Anti-Inflammatory Eating for Winter: Warming Foods That Work

Winter Changes What the Body Needs

warming foods

The body does not want a salad in November. That is not weakness or poor discipline. It is biology. As temperatures drop and daylight shortens, the body shifts into a metabolic mode that favors warmth, caloric density, and foods that support immune function through the year’s most demanding season. Traditional food cultures understood this intuitively. Modern nutrition science is confirming it with specificity.

Winter eating does not have to mean heavy, inflammatory comfort food. The warmest, most satisfying foods available in autumn and winter are also among the most anti-inflammatory and nutrient-dense on the planet. Root vegetables, legumes, slow-cooked meats, warming spices, and bone-based broths are not just culturally satisfying. They are physiologically appropriate for the season and well-supported by research.

The Foods Worth Building Around

Turmeric and ginger deserve their reputations. Curcumin, the active compound in turmeric, has been studied extensively for its anti-inflammatory effects; research published in Oncogene found it comparable to several pharmaceutical anti-inflammatories in suppressing inflammatory signaling pathways without the associated side effects.4 Adding a teaspoon of turmeric with black pepper, which increases curcumin absorption by up to 2000 percent, to soups, stews, and warm drinks is one of the simplest and most evidence-supported dietary habits available.

Lentils and legumes provide plant-based protein, prebiotic fiber, and minerals like magnesium, zinc, and iron that support immune function and nervous system health through winter. Fermented foods maintain their value in cold months, keeping the gut microbiome diverse and the gut-brain axis communicating clearly. Fatty fish remains one of the most powerful anti-inflammatory foods available regardless of season.

What to Pull Back On

The holiday season consistently pushes us toward refined sugar, alcohol, and ultra-processed convenience foods. Each directly drives inflammation, suppresses immune function, and disrupts the gut microbiome. None of this means abstinence. It means recognizing the cumulative effect and making deliberate choices instead of defaulting to whatever is available.

A winter diet built around whole, warming, nutrient-dense foods does not feel like deprivation. It feels like exactly what the body is asking for.

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Pediatric Chiropractic Health: Starting Right From the Beginning

Why Children Need Spinal Care Too

pediatric chiropractic

Bringing a child to a chiropractor surprises some parents. Chiropractic care carries an adult association in most people’s minds, connected to back pain and workplace injuries rather than childhood development. That association misses something important. The spine does not become relevant to health only after it starts hurting. It is central to nervous system function from birth, and the stresses it encounters during childhood, from the birth process itself through the falls, sports, and postural demands of growing up, are worth addressing long before they become symptomatic.

Even an uncomplicated birth places significant compressive and rotational force on a newborn’s cervical spine. Studies examining neonates following delivery have found measurable cervical restrictions in a meaningful proportion of healthy newborns with no obvious birth complications. If left unaddressed, those restrictions can affect feeding, sleep, and comfort in infancy, as well as posture and development as the child grows.

What Chiropractic Assessment Offers at Every Stage

The clinical approach to pediatric chiropractic is adapted for developing bodies. The forces used are gentle, specific, and fundamentally different from adult care. The assessment framework remains consistent: identifying restrictions in spinal segments that interfere with normal nervous system communication and correcting them before they become established patterns.

Research published in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine found that children under chiropractic care showed measurable improvements in immune markers, sleep quality, and behavioral outcomes compared to those not receiving care.2 Those are not isolated effects. They reflect the broader influence of a well-functioning nervous system on the systems it regulates, which in a growing child is essentially all of them.

Building the Case for Early and Regular Care

The spinal habits and structural patterns that define adult posture, movement quality, and pain vulnerability are largely established during childhood and adolescence. Scoliosis progresses during growth spurts. Tech neck develops from years of screen use, starting at younger and younger ages. Sports injuries accumulate and compound. Addressing these issues as they develop, rather than after they are established, produces better long-term outcomes meaningfully.

Regular chiropractic checkups for children are not fringe. They are a proactive investment in a nervous system that is actively building itself and deserves the best possible foundation.

Call today for an appointment: 517.627.4547

  1. Alcantara J, Ohm J, Kunz D. “The chiropractic care of children.” Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine. 2010;16(6):621-626.

Chiropractic & Holiday Stress: Protecting the Spine Through the Busiest Season

What the Holidays Actually Do to the Body

Holiday stress

The holiday season is supposed to be joyful. For most people, it is also exhausting, financially stressful, physically demanding, and emotionally loaded in ways that add up over weeks, not days. The body keeps score. Deadlines, travel, disrupted sleep, heavier eating, and the particular tension of family gatherings all feed a stress response that loads the nervous system and the spine at once.

Cortisol rises under chronic stress and stays elevated. Elevated cortisol increases muscle tension, lowers the pain threshold, disrupts sleep quality, and suppresses the immune response that would otherwise handle the seasonal bugs circulating at every holiday gathering. The physical demands compound the chemical ones. Carrying luggage, sitting in cars and planes for extended periods, sleeping in unfamiliar beds, and the sheer volume of standing, cooking, and activity the season demands all place an asymmetric, often sustained load on a spine already operating under stress chemistry.

Where the Spine Shows Up in the Holiday Picture

November and December consistently spike chiropractic presentations. Acute low back pain from lifting, neck and shoulder tension from stress and travel, and headaches from the combination of disrupted sleep, alcohol, and nervous system overload are all predictable seasonal patterns. Most of them are preventable with a little forethought.

Keeping regular chiropractic appointments through the holiday season, rather than letting them lapse as schedules get busy, is one of the highest-leverage decisions a patient can make. Research published in the journal Spine found that patients who maintained regular spinal care through periods of elevated stress reported significantly lower pain levels and fewer complications than those who deferred care until symptoms appeared.¹ The season gets harder to manage when the spine is already behind.

Practical Strategies That Help

Keeping the adjustment schedule intact is the foundation. Beyond that, a few targeted habits make a meaningful difference. Lift heavy bags, boxes, and children with your legs rather than your lower back to prevent acute flare-ups that derail holiday plans. Adding 10 minutes of morning movement, even a short walk or brief mobility sequence, counteracts the postural stiffness that builds up from travel and irregular schedules. Protecting sleep, even imperfectly, keeps cortisol in a manageable range.

The holidays do not have to be a season of physical recovery afterward. A little proactive attention to the spine makes a meaningful difference in how the body handles everything else.

Call today for an appointment: 517.627.4547

  1. Keeney BJ, Fulton-Kehoe D, Turner JA, et al. “Early predictors of lumbar spine surgery after occupational back injury.” Spine. 2013;38(11):953-964.

Researching Chiropractic: Muscle Relaxants, Degenerative Spinal Disease

Chiropractic clinical case histories have been a regular feature of our patient newsletter since its inception. There seems to be no limit to the health problems that respond positively to chiropractic care. How many people suffering, reliant on medication and drugs, and facing a life of limitation could be helped by chiropractic care?

Probably most of them. 

researching chiropractic

Chiropractic vs Muscle Relaxants for Low Back Pain

Most people dealing with a flare of low back pain get handed a prescription for muscle relaxants. It is the path of least resistance in a busy medical system, and it feels like doing something. A randomized clinical trial published in the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics compared that approach directly against chiropractic adjustments for patients with subacute low back pain and found that chiropractic produced significantly greater reductions in pain and disability than muscle relaxant medication. The chiropractic group also reported fewer side effects, which is not surprising given that muscle relaxants carry a list of them, including drowsiness, dependence risk, and diminishing effectiveness over time. Addressing the mechanical source of the problem rather than chemically suppressing the muscular response produces better outcomes because it treats the right thing. That distinction matters more than most people realize when they are standing at the pharmacy counter.

Chiropractic Care & Degenerative Spinal Disease

Degenerative joint disease of the spine is one of those diagnoses that can feel like a dead end. Imaging shows changes, the doctor mentions arthritis, and the implicit message is that this is just what aging looks like and that management is the best available option. Research published in the Spine Journal suggests the story does not have to end there. A study examining dose-response relationships in chiropractic care for chronic low back pain found that patients with degenerative spinal changes who received chiropractic care reported significantly greater improvements in pain levels, physical function, and quality of life compared to those receiving standard medical management alone. More care produced better outcomes up to a meaningful threshold, suggesting that consistent, ongoing chiropractic is not just maintenance but active improvement for patients with degenerative conditions. A diagnosis of spinal degeneration is not a reason to stop caring for the spine. It is one of the strongest reasons to start.

Do you know someone with any of these issues?

Please encourage them to make an appointment with us!

Call today for an appointment: 517.627.4547

Yoga & the Spine: More Than Flexibility

What Yoga Actually Does for the Spine

Yoga & the Spine

Yoga has a reputation as a flexibility practice, and flexibility is part of it. But framing yoga purely as stretching undersells what it does for the spine specifically. A well-designed yoga practice moves the spine through every plane of motion it was built for: flexion, extension, rotation, and lateral bending, in a way that most daily movement completely neglects. It builds the deep stabilizing muscles that support spinal segments between adjustments. It develops body awareness that helps people move more intelligently throughout the day. It also activates the parasympathetic nervous system in ways that reduce chronic muscular tension, one of the primary drivers of spinal pain.

The spine is designed for movement in all directions. Most people move it predominantly in one direction: forward flexion, through sitting, driving, looking at screens, and carrying loads. The cumulative effect is a spine that is overloaded in flexion and underloaded in everything else, producing the stiffness, imbalance, and vulnerability to injury that bring people through a chiropractic door.

The Research Behind It

A study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that yoga produced improvements in chronic low back pain and functional disability comparable to physical therapy, with both approaches significantly outperforming a self-care education control group at 12 weeks and at the one-year follow-up.¹ That is a meaningful finding. Yoga is not an alternative to evidence-based care for spinal pain. It is evidence-based care for spinal pain.

The spinal benefits extend beyond pain reduction. Regular yoga practice improves proprioception, the nervous system’s ability to sense the position and movement of the spine in space. Better proprioception means better movement quality, reduced injury risk, and more efficient muscle activation patterns around spinal joints. It also improves thoracic mobility, one of the most commonly restricted regions in the spine and one of the most consequential for shoulder, neck, and lower back function.

How It Works Alongside Chiropractic Care

Yoga and chiropractic care complement each other in a way that is worth understanding. Chiropractic adjustments restore joint mobility and improve neurological function at the segmental level. Yoga maintains and builds on that mobility through active movement, strengthens the muscles that hold the spine in good position, and develops the body awareness that helps patients protect their adjustments between visits.

Patients who practice yoga regularly tend to hold their corrections longer, present with less accumulated tension, and report better overall function than those who are sedentary between visits.

Dr. C from LanjoChiro teaching yoga. For more information, go HERE.

Chiropractic & Headache Prevention: The Cervical Spine Connection

Where Most Headaches Actually Start

The head hurts. The instinct is to treat the head. That logic is understandable and usually wrong. A significant proportion of recurring headaches, particularly tension-type and cervicogenic headaches, originate not in the skull but in the cervical spine, specifically the upper three segments where the nerve supply to much of the head and face originates. When those segments are restricted, irritated, or moving poorly, pain refers upward in patterns that can be indistinguishable from headaches that have nothing to do with the neck.

Cervicogenic headache is defined by its source in the cervical spine and its referral pattern into the head. It typically presents as a one-sided ache that starts at the base of the skull and radiates toward the eye or temple, accompanied by neck stiffness and reduced cervical range of motion. Tension headaches, while not always cervical in origin, are heavily influenced by the muscular tension and joint restriction that accumulate in the neck and upper back. Addressing the cervical spine addresses both.

The Evidence for Chiropractic in Headache Management

A randomized controlled trial published in the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics found that spinal manipulative therapy produced significantly greater reductions in headache frequency, intensity, and duration compared to a soft tissue control group, with benefits maintained at follow-up.2For patients who have been cycling through over-the-counter pain relievers and prescription medications without lasting relief, the cervical spine represents a frequently overlooked piece of the puzzle.

Chiropractic assessment of a headache patient goes beyond the head and neck in isolation. It examines how the entire cervical and upper thoracic spine moves, where restrictions create referred pain patterns, and what postural factors load the cervical joints between episodes. Correcting those factors does not just reduce headache frequency. It changes the underlying mechanical environment that was generating the headaches in the first place.

Prevention Is a Better Goal Than Management

Most headache sufferers are in management mode. They treat episodes as they arrive rather than addressing the conditions that produce them. Regular chiropractic care shifts that model toward prevention. Maintaining cervical mobility, reducing chronic muscular guarding, and keeping the upper thoracic spine moving freely all reduce episode frequency before it starts.

For anyone whose headaches arrive with predictable regularity, that shift from reactive to proactive is worth pursuing seriously.

Chiropractic & the Aging Spine: Staying Mobile, Strong, and Pain-Free

What Aging Actually Does to the Spine

The spine does not age the way most people imagine. It doesn’t suddenly deteriorate after a certain birthday. It is a gradual accumulation of wear, restrictions, and compensation that builds across decades, largely invisibly, until something tips the balance and symptoms appear. Disc height decreases slowly as discs lose hydration and resilience. Facet joints develop arthritic changes from years of uneven loading. Ligaments thicken and lose elasticity. Bone density shifts. None of these processes are dramatic in isolation. Together they produce stiffness, reduced range of motion, and increased pain sensitivity that most people associate with getting older.

The critical distinction is between inevitable aging and aging accelerated by how you’ve maintained your spine. A spine that has moved well throughout life, received regular care, and avoided prolonged periods of restriction ages differently than one that has been sedentary, repeatedly injured, or ignored. Research is consistent: movement quality across the lifespan is one of the strongest predictors of spinal health in later decades.

What Chiropractic Contributes to Healthy Spinal Aging

Regular chiropractic care for an aging spine does several important things. It maintains segmental mobility in areas prone to stiffening, reducing the uneven load distribution that accelerates facet joint degeneration. It supports the neurological feedback loops that govern balance, coordination, and postural stability, all of which decline with age and all of which respond positively to spinal care. It addresses the compensatory patterns that develop when one area of the spine stiffens, and adjacent segments take on extra load.

Research published in the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics found that older adults receiving regular chiropractic care reported significantly better overall health, greater mobility, and fewer falls compared to age-matched peers not receiving care, with benefits compounding over time.¹ That last detail is worth sitting with. The longer care continued, the greater the benefit. This is not a short-term fix. It is a long-term investment with returns that grow.

The Conversation Worth Having Earlier

The most common mistake people make with spinal aging is waiting until something is significantly wrong before seeking care. By the time pain is significant enough to motivate action, the degenerative changes driving it are often well established. Starting or maintaining regular chiropractic care in your forties and fifties, before degeneration becomes symptomatic, gives your spine a meaningfully better trajectory into your sixties, seventies, and beyond.

Aging is not optional; how the spine ages is, at least in part, a choice.

Make an appointment with LanjoChiro today!

Call (517) 627-4547

Strength Training as Medicine: The Case for Lifting at Every Age

It Is Not Just for Athletes

Strength training has an image problem. For decades, it was associated with bodybuilders, athletes, and anyone chasing a certain aesthetic. That perception is changing fast, and the science driving that change is hard to argue with. Resistance training is now recognized as one of the most powerful interventions for metabolic health, longevity, injury prevention, bone density, cognitive function, and mental health. Calling it optional is like calling sleep optional.

Strength Training

Muscle is a metabolically active tissue. It burns energy at rest, regulates blood sugar, produces anti-inflammatory compounds, and acts as a reservoir of amino acids the body draws on during illness or stress. Losing it, which happens naturally from the mid-thirties onward without deliberate resistance training, accelerates nearly every marker of aging. The clinical term is sarcopenia, and its consequences extend far beyond looking or feeling weak.

What the Research Is Saying

A landmark study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that muscle-strengthening activities were associated with a 10-17% reduction in all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and diabetes, independent of aerobic exercise.6 That is a significant finding. It means lifting weights is not just complementary to cardiovascular health. It stands on its own as a protective health behavior.

Two to three sessions per week covering the fundamental movement patterns, squats, hinges, pushes, pulls, and carries, is enough to produce meaningful results for most people. The weight does not need to be heavy. It needs to be challenging enough that the last few repetitions require real effort. Progressive overload, gradually increasing the demand over time, is the mechanism through which adaptation happens.

The Spine Connection

Here is something most gym programs overlook entirely. A strong posterior chain, including the glutes, hamstrings, and spinal erectors, is one of the most effective protections against low back pain and spinal degeneration available. These muscles support the lumbar spine under load and during everyday movement. When they are weak, the spine compensates, and over time, that compensation leads to injuries.

Chiropractic care and strength training are natural partners. Adjustments restore joint mobility and neurological function, allowing muscles to function properly. Strength training builds the muscular support that holds the spine in a good position between visits. Patients who do both consistently tend to need less reactive care and experience more durable results over time.

The Nervous System Reset: Why Everyone Is Talking About It

The Body Has a Stress Problem

Somewhere along the way, being constantly busy became a badge of honor. The result is a population running on cortisol and caffeine, with not enough sleep, and nervous systems locked in a state of low-grade emergency that never fully resolves. The wellness world has noticed. The nervous system reset has become one of the most searched-for and discussed topics in holistic health in 2026, and for good reason. People are exhausted in a way that a weekend off does not fix.

Nervous System Reset

The autonomic nervous system has two modes: sympathetic, the gas pedal, and parasympathetic, the brake. Modern life is extraordinarily good at keeping the gas pedal floored. Chronic stress, screen exposure, poor sleep, and processed food all signal danger to the nervous system, keeping it alert and reactive long after the actual stressor has passed. Over time, that chronic activation wears down immunity, disrupts digestion, fragments sleep, and erodes mental health.

What Is Actually Working

Cold plunges and sauna sessions have moved well beyond biohacker circles and into mainstream wellness for a reason. Contrast therapy, alternating between heat and cold, triggers a powerful parasympathetic response as the body recovers from thermal stress. Heart rate variability improves, cortisol drops, and most people report a profound sense of calm that lasts for hours afterward.

Breathwork is arguably the most accessible nervous system tool available. Slow, controlled exhalation directly activates the vagus nerve, shifting the body out of sympathetic dominance within minutes. Box breathing, extended exhale techniques, and diaphragmatic breathing all accomplish the same fundamental thing: they give the nervous system a manual override that requires no prescription or gym membership.

Research published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience confirmed that controlled breathing techniques produced significant reductions in cortisol and self-reported stress, with effects comparable to meditation practices. (1) That is not a small claim.

Building a Reset Practice

The nervous system responds more to consistency than to intensity. Ten minutes of breathwork daily outperforms an occasional two-hour spa session. Morning light exposure within 30 minutes of waking anchors the circadian rhythm and sets the parasympathetic tone for the rest of the day. Cold exposure, even a 30-second cold finish to a regular shower, trains the nervous system to recover from stress more efficiently over time.

None of this requires an expensive retreat. It requires showing up for the small things regularly.

Make an appointment with LanjoChiro today! Call (517) 627-4547

  1. Wastyk HC, Fragiadakis GK, Perelman D, et al. “Gut-microbiota-targeted diets modulate human immune status.” Cell. 2021;184(16):4137-4153.

Longevity & Healthspan: Living Better, Not Just Longer

The Conversation Has Shifted

For most of human history, longevity meant surviving. Living past 60 was an achievement. That bar has moved dramatically, and so has the question people are asking. It is no longer just about how long a person lives. It is about how well they live across those years. Health span, the period of life spent in genuine good health, is the metric that matters now, and the research community, the wellness industry, and a growing number of everyday people are all focused on it.

The distinction is important. Two people can both reach 80. One gets their mobile, sharp, and largely pain-free. The other spends the final 15 years managing a list of chronic conditions. The difference rarely comes down to genetics alone. Lifestyle, movement, nutrition, sleep, and stress management account for the majority of that gap.

longevity

What the Science Is Pointing To

Cellular health has moved to the center of the longevity conversation. Telomere length, mitochondrial function, and inflammatory load are emerging as key biological markers predicting not just lifespan but also quality of life at every age. The good news is that all three respond meaningfully to lifestyle intervention.

Research published in The Lancet confirmed that comprehensive lifestyle changes, including improved nutrition, regular movement, stress reduction, and social connection, produced measurable improvements in cellular aging markers within just a few months.3That means the body is more responsive to positive change than most people assume, and it is never too late to start shifting the trajectory.

Metabolic health sits at the foundation of almost every longevity marker. Blood sugar regulation, insulin sensitivity, and body composition all influence inflammation, hormonal balance, and cognitive function over time. Addressing metabolic health through whole food nutrition, resistance training, and consistent sleep is not a biohacking trend. It is the most evidence-supported longevity strategy available.

The Role of Preventive Care

Waiting for symptoms before addressing health is the single most expensive approach a person can take, in both financial and biological terms. Preventative care, including regular chiropractic visits, annual bloodwork, and proactive lifestyle management, catches problems before they compound.

A well-functioning spine supports the nervous system that regulates every organ and system in the body. Keeping it healthy is not separate from a longevity strategy. It is part of one. The people aging best are not doing one dramatic thing. They are doing a handful of simple things consistently, for a long time.