Have you ever made a stress reduction plan?
A stress reduction plan is a guide to feeling better both mentally and physically. This would look like a plan to increase meditations each day, stick to a gym routine or a promise to cut back on screen time daily. These plans are in hopes of bettering yourself from the inside out, with a focus on mental well being.
But have you ever thought about including chiropractic visits to your plan?
Chiropractors are able to help reduce stress in your body both mentally and physically. Because when you are feeling good, your mental health improves. Through the adjustment of a chiropractor, and by helping you improve your diet and nutrition, studies have shown a link leading to stress reduction.
Your brain sends messages all throughout your body for everything you do. To sit there and focus reading the article, sitting straight up and not fall over, and even to breathe and swallow. And in order for these messages to be received, your spine needs to be aligned to allow for no slow messages through the nervous system. With your back and neck aligned, this allows for messages to fight off illnesses be sent quicker through your body.
In addition, when you feel stress about your everyday life, your back contracts, forcing your spine into unnatural positions. The muscles surrounding your spine will cause it to move by contracting them constantly. This alters the shape of the spine and the nerves running through it. Visiting a chiropractor is not only treating the spine and replacing it to its normal shape, but also a great preventative measure. If you contract the muscles when stressed but see a doctor regularly then the muscles won't stay in that position forever. Regular adjustments allow for muscles to stay limber and move freely.
Oftentimes, a chiropractic adjustment is related to being similar to a massage. And where there are glaring reasons they are not the same, there is one similarity. Chiropractic adjustments treat contracted muscles and help them to relax. When you become stressed, you tense up and contract your muscles and over time you may not even know youre doing it anymore because you have become so accustomed. Getting adjustments will help receive the pressure and offer you relief. By offering relief in your muscles and surrounding joints, you'll find after relieving this stress you will move easier and feel less pain throughout the day.
Nutrition counseling is what my patients ask me for help with most often. I act as a coach and, based off of your specific lifestyle and habits, create a working plan to help you eat foods that are healthier for you. This could include different vitamins you are deficient in, recipes to help incorporate healtheroiu foods, a meal plan guide or even a list of foods to avoid based on your diet. Stress eating may feel like a great way to cope but, it is actually doing more damage than good. By eating junk food or an unbalanced diet you are putting stress on your body to process sugars and other manufactured ingredients it wasn't designed to. Pushing your body to work overtime to break down these foods will cause a strain on your digestive system. In addition, junk food fuels mood swings. With a diet heavy on sugar and carbohydrates, will cause sudan highs and drastic lows. Also called sugar highs, this will cause you to gain weight, have an explosive mood and cause you to be sluggish. This will in turn affect your relationships, how you think of yourself, and ultimately your dress levels from acting this way.
By having constant stress, this will increase the burden of allergies, and it could be in seasons you are not used to having allergies either. Stress increases inflammation and increases your histamine reaction causing you to get sick more often. When you are under a lot of stress the immune system is 'under active' -resulting in frequent colds and illness.
Allergies are commonly related to your immune system and cortisol levels. Once your adrenals have been fully exhausted by constant stress, cortisol levels drop and your immune system becomes overactive, meaning you'll have more frequent allergies. One way to avoid getting sick is to moderate your stress levels to ensure your immune system remains working optimally. Ways to moderate your stress levels would be to meditate when you begin to feel overwhelmed, or see your chiropractor to help ensure your systems are functioning properly. It is important to wash your hands frequently and to bundle up if it is cold outside in order to avoid getting sick unnecessarily. Taking an antihistamine once a day will help you fight allergies and keep them at bay- but be sure to consult your healthcare professional or nutritionist before beginning this regiment.
Allowing us to help can greatly lower your stress levels and overall health. Regular appointments and conversations with your chiropractor can result in lowered stress, happier moods, and a body moving freely with no complications!
If you feel like stress is a monster you cannot escape, that's okay! Schedule an appointment and come into my office one-on-one with me and we can discuss a plan that will work for you to help reduce your stress level.
Sincerely, Dr June Shell
