SIERRA VISTA — Providing another option to get rid of pain is what Kynetic Wellness is all about.

Ann Lebeck, sports medicine physician and owner of Kynetic Health + Wellness, is helping hundreds of people with their chronic pain and acute injuries with nonsurgical or non-narcotic methods.

“We’re all athletes,” she said. “(I look at) how I can help your athletic ability. I’m looking at movement.”

Lebeck said the procedures she administers for chronic pain involves using the healing properties the body already makes. Platelet-rich plasma procedures are injections of the patient’s own platelets to the tendon, ligament, muscle or joint that is injured to accelerate the healing process and improve musculoskeletal problems.

“I just want everybody to be as healthy as possible,” Lebeck said. “Most people don’t need a second (injection of PRP).”

Lebeck started providing PRP injections to patients on Fort Huachuca five years ago. Working with those actively in the military she has administered 5,000 PRP injections.

“The need grew too much for one person,” she said. “There is a need for what I do here.”

For more than a year Lebeck planned on opening her own practice, with the hope of being able to help more people, since she was only able to help active military while working on Fort Huachuca. In September she opened Kynetic Health + Wellness at 3533 Canyon De Flores, Suite A, in Sierra Vista. Lebeck is seeing patients from across the county and the state.

The name for her business, Kynetic Health + Wellness, comes from her practice of looking at the kinetic system and making sure it’s functioning. She said knee pain may be a symptom of something else being wrong. All treatments are personalized to the patient. Kynetic Health + Wellness recently hired a physical therapist technician to help to offer more for patients.

“I think Sierra Vista chose me,” Lebeck said. “This is a great community (and) we have a good quality of life here. I want to make sure I give everybody everything they need.”

SIERRA VISTA — We all know that it is better to be healthy than to be unhealthy, to eat well as opposed to poorly and to be physically active versus being sedentary. Most of us know that a healthy diet and exercise can help to prevent some of the most common causes of death in the United States, including cardiovascular disease. In fact, according to the U.S. Department of Health, just 150 minutes of exercise a week can prevent all-cause mortality by an incredible 33%. By its very definition, to be healthy is to be whole and yet in practice, it can seem like an impossible task — why is it so hard to be healthy?

One explanation is that we are hardwired to prioritize our present over our future, to focus on our immediate wants and needs at the expense of our future health and wellbeing. We all want to lead a long and healthy life, to enjoy our time with our friends and family, and yet we find it difficult to make decisions today that will help guarantee our health tomorrow.

Another explanation is the role stress plays in cultivating unhealthy habits. Stress can be self-perpetuating : the more stressed we are the more unhealthy we become, and the unhealthier we become, the more stressed we are. Guilt, stress and anxiety are terrible motivators for healthy change — they can make us feel so overwhelmed, that resigning ourselves to our current situation seems easier than making an effort to dig ourselves out.

But, we can change — we just need to reframe our relationship with our health and with ourselves.

If we think of making healthy changes in terms of all the ways we have tried and failed, in terms of restrictions — of what we can and cannot do — it will always feel like a chore. Being routinely reminded of the risks our unhealthy habits pose — that every 36 seconds another American dies from a heart attack — won’t scare us into action either. Instead, what if we thought of our health and adopting healthy habits as a way to help, or even save the life of someone we love.

Childhood obesity is strongly linked to a number of life threatening and debilitating diseases in later life, including heart disease, diabetes and severe osteoarthritis. For older generations, lack of exercise leads to muscle degeneration, a loss of mobility and an increased risk of a dangerous fall. What if the healthy changes we made in our lives could have an impact on those we care about, on our children and our parents. What if what we did today could save their life tomorrow.

We have the power to be a life changing influence on those we love when we prioritize our own health and wellbeing, especially when we take the time to develop and share those healthy habits. Make a plan, and as a family, set reasonable health goals together and once you have achieved them, find a fun way to celebrate. It could be as easy as scheduling an after dinner walk, a few times a week — together.

If we find it hard to make healthy changes for ourselves, let’s do it for those we care about the most.