We will begin by addressing Stress, which is at the root of most health problems. Stress has 3 dimensions, but interestingly enough they each affect your body in the same way.
1.Physical Stress – Car accident, repetitive injury, poor posture, exercise
2.Biochemical Stress – what you eat, what you drink, pollutants, skin products
3.Psychological Stress – the emotional aspect – work, home, financial (this is how you can “think yourself sick.”)
Stress can be good (eustress) or bad (distress). For instance, eating healthy, drinking water, and exercising are all a form of stress that benefit you positively. Conversely eating fast food, drinking soda, and low physical activity all work against your body cumulatively. Lets see how stress changes your body.
Stress » Muscles » Joints » Nervous System
Stress puts your body in a defensive mode, known as fight or flight. Your body reacts the same way to the stress of running away from a bear as it would to your computer crashing and losing hours of work, or even a supersized value meal. When your body assumes this defensive mode it is focused on survival, not on healing, growing, and becoming more efficient. It can’t do both at the same time.
Stress will first affect your muscles, making them tight. Since muscles move bones, if the stress is not dealt with, it begins to change or limit your joints movement. Joints have position sensors that tell your brain their location at all times (close your eyes and have someone move your finger up & down, you will know which way it is going). When the joints are not moving properly for long enough, it changes the nervous system control of the body. Since nerves control every muscle, organ, gland, and cell in your body, if they are not working at 100% your body is not regulating at 100% and not repairing/healing at 100%.
What stress does to us.
As stress from the 3 dimensions affect us, it drives our level of health (and immune system) down. If stress overwhelms our body’s ability to adapt, we exhibit symptoms (pain, cold, flu, digestive problems, etc…). This is when we are traditionally taught to seek help, and once the symptoms are gone most people think they are healthy even though they are barely above that threshold of having symptoms. Receiving regularly scheduled Chiropractic care, even when you do not have symptoms releases the deeply held stress from the nerves, joints, and muscles.
This results in increasing your body’s ability to handle stress, adapt to the environment, and approach optimum health. When you approach optimum health you build up a buffer against lifestyle stress so you no longer fall into symptoms/poor health. This is why Wellness is impossible without Chiropractic, because getting adjusted increases your potential for health. This was demonstrated in the ten-year Alternative Medicine Integration Study conducted by Richard Sarnat, MD.
The results proved that regular utilization of Chiropractic care in the absence of symptoms led to:
60.2% decrease in hospital admissions
59% decrease in days stayed at the hospital
62% decrease in oupatient surgeries and procedures
85% decrease in pharmaceutical costs
What does this mean to you? Happier, healthier, well-adjusted families that have more energy and a better immune system. Come join our Wellness revolution today!
In Health,
Dr. Cole