If you’ve ever followed my sister site, BeAwesome365 You may recall an article I did a few years ago that talked about how there is such excess in our world. So many opportunities, products, and options. The article was based on how my kids kept asking me for more more more even at the height of one of the coolest indoor water parks in the world, my kids couldn’t get enough. It drove me crazy. The title of that article is “Some, not more.”   It talks about how I, as the dad, was the real issue, not my kids. 

I paid for this holiday, I wanted to jam the fun down my kid’s throats!

I’ve seen and listened to many similar ideas that deal with more as a Happiness Strangler.    Ideas like we’re much happier if the ice cream shop only has 3 options rather than 50.   Things like this.

This is the revamp of that idea but from a medical perspective.   It’s taking one of my real-life “a-ha” moments and directing it towards my clinical findings.    

It’s also a word swap – this time – the word More for Better.

In my recent SportsDocDC articles I spoke on how ideas like “go deeper, harder, more intense” isn’t always a good solution. 

The word “More” works like this as well.    More is very often not the best treatment plan. 

 What about more as it applies to clinical treatments. Do you need to come back more often?  Extra visits, “I just need to see you 3x/week for about uhh…8 weeks!”   C’mon man.    

If someone is giving you this racket, just ask, “why.    Why this long?”   

This article relates to you as the practitioner as well. For example, if you are a chiropractic clinic, Sports Rehab, physical therapy, athletic trainer.

It’s easy for a practitioner to just say the patient isn’t responding well to treatment because they aren’t showing up for appointments or aren’t coming to your clinic enough, or not doing their rehab at home.  

This can be and is often true.   But the reverse is also true. Maybe the treatments are Inappropriate and the patient isn’t responding because of that.

That’s what this article is all about.

 It’s: Better, Proper, Specifc.  There has to be a “why.”

This is not an argument of  “Is it the patient’s fault or the doctor’s fault?”  

“The client just isn’t doing what they’re supposed to do, He needs more treatments.”

“That doctor is an idiot, I need more exercises and want my neck popped and cracked more often.”

 Instead – let’s get into a third option on why More clinical treatments might not be the answer.  

 Perhaps it will be a wake-up call for some of you patients and a call out for some of you practitioners.  The idea, as always is just to get you thinking differently.

Take the patient I had in earlier today. She just keeps returning for business with us. It’s like a boomerang.   “OK, Nell – I think you should be doing good for a few months – remember those key points I gave you – work on that and you should be great.” 3 days later I see her on the schedule again.  And this time for a full 30 minute intense FMT workup followed by full Chiropractic treatments.  Treatments that I often feel are hurting her. 

If I try to talk to her about how I think she needs to try some other approaches, she really doesn’t even hear what I say. She just tells me, “I’ll be back in a few days, I’m sure this will just take a few more tries, (self chuckle) I’ve really done it this time!”

Some of this may be our age – just being from the era where there wasn’t information available at the rate it is now – I mean let’s get real…It used to take a semester to get thru Texas History in school.  Now through YouTube videos and a podcast can get me deeper into that topic with better visuals and deeper understanding than anything prior. It’s called “accelerated learning.” That’s what this entire site is supposed to be!

Everything just happens faster now.   But it only works if you take a minute to understand it.

If you’re old school and stubborn and don’t want anything to do with that new invention.  If you aren’t even sure how to “get on that worldwide web.” Grandpa voice “It’s just a fad, back in my days we got out the encyclopedia.” then you’re only getting a piece of the information you’d get if you took a modern approach.

Medicine, health, fitness, and diet are like that as well.  Ask any bodybuilder, “How do I get HUGE?!”  You won’t hear, “LIFT MORE”  you’ll hear, “Honestly Bro, Fix your diet.” Not more…better.  Different ideas.

Same with psychology, mental health, and just Understanding as a whole. 

“You don’t need to fake and push for more happiness, just be aware of your life, do something for someone else and realize a 7/10 on the happiness scale is pretty good”  

Yes! What might a first be considered unconventional ideas are the real revolutionary changes in our lives.   Change and New becomes “common sense” once we understand.

But without new knowledge, we just simply don’t know what we don’t know.   Instead of trying and learning, Instead of modernizing we just go to the default we’ve always known.   

Often our default is MORE.  Let’s just do it, Grind, 3 phones.  Hard work, sweat equity, pay for what you get… Because that’s what it was all about.

I definitely think it is a human default. If I don’t feel awake yet, I need more caffeine. If I’m not getting faster even though I’m doing this running program,  I probably need more miles.

I can’t get my kid to stop crying and throwing a fit at Chucky Cheese’s oh, he probably just needs more tokens and more soda.    It’s just what we do.

 We do it for health care as well.    Rarely asking ourselves, “Are we doing this correctly?”

We, by default think,  “We must not be doing enough.”

I guess, What I’m saying here is that by doing your health, and your body the old-fashioned way. By not understanding new techniques and new ideas, you’re stuck with what you know. And the old way was more visits. The old way was more stretching. The old way was more, deeper, harder- Make it hurt.

 As practitioners though, the last decade didn’t just buzz by.  It’s been an incredible time, with trillions of dollars poured into healthcare. And billions of that being done on research and new techniques, new ideas, and a new way of thinking.

 That doesn’t mean all your doctors and therapists are up-to-date though. Many of us in the practitioner world have the same problem as the people we see as clients. The inability to adapt. The resistance to change, the experiences we’ve had that have been successful, and just a plain Comfort level of what we know.

I guess my push for you, the person hanging with me to get to the end of this article it’s just to look for better. To experiment. try some things out to see how they work for you and if there’s a better way, well….make the better way, “your way.”

If you’re a practitioner like me, you owe that to your clientele. You got into this field hopefully to be the best at what you do and to make clients better.  Along with that, change is what keeps our own careers interesting.  I can’t imagine doing stuff I did a decade ago.  Not only would I feel I cheated, but I’d get bored with myself!   Learn the new stuff for your own sanity.  Keep it fresh, get passionate again!

 If you are a client, heck! Even if you’re not a client. If you’re a human being- your best friend is your body. It’s the only one you’ll ever have. Make sure that you’re always working to be good to your best friend.   

This article isn’t really specific today.  It’s not a direct treatment, you’re not going to see me talk about any techniques or new ways of looking at the body. Today’s article is more of a “call out” article.

Run the word swap, you know I love these.

Try substituting the word “more” for “better” in all aspects of life and reap the benefits.