The Weekly Reset: Sometimes You Just Need to K.I.S.S

Welcome to this week’s Weekly Reset.

Every week I share one thought about health, one challenge to improve your week, and one reflection that has been impacting my own life. This week is about a 3-minute read.

Health Insight: Have We Made Health Too Complicated?

Wear this tracker. Take this supplement. Follow this morning routine. Eat at this exact time. Cold plunge. Sauna. Count your steps. Track your sleep. Measure your recovery.

None of those things are necessarily bad. Some can actually be very useful. But sometimes I wonder if we have made being healthy way more complicated than it needs to be.

There are regions around the world that have become known as “Blue Zones” because of unusually high numbers of people living into very old age. There is still debate around exactly what makes these areas unique and how much we can attribute their longevity to specific habits, but some themes consistently show up when we study healthy aging. These people tend to move regularly, eat relatively simple foods, stay connected to other people, maintain a sense of purpose, and find ways to manage stress.

Nothing revolutionary. In fact, it is almost frustratingly simple.

One thing that fascinates me is that movement is often naturally built into everyday life. These people are walking, gardening, carrying things, getting up and down from the ground, bending, squatting, and working around the house. They are not necessarily thinking about “getting their workout in.” Movement is simply part of the way they live.

Even something as simple as being able to squat and get back up requires strength and mobility through the hips, knees, ankles, and trunk. As we get older, maintaining those basic movement patterns becomes incredibly important for independence and function.

Gardening is another habit that frequently comes up when looking at active older populations. Think about everything involved in tending a garden. You walk, squat, kneel, reach, carry things, spend time outside, and take care of something. It gives you movement without needing to call it exercise.

Maybe the secret is not finding the perfect workout.

Maybe it is creating a life where movement happens naturally.

And Then There’s Stress

We also cannot talk about longevity without talking about stress. You can eat perfectly and exercise every day, but if your body never gets an opportunity to come out of a constant state of stress, that matters too.

Chronic stress can affect sleep, cardiovascular health, metabolism, immune function, and the way we feel day to day. Yet some of the most basic tools we have for managing stress are incredibly simple. Move your body. Sleep. Spend time outside. Be around people you love. Slow down every once in a while.

Again...simple.

And that is what I keep coming back to.

There will always be another health trend, another supplement, another diet, another piece of technology, and another person online telling you that you are doing something wrong. But if we are constantly chasing the next thing while ignoring the basics, we may be missing what matters most.

Reflection: K.I.S.S.

There is an old saying: Keep It Simple, Stupid.

Maybe we need a little more K.I.S.S. in our lives.

I know I have a tendency to think ten steps ahead. I want to know how everything is going to work out. I want the perfect plan and the perfect answer. Sometimes I can make something far more complicated than it needs to be simply because I am trying so hard to control the outcome.

But Jesus tells us in Matthew 6:34, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.”

I do not think God asks us to have enough strength for the next year. He gives us what we need for today.

Today’s work. Today’s decisions. Today’s movement. Today’s meal. Today’s conversation. Today’s faith.

We can exhaust ourselves trying to solve problems God has not even asked us to solve yet.

I think that applies to our health too. You do not need to completely transform your life tomorrow. Go for a walk today. Cook a simple meal today. Call someone you love today. Get outside today. Move your body today.

Then wake up tomorrow and do it again.

Sometimes the healthiest thing we can do physically, mentally, and spiritually is stop making everything so complicated.

Three Questions

Where have you been making your health more complicated than it needs to be?

What is one simple habit you could consistently do every day for the next year?

What are you worrying about tomorrow that God is only asking you to trust Him with today?

Weekly Challenge: Keep It Simple

Pick one simple thing this week and do it consistently.

Maybe it is walking after dinner, working in the yard, getting down on the floor and back up a few times, cooking dinner instead of ordering it, calling a friend, or spending ten quiet minutes with God.

Do not create a twelve-step plan around it.

Then do it again tomorrow.

Keep it simple,
Preston Hetland 

https://ywellnessmn.com/

The Weekly Reset: Inflammation Is Not the Enemy

 Welcome to this week’s Weekly Reset.

Every week I share one thought about health, one challenge to improve your week, and one reflection that has been impacting my own life. This week is about a 3-minute read.

Health Insight: Why Does Your Body Create Inflammation?

When most people hear the word inflammation, they immediately think something is wrong.

But inflammation itself is not necessarily the enemy. Imagine you accidentally cut your finger. Within minutes, the area may become red, warm, tender, and slightly swollen. Blood vessels in the area dilate and immune cells begin traveling into the injured tissue.

Why?

Because your body recognized damage and immediately began responding to it. Acute inflammation helps clear damaged tissue and creates the conditions necessary for the next stages of repair. Researchers describe inflammation as a fundamental part of successful tissue healing. In other words: The redness and swelling isn’t your body forgetting how to work. They are evidence that your body knows something happened. What concerns me is when simple functions like inflammation don’t happen. 

Your Joints Respond to Injury Too

Now think about a joint. Joints are surrounded by capsules, ligaments, muscles, nerves, blood vessels, and other tissues. When those tissues are injured or irritated, they can initiate many of the same basic inflammatory processes seen elsewhere in the body. Research on ligament injuries shows an early inflammatory phase where immune cells move into the injured area before repair and remodeling begin. Joint injuries can similarly produce changes in inflammatory signaling within and around the joint.

Inflammation is the body's response to a problem - not the problem itself.

When a joint becomes subluxated, as we often say in chiropractic, the ligaments and joint capsule respond the same way a finger cut would. Inflammation and blood surround the joint capsule and nerves which produce heat. That is our job to find and remove as chiropractors.

How I Look at This Through Gonstead Chiropractic

One of the things I love about the Gonstead System is its emphasis on finding where a problem may actually be occurring rather than simply chasing wherever someone feels discomfort. When I evaluate someone, I am combining their history with visualization, palpation, movement, instrumentation, and X-ray findings. Those are some of the core components traditionally used in Gonstead analysis.

The goal is specificity. If the examination suggests that a particular spinal joint is involved in the patient's problem, I want to address that area specifically, not simply adjust everything because it happens to be there. And then comes an important part: Give the body an opportunity to respond.

The philosophy isn't to continually irritate an area simply because it still feels sore. It is to make a specific intervention when appropriate, reassess, and respect the fact that healing itself takes place within the patient. That distinction matters. My job is not to “heal” someone's body for them. My job is to identify what I can help with, provide appropriate care, and create a better environment for the body to do what it was designed to do.

Reflection: We Don't Always Understand the Process

This brings me to a verse that has been on my mind lately.

Proverbs 3:5-6 tells us to trust in the Lord with all our heart and to “lean not on your own understanding.”

I think about how quickly we label something as bad simply because it is uncomfortable. Inflammation hurts, so we assume inflammation itself must be bad. A difficult season arrives, so we assume something has gone wrong. A door closes, our plans change, or we don't understand what God is doing, and immediately we want an explanation. 

But our perspective is limited. Sometimes the very process we are trying to escape may be accomplishing something we cannot yet see. That does not mean every painful thing is good or that we should ignore problems. A cut still needs to be cleaned. An injury may need treatment. Wisdom still requires action. But we don't have to understand everything in order to trust God with the next step. We can do what is ours to do, seek wisdom, and trust Him with what we cannot see.

Three Questions

Where in your life have you been assuming that discomfort automatically means something is going wrong?

When your body produces a symptom, do you only ask how to make it disappear - or do you also ask why it may be happening?

What is one situation right now where you need to stop leaning entirely on your own understanding and trust God with the process?

Weekly Challenge

This week, when something in your body feels uncomfortable, resist the urge to immediately label it as “bad.”

Instead, get curious. Ask: What might my body be responding to?

And then take that same question into the rest of your life. Not every uncomfortable season makes sense while you're standing in the middle of it. Sometimes our responsibility is simply to take the next wise step and trust God with the path ahead.

If you've been dealing with neck or back discomfort, headaches, an old injury, or you simply want to better understand how your spine is functioning, I would genuinely love the opportunity to work with you. If you'd like to get on my schedule, simply reach out to me or contact Y Wellness. (763) 543-9080 

And as always, if someone came to mind while reading this week's Reset, forward this post

to them. I'd love to have them join us.

Preston Hetland

https://ywellnessmn.com/ 

The Weekly Reset: Why That Knot in Your Shoulder Keeps Coming Back

Every week I share one thought about health, one challenge to improve your week, and one reflection that has been impacting my own life. This week is about a 3-minute read.

Health Insight: What If the Muscle Isn’t the Problem?

You know the spot. That stubborn knot between your neck and shoulder that you stretch, rub, massage, or dig into with a massage gun. It feels better for a little while. Then somehow…it comes right back. We usually assume the muscle itself is the problem. But sometimes the tight muscle may actually be part of your body’s response to a problem somewhere else.

Your body is incredibly good at protecting itself. When the nervous system detects pain, irritation, or a need for greater stability around the cervical spine, it can change the way the muscles around that area activate. Research in people with neck pain has found altered activation and increased co-contraction of cervical muscles essentially creating greater stiffness around the neck.

Think about it like your body putting a brace around an area it wants to protect. That tight upper trap might not simply be a muscle that “needs to loosen up.” It may be doing exactly what your nervous system is asking it to do.

The Knot Might Be the Bodyguard

Imagine a bodyguard standing outside a door because he believes something inside needs protection. You can temporarily send the bodyguard away, but if the reason he was standing there has not changed, he is probably coming back. Muscles can behave similarly.

Massage, stretching, heat, or a massage gun may feel great and there is nothing wrong with using those things, but if the tightness repeatedly returns, I think there is a better question to ask:

Why does my body keep tightening this muscle?

The neck and shoulder are also much more connected than most people realize. Research has shown that structures in the cervical spine can refer discomfort into the upper shoulder, trapezius, and shoulder-blade region. That doesn’t mean every tight shoulder comes from the neck. Shoulder injuries, exercise, stress, work demands, and many other things can contribute. That is exactly why examining the person matters.

This Is Where Gonstead Chiropractic Comes In

One of the reasons I was drawn to the Gonstead System of chiropractic is its emphasis on specificity. When someone points to the knot in their shoulder, I don’t simply want to chase the painful spot. I want to understand why it keeps happening.

Gonstead analysis looks at the spine as an interconnected structure and uses a combination of history, visualization, palpation, motion, and other clinical findings to determine where dysfunction may be present and whether chiropractic care is appropriate. If dysfunction in the neck appears to be contributing to the way the body is guarding, the goal is to address the area that is actually involved rather than endlessly chasing the tight muscle. Sometimes the symptom is the body trying to protect you from the problem.

Reflection

I think there is something incredible about the way God designed the body to protect itself. Pain, tightness, inflammation, and compensation can certainly become frustrating. But many of these responses exist because the body is constantly trying to adapt to what we ask of it.

1 Corinthians 12:18:

“But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.”

The more I learn about the human body, the more truth I see in those words. Our job is not simply to silence every signal our body gives us.Sometimes we need to ask what that signal is trying to tell us.

Three Questions

Do you have a muscle that seems to get tight no matter how much you stretch or massage it?

Have you been treating the location of a symptom without asking what might be contributing to it?

What would change if you viewed your body’s symptoms as information rather than simply inconveniences?

Weekly Challenge

The next time you notice that familiar knot, don’t immediately attack it.

Pay attention to when it appears.

Were you sitting for several hours? Driving? Working at a computer? Stressed? Lifting? Does turning your neck change how it feels? Become curious about the pattern. Sometimes asking why is more valuable than asking how to make something disappear.

Ready to Experience Gonstead Chiropractic?

Whether you’ve been dealing with that stubborn shoulder knot, headaches, neck or back discomfort, an old injury, or you simply want to get your spine checked, reach out and let’s get you on the schedule.

Call Y Wellness: (763) 543-9080 

And as always, if someone came to mind while reading this week’s Reset, forward this post to them. I’d love to have them join us.

Blessings, 

Preston Hetland