Now they're gonna
go be the weekend warrior. Now you're gonna go pull weeds.
Now you're gonna go play tickleball. Now you're gonna go
play golf. Now you're gonna go play run or soccer
or run around with your kids or whatever. And you're

(07:50):
doing And then the issue is either you blame your
age or you blame the activity. Meanwhile, what we want
to look at is your spine and how your taking
care of it. Because you can sit there and say, well,
I guess I can't. I can't do these activities anymore.
I'm just too old. It's like, no, you're too inactive. No,
you're not taking care of yourself, and you're demanding or

(08:11):
expecting too much from your body without giving really anything
to it except for toxic drugs, medications and complaining about it.
So what we need to do today is to change
our mindset to change the structure of our spine over time.
Because the cool part is your body's design to heal.

(08:31):
Your body's designed to function well. But you have to
have the structure in the right place. You have to
have the structure in the right place so that your
body can do its job because it's trying. It's trying
to do the job. It really is every day. It's
amazing that you've gotten to this point without more problems,
right with how we cheat ourselves. But we need to
do our part too, and that comes from knowing what's

(08:52):
going on, removing interference so that your body can heal
and function to the best of its ability. So stay tuned.
After the break, we'll focus more on that. All right, guys,
we come back to the show, Doctor Gregor Neo Maximized
Living Radio talking about getting curves in the right places
in your spine, not in your hips. Talking about curves
in the right place. What does that mean when you
look at When I say the word curves in your spine,

(09:13):
most people think bad. Now depends how you look at it.
If you look at someone from the front, your pelvis
should be level, your spine should be straight, your head
should be level. If your pelvis has shifted one way
or the other, it could be demonstrative that you have
like a like a short leg on one side, or
the pelvis could be turned head could be tilted. What

(09:33):
that starts to do is your body will always compensate
because your brain wants your eyes to be level with
the horizon. It's called the writing reflex, the writing reflex,
and this is where like if you're on a cruise
ship or a ship and you get seasick, like if
you're a blow deck. What that is is because there's

(09:54):
movement happening under your feet and it's causing your eyes
to go beyond like the tilt of the horizon, and
your brain gets confused because you're like, this shouldn't be happening.
I'm standing in this room. Why am I moving like this?
So you feel nascious, your brain doesn't like it. Again,
your brain is very smart. It's letting you know like, hey,
something's wrong here. So what do they tell people to do.

(10:14):
They tell people to go out on the deck and
look over the horizon. Why so that your brain can
reset itself again. It can reset itself to nature, to
the horizon, and the sea sickness goes away. So it's
not like you're actually sick or it's not a stomach issue.
It's your brain needing to recalibrate. So what does that

(10:34):
mean is that if your pelvis is shifted or your
head is tilted or anything like that, what's your spoty
going to do is it's going to throw a curve
or it's going to create a curve in your spine,
so that it would rather have the curve in the
spine so that your head doesn't tilt, so that your
eyes don't tilt. If you never usually see someone walking
around and their head is completely tilted and their eyes
aren't level, their head will usually translate or shift over

(10:56):
to one side in order to compensate. Where I use
the word head tilt to translation. And we look at
when someone comes into my office. It's not just Willy Nelly,
lay down on the table, get adjusted. Adjustments are powerful,
but you want to be able to know what's going on.
So for the majority of people, if necessary, we take
X rays. You're able to see to the degree to

(11:17):
the millimeter, your hip, set of alignment, the level of
your head, your spine, and we're able to make adjustments
based on where the issues are so that we can
start to move the spine back into its proper alignment
so that your head can go straight, your publish can
go straight, and your spine can start to go more
straight from front to back. But the biggest thing that

(11:38):
I work on with people, because it's just such an
emerging issue, is from the side. From the side, you
want to have a forty five degree curve in the neck,
the mid back, and the lower back. Now, think of
your spine like a gear. Like imagine a gear at
the top, a gear in the middle, of gear at
the bottom. If you turn one gear, what happens to
the other one turns the opposite way. For the majority

(12:00):
of people, and by the majority, I mean ninety nine
percent or more, the head will start to go forward.
Never usually goes backwards, does it. Think of like the
little old man, little old lady. Their head starts to
go forward, so that gear starts to shift. The opposite
thing will happen, typically in the lower back. If the
head comes forward, that lower back that or sorry, the

(12:21):
mid back, the mid back curve will get more. So
it's like you get less curve in the neck, you
get more in the mid back. And that's where you
hear if people say, oh, I got this dowager hump
or I got this this hump back like they start
to punch forward. They get too much curve in the
mid back, and then again that gear again rotating the
opposite way in the lower back. Is they can is
they lose the curve in the lower back. So what

(12:44):
I typically see the most common orientation is people lose
the curve in the neck. They get too much curve
in the mid back, and then lose the curve in
the lower back. So your middle back is compensatory. It's
we want to work on the neck, the head, and
the lower back. Now, where your head what do you
hear the term where your head goes, your body goes. Typically,

(13:05):
if you can get the neck corrected, you can start
to work on the lower back as well. That's why
when people come in. Now, this used to be something
I think people as I get older, more experienced, or
more bold or confident, whatever it is, people just generally
do what I say. Now I'm saying that in a
nice way, like I'm able to lead people more effectively.
They trust me, they trust my clinical judgment. But I

(13:27):
remember when I first started in chiropractic, and obviously with
anyone who starts any new career, you don't you know
what you're doing, but you don't necessarily have the confidence
to communicate it properly, you're not getting the point across,
or they're they're not feeling you type of thing. And
when I would be adjusting to someone who come in
with a we call it a hot lower back, like
their lower back is really out of alignment. And then

(13:51):
I'm working on their I'm working on their lower back,
but then also talking to them about their neck, and
I'm saying, we got to get your neck corrected, and
that's going to help correct the lower back. Now, I
remember some people look at me like, are you serious
right now? Because I can imagine you're in a lot
of pain. You go to a chiropractor, they're talking to
you about your neck. Now, I have a really funny
story this gentleman. His name is Dan. Now, Dan, he's

(14:13):
been a long time patient of mine, like for about
ten years. I first met Dan. I did a talk
at a church and I was actually talking about exercise
the importance of exercise nutrition, and at the end I
talked about chiropractic care. I talked about specific issues like
sciatica and lower back me and I was giving some examples.
Now Dan, at that time, because I did a kind

(14:35):
of like a four talks series, he couldn't go to
those other small groups. He only went to the last
one because he had ironically blown his back out. I'm
not kidding when I say this. He threw his back
out so bad he fell and shattered a glass like
coffee table. He fell through it like something out of

(14:55):
like Tom and Jerry or a movie, fell through a table.
And he laid there in excruciating pain. And he had
pain shooting down his leg. So he comes into my office.
I take his X ray's h almost, I get him adjusted.
He's feeling mildly better. Now I knew there's a problem
in the lower back. I can see the lower back

(15:16):
plain as day. I see the issue, but his neck
structurally is actually worse because he had now Symptomatically, he's
feeling the lower back worse, but structurally his neck was worse.
He had like dis degeneration, all these different issues in
the neck. So he comes in the next day and
I talked to him about his back. Yep, we're going
to do X y Z at the back, I said,

(15:37):
but I really want to talk to you about your
neck because and I go on and on and again,
I'm early in practice, go on and on about his
neck his neck, his neck, and I got him adjusted.
Now weeks later he said to me, he goes, you know,
I trusted you because I was feeling better. But when
you when I was in all that pain and all
you were talking about was my neck, I felt like

(15:58):
getting up and just small, like just punching you right
in the head. And I'm like, geez, he goes, Wow,
you know, I got to remember the Lord at those times.
He goes, but I was so like in pain and agitated,
and You're sitting here talking to me about my neck,
and I'm like, I get it, like you're in pain,
but we need to focus on all issues. Like if
you go to the dentist and you would just want

(16:20):
to keep a cleaning, but then the dentist opens up
your teeth and sees all kinds of cavities and abscesses
and things like that, takes X rays and see these problems.
Just because you don't feel it doesn't mean that it's
not there. I'm going to repeat that, just because you
don't feel a problem does not mean that it's not there.
In fact, the vast majority of issues or conditions in

(16:43):
the human body are silent. Now they're not technically silent
through your brain. Your brain knows like all what's going on,
but they're silent to you because your brain, your subconscious mind,
your subconscious brain can only give so much information to
your consciousness, you in your brain, or you and your body.

(17:03):
Your conscious you as a being, can only handle so much.
Your brain can handle two hundred billion plus messages a
minute or whatever it is, like trillions of messages a day.
It's insane how much information your brain can process. But
you yourself can't process that much. So your brain gives you
really only what you need to know. Okay. I like

(17:25):
to think of it like think of like the you know,
the president wakes up in the morning and they get
the presidential phone call and they give them like a
couple minutes of like, hey, this is going on, or
that's going on, or this is going on. Obviously there's
a lot more going on, but he's just being made
aware of some of the highlights or the main things
that he has to tackle that day. Similar to your brain,

(17:47):
it's like you get you wake up and you're getting
that phone call in the morning, You're like, hey, your
back hurts, by the way, you have a heart disease
or a cholesterol or this that or but we can't
tell you that yet. We're just gonna let you know
that your back hurts right now, okay, And you're like, okay,
I'm going to ignore it. And the brain's like I thought,
so please don't give me drugs. Oh, I'm going to
give you drugs anyways. But isn't that crazy. It's like

(18:09):
your brain lets you know something. It's like, hey, here's
this problem, and then we either ignore it or we
just drug it. We try to just cover it up
forget about it, and then we think that the problem
went away. I had this conversation with someone yesterday. Now again,
I'm I'm nice at the office. I'm not going to
sit here and spike, you know, pop people's balloons and

(18:30):
be mean or anything. But my job, on top of
adjusting people is to reroute mindsets. That's I would say
the vast majority of it. Because someone said, you know,
my back really hurt this weekend, but I knew I
had to go, you know, watch a soccer game or
whatever it was and sit in the bleacher. So I
just took four advill beforehand, and then I felt fine,

(18:51):
and I'm like, oh, you know, like okay, don't be mean.
And in my head, I'm like, don't be mean, don't
be mean, don't be mean. And I'm like, Okay, first
of all, I understand why you did that. You know,
no one wants to be in pain sit and you
want to go to your grandkids game, Like, I understand that. However,
when you do that, you're actually going to hurt your

(19:12):
back more because now you're doing an activity that your
body originally told you it didn't want to do. So
now your your body said I don't want to sit
for very long. You go ahead and take medications to
cover up that impulse or that signal, and now you
go ahead and sit for a long time. What do
you think is going to happen? And they're like, well, yeah,
because the next day I woke up and I was

(19:33):
in just horrible pain, and I thought, oh, the problem's worse.
Now it's like no, no, no, the problem. Yeah, the
problem is worse, not because it just naturally got worse,
because you made it worse. Does that make sense? They're like, yeah,
I get it. So it's like when you when you
take the ads. Though, when you take the chemical you
might feel good in the moment, but you're setting yourself

(19:54):
up for a big fall later on, a bigger problem
later on. So we don't we don't want to do that.
You want to listen to your body and you want
to act appropriately, And what does that mean to think? Okay,
if my body's telling me not to sit down right now,
maybe I can just stand or maybe I can go
for a walk, Maybe I can take a break, maybe
I can do something different so that I don't re
injure it. Now I'm one to call the cattle black

(20:16):
because as I shared, you know, on a previous on
a previous recording, is that I hurt my back. Now,
I tried to play ice hockey again and then my back,
my body's just like, okay, you're not doing that. So
I took a few weeks off and I can tell
you I'm feeling much much better. But you know, pride
gets in the way, Stubbornness gets in the way, ego
gets in the way. But we have to listen to

(20:37):
our body because if we don't have these curves, we
don't have the right alignment, the right structure of our spine,
then it's only a matter of time before these symptoms
start to pop up even more. And then you're in
a bad spot looking for help, so stay tuned. After
the break, we'll talk about practical things that you can
do to get to the bottom of us to start
to correct this so your body can start to hum

(20:57):
function better. They tune All right, guys, welcome back to
the show Maximize Living radio doctor Greg O'Neil talking about
getting curves in the right places. Let's talk about things
you need to avoid doing or change doing so that
you can have good curves in your back. So there's
a reality to fitting and how much we can sit

(21:18):
or need to sit. I'd say number one if you
have a desk job, switching to a standing desk. Now,
these can be expensive, but there are conversion kits like
you can get little converters on Amazon or other big
box retailers where they'll be like almost like a spring
loaded platform. You set it on your desk, you push

(21:40):
a button and it'll just come right up like a
with the air compression. It'll just come right up and
you can stand. And then that way you can keep
your original desk and just have like a conversion. So
I think you just type in like standing desk converter
or standing desk platform. You set it on your original desk.
Put all your computer and everything on top of it,
or your monitor, your keyboard, your mouse, you know, press

(22:03):
a little button, it'll come right up, so you can
stand while you're working. That's that's the best way. Now
here's the thing. Here's the thing is that if you
go from sitting the majority of the day and then
you try standing the majority of the day, you're gonna
notice you can notice some pain in your back. Now,
the mistake people make is this is they think that, oh,

(22:23):
my back, like it's it hurts me more to stand.
So I'm just gonna sit because fitting. I just I'm
doing better with sitting. No, no, no, no, no, that's
not why. Here's the reason why I mentioned your hip
flexus before. When you sit, your hip flexers are contracted.
They're very short. They're shortened. Like if you have everyone
knows what their bicep muscle is. Now, imagine you to

(22:45):
do a bicep curl, or you bring your forearm towards
your bicep like you're at the top of a curl.
Now hold that there all day and squeeze it, and
then you go to elongate or you go to stretch
out your arm how's that gonna feel. It's gonna feel tight.
You might not be able to elongate your the whole
way and you and you're gonna feel pain. Now here's
the thing is most people don't know this. Your hip
flexers start in your lower back. They actually connect in

(23:08):
the lower back, go all the way down to your
femur or to your to your thigh bone. And so
it causes the thigh bone to contract and to lift
your leg up so like to bring your knee to
your chest if you're standing. That's what your hip flexer does.
So if you're in a shortened position all the time,
then you go to stretch it out. That hip flexer
is extra tight, so it's tugging, pulling on the lower back.

(23:32):
So what that's what is that going to cause lower
back pain? Do you need to stretch your hip flexes.
I'll tell you two stories about this. As a chiropractor,
I stand all day long. It's it's it's a positive
of the of the occupation is that you stand. Now
I'm at a point where I can stand all day long.
It doesn't even bother me to stand. I remember we've

(23:52):
we've had new when new employees would start some of
them would ask. They'd be like, does doctor Greg ever
sit down? And they're just like no, and then like
does that not tiring? I'm like no, because I've gotten
used to it now. When I first got out of
chiropractic school, the ironic thing is I never really had
lower back paint till I went to chiropractic school because
you in the first couple of years you sit so

(24:13):
much like you're in class. Your class times I remember
were from eight to ten, then ten to twelve, then
two to four and four to six, and that was
all day. So it's basically eight to six all day.
You had a two hour break, and it was you know,
you're just sitting, You're just sitting there learning. And so
because of that, obviously hip flexures become incredibly tight. Now

(24:36):
at that time, I didn't notice stretch them properly, well,
not till the end of chiropractical school. So then I
jump into practice. You know, I go from sitting all
day to now standing all day in practice. After graduation,
Oh my gosh, I had such Now I wouldn't say
back paint at that time, but just tension in my
hip flexures. They were so tight, they were so tight
and so I just stretched them day after day after day.

(24:59):
Probably it took a good three weeks that I built
up endurance that I could just stand all day. And
I remember the chiropractor that I worked with and worked for.
You just stand all day and have no issue. I'm like,
oh my gosh, this guy's like a machine. But then
you know, three four weeks into it, it just became
my quote unquote new normal, and you know, feeling good.
So give yourself. Number one, give yourself time for your

(25:21):
body to adjust. So if you want to you convert
to a standing desk. Maybe you're standing for half an
hour and you're sitting for a half an hour, and
you build yourself up to be able to sit or
to be able to stand longer. And then number two
is you want to be stretching out your hip flexers.
It's hard for me to demonstrate via my voice how
to do that, but think about doing a lunge type stretch,

(25:42):
like you think of a runner's type lunge stretch where
you're putting your leg back and the other one at
a nine degree angle and coming forward like a runner stretch.
That's going to stretch that hip flexer out. Very simple
way to do it. If you're a patient of mine,
just bring that up, bring that to my attention. There's
many of my patients that I will stretch their hip
flexers for them, give them a very powerful stretch that's

(26:04):
so effective and so good. I have a I'll tell
you a quick story. Two quick stories. Number one is
virtually every employee that starts at our office. And we're
good at keeping employees, which is great, but when we
have them new employees, they're standing way more than they're sitting.
And almost all of them who start out deal with
some lower back pain and we take X rays and

(26:26):
do our due diligence get their spines adjusted. But what
I work with with them is stretching out their hip flexers.
So some of patients listening, you'll know Haley, who's a
long time employee at our office. She started off working
at the front desk. She's been certified in many different certifications.
Now she's a certified holistic health coach and does nutrition

(26:47):
coaching metabolic testing, so she's really grown in her role.
She's been an employee of ours for eight years, which
is amazing. And when she first started, she dealt with
lower back pain. Because I at that time would not
allow seats at the front desk. There was no at
that time. I was really gun ho that we are

(27:08):
not sitting down. We're all standing, we're all going for it,
We're building our practice. It was really all hands on
deck at that time. So she dealt with back pain
and then I worked with her lower back, but I
would just work with her on stretching her hip flexure,
stretching her hip flexures. She had to the point where
the back pain was gone within a couple of weeks.
Now just had a patient recently. Her name is Christine.

(27:29):
She's a mother of four, was an avid runner tennis
player as well, and would deal with a lot of
lower back pain. And what we determine was is that
her structure again wanting to see the curves from the side,
was actually not that bad. Her main issue was again
the tight hip flexis from sitting too much and being

(27:49):
very active on the weekend, so kind of like working,
sitting with kids during the week and then during the
weekend trying to be more active than her body was
ready for. And so we started working. I every time
she comes and get her adjusted and I stretch out
her hip flexus. I can tell you she went from
eight out of ten pain in her lower back, they're
virtually none at this point. So she's able to get

(28:09):
up and down off the floor, off the couch, out
of a chair with no pain versus before it was
painful even to try to pick up her three year
old son. So really cool. And then lastly for myself,
like it's a daily it's a daily thing, is that
your hip flexers is just one of those muscles that
we tend to neglect and abuse because we sit so much.

(28:32):
So even for me, it's a daily thing of stretching
out my hip flexers on a daily basis, sometimes even
twice a day, and make sure that you're maintaining that
length so that when you do sit for a period
of time, like going for a drive or going on
a trip, or going on a plane or wherever you're
going and you have to sit for a long period
of time, you're going to be able to do that
and be able to withstand that. So if you're listening

(28:55):
to this, you're like, Okay, maybe you're dealing with lower
back pain, tightness in your hip, flexious tightness in your hamstrings,
just general achiness and stiffness. It's The first and the
best step is to get schedules for a first appointment.
So again, I'm doctor Greg O'Neill let Its Family Chiropractic.
When you come in for a first appointment, I'll go
over an exam with you, do any necessary X rays,

(29:19):
and then go over your paperwork with you, your goals,
what you want to achieve. It's a very simple process.
Normally it's one hundred and forty dollars for the first visit,
but since you're a radio or podcast listener, it's only
seventy dollars. Again that includes any necessary extra So many
people like, is just the seventy dollars, I'm like, yeah,
that's it. Like there's no hidden nothing, like you come

(29:39):
in when you come in, it's very simple, like well,
or you call in sorry, We'll schedule for an appointment.
We have morning, afternoon times or even in the evening.
We'll send you what we call our welcome email, or
we'll show you our location directions, and then also a
link that you can click on to fill your paperwork
out ahead of time if you so choose. That could
be done on your computer or even conveniently rate on

(30:02):
your phone, and that will once you submit it, it
will send to us, and it's very very simple, very simple.
We'll have your paperwork ahead of time. That'll save you
a lot of time. When you come to the office,
we'll take a photocopy of your insurance, any insurance you
would like us to verify, do your exam X rays
you know with me. By the next time that you
come in, we'll let you know what your insurance will

(30:25):
or won't cover towards your care, and then what your
fee is, and more importantly, what's going on with your
spine and how we can help, how it's relating to
the symptoms that you're dealing with, how it could be
related to other health conditions that you do or don't
know about, and then getting your first adjustment. And that's
one of my favorite things to do, like I love

(30:46):
my passion is seeing newer patients changing the hearts and
minds of people where they were once stuck in not
only the bad structure of their spine or bad alignment
or pain and discomfort and different symptomatic conditions, but being
stuck in an old model of health that doesn't work,
being stuck in just taking medications, running to the doctor,

(31:06):
blame you and on your age, blame me and on
your genetics, not really having empowerment or power to take
care of yourself. And one of the biggest things that
I like to give people is not only hope, but
just empowerment that you are in control of your health.
You make the best decisions for your health. You're the
only one that can care about your health the most.
You're the only one who can change you. You're the

(31:27):
only one who can be the best version of yourself.
So you have to care about your health. And that's
what I love to do, is to empower people to
do that. Just a quick story, had a young lady
come in recently, just yesterday at the time recording this.
Her name's Jessica, and was dealing with the vere severe
lower back pain. She was disheartened and she said these words.

(31:48):
And I took a minute, and I just felt the
nudge of the Holy Spirit and I change those words
very quickly. She said, I said, what's going on to
your lower back? She said, I went to a doctor.
They said I had a herniated disk, and the doctor
told me that my disc is dying. He said that
my disc is dead and dying. She used those words. Now,
did that doctor really say that. I don't know. I

(32:09):
don't know. Maybe that's just what she heard, but I
just said to me immediately felt the nudge. I'm just like,
nothing in your body is dying. Your body is alive.
Your body's made new by God's power in your body
to heal. And I can tell you she got adjusted
that day. She's already feeling better because we're getting to
the root cause of the issues, not just saying disparaging words.

(32:29):
So stay tuned. All right, guys, welcome back to the
show Doctor Greg O'Neal Maximize Living Radio, talking about getting
curves in the right places of your spine. You want
to have a curve in your neck, your mid back,
and your lower back. A lot of people lose the
curve in the neck. We've talked about that a lot.
It's actually called technology neck, used to be called military neck.

(32:51):
Some people would call it whiplash neck. And what happens
is that one of that nice cervical curve, a nice
curve in the neck which distributes energy your gravity across it.
If you lose that curve again, poor posture, sitting, car accidents,
sports injury, birth trauma in you'r a baby fall, accident.

(33:11):
There's just some people like, well, what happened. I'm like,
a lot of things happen. That's like going to the
dentist and you see like yellow, we're standing on the
teeth and they're like, well, what happened was that the
coffee I drank the other day? It'd be like, well, yes,
but also all the coffees you drink, all the sugar,
all this stuff, and it's mostly you know, neglect of
not caring for your teeth properly. Having a straight neck

(33:32):
is the result of not caring for your spine properly.
I know that might sting a little bit, but it's
either a neglect or its ignorance. For a lot of
people at ignorance, either you don't know or you willfully
don't do. So. Anyways, I won't go too far on that.
I was going to go on a tangent, but I
won't get back to the basics. Here is that when
you have a curve, it distributes gravity across it, so

(33:54):
it doesn't just hit one spot. When you don't have
a curve, gravity is sent down on one or two
main areas. The main area is going to be the
base of your neck, specifically, C five, the six, the six,
and Q one, so the very base of your neck
because all the weight of your head is hitting there

(34:14):
instead of being distributed across. That's what I say to people.
They say, well, it's just because it's because I'm getting
old now, and I'm like, no, let's look at this logically,
and I'll show someone their X rays. I'll say, you
see how these disk spaces are normal up here. And
they're like, yeah, so like C two's normal, P three's normal.
But C five and C six are aging or arthritic,

(34:38):
as some people would say. And I'd say, well, how
old are How old is C two the second bone
of your neck? How old is the seventh bone of
your neck? Well, they're the same age, they're however old
you are, So all the bones are the same age.
Some are degenerating, some are not. Pure logic, it's not
your age, okay, it's abnormal dress and pressure, abnormal wear

(34:59):
and tear on that specific area for various different reasons.
So right away, we just we've got to remove that
from the equation. Stop blaming your age. It's not helpful
because it doesn't help anything. You can do it. You
can say it's my age, but just doesn't help to
change anything because you can't change your age. You can't
change the fact that you're fifty or sixty or seventy
or twenty. You can't change that fact. What you can

(35:21):
change are your behaviors and your actions. So that's where
you have to focus. Okay, can't change your genetics, can't
change your age. You can change your lifestyle factors. So
that's the focus that you need to have. And I
spend so much time every day. If you're a patient,
mind you hear me saying that. Okay, I have it
on my whiteboard outside of where people come in. It says,

(35:43):
it says, it's not about when people say they're getting old,
what they're really saying is they're feeling old. You see
the difference there. When people say they're getting old, what
they're really saying is they're feeling old. That switches the mindset.
Now someone comes in and says I'm feeling old today,
I can accept that, okay. But if someone says I'm
getting old today, I'm like, well, you're only one day
older than yesterday. What happened? All right? There's my tangent.

(36:07):
Don't blame your age. If we want to correct or
get that curve to come back in. Most people think
that can't be done. It can be done. It's done
all day, every day at my office for the last
what eleven years, That's all I do. That's what we
specialize in. So you'll notice at our office we have
specific equipment helped to correct the neck. One the number
one thing is called the cervical traction unit. There's a

(36:29):
piece of foam piece that goes under your chin, another
goes behind the neck. You squat gently down. It lifts
your chin up while pushing on the base of the
neck and helps to stretch stretch that curve. There's then
a wobble cushion exercise. I have my patients due that
helped stretch out and get the lower back warmed up.
So before someone's adjusted, their spines already warmed up. They're limber,

(36:50):
they're loose in the neck and the lower back. That's
one of the one of the many reasons why I
believe we get such great results and such and adjustments
are so comfortable for people because theirs spines already like
ready to go. It'd be like you go to the gym.
You don't just jump on the squat rack. And start
squatting three hundred pounds. You build up to it. Now,

(37:12):
adjustments aren't that intensive of doing that. I'm not saying that.
But you want to get your spine warmed up because
most people haven't moved their spine in years. We go
through the full range of motion, get everything nice and
warmed up. Then you get your adjustment that's based on
your X rays. So when you're at our office, you'll
notice I pull up your chart and it shows all
your X rays on there, all the different measurements in

(37:32):
the angle. So each adjustment is based on your X rays.
So you get adjusted and then wash rins and repeat.
You'll be doing these things at home as well to
correct the spine, and it needs to be done repetitively,
just like building a muscle. When you're trying to stretch
these ligaments in the neck. It does take time. It
does take time. Now everybody's a little bit different, but

(37:54):
I just want you to know, like there's no such
thing as a quick fix. You might get an adjustment,
you're gonna feel better. It can take away a headache,
like for some people, you know, Lord Welling Boom, like
their headaches are gone, their migraines are gone. That's great,
but that's just the symptom. You have to understand that
that's just the symptom. We have to correct the reason

(38:16):
that there's a symptom. All right. If I'm a fireman firefighter,
I go into your house, I turn off the fire
alarm and I leave, and I didn't fight the fire,
what's gonna happen. I'm going to burn the house down.
If I'm a chiropractor, I go in there and I
take away your symptom or any type of doctor, I
take away the neck pain, the back pain, the headaches, whatever,

(38:39):
and then I leave. I'm done. I'm not being a
good doctor because I'm not getting to the root cause
of the issue. So that's where I'm gonna I'm gonna
tell you the truth. It's like, listen, this is the
number of visits that I would recommend. This is how
long it's gonna take. Here's what I'll have you do here,
here's what I'll have you do at home. And here's
the best part. It's your choice. Okay. People aren't locked

(38:59):
in anything. There's no contract, no nothing I don't want.
I'm gonna say this boldly and bravely here right now,
I don't want people at my office who don't want
to be there. I don't. One of the biggest misnomers
in chiropractic is that people say, oh, they're just trying
to rope you into a number of visits and do this,
and that I'm the one who adjusts you. I have

(39:22):
to be with you. I'm not some used car salesman
selling you a lemon of a car. Then they never
see you again. No, no, no, We're creating like a relationship,
a doctor patient relationship, and I have to come in
every day. You see me, But I'm seeing hundreds of people.
I'm telling you right now, I don't want people there
that don't want to be there. I can't stand it.
It sucks the life out of me. Do you ever

(39:43):
around people and they're just like constantly questioning, constantly not
wanting to be there, constantly. This like it's soul braining.
I'm telling you now, I'll do it and I'll have
a brave face. But I can tell you what I'm
trying to get at here is like, if you don't
want to be there, don't come. That's fine, it's not
gonna bother me. In fact, it helps me because I
want people who want to come and want to change.

(40:05):
I want to make changes. That's when I'll walk alongside you.
But if people just want to complain and blame them
on everything else except themselves, that's fine. That's your issue, okay.
But I know the difference. I know this works because
here's what's cool. I'm a patient too. I've been adjusted this.
I was thirteen years old. I look around. I see

(40:26):
people my age, I see people other ages. I don't
deal with the headaches people deal with. Yeah, I hurt
my back, that's my own fault. Whatever, I got it corrected.
I'm not on prescriptions, my kids aren't on drugs. My
kids don't take any shots. My kids are doing amazing.
My wife gets adjusted. Like I'm living this life myself.
Anything I tell my patience to do, I've done myself

(40:49):
thousands of times. It's not hundreds of thousands of times.
The type of exercise, type of adjustments, home care exercises
and stretches, the nutrition, all these changes, I do it myself.
So I know works not only in patience lives, but
in my own life. How many doctors can say that,
being the medical doctor when they're pushing pills down on
you writing prescriptions? Are they taking that stuff? Are they

(41:11):
doing that? The research points to know many doctors don't.
In fact, there was Time magazine back in I believe
it was two thousand and six. I still have this
copy at my office, and they asked hundreds of doctors
what scares them the most about being a doctor. They
asked hundreds of medical doctors, what scares you the most
about being a doctor of medicine? Do you know what

(41:34):
they said? Being the patient? Being the patient? They said,
what scares the doctor the most about being a doctor's
being the patient themselves? Can you imagine I said that, Like,
imagine me as a chiropractor and someone says, what scares
the most? Oh, what would scare me the most? Would
be laying down on the table like you right now.
You'd be running out of there. But yet doctors say this,

(41:57):
They don't want to be on the medications. They don't
want to be on the treatment. It's in the chemotherapy
and the radiation and everything like that. Why because they
know what it does to people. They know it harms people.
They're very bright, smart people, they know that. But the
goal is for people not to get on that stuff.
But to give some credit to the doctors. People go
into their offices or hospitals or clinics, so darn sick,

(42:18):
what are they supposed to do? Okay, So this is
on and this is what sets me apart. That's different.
It's like, I'm not just blaming pharmaceutical companies doctors like
a lot of people do. It's on the public. We
have become extraordinarily lazy. We have become extraordinarily what's the
word for, I guess irresponsible, not taking responsibility for our

(42:41):
own actions. And I'm talking to you right now. Who's
ever listening? Like grown adults blaming stuff on their age,
blaming stuff on their genetics, not taking responsibility. What if
your kids did that? What if you were the coach
of a soccer team or hockey team or football team
and the little players started doing that, Oh, it's not
my fault, it's someone else's fault. You'd call them out

(43:03):
on that. Well, who's calling you out? I am all right.
If you want something different, you need to do something different,
because if you keep doing what you're doing, you're going
to keep getting what you're getting. If you want something
different in your life, you have to do something different
and that's where I'm here to help. And again, I
know I'm coming off a little mean or cross or whatever,

(43:23):
but I say this out of compassion and mostly passion,
maybe some frustration too, because I see what the potential
for people would be and when they don't see it
for themselves, that is disheartening. But on the other hand,
I have hundreds of patients on the positive who're getting
better and are excited and are passionate, and when you

(43:44):
come to our office you'll see the difference. It's like
a different world. People are ready to change their health
and it's infectious and it's fun and it's exciting. So
I hope this show has blessed you guys. Have an
amazing week. Signing off, doctor Greg. Get your curves in
the right places, Take care