Below you will find an easy to read transcript of Dr. Dennis James’ monthly podcast interview. You can click the video to listen to the podcast or simply read the easy to follow transcript below. Enjoy!
Podcast Interview:
Hello everyone. This is Liz Harvey coming to you from our studios in New York City where we are dedicated to bringing you top quality advice from many of the leading expert professionals across the U.S.
In today’s episode, we are speaking with chiropractor, Dr. Dennis James, a performance chiropractic clinic located in Keller, Texas. Dr. James is a nationally recognized chiropractor and a member of both the American and Texas Chiropractic Association. He is also highly trained in acupuncture and a Fellow of the Acupuncture Society of America. Dr. James specializes in family chiropractic care, treating infants to seniors.
Today we’re going to talk about a very important topic:
Longevity Lifestyle
RC: Hi, Dr. James. How are you today?
Dr. Dennis James: I’m doing great, Liz. Thank you.
RC: Thanks for joining me today.
What role does a person’s lifestyle have in creating a life of longevity?
Dr. Dennis James: The lifestyle is actually everything. So much so that it can actually save your life and I don’t mean to actually be dramatic in regards to that but when you look at the statistics in America, it deeply backs this truth at this point. The number one cause of death in America is heart disease, which contrary to popular belief genetics actually does not play much of a role in. It’s only about 10% that genetics actually effects whereas 80, 90% of our lifestyle actually will decrease the risk of heart disease if we live it properly. On the flip side, if you take a look at diabetes, it is actually the number two leading cause of disability in the United States and it’s almost completely caused by lifestyle. If we choose to do what is right now, it’s going to lead to wonderful benefits down the road for us.
What type of attitude or mindset is needed to establish a life of longevity?
Dr. Dennis James: I believe you have to start with a positive, kind of life-giving, abundant mindset. You have to know that health comes from within, not from without. Basically, every thought, action, all of our feelings, they all have a direct neological impact with what we do. Whether we choose to be positive and building or negative and destructive, our state of health basically never stays static. Every choice that we make is going to be something that either creates health for us or diminishes health for us down the road.
It’s really about the vision that we start. It’s been said many times that without a vision people are going to perish. Today I notice there are a lot of people that they kind of lose their hope so to speak. They sit around and go, “You know what? I’d rather make the easy decision. I’d rather die young and be happy.” Life just doesn’t really work that way because based upon law of cause and effect, every choice that we make, there’s going to be a result that’s equal to that. I believe if we choose to wake up daily and basically reinforce who we choose to be, let our thoughts and actions be congruent to what that is, and then choose to walk by faith kind of knowing that if we do what is right long enough, the blessings will start to overtake your life.
We feed our bodies daily by what we put into it. How does this play a role in the longevity of life?
Dr. Dennis James: It plays a huge role. I believe it plays a huge role both physically and mentally. What you put into your body is going to be basically what you get out of it. If you start each day with positive mental thoughts that are congruent to your vision, your life’s going to move towards that. In the same way with nutrition and with your health, your diet actually accounts for about 80% of the benefit of choosing your life of longevity. If you choose to eat natural foods that basically aren’t loaded with antibiotics, growth hormones, and chemicals, you’re feeding your body life.
Liz, one of the biggest challenges that we have in our day and age is the pharmaceuticals, is the drugs that we have. We want to make things bigger, better, faster than what we’re really meant to be. Now it’s so hard to get foods unless you choose to go organic or something like that that people don’t understand what they’re actually putting in their body and they’re actually causing a chemical neuro imbalance within the body that is shortening their lifespan. It’s just not worth that. Putting in the proper foods is definitely worth it.
You also take a look at what you’re putting in and so many people believe that they can take the easier route and choose the wrong things now and then down the road, they’ll just take some medicines to overcome that. Life just doesn’t work that way either and the best analogy I like to give is that medicine cabinet. My kids don’t even know what that is and so many people, their kids are brought up with the thought process, “I’ll take this medicine and I’ll be happy.” The truth is that I never met somebody that’s on five different medications and was truly healthy. I’ve also not met somebody that could tell me that if I’m healthy and not taking medication that if you give me one, I’ll actually be healthier. The part that I really want people to try to grasp and understand is if we can put what’s right in our body now, down the road we’re going to have a better quality of life. If medicine right now can’t actually make a healthy person healthier, how can medicine actually make a sick person healthy.
Our goal is to actually turn it around and go here’s the right things to do that we can put into our body and that starts with some of those organic goods, whether it’s the meats or whatever it is that are more naturally grown. Then you can take a look at just fruits and vegetables. You can get different colors. If you get strawberries and things like that are red, that’s good for your heart. If you get more of oranges and pineapples that’s good for your immune system and also makes you feel younger. What a lot of people don’t know is even going to the dark green leafy vegetables, you put those in there, those are actually even high in calcium. You can have one serving of that and that’s better than five servings of milk for calcium for women. What you put in truly is going to be what you get out.
How does physical exercise factor into a life of longevity?
Dr. Dennis James: Exercise is good for many different things. Number one, it helps circulation. It actually helps bio-chemical changes within your body. It’s also going to help improve memory, learning, and overall cognitive function. When we take a look at just simple application, it’s really about routine and consistency because you want to counteract the stresses over a period of time and you want to create health every day as well.
If you just choose say light exercising or walking five times a week for about 30 minutes, that can actually lower heart disease by about 50% so we already start to win there. If you want to do kind of moderate exercise, say maybe weights or a step class, and you only do it three times a week, that has the same effect. You can also go more intense and do it twice a week for about 45 minutes but the caveat there is you need to make sure you already have the health that you can handle that type of exercise. It’s a very simple thing. You want to prevent muscle loss, you want to create strength. It goes back to that old saying that if you don’t use it, you lose it, so we definitely want to maximize it.
How does chiropractic play a role in the longevity lifestyle?
Dr. Dennis James: We know that we can’t go through life without stresses and every stress that the body takes, it has an impact on the nervous system. Basically, chiropractic is built around the three T’s of stresses. What that is is thoughts, traumas, and toxins. You can go through life and you have the loss of a loved one or you have some tough times at work or you have a tough time with family, those emotional thoughts, we always go through that time where you can feel the chemical changes in your body. You just don’t feel quite right. You don’t have the same energy. You become fatigued. We need to make sure we keep that pressure off of the spine, allow the nervous system to stay maximized to keep you healthy.
When it comes to the traumas, people often think of obviously the auto accidents and football injuries and falls and things like that. Many people don’t think of the text neck, how they’re sleeping at night. The small things that actually build up into big things. Lastly goes back to the chemical toxins we talked about earlier. Whether or not it’s going to be something that effects the eliminative system and can cause allergy and asthma issues. That’s why we see so many issues coming up here during the holidays as well is that people start to put in different types of food and have different stresses going and don’t do things that actually counteract the stress and then they get sick. The immune system decreases and then they get the flu. There’s not really a flu season as much as there is a season that we tend to not take care of our body as much and we choose to overcome more stresses without taking the balance and superseding them.
RC: Thank you, Dr. James. We know you’re extremely busy so I just want to say thank you for your time and help today.
Dr. Dennis James: I appreciate you having me on, Liz.
RC: For our listeners across the country, if you are interested in speaking with the doctor, please visit www.performancechiropractic.clinic or call 817-337-3636 to schedule an appointment. On behalf of our team, we want to thank you for listening and we look forward to bringing you more top-quality content from our country’s leading experts.