Bump, Set, Dunk It! – Jason Feltz, DC Student

Winter INTRAMURALs Are a Big Hit For Students

As spring is still a couple months away, students are crawling for activities to do during the winter gray skies. This quarter’s intramural sports of basketball and volleyball have drawn the largest participation yet with over 200 students participating on 18 different teams between basketball and volleyball.

With the weather delay at the beginning of this quarter the athletes are enduring condensed schedules and practices, but it hasn’t stymied their competitive drive.

Intramurals provide a competitive environment for students to form new friendships and build competitive squads that may later participate in the 2011 Chiro-Games. Life’s championship beach volleyball team for the Chiro-Games is participating in this year’s league and they are favored to win it. There are several other teams that are vying for that top spot including Staff Infections, a team composed of staff and faculty at Life.

Look for results to be posted as the intramural season draws to a close. If you are interested in participating in upcoming intramural sports and/or preparing for the Chiro-Games, visit Life Athletic’s website and/or contact Jenni Bennett from the Athletics Department.

 

Winter Storm Hits Hotlanta – Carley Edwards, DC Student

City shuts down, flights cancelled

When news of the potential snowfall began airing, southerners lined up at grocery stores all over metro Atlanta. Hardware stores ran out of supplies on Saturday January 8^th while grocery stores couldn’t keep their shelves stocked. However, most people took the warning lightly, even up until the snow began falling Sunday evening. Vehicles were abandoned on interstates as people underestimated the effects of the storm.

The Atlanta area got two to three inches of snow on the Sunday evening before the first day of the quarter, while some areas in the Georgia Mountains got five to six inches. Add to the snow a layer of ice and Georgia was placed in a state of emergency by Governor Sonny Perdue in coordination with Governor-elect, Nathan Deal. With only ten pieces of snow removal equipment in the entire metro Atlanta area, chaos was inevitable. Fifty-eight pieces of equipment were on the roads by Tuesday evening to clear snow. In the end 115 trucks were needed. In some areas mail delivery completely ceased and parts of interstate 285 had to be completely shut down. Temperatures didn’t rise above freezing until Friday afternoon.

Over a thousand flights were cancelled at Hartsfield-Jackson airport. Airlines didn’t hesitate to cancel flights as early as 8 pm Sunday night. Delta cancelled 330 flights Sunday and another 1400 on Monday. Airtran Airways cancelled flights in and out of Atlanta with flights still limited by Wednesday as the storm made its way to New England. Several students couldn’t get flights back to Atlanta until the end of the week.

In conjunction with other schools in the area, Life University cancelled classes and all activities for the entire first week of school. Most students felt having the week off from classes was bliss, while some were infuriated by the end of the week. Students who didn’t receive direct deposit were stressed about not having access to their living expense checks while bills were piling up. Luckily some generous staff members came in Friday to hand out checks from 1-3 pm. Dr. Sheres was available on the Martin Luther King JR holiday for a few hours to help students with registration. Club day was cancelled altogether and students could just feel the pounds accumulating as the Wellness Center remained closed until Tuesday January 18.

The academic schedule for the winter quarter had to be revised without shortening the material to be covered. Details for each college is available on the Life website. Many students were concerned about OSCE testing not being pushed back. This meant less time to prepare. DC classes were scheduled after 1 pm on both OSCE days instead of being cancelled altogether. Clinic hours have been extended until 3 pm every Saturday for the remainder of the quarter and interns are given until the first day of spring quarter to finish requirements.

How did the winter storm affect you? Vital Source wants to know. Share experiences here or on the Vital Source Facebook page.

 

Healthy Holidays to You! – James Beuerlein, Senior Staff Writer

10 steps to avoiding the flu and to staying well over the holidays

The winter holidays are a peak time for disease and infirmity. More heart attacks occur during Christmas week than during any other week in the calendar year. It is estimated that one billion colds are contracted each year during winter in the US. That’s roughly three colds per person. How many would you like to get this year?

Several factors contribute to this rise in disease incidence, including poor diet, stress, more time spent indoors, and lack of sunlight. Here’s a list of ten things you can do to prepare your body and recover quickly if you do come down with a bug. I’ll focus on the areas of nutrition, lifestyle, and supplements. If you can nail these ten items, I DARE you to try to get sick this winter!

NUTRITION

1. Avoid sugar as much as possible! Eating sugar is a double-whammy when it comes to health: It immediately stunts the function of your immune system, and it provides nourishment for harmful bacteria. I know this can be tough, especially at large family meals (wink, wink) but here are a few tips to help out. If the meal is potluck, offer to make the dessert. There are plenty of alternative options for sweeteners, like stevia or raw local honey. Also, try to avoid the bread / stuffing at holiday meals. Highly processed grains are converted to sugar within seconds of entering your body. Watch out! High doses of sugar can also be found in things like ketchup, sauces, and pasteurized fruit juices.

2. Following #1, eat fresh, whole, real foods! Stay away from highly processed, pasteurized, homogenized, hydrogenated, and all other types of synthetically altered or fake foods. The closer you get to nature, the better off you’ll be. Following this principle will ensure that your body gets the proper nutrients to build health and fight disease.

3. Drink lots of pure water! This one is obvious I know, but keeping your water intake up will keep your GI tract ticking along and assist your body in detoxing. If you don’t own a water purifier – buy one! Reverse-osmosis is best. If you are out and about and have to buy the bottled stuff – go for the spring water.

LIFESTYLE

4. Get lots of good sleep! Lack of sleep or reduced sleep has been linked to weakened immune response, weight gain, and increased cellular toxicity. You should aim to hit somewhere between 7-9 hrs per night. This amount will get in sync with your natural circadian rhythm and give your body the rest and strength it needs to fight disease and detoxify. It will also help reduce stress.

5. Exercise is essential during the winter! Regular exercise will actually boost your immune system by providing increased circulation to components of the immune system, allowing for earlier detection of pathogens and faster response. Exercise will also help with weight loss, boost your energy, and fight the winter blues. I recommend short-duration / high-intensity workouts for maximum effectiveness, (sometimes called interval training, burst training, or surge training.)

6. Have fun! Doing things you enjoy, spending time with friends and family, and lots of laughter will keep you healthier. The scientific community has observed a huge link between stress and the onset of disease. One way of combating the stress in your life is to balance it out with fun. Dedicate some time DAILY to build joy, find your bliss, and get your mind off of the stresses in your life.

7. Keep it clean! While I don’t suffer from germophobia, simple things like washing your hands can reduce the number of pathogens you encounter being transferred to bodily orifices. I don’t recommend antibacterial soaps, however. Protecting yourself too much from bacteria can make you more susceptible to allergies and asthma; your body needs to build up immunity to the microbes you encounter – not to be kept in a bubble away from them.

SUPPLEMENTS

8. Vitamin D3 is essential to proper immune function. During the summer months, your body receives a lot of its Vitamin D from the sun, but we miss out on this great disease-fighting coenzyme during the winter. A healthy daily dosage is about 5,000 units. The brand I recommend is Garden of Life Raw D3 – made from whole foods.

9. Get protection from viruses, bacteria, fungus, vampires, and close-talking relatives from garlic. This super-food can be taken as a supplement or added into diet. The one thing you want to be sure of, however, is that you are getting the active ingredient: allicin. To do this, take garlic in its raw form and crush it before swallowing a clove whole. Alternatively you can juice it or chop it and add it raw to your favorite dish.

10. Lastly, stock up your nutrients with a multi-vitamin. Make sure it is a natural, whole-food based supplement. Centrum is mostly table chalk. Garden of Life also has a good option here (I know, I should get an endorsement, right?) – Vitamin Code Men’s/Women’s Multivitamin.

It is also VERY important to keep up with your spinal adjustments! Don’t slack off on chiropractic for the holidays. Interference won’t take a break, and neither should you! Oh… also, you’ll notice I didn’t suggest getting the flu vaccine…