Your body is designed to work well and take care of itself, as long as you take care of it. In part, this means eating a balanced diet, exercising regularly, and getting the right amount of sleep. But sometimes you do need outside help to keep your body working at peak efficiency. Chiropractic care serves as an excellent example. Your chiropractic visits do more than crack your back. Your treatment sessions can help improve your overall body structure and health.
1. Better Posture
If you work in an office or over a machine during the day, you likely develop a slump in your workplace. Your back starts to curve, your shoulders droop forward, and soon you start feeling a bit of an ache to your torso at the end of every day. If you let it go for long, you soon discover you don’t stand or sit as tall as you used to. You can almost feel your body deteriorate around you, from your spine out to your arms and legs.
Chiropractic care helps head this off at the pass. You stretch your body out and stretch and
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straighten your back. The small curves that start to set in on you unfurl, and you soon feel your whole body relaxing as a result. The treatment soon has you standing taller, working more comfortably and moving into your evening feeling stronger than ever.
2. Better Body Movement
As you stand straighter and move through your day with your back set more correctly, you begin to see the benefits extend into other areas. One is your overall range of motion. A straighter, better aligned back gives your arms and legs a better base from which to move. You can move more comfortably and freely through your day and your whole body responds, adjusting to your centered, realigned core. Your body is meant to be flexible; designed to bounce back and recover quickly and freely from exertion.
Stiffness in the center stifles this natural state throughout the body and chiropractic care brings you back to where you should remain. Instead of movements beginning out of place, you can move your arms and legs with a fuller range of motion. Your body no longer fights itself for you to move. Everything flows in concert, and you feel better with every step and arm swing.
3. Greater Strength
Beyond flexibility, you also generate strength from your core. Personal trainers and fitness gurus explain this theory from their perspective of toning stomach and back muscles- and they are correct. However, strength runs deeper than even the muscle groups, extending to your skeletal structure underneath it all. Your spinal column and hips underlie and support the movements you make at a basic, foundational level. When your spine is misaligned, the system of bones and muscles cannot create and work in the harmony with which they were designed to act.
A chiropractic alignment returns the natural order and base of your strength. It allows your vertebrae to work together, each bone supporting and adding to the strength of the next. The result? A body working as one powerful unit, creating and building strength from the center, rather than relying on a less complete support system. You work less to do more, and have more power to use when you need to use it.
4. More Effective Nervous System
The body needs a straight, free spine for more than just physical support. Your spine protects the spinal cord, the center (with your brain) from which all communication through your nervous system emanates. If the bones contract or move out of place, that communication system works less efficiently. You cannot react as quickly or respond as well to the world around you.
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A chiropractic realignment helps return your body to peak functional capacity. The nerves no longer get pinched off or otherwise interrupted in the process of moving impulses and stimuli though the body. Your senses sharpen and work better, resulting in an improved reaction time. Your internal safety systems and mechanisms work better, and your whole body functions more smoothly. You start to heal yourself more quickly, from physical aches and pains to infections because your signaling mechanisms and pathways are more clear. You can respond to issues inside your body more quickly, and fight off issues more readily.
5. Pain Relief
In the midst of all of this, some of the symptoms that may initially drive you to a chiropractor can start to diminish. Pain does not come directly when you are not aligned properly. The body has a remarkable tolerance to small changes, and at times, big changes. This generally works to your advantage, but it has the downside of masking smaller problems and concerns until they become bigger ones. Your body starts to cover up alignment issues with shifts in posture and resiliance. By the time you feel the discomfort, you have likely shifted dramatically out of place.
Because of this, expecting immediate relief from chiropractic treatment may be setting yourself up for disappointment. You sometimes do feel instantaneous improvement, but the more likely scenario is to feel your physical symptoms gradually improve. With the help from your body, time heals. Maintaining your body to help it do its job more effectively goes a long way toward making your life more comfortable.
Your body can do amazing things for you if you let it. Unfortunately, the stress and the wear and tear we put it through over time can diminish its effectiveness in handling everyday experiences and events. When you take the time and effort to maintain your physical condition, you free your body up to do the things it was meant to do: support, protect, and take care of itself. We are remarkable beings, designed to achieve incredible things both mentally and physically. Chiropractic care helps you maintain your body, as a support system and a base for everything else that you do.
This blog, by Health Quest Chiropractic, was originally published here.
