“I like smiling, it’s my favorite.”

Although more than 50 different types of smiles have been identified and studied, one type in particular visits my office on a consistent basis- the Duchenne smile. Consisting of two subtypes, 1.) a Duchenne smile involves contraction of both the zygomaticmajor muscle (which raises the corners of the mouth) and the orbicularis oculi muscle (which raises the cheeks and forms crow's feet around the eyes). 2.) A non-Duchenne smile involves only the zygomatic major muscle. Consider the difference between the two this way: real vs. fake. Real or Duchenne smiles indicate genuine spontaneous emotions since most people cannot voluntarily contract the outer portion of the orbicularis oculi muscle. On the other hand, we are all very good at faking a smile for various reasons.

This is interesting, but why is it so? What's going on upstairs that creates these two different smiles? Scientists have discovered that these two types of smiles are actually controlled by two completely different parts of our brain. The ‘say cheese’ smile is controlled by the motor cortex while emotion-related movements, like the Duchenne smile, is controlled by the limbic system (the emotional center of the brain).

But, does it truly matter if your smile is contrived or authentic? It matters a great deal to your life satisfaction and quality of life! The pathway of the chronic pain nerve fibers end at different places in the brain than do those delivering acute pain. Because chronic pain nerve fibers end in two places in the brain, namely, the limbic system and the hypothalamus, the interpretation of the signals on those fibers is subject to two main processes. The limbic system processes the emotions and the hypothalamus releases stress hormones. The limbic system is stimulated during the acute pain experience. During acute pain, the limbic system tells the spinal cord to hold back on the pain signals. Temporarily, the brain does not want to receive these signals. With the limbic system working hard to repress the pain signals, and also in cases of stress, the spinal cord is abuzz with activity. The spinal cord can only stand so much stimulation gracefully, after which the pain threshold is reduced. The result is a chronic pain situation where the patient is hypersensitive to pain.

So how does all of this tie into smiling? People in chronic pain usually don’t smile much and if so, it’s the ‘say cheese’ smile. It’s a mask; a fake; a front to cover up what’s really going on inside. The pain signals inhibit the body from truly experiencing and expressing a genuine smile. An upper cervical subluxation is more than just an anatomical event. It’s not just a bone out of alignment. . .it’s a life out of alignment. Everything is affected . . . even smiling.

With the pain signals absent, the stress hormones decrease, the limbic system relaxes because the spinal cord is relaxing. After a UC correction, the REAL person inside begins to rise up, heal and even comes out through those tiny muscles of the eye (OO and Z). In other words, a REAL person begins to smile FOR REAL. They can’t help it. With the absence of pain and the presence of increased function, the REAL begins to shine through. Maybe I’m more like Buddy the Elf after all. I guess I like smiling too.

Call today and get your smile back!

Gibson Upper Cervical

Big on smiles

814.371.7412

“I like smiling, it’s my favorite.”

Convenient Amnesia?

Amnesia: a partial or total loss of memory.

How can forgetting about something ever be a good thing? Well, as strange as it sounds, that is a common occurrence in my office. Like most of my other posts, this phenomenon seems to follow a very similar trend or pattern that occurs about three to four weeks into Upper Cervical Care. Here's how it goes:

1.) A person comes in with a laundry list of health challenges (pain, numbness, dis-function, etc. .. .)

2.) They receive their 1st UC correction.

3.) We check them several times per week to determine ho well they are holding their correction. (afterall, it's not the number of adjustments that helps a person heal, it's how long they hold the correct adjustment in the correct position!)

4.) A few weeks later, the person will come in and announce something like this: "You know Doc, you might think this is weird, but I used to think about pain all day long and I never realized how much of my day was consumed with it until I stopped having pain. I guess I forgot about the pain."

5.) A 46yr old female recently told me how she forgot about her 20 year struggle with diabetic foot pain. Everyday, she said it used to be a chore to put on and tie her shoes. Well, one day she says, "I just got up and was putting on my shoes. I forgot my feet hurt! They felt fine and I thought, I've been doing this for several days now and it just dawned on me that my feet don't hurt."

NOW THAT is convenient amnesia. I'm sure most people would agree, to forget about pain, or dis-function due to a return of health is never a bad thing. The question is, what are you waiting for? Your return to health could be as simple as the people mentioned above. The common thread they share is their willingness to try specific Upper Cervical Chiropractic.

Forget about what you may have been told (ie, you just have to live with it; there's nothing else we can do for you; etc.. . ) and try something new. You may just forget about your problems!

Call today to take charge of your life!

Gibson Upper Cervical

814.371.7412

Convenient Amnesia?

Awestruck. . . again.

Hello friends! We are now well into this thing called 'practice' and I'm finding out there is a reason that clinical life is called practice: everyday there is room to grow and improve. This past month I've had the absolute honor of serving and seeing some amazing people. Time and time again, I am finding myself awestruck from one polar extreme to the other. Let me explain.

• A new patient comes into the office, usually from a personal referral and I get the opportunity to meet them for the first time. After looking over the initial paperwork and finding out why they came to see me (what is the health challenge), I am awestruck at the amount of suffering a person endures.
• I'm awestruck at the amount of money that has been spent on previous medical visits and prescriptions that have clearly not worked as 'promised.'
• I'm also awestruck at the amount of faith that is placed in the medical model (a.k.a the family doctor) when a health crisis arises. Having no other place to turn, the patient eventually ends up in my office on the suggestion of a friend.
• After a few precise x-rays, thermographic, posture and rang-of-motion exams, I'm awestruck at how a minute misalignment of the top neck bone (the atlas) produces devastating effects on human physiology.
• I'm awestruck at the profound impact a simple, precise upper cervical correction has on the patient who had "no hope."

Finally, I'm awestruck at the amazing intelligence of the body to correct horrible afflictions, once the upper neck is restored to a place of balance and brainstem pressure is removed.

Again and again and again. The same story is repeated with each new patient. Awe, shock, wonder, amazement. Repeat.

At Gibson Upper Cervical, we don't complicate the matter. We don't guess. We don't give you an 'experimental treatment.' We reproduce with exacting specificity the simple things. Why? So we can enjoy the feeling of being awestruck. .. . again.

Gibson Upper Cervical

Restoring Hope. Renewing Health.

Awestruck. . . again.

Baby Steps

Greetings friends!

As I watch my son learning to walk, it's becoming more clear to me that infants can teach us more than we could ever imagine. Patience . . . perseverance . . . how to exercise . . . the importance of proper nutrition, etc. He is now quite mobile and hard to pin down. But what is amazing is he decided at 9 months it was time to start standing and walking. His momma and I didn't coach him or give him a motivational story about walking. We didn't hold seminars on the importance of walking. There was no potion to rub on his weak legs to make then strong. HE simply knew and was determined to walk. As he fell and continues to fall. . . we let him get back up and try again knowing full well that he will fall again. . .and again. . .and again.

Many times, a new patient will come into the office and just like my son, they have a desire to accomplish a certain goal. My son wants to walk. The patient wants their health. A major difference exists though between the older, broken down adult and my younger resilient son: My son is determined to walk and doesn't even acknowledge that he falls over 40 times a day. He gets right back up and tries again. Every time he falls, he gets a little stronger, a little more coordinated and another taste at freedom. The patient, on the other hand, has tried a few new pills. . . a few new tests. . . maybe even tried having a few less parts. After each of those "falls", the patient gets less strong, a little less coordinated loses a little more of their freedom. One is a slave to growing independent; the other is a slave to growing dependent.

THE LESSON? Building health is just like learning to walk. Small steps everyday in the RIGHT direction, coupled with perseverance and the raw determination to succeed lead to BIG CHANGES. Walking is a natural process. Restoring health is also a natural process. My son is walking because he is taking steps in the right direction everyday. He didn't just "happen" to walk. He's designed to walk. At Gibson Upper Cervical, we take small steps everyday. Why? Because BIG CHANGES don't just happen. . . they are designed to.

Baby Steps

Magic or Miracle?

Greetings friends and warm welcomes! It's unbelievable how fast the summer season is going. We celebrated our Grand Opening in grand fashion for sure! The month of July was spectacular and was filled with some amazing transformations, some tears of joy and a lot of "cautious optimism." That is why the title of this post is "magic or miracle?"

Again, it seems that trends come and go in the office much like the tides at the beach. Recently, the latest bunch of new practice members seem to share the same outlook on life when it comes to their health. I submit they all have been told they "just have to live with the pain." Well, after each of their first Upper Cervical Corrections, EVERY SINGLE one came back on the follow up visit and said the following words: "I'm not sure what you did to me, but I think I feel better." I asked them each the following questions: "You seem unsure about how you are feeling, why is that?" EVERY SINGLE person responded with: "I'm not sure I can believe it. It seems too simple, what you did."

At this point it becomes clear, I'm either a magician or a miracle worker, or so I'm told. Well, let me assure you I am neither. I am a specific Upper Cervical Doctor and I focus all of my efforts on a 1-2 millimeter misalignment of the atlas and it's direct relationship to the brainstem. When the atlas misaligns, life begins to stink in a hurry and it only gets worse as you age. When we unlock the atlas from it's life-robbing position and the body sets it in a life-giving position, life begins to smell like roses and continues to get more beautiful everyday! That's all I do!

Magic is illusions, slight of hand, voodoo, occult etc. . . Miracles are supernatural, mysteries and are often laced with Divine intervention. Upper Cervical Care is a precise, scientific and philosophically sound chiropractic procedure. Do miracles occur in my office? EVERY DAY! But not because I am a miracle worker. Rather, when you stop to consider the people and paths they walk and how at some specific point in time, our paths meet. . .it's no coincidence they are in my office. THAT IS A MIRACLE. Perhaps I get credit for the "miracle assist", but the work was in progress for months and/or years. I simply move the bone. God does the healing.

Friends, life is supposed to be lived in a state of "Ease". Anything less than that is "dis-ease." Call it magic or miracles or heck, call it nonsense, but ask those people how they feel and they will call it undeniable. They are back to their true state of ease.

Isn't it your turn to feel the "ease" of life?

Gibson Upper Cervical

Restoring Hope. Renewing Health.

Magic or Miracle?

Simple is sometimes. . .too easy?

Greetings friends and warm welcomes! We are now in our 3rd month of practice in the DuBois, Pa clinic and we are having a blast! Lots of new lives are being changed every week as people are discovering the simple health benefits of Upper Cervical Care. Recently, I've noticed a lot of people staring at me with the same blank look that says, "Is that it Doc? Is that all you do? That seemed to easy. . .too simple." Well, I'm not one to disappoint but the answer is YES! That's all we do! Sometimes, many times, it's the small, simple things in life that confound the big, complicated things. Afterall, everything big and complicated is made up of lots of small, well organized simple things doing their job simply, but accurately.

Life is no exception. We have trillions of simple, little cells: skin, lung, nails, hair, heart and NERVE cells (to name a few), that do a simple, designed task accurately. When all of the cells can do their similiar job harmoniously, the larger, "system" is now able to function efficiently. For example, lots of nerve cells doing what nerve cells do all together at the same time, in the same way allows for the "nervous system" to function as a whole. If the nervous system can function as a whole, then every other cell in the human body can begin to do their unique job, in harmony, thus allowing for the next "system" (respiratory, cardiovascular, circulation, digestion, etc...) to do their jobs efficiently. WHY? Because the nervous system controls and directs every cell, tissue and organ, ONLY IF the nervous system can function itself!

At Gibson Upper Cervical, we didn't write the manual on human physiology. We just pay attention to it. We know how the body is supposed to work, and when it doesn't, we know why. If the brain and body can communicate via the nervous system, then life is good and the body is at ease. If the brain and body cannot communicate due to a misalignment of the top vertebrae of the neck, chocking off the messages from the brain to the body, then the body suffers.

I'm growing to like seeing the look of "awe and wonder" as the simplicity of the Upper Cervical message is delivered. I'm beginning to like the "it's too easy" comments I hear on a day-to-day basis. And I really LOVE, as do the patients, the results they experience once their body is reconnected to their brain. It's that simple.

Gibson Upper Cervical

Restoring Hope. Renewing Health.

Simple is sometimes. . .too easy?

The amazing Dr. YOU!

Hello and warm welcomes to everyone! We are now in our 6th week of serving humanity and I am amazed at how the healing process is changing lives everyday! A 62 yr-old female (we'll call her Mary) just left the office this morning singing and dancing (literally) because she can sew again and sleep through the night uninterrupted. Mary's initial complaint was numbness and tingling in both hands and feet that would cause her to trip and fall, drop things at work (she works at a deli, so she was dropping knives!) and wake up at night due to the odd sensations. Now, 5 weeks into Upper Cervical care and only 2 adjustments later, her life is back on track to health!

Everyday, the human body either gets a little bit stronger or a little bit weaker. If the your brain and body can communicate at 100% with one another, than all the cells of your body will be able to organize themselves and work in harmony, which promotes a constructive, or health building lifestyle. And of course, the opposite is also true. Which is where Mary was when she came to see us. Her bodies life energy (the internal communication controlled by the nervous system) was in a disorganized, destructive, health robbing mode of operation. TODAY, she is building health and getting a little bit stronger.

When people like Mary come in to the office, they usually say, "Can you fix me Doc?" I usually respond with, "You are the best doctor on the planet . . .my job is to make sure you can be the best you can be." While it's true, my role is to provide the adjustment, at the right time & right location, the REAL TRUTH is that Mary, and everyone else does most of the work. YOU are designed to heal. Health is your normal state of being. Is the Doctor in YOU helping to make you a little bit stronger today? If not, why not come in for a check up. Let us help you be the person you were designed to be: The amazing Dr. YOU!!

Gibson Upper Cervical

Restoring Hope. Renewing Health.

(814)-371-7412

The amazing Dr. YOU!