Village Chiropractic & Wellness Podcast
Welcome to the Village Chiropractic & Wellness Podcast with your host, Dr. Matt Green! Join us as we explore health, wellness, and the power of chiropractic care to help you live your best life
Village Chiropractic & Wellness Podcast
EP #1: Unlocking Wellness Through Chiropractic Care with Dr. Matt Green
Imagine a life where pain is no longer a constant companion; Dr. Matt has experienced this transformation firsthand and is eager to share how chiropractic care can be a powerful tool in your wellness arsenal. In our inaugural episode of the Village Chiropractic and Wellness Podcast, Dr. Matt recounts his unique path from music major to chiropractor, drawing fascinating parallels between his love for singing, tap dancing, and healing. This conversation sets the stage for an enlightening exploration of health topics aimed at helping you manage pain effectively and achieve your personal wellness goals.
Join Dr. Matt Green of Village Chiropractic & Wellness Center for practical advice designed to keep your neck in top form and your life pain-free.
Visit villagechiropracticoakland.com to learn more.
Visit villagechiropracticoakland.com to learn more.
Welcome to the Village Chiropractic and Wellness Podcast with your host, Dr. Matt Green. Join us as we explore health, wellness and the power of chiropractic care to help you live your best life. Let's dive into today's episode into today's episode.
Charlie McDermott:Well, welcome to episode number one of the Village Chiropractic and Wellness Podcast and, fortunately for the listeners, I am not the host, I'm the producer, but I jumped in here because I wanted to one. Congratulate you, Dr. Matt on your podcast. Yeah, great, thank you. I know this has been a passion project for you. You've been wanting to get it going for quite some time, so we're going to get into that here. But how are you feeling?
Dr. Matt Green:I'm feeling great, I'm really excited. Just like you said, I feel like I got a lot to say and some good things to say and a great venue, uh, to to make that happen.
Charlie McDermott:Yeah, well, you know, and, and, when we met, and, and, and you shared a fraction of your knowledge, it was just like, wow, this is, this is a natural fit. Not only is going to benefit the folks, uh, in your neck of the woods in oakland, california, but people all over, for that matter, the globe. So, yeah, congratulations on doing this and let's get into it. And the first question here is because you do have a following, but not everyone knows you, especially as this show grows, and they're going to want to know. You know, who is this Dr. Matt guy. So fill them in. Who is this Dr. Matt?
Dr. Matt Green:guy. So fill them in. Who is this Dr. Matt Green guy? Yeah, well, so that's my name, Dr. Matt Green, and I own Village Chiropractic and Wellness Center and it's located in Montclair Village and it's here in Oakland, and I'm 55. I'm married to the woman of my dreams. We have two teenage kids. Other than my passion for taking care of people, obviously I'm a performer. I love to sing and I tap dance and right now I'm learning how to play the drums and learning how to play piano. And wow, you're going, but I think that's a good intro there.
Charlie McDermott:It's a good thing my wife is not in the studio here, because she would have pushed me off to the side and you guys would have had a tap dance conversation. She just loves it. She loves to watch it, she loves to do it Not that she does it much at all, but, wow, how did you get into tap dance? Was that something you did as a kid?
Dr. Matt Green:I danced through June High and High School and then, when I moved up to the Bay Area, I found somebody who taught and I really liked them. I just started taking the class and that was it. It really fulfills my need to dance and boy, we just get that. Work hard, work hard and then you get that rhythm to nail it. It's a good feeling and it'll be great exercise. I can do tap all the way you know, hopefully through my 70s, 80s, 90s.
Charlie McDermott:Wow Tap through life. Right, that's the key. That's the key to happiness.
Dr. Matt Green:There it is.
Charlie McDermott:I love it. I love it. Speaking of happiness, I know you get a lot of happiness from helping your patients get out of pain, among other things. What led you to become a chiropractor?
Dr. Matt Green:what led you to become a chiropractor? Well, I've always had a sense of compassion for people and wanting to connect with people, and all that become is very easy for me. I came out of college I was a music major and had no idea what I was going to do after, and a friend of mine was going to massage school and they needed to give massages and I had never had one before. And just struggling with you know this ends. You know jobs. After college I walked into that massage school and the lights were low and the music was groovy and I was like this is my world. This is my world Working with my hands, working with people. I signed up that night and came out and I got myself certified as a fitness instructor and did fitness instructing and massage while I moved up to the Bay Area for about six years.
Dr. Matt Green:While I moved up to the Bay Area for about six years and during that time worked for chiropractors and as a massage therapist and worked for them doing marketing. And it just came to a time where I knew that I wanted to do more. Really, what it was was I was working for a chiropractor and some people were coming in just for massage and some people were coming in for massage and getting adjusted and it was those people that kept just getting massaged. They kept coming back with the same problems over and over. The people that were getting massaged and adjusted. Those people were getting their problems fixed and I got to feel it underneath my hands and I was like that's it, I want to do the thing that fixes the problem, that gets to the source of it. Um, and that was it. I was off to chiropractic school wow, that is.
Charlie McDermott:I've never heard that before. That makes so much sense to me that you're there working with those individuals and you know it's like a's like a A-B split test, right, it's like the person who isn't seeing the chiropractor and the person who is yeah.
Dr. Matt Green:Yeah, that was it. So it was just I knew I wanted something to. I wanted more tools on my tool belt. I wanted to be able to say I remember the exact moment some woman got in a bad car accident. She looked up at me and she said what is causing my pain? And that was it. I just I knew that I wanted more, more ability to answer that question and to deal with it than the tools that I currently had.
Charlie McDermott:Good stuff, Good stuff. So so your podcast. What inspired you to do the podcast?
Dr. Matt Green:Yeah, I'm so excited to do this, just as we've been talking.
Dr. Matt Green:I've been brainstorming about all the different things that I want to do in the future. I think in my office people it's a common comment for me that they appreciate the way that I explain things. It's common when people say I've never heard chiropractic explained that way. That makes a lot of sense. And for me to explain what's happening for them, what's happening through their body, what is the pathway for them to get better, it just I think people just says that of time explaining that.
Charlie McDermott:So for our listeners who aren't sure what exactly that is. Go ahead Sure.
Dr. Matt Green:I'm going to explain it in two different ways. There's two pillars, or two major components in terms of what is chiropractic. We can understand chiropractic in a way that I'm like a dentist to the spine.
Dr. Matt Green:So, we understand that when we go to a dentist, the dentist is in charge of the health of the bones and the soft tissue in this part of our body, in our mouth, and the way to keep our teeth healthy is to brush and floss and see a dentist regularly. I'm in charge of the health of the spine. Those are the bones and the soft tissue in our spine, and the way to keep your spine healthy is to exercise, stretch and see a chiropractor. Stretch and see a chiropractor. And the reason why we take care of our teeth and go to a dentist is that we want to avoid these bones degenerating into a state which we call a cavity, and the reason why people see a chiropractor regularly is that they want to avoid those bones degenerating into a state or which which we call osteoarthritis. Same process words, okay, so that's one.
Dr. Matt Green:Number two is that I am I'm like a mediator between the brain and the body. The brain needs to know where the body is every nanosecond, and I'm talking, talking every single tiny joint, and when it gets the signals that everything is where it's supposed to be, the brain and the nervous system is at ease. And when something is not in its right place, it can be an irritant and if there's too many of those it can kick that whole nervous system into its fight or flight mode. And so when I'm adjusting patients, it's common for them to say I came in for back pain but I'm sleeping better. I came in for this neck pain but when I go for my run, my runs are just easier, and so there's just there's more of a sense of of overall ease when people are getting adjusted. So there's more to say, but I would say that those in terms of understanding the overall concept of what is chiropractic doing, it's those two, yeah.
Charlie McDermott:Yeah, yeah, you, you better have more to say we got a lot of episodes.
Intro/Close Speaker:We got a lot of episodes.
Charlie McDermott:That's right, yeah, so this may sound like a silly question, but you know, in your opinion, why is it so important for people to prioritize their health and wellness in their everyday lives?
Dr. Matt Green:That's a good question. I think it's just. It's the. We want to wake up when that alarm clock goes off and the first feeling that we want to have is I feel good, life is working. Want to, like, look in the trunk where there's all those groceries to pick up and want to bring them into the house. Want to be able to do that with these. You're excited to see your kids, or maybe even your grandkids, running at you. Want to be able to bend down and grab them and pick them up. Want to be able to go to the gym. I want to be able to go to the gym.
Dr. Matt Green:There's all these things that are important, that are to us, whether it be just taking the groceries in or to work on a long workout routine, or pick up our grandkids or do our gardening. These are essential to our just the basic concept of I'm happy, my life works. I feel happy, my life works, I feel good. And you know, between gravity and the stresses of our lives, we need to do things on a consistent and regular basis to counteract those stresses so we can stay above it all. My favorite word is buoyant. I want to stay buoyant.
Charlie McDermott:I want to stay be able to stay on top of those stresses so that, even when stresses of life get more and more and more, I'm still on top. I'm still on top, still feeling good.
Dr. Matt Green:It's the insider tip segment of the show here. Yeah, what are you doing personally to stay healthy and keep that life balance? Yeah, I feel like I got it at a real young age. It was part of why I became a chiropractor. I met a body practitioner, call it. He was a rolfer and as well as the chiropractor. I met them in my early 20s and it was the conversations and it was the working with them that I got it that things need to be consistent and I feel like I got it at a pretty young age. So I get adjusted once a week. I've been adjusted pretty regularly ever since I was 12. But I would say I've been adjusted every week. That's been for about the last seven years, really intentional about that. Get a massage once a month. I work out at Orange Theory. I do that on Thursdays and then I go to the gym with my son on Sundays. Our therapist just retired but my wife and I were seeing a therapist twice a month for nine years.
Charlie McDermott:Wow.
Dr. Matt Green:Not for the purpose of fixing a problem, but just for us to stay buoyant stay on top of things. This is the answer for that. So is there? Let's see. What else do I do? Those are, those are my main yeah in pillars. You know I make sure my car has. You know it gets oil, gets tuned up every three months. Um, I understand the. I understand the concept of of this.
Charlie McDermott:Well, it's also and you mentioned earlier, it's like the ripple effect of all that. You know you keep that balance. You sleep better at night, you have less stress, your mood's better, right, you know? It's just back to, like you said, waking up feeling good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Amen for that. All right, misconceptions, that could be three episodes in and of itself, but what do you hear that you could share with your audience when it comes to chiropractic and wellness?
Dr. Matt Green:We're going to do that. I want this podcast for us to do a deeper dive into each one of those things so that there can be more of an understanding. Rather than taking sound bites from the media, you can start to really have an understanding of what it's about. I would say that the number one is that chiropractic is only about neck and back pain.
Dr. Matt Green:Chiropractic started in 1895 and it wasn't until the 1980s that where chiropractic, where insurance started to cover chiropractic, and it was at that time the chiropractic became and cornered, got cornered into being about neck and back pain. But before then people went to see a chiropractor because they wanted to have overall health, and that's how it was communicated, that's how it was marketed, that's how it was, mostly by word of mouth. So I would say that that's the number one, but I think we've already started to talk about it that you, when you get adjusted regularly, there's going to be much more of an overall health and wellness experience there. But I would say that's the number one. Number two is, once you start seeing a chiropractor, you have to see a chiropractor for the rest of your life, and the only part that I disagree with with that is that you have to, you don't have to do anything.
Dr. Matt Green:But the patients that see me on a regular basis and that have they, just they see chiropractic as a tool that directly connects to what they want. It gets them what they want, so they do it. Yeah, I, I. The last thing to say about that is that you know, if you're new or you've never seen a chiropractor before, I can only talk about myself. But we do a really we. We, we work really hard to listen, to hear, like where you are, and to acknowledge that some people come in that they just want to have their shoulder feel better and once their shoulder feel better, they're good and some people are willing to kind of like tip their toes in the water a little bit more and to experiment.
Dr. Matt Green:and some people come in and say I don't want to feel that pain ever again. Tell me what to do, I'm here. I'm here to just take care of that problem and fix it forever. So everybody's in different places, so I hope I give people the freedom to that they're able to make their own choices. As long as I'm able to educate, educate them, love it, love it.
Charlie McDermott:So, looking down the road, I know I know you have big plans um any teasers here and there are any specific topics or trends, challenges in wellness or, for that matter, chiropractic that you uh yeah, just give the audience a glimpse of what's coming the audience a glimpse of what's coming.
Dr. Matt Green:Yeah, I think that what I want to say is that the things that I hear in the office that are concerns and here's what we're going to cover here in these next couple I'm not sure when it's going to happen, but in future podcasts is that the concerns that people have about seeing a chiropractor. People have I've found, about 10 concerns before coming in. They want to make sure that it's safe and they want to make sure that it's effective. They're going to spend money. They want to make sure that it's going to work. They also want to have a clear sense of what it's going to cost. They also want to have a sense of how often. What's the frequency of care. They also want to have a sense of like am I qualified? You know, is chiropractor qualified to do what they're due?
Dr. Matt Green:Is it going to be painful? Is it going to hurt? Is it going to hurt while the adjustment? Is it going to be painful? Is it going to hurt? Is it going to hurt while the adjustment is going to hurt afterwards? What's the philosophy and how is it going to jive with their own philosophy and how different is it from the Western medicine or allopathic medicine that they go to? Is a chiropractor going to misdiagnose a problem? And what is that sound? What's the sound when we adjust the spine and what does that mean? And is it safe? And also, just in general, why does chiropractic have the reputation that it does? How did we get there? I think that some of it was given to us and some of it we earned positive and negative and so there's a lot to go into there and I think that if I address those concerns for people, I think there's some people out there that are really interested to want to know the answer to those questions.
Charlie McDermott:Yeah, yeah, look forward to it. I'm going to be learning a lot here. Yeah, yeah. So you and I were fortunate. You know we got the wellness thing early on in life and it just became a habit and almost, like you know the opposite of being sick. When we get out of that balance, we feel like, right, we need to get back. But I know there are listeners who haven't been as fortunate as us and you know what advice would you give them or anyone that's starting a wellness journey?
Dr. Matt Green:Sure, sure. A lot of the things that I notice with folks that are starting back is that they start strong back, is that they start strong Somehow. We look at people that are successful in that realm and we see the intensity in which they're working and it becomes an automatic lumping together of I need to work extra hard to have that result, and that's not how it happens. How it happens is that regular consistency to earn our own trust of ourselves. That's what has to happen first, and so the thing I usually say is I'm not going to do anything consistently through time unless I have a conversation inside my brain. I can do that, and that's where we need to start. That's where we need to give ourselves the freedom to start small and easy and to begin and to have a continuous conversation.
Dr. Matt Green:Oh, I can do that. I can stretch for 30 seconds. I can't do that. And once that gets repetitive and then you have a win, and then you have somebody come upon you and say like, hey, you're losing weight or hey, your posture looks good, then all of a sudden there's an excitement, and then you got excitement and you get a little bit more momentum and then you pick it up a little bit more, and a little bit more, and a little bit more, and I think that that's the secret, that's the secret to starting, and I think that that's the secret.
Charlie McDermott:That's the secret to starting Love it, love it, get started, do something, but yeah, don't. You don't learn your own trust.
Dr. Matt Green:Learn to trust yourself that you can do what you say you're going to do. And once that trust is there, well then you can like you can, turn on the turbo boosters a little bit more, you know, because you can handle it, that's why?
Charlie McDermott:Where can listeners, how can listeners fill your listeners in the best way to get in touch to learn more? And before you answer that, I just want to make everyone aware that for those of you, even if you don't live in the Oakland area and you want to engage with the show, maybe there's a topic that you want Dr. Matt to talk about we have a text line 510-281-1708. And you can just text the show. Let us know what you want us to talk about. Or, if you have a question, maybe we cover a topic or Dr. Matt covers a topic and you want to dig deeper, use that number again 510-281-1708. But, Dr. Matt, for those who are in the Oakland area, how can they get in touch?
Dr. Matt Green:Easy to look at what other people say. So we have lots of five-star reviews on Yelp. That's a good place to start. The website villagechiropracticoklandcom is another and you can call that phone number. If you want to get yourself on the schedule, you can just call that direct number as well as text it love it, love it well, as they say in hollywood.
Charlie McDermott:I think this one is in the can, or almost. Uh, any final thoughts?
Dr. Matt Green:no, just thank you so much. I mean, I think we all love talking about ourselves, so, uh, I appreciate it, I appreciate the opportunity, uh, and I really I look forward to to us continuing this on episode number two.
Charlie McDermott:It's coming up soon. All right, Dr. Matt, you have a great night. Great Thanks, Charlie.
Intro/Close Speaker:Thanks for tuning in to the Village Chiropractic and Wellness Podcast with D r. Matt Green. For more information or to schedule an appointment, visit our website at VillageChiropracticOaklandcom or call us at 510-281-1708. Stay well and we'll see you next time.