Stress
Get relief with chiropractic care. By Susan Hoffman
What is your stress? Is it being held up in traffic, bills mounting and unable to pay them, annoying relatives, frustrations at work, deadlines, e-mails, or the noisy TV filled with troubles and tragedies? Unfortunately our world is cluttered with the complexities of our industrial age, and with all the technology constantly feeding us information, it can become impossible to diminish our physical and emotional reactions.
Everyone uses the word stress, and everyone experiences it one way or another. Many illnesses are actually caused by stress, putting our bodies into a “fight or flight” syndrome, which can have physical effects on our bodies. Luckily Chiropractic care and other stress relief techniques can help us manage and process stress in a healthy way.
Chiropractors begin by working with the nerve and spinal function, both of which can be affected by 3 primary stresses - physical, chemical and emotional. Physical stress can include disease processes, organ malfunction, poor nutrition, poor sleep hygiene, and physical injury. Chemical or environmental might encompass extreme noise, weather and physical threats. Emotional is often more difficult to define but could include our reactions in thoughts and emotions to environmental and physical stressors.
What we know for sure is that stress does impact our health and wellbeing. Studies of people who have been subjected to chronic stress have found evidence of the negative health effects of stress. These include high blood pressure, damage to muscle tissue, diabetes, infertility, damage to the immune response, and slowed healing from disease and injury.
Some helpful techniques
Meditate (this helps ease anxiety)
Breathe Deeply (this will slow the heart rate and lowers blood pressure)
Be Present (slow down and focus on awareness)
Reach Out (talk with others and be available and present)
Tune into your body (mentally scan your body to get a sense of where you hold your stress)
Decompress (use a warm wrap around your neck and shoulders for 10 minutes and relax)
Write (write about things that are bothering you)
Let your feelings out (talk, laugh or cry and express anger when you need to)
Do something you enjoy (make time to do something you that gives you pleasure even if you feel that you are too busy)
Exercise (this is very helpful in managing stress)
And you may want to begin with a chiropractic appointment to assess what stressors are happening to your body. The practitioner cannot take away traffic jams, pay your bills, mend family squabbles, alleviate bad bosses, complete your deadlines or quiet our busy and noisy world, but they can help you develop healthy responses to your stresses which are potential causes of bad health and poor coping skills.
Because chronic stress can lead to nerve irritation, it is beneficial to see your chiropractor who can help release muscle tension, returning the body to a more balanced and relaxed state. Adjustments also reduce spinal nerve irritation and improve blood circulation. These changes may be enough to convince the brain to turn off the fight or flight response, beginning the process of healing.
