Can Chiropractic help decrease stress? Yes chiropractic care can help alleviate the signs and symptoms of stress.
First off, let’s define what stress is and how it can affect our health.
Our nervous system is made of two “automatic” major systems, the parasympathetic and sympathetic systems.
The parasympathetic system is generally known as “feed and breed” – it is responsible for all the functions involved with digesting our food and reproductive functions.
The sympathetic system is generally known as “fight or flight” – it is responsible for all functions involved with preparing our bodies to flee or fight in an emergency situation. A fictional example of a fight or flight situation is : There is a tiger in the room. Naturally, hopefully, you’ll want to get out of that room fast!
Your sympathetic nervous system has already prepped you by increasing your heart rate, enlarging your arteries, shuttling more blood to prime moving muscles, dilating your pupils and giving your energy a turbo boost.
More oxygen to your skeletal muscles, more light to better see your surroundings, and a kick in the pants to get yourself out of imminent danger. All while this is going on, your feed and breed system is being suppressed as it is not immediately important. All these functions are automatically performed without a single thought! Auto-pilot for survival.
The trouble is, there is no tiger. Environmental, physiological and emotional stressors can all lead to sympathetic overload. Your body is ready to fight or take flight, and is stuck there. Your gas pedal is pushed to the floor and there is no end in sight for this elevated state of physiology.
Polluted water and air, Chemical pesticides, antibiotics, growth hormones, genetically modified organisms, bodily injuries, increased workloads, poor diets, inadequate sleep, poor biomechanics, chronic pain, financial struggle and work-life balance can all stress our bodies and quite literally burn us out.
Chiropractic addresses the balance of our body. The spinal column houses the spinal cord. When the column is out of perfect alignment, pressure is put on the cord and nerve roots, decreasing the communication between the brain and the body.
This structural problem leads to functional problems. Our ability to adapt to normal situations in our lives is compromised and over time little problems become big ones.
Chiropractic adjustments gently realign the spinal column and remove the pressure on the spinal nerves. This allows the body to function properly including adapting correctly to external and internal stressors to the body.
The balance between our sympathetic and parasympathetic nerve systems can be restored with chiropractic care and stress can become a thing of the past for you!