Medical thinking usually considers big events in our life the stressful ones, such as sudden loss of a job, a breakup of a marriage, or the death of a loved one. While, yes, those are stressful events, there are daily events that can have long term effects on us as well.

The build up of stress in our lives can cause : back pain, neck pain, headaches, migraines, sicknesses, and many other ailments. An effective way to help your body recover from stress is from chiropractic treatments. Regular chiropractic adjustments bring the alignment back into your spine and allow your nerves to send their complete signal to your brain. Once this signal is able to get through, pressure is taken off the affected nerve and the muscle/tissue attached on the other end.

Subconscious Stress

This type of stress is not just a matter of feeling. Sciatic pain from lifting heavy boxes is an example of physical stress that we can feel, but what about the stress of an upcoming car payment that we forgot about. Or wondering how we are going to afford retirement in 40 years. These may not be things that you are aware you are thinking about, but they could be living in the back of your mind when making daily life decisions.

Where Does This Stress Come From?

Stress occurs when a demand is made on an organism, and this demand exceeds the organisms capability to fulfill it. Stress occurs when there is a perceived threat to our well-being or existence. Paying rent on time, being able to feed our family, taking care of an ill family member are all examples. However, did you know that even organisms without nervous systems, such as plants, can feel this stress as well?

Example

Gabor Mate interviewed Alan in his book, “When The Body Says No”, who was diagnosed with a serious health condition of his esophagus. Alan was a non-smoker his whole life, and was very surprised by his diagnosis. Throughout his life he believed that there was good types of stress and bad types of stress. Alan’s version of good stress was the fact that he worked 11 hours a day 7 days a week. This is because he never said no to anyone. If someone needed his help, he was going to do it for them. The bad stress in his life, was the lack of intimacy in his marriage. Upon his diagnosis, Alan was given a 15% chance to live. He then decided that he needed to stop saying yes to people. Once he stopped, his body was able to fully recover from his health disorder.

How Can You Help?

There are 3 components to stress.

1. The event
2. Processing the event
3. The stress response

The personality and psychological state of the person being imposed to a stressor is almost as important as the actual stressor itself.

The 4th component in stress should be learning how to help yourself out of it. With physical and subconscious stress sometimes our bodies just need a bit of help to release it. If you are like myself, sometimes I get stressed trying to not be stressed. An awkward contradiction. One way that I personally have been able to allow stress to leave my body/tissues is through regular chiropractic adjustments. Allowing the stress to be taken off of my nervous system through chiropractic care can be life changing. If you know someone, or even you believe you can benefit from a chiropractic adjustment, don’t hesitate to give our office a call! We would love to help!