Chiropractic and How It Relates To Your Body
- How Chiropractic Works
- Your Spine and Your Nervous System?
- Chiropractic and Your Body
- What Does This Mean For Me?
Here is an example to explain how Chiropractic works and why it is so much more than treatment of back and neck pain. Let’s think about a garden hose, consider the hose to be a nerve and the water flowing through the hose as nerve impulses. When the hose is laid out straight without any kinks, water is allowed to flow freely and uninhibited through the hose. If on the other hand we kink or park a car on the hose, water flow is reduced or even stops flowing through the hose. If this condition persists long enough, eventually, the hose will become damaged (pain). By performing the adjustment early on, we remove the kink, allow for free water flow and begin to make plans to save the hose from further damage. This in turn allows us many more years of valuable use to others and ourselves.
The autonomic nervous system (ANS) regulates the functions of our internal organs (the viscera) such as the heart, stomach and intestines. The ANS is part of the peripheral nervous system and it also controls some of the muscles within the body. Studies demonstrating that chiropractic adjustments have a direct effect on these systems may explain why, along with pain relief, chiropractors regularly witness improvements in respiratory function, digestion, and blood pressure levels in patients beginning chiropractic care. Adjustments down-regulate the sympathetic nervous system, our flight or fight response, which is overactive in many with excessive stress. When the sympathetic nervous system is active, it causes increased heart rate, shallowed breathing, and decreased digestion in the gut, which is great in an emergency, but not where you want to live. Sympathetic overactivity is also associated with decreased immune function because one’s resources are geared toward defending against more immediate physical threats than pathogens. This may contribute to why many observe a decrease in sicknesses, like colds and flus, with chiropractic.
