Modern life has never been more stressful. How chiropractic can help with physical, emotional, and chemical stress in your life? By improving your adaptability within your body to that stress.

Whether you’re a parent, employee, or student, you’re never going to entirely evade challenges and difficulties. That’s life! A little stress in life can be good to challenge you and help you become stronger.

But busy workdays, crazy schedules, and hectic home life can really build up, affecting both your mind and your body.

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Sources of Stress

• Physical stress 
  • Birth trauma
  • Car accidents 
  • Falls 
  • Repetitive movements & postures
  • Sedentary lifestyle
• Emotional stress 
  • Relationships 
  • Workplace  
  • Grief 
  • Abuse 
  • Chronic illness
  • Overwhelm
  • Anxiety & depression
• Chemical stress 
  • Environmental
  • Nutritional
  • Pharmaceutical 

These stressors all affect the spine in different ways, often causing it to become subluxated. This decreases the nervous system’s adaptability and can keep you stuck in a “fight, flight, or freeze” response.

Getting help to manage stress is very important in achieving a healthy lifestyle. Self-care isn’t just facials and bubble baths; identify which of these sources is a problem for you. Maybe it’s saying no in a toxic relationship or increasing the amount of water you drink.

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Signs of Chronic Stress

• Brain fog
• Trouble concentration
• Poor memory recall
• Chronic fatigue
• Irritable bowel habits
• Rashes
• Disrupted sleeping
• Chronic pain

Chiropractic can be very helpful to reset your nervous system to achieve a “rest and digest” parasympathetic state. In turn, this helps an overactive mind to relax, get you in touch with your body and allows the body to function in that “thrive” state.

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What The Studies Say...How Chiropractic Relieves Stress

Knowing how chiropractic affects stress in the body is useful no matter your age, occupation, activity level or source of stress.

In 2019 a randomized double-blind trial studied healthy athletes who received spinal manipulative therapy versus those who received a placebo version. Those who had the real treatment were found to have a significantly lower stress score and were found to shift towards parasympathetic dominance.

This can be very useful for people because stress puts us in a sympathetic “fight or flight” response. Over time this constant stress wears down the body. The sympathetic nervous system is an important part of a healthy body but the body also needs to be able to rest and digest. Helping the body shift towards a relaxed state can help your overall wellness and stress levels.

Chiropractic can also change stress in the body physically. This is because chiropractic has neurophysiological effects. This affects the central pain pathways of the body which can cause physical stress on the body and hinder your ability to function correctly.

We see this in our office in patients who come to get adjusted after a hard day, or when they’re just “feeling off.” Often an adjustment can help them refocus their entire day! We love texts and messages later saying how good they feel after their appointment!

You may also enjoy reading, The Top 9 Reasons People Love to Get Adjusted in Crystal Lake.

Ready to have your nervous system evaluated? At Crystal Lake Family Wellness, Dr. Josh and Dr. Emily Young address the cause of your pain, not just the symptom. We believe that education is a big part of your success! Call (815) 788-7504 for an appointment or click here to schedule online.

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References:

1. Spinal Manipulative Therapy Effects in Autonomic Regulation and Exercise Performance in Recreational Healthy Athletes A Randomized Controlled Trial Valenzuela, Pedro L. MSc∗,†; Pancorbo, Sara MChiro‡; Lucia, Alejandro MD, PhD§; Germain, Francisco MD, PhD∗ SPINE: May 1, 2019 - Volume 44 - Issue 9 - p609-614 https://journals.lww.com/spinejournal/Fulltext/2019/05010/Spinal_Manipulative_Therapy_Effects_in_Autonomic.3.aspx
2. Spine J. Sep-Oct 2002;2(5):357-71. doi: 10.1016/s1529-9430(02)00400-x.
   Neurophysiological effects of spinal manipulation https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14589467/
3. Chiropr Osteopat. 2006 Oct 18;14:25. doi: 10.1186/1746-1340-14-25. The organization of the stress response, and its relevance to chiropractors: a commentary https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17044942/