Age is Just a Number: Revitalizing with Purpose

 In the Stance for Health podcast, Dr. Rodney and Karen Wirth discuss the holistic approach to health, emphasizing that chiropractic care is more than just relieving pain. 

They believe sustainable health is about momentum, energy, and overcoming stress, integrating factors like nutrition, movement, and mental well-being. 

Rather than seeing health issues as isolated physical problems, they encourage listeners to adopt small, consistent changes for long-term wellness. By focusing on vitality and purpose, individuals can achieve better health outcomes, moving beyond the limitations of age and conventional health perceptions.

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Transcript

Dr. Wirth: Welcome to Stance for health podcast with Dr. Rodney and Karen Wirth, where becoming healthy is not complicated. Control your health by focusing on six areas of life that we teach you so you finally have the energy you have to do what you want instead of being a victim of your age. I have over 20 years experience working as a chiropractor and Karen is an author, speaker and longevity coach. We've seen how a tiny change in your habits today can open up your life to a powerful future. Start today and take your Stance for Health. Hi, I'm Dr. Rodney Worth. Stance Chiropractic and Stance for Health podcast is partly about chiropractic because after all, I am a chiropractor working in a clinical setting now for close to 30 years and I work with my wife Karen, the hope lady, and we have a blast.

Stance is more than about chiropractic. It is about inviting people into a health journey. It's about sustainable health. It's about momentum and keeping that momentum and showing people that they're making progress and giving them hope and that can get their health back. And so that's what matters right now, because as Dorland's Medical Dictionary has so aptly stated, is that it's not merely the absence of disease or symptoms, but it's social. In some ways, it's financial because that can create stress. What do you think about that so far?

Karen: I think that is spot on because what we're talking about here is not just what the normal chiropractor or chiropractic office seems to be about. I go to the chiropractor because I'm in pain.

That's it. I want to get cracked. We do have people that come in. That's what they want. Is a doctor going to crack me today? And so all they're seeing, chiropractic, is an aspirin or something to relieve pain. And then I go back to whatever brought me there in the first place. And what I love about what we do is we're looking at the whole person, we're looking at their health and we are great examples of it. And I think the passion that we bring is because this isn't just a job to us, this is really our calling and our ministry.

Dr. Wirth: We're really not trying to force change upon you today. I want you to hear that we would like to see a behavior pattern change, if possible, when someone reaches for a chiropractic adjustment the way they would reach for aspirin or anvil or Tylenol, whatever brand name you can come up with. Is that what you're talking about?

Karen: That's what I'm talking about. That people will leave quickly at times because you're so good or we are so good at what we do because you do the chiropractic adjustments. I do neurorehab.

Health is about vitality. It's about energy, it's about posture, it's about all these different components, and we hope that people can see it.

Dr. Wirth: What you're saying is that chiropractic is more than merely about getting your body not to experience or embrace or resist the pain cycle. We're not trying to simply block the pain cycle.

Our goal is to get people back to function, get back to the nervous system working right so that everything else can work right. Does that sound about right?

Karen: It does. And a basic philosophy that we have is that God created our bodies in a way that if all interference is gone and you have good nutrition, you have good movement, and there's other factors too. The body can heal itself. So we are not defined by this condition, that condition, that just say, it's my this, my that. But instead it's about energy, vitality and true health.

Dr. Wirth: That's so good. And so if you're listening to this and you're kind of hung up on age or you're gosh, I'm just too old, I'm 30 something and this hasn't happened yet, or I'm 40 something and

Karen: this is happening, or I'm 60 and I'm over the hill.

Dr. Wirth: Whatever age you want to fill in there. You try to wrap your head around this. I just had this revelation earlier today. How did I perceive my grandparents? My grandmother, Grandma Jen went to the chiropractor. I looked at her as someone who was very social, who did move. She got up and moved around a lot. She was busy in the house. She'd been the farm wife her whole life.

That's all she knew. And she was really good at it. And she remembered everybody's birthdays and I got one every year. And she always was generous with her substance. She'd give a few bucks, she'd give. And that was the funniest thing. As I got older, I'm like, grandma, I don't, I don't need your money. That's the point is that she was others oriented.

And I think that as I look at some of what is broken in our health today and our suffering is that we're not others focused. I believe that's part of Dorland's Medical Dictionary, kind of going back to what creates health is in some ways movement, sleeping right, eating right, getting your nervous system right, getting the master system right. Does that come full circle to what we've been saying so far?

Karen: It certainly does. Because when we started Stance Chiropractic eight and a half years ago, we were looking at where the US was in the relationship to the health of other countries, and we were just aghast that it was number 17,wright behind Costa Rica. It is now down to 37.

Despite the fact that we spend more money than any other country in the world on health systems, we have the poorest health. And don't you think that a lot of it is that there's so much stress and anxiety and like you said, poor sleep, the pain cycles that never resolve. And basically at the end of it all, what we have to say is, what is going on and how can we change that?

Dr. Wirth: That's such a great point. How can we change it? And in some ways, I think becoming others oriented again or service oriented, shifting our understanding of what health is, going back to our roots, last century roots. And so our bodies aren't really broken, they're just. I think they're being interfered with. Our brains are being interfered with. If you go to sit down, if you go to rest, if you go to do something else, if you go to do something mental and you haven't done something physical, your body doesn't necessarily give you. Your body doesn't necessarily communicate permission to you. It doesn't feel safe until it's moved properly. So that's why I would say getting your body back to moving properly isn't just a good chiropractic idea. It's essential to health.

And so that's where we need to be consistent with keeping structure of movement and physiology, structure and function working properly.

Karen: Well, when we talk about movement, one of the things that just happened recently was one of our grandsons was in the Boston Marathon. He was running to be in the top 50 to win that race.

But he wasn't listening to his body. He woke up feeling sick and took three painkillers. And then the adrenaline from the crowd kept him going until that famous or infamous Heartbreak Hill, and his body just gave out. He did finish the race and it was his best personal record, and so he's making the best of it. But I'm wondering, as an analogy, if part of what we're facing is that our life becomes a marathon. We're going and going and going and going.

And like you said, we don't give ourselves permission to stop and take the rest or we don't think we've worked out unless we've gone to the gym or run a mile. And what we need to say is consistent movement, getting up consistently and doing some squats, doing some stretches, the posture stretches and things like that. Because we spend so much time sitting in the front of a computer.

Dr. Wirth: From what you just said that I believe that extreme athleticism isn't sustainable for the body. And so getting us to the place where something is sustainable for first has to start with stability and strength. If your body isn't stable in all ways, in all systems. Now if your mitochondria aren't healthy, let fast forward to your ability to stabilize. Your ability to stay strong is sustainable.

Right. I think that's part of our signature framework here at Stance is being able to do something sustainable.

Karen: We also work with you to do eye work. Exercise your eyes so that your head knows better where it is in space. And that ultimately is what's happening when you get a chiropractic adjustment is that it's like freeing up the nervous system and you have a sense of sense of awareness.

Your body knows where it is those it knows where to move, the head knows where it is.

Dr. Wirth: That's so good because what you're really talking about isn't just our coordinated system, but you're working with your body's coordinated system. When you're in sympathetic mode, let's face it, you are looking for every little crack and rock that you're going to tip over.

Karen: For those that aren't familiar with sympathetic and parasympathetic sympathetic is the fight or flight, the sense of threat. I better be very vigilant. And then the other one that we want to and we need that but we don't want to stay there. We don't want to be stuck there 

Dr. Wirth: because it has a price.

Karen: It does. And parasympathetic then is the rest and digest. And so that is what you are saying is that our lifestyle of stress is not sustainable.

Dr. Wirth: It's not so bringing it full circle to what make. I believe what makes stance different is that we're really talking about a place in our lives where we are being needed to be at a hundred percent. But. But there's no gas in the tank, so to speak because we are so stressed and where our bodies adapted to stress so well that we don't know any different. 

One of the best books that I've referenced lately I actually heard about through a guy named Ed Mylett for those of you don't. Who don't know Ed Mylett shout out to him.

He was interviewing an author who is at Harvard Business School, and he'd owned his own company, and he basically had come to the end of himself and had retired. He went on this walk, the northern portion of Spain, got to the place where he realized, you know what? I'm not giving. 

I am. I'm needed. Back in academia, he came to this epiphany that he needs to be able to speak to people that are there that. That he left in 2008.

Basically, what happens is he didn't have meaning in his life because he didn't have coherence, purpose, and significance anymore.

So people that come to Stance have to be looking for or rediscovering their purpose and significance and their role in their own health, which is really coherent with what we do here. And obviously there's a faith component to what we do here, too.

Karen: Well, I like what you said there, that purpose, the way that I like to express that is that every single one of us was created with something that only we can do. And unfortunately, most of us end up stuck in a job doing what we need to, to survive, to keep. Keep the roof over our head, food on the table, shoes for the kids. And then in that process, we lose ourselves and our health. And so what we want to do for you is give you small changes. That's the motto of Stance. Small changes that you can do incrementally and consistently that can restore your health. And that I really is something that I'm so excited about, that we get to do.

Dr. Wirth: What I've heard you say about the steps that we take have a particular order.

And what I really believe that we're doing here at Stant that separates us is we're beginning at the core level with the ability of the body to produce properly in the mitochondria.

It's, it's. And when I. It's your ability to stand above your own genetics and say, I'm in control.

And you are in control of that way more than you think you are.

Karen: And one of the things that we say so often is we just say, well, that's the way it is.

We say it's common. We say it's common, not normal. Normal is to march into later years with vibrancy, with a sharp mind, and with intense purpose, that we're doing what only we can do, and the rest falls into play.

Dr. Wirth: And what I believe you're saying there, if we could honestly say as we consider where this is going in conclusion is that healing isn't just random. We definitely need to behave in such a way that's not just fight or flight. Survive getting your body into a place where it gives you permission to be more creative in such a way that parasympathetic, which is rest and digest, which is really where your body prefers to stay most of the time. Your body will work better and it will reward you. Your body will reward you with better function and better creativity.

Karen: Really what we are doing is we come alongside people that decide to join us and we work with them in whatever area they want to work to make these small changes so that they can get to do what only they can do.

Dr. Wirth: One of the takeaways that you can do for today is move daily, pay attention to posture and stress, stop ignoring minor dysfunction stuff that you think is normal as normal and and and get checked by a chiropractor. So come in, get evaluated, start a plan and we will see you through that plan coherently. We'll give you feedback that you're getting better so that you can sustain that and so that you can take your stance for health. Thanks for listening today. Thank you for joining us at Stance for Health podcast where getting healthy and staying that way are not as as complicated as you might think.

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