How Chiropractic Care Can Help Relieve Your Stress
Author: Natalie Meiri, D.C. Posted: 9/10/20
We can’t avoid stress in life, but chiropractic care can help relieve your stress. Stress is defined as “a physical, chemical, or emotional factor that causes bodily or mental tension and may be a factor in disease causation” (1).
Psychosocial stress pervades modern life and is known to have an impact on health. You can experience stress from your environment, your body, and your thoughts. For instance, negative changes such as an illness, injury, job loss, or a relationship break-up can contribute. Similarly, positive changes such as a promotion, a mortgage, or the birth of a child still produce stress.
When the stress comes on, we need to keep positive, alert and motivated to adjust to changes. However, we need to avoid facing continuous challenges without relief or relaxation. If a person continues challenging themselves without relief, tension builds.
Chronic stress can lead to physical symptoms such as:
- headaches
- muscle tension in the face, neck, back
- shoulder/ chest pain
- an upset stomach
- elevated blood pressure
- exhaustion
- sexual dysfunction
- increase or loss of appetite
- problems sleeping
Emotional problems can also result from stress. These problems include depression, panic attacks, and other forms of anxiety and worry. Research suggests that stress also can bring on or worsen certain diseases.
How can Chiropractic care help ?
- Reduces muscle tension
Chronic back pain is influenced by stress. Chiropractic care can help relieve your stress and anxiety by relieving tension in the neck, back and other stress-related issues. Stress causes your muscles to tense. This impedes your posture when walking and sitting. A chiropractor helps you loosen the tension you are feeling and corrects your posture. Regular adjustments from a West Palm Beach chiropractor can help your body keep things moving freely. Adjustments will help your joints to move freely and will relieve pressure on veins, arteries, muscles, and underlying structures. The result is improved blood circulation and lymphatic system drainage.
- Optimizes nervous system function
Chiropractors utilize adjustments to your spine to help restore your autonomic nervous system and body to a natural balance. The autonomic nervous system is a control system that acts largely unconsciously and regulates bodily functions, such as the heart rate, digestion, respiratory rate, pupillary response, urination, and sexual arousal. This system has a built-in stress response that causes physiological changes to allow the body to combat stressful situations. This stress response, also known as the “fight or flight response”, is activated in case of an emergency. However, this response can become chronically activated during prolonged periods of stress. Prolonged activation of the stress response causes havoc on the body – both physical and emotional. Chiropractic adjustments sooth your irritated nerves and thereby help deactivate the “fight or flight” stress response.
- Personalized patient care
Chiropractors use natural healing solutions and guide you to develop a program to manage your stress levels unique to your life situation. These various natural strategies include manipulation/ manual therapy , diet supplementation, and homeopathic remedies. In addition, a chiropractor will give you exercise recommendations and important pointers on how to relax.
During stressful times,
chiropractic care can help relieve your stress!
In conclusion, chiropractors focus on the evaluation and treatment of neuromusculoskeletal (NMS)-based disorders. However, chiropractors also help treat the multiple potential causes of ill health including chronic stress. The chiropractor holistically views the human being as a dynamic, integrated, and complex living being who has an innate capacity for self-healing. Successfully reduce your stress and its consequences with natural chiropractic care!
Call your chiropractor serving West Palm Beach, Jupiter, North Palm Beach, and Palm Beach Gardens at 561-253-8984.
References
- “Stress.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/stress. Accessed 10 Sep. 2020.