Is stress really the problem? We all talk about it! It is a daily challenge! It affects all aspects of our lives! But what do we really know about stress?

The most important aspect is that stress is the body’s response to a stressor. While you express that you are stressed in or about your life, the important factors are discovering what your stressors are. Then you learn how to improve your stress response to those stressors. Stress will always be part of our life; however, we can always learn how to deal with it better. In order to take it to the next level is to learn how to undo the damage that we have created in our past.

The fact is, your stress response is controlled by your nervous system. Various physiological states such as: alert response, fight/flight, relaxed, drowsiness, light sleep and deep sleep, are directly controlled by the nervous system. When the physiological state is inappropriate for the external environment, we have a dangerous stress situation.

An example: let’s say that you are involved in a “near miss” automobile accident - your nervous system would normally stimulate your physical response up to fight/flight, a high activity level.

A neurological response, would normally include brain activity at a high frequency; hand temperatures would drop below the ideal of 95 degrees Fahrenheit; respiration rate would increase above the norm of 12 to 15 breaths per minute; muscle activity would tighten (especially in the neck and head region); heart rate would increase above the normal 60 beats per minute; and other even more damaging responses, such as the release of adrenalin (that terrible shaking weak knee feeling) and cortisol.

All of these responses are normal during the life threatening event, even though they are very demanding on the body. The real problem starts with the duration of the threat response beyond the immediate need. If this highly aroused state remains in effect and the body does not return to a normal relaxed state in a short period of time, it creates severe damage to the normal function of the body’s systems.

The Nervous system starts to get out of balance and then reads everything as a threat. The system can then continue to go into an over attack mode or shut down to protect itself. One leads to an exhausted nervous system; the other to withdrawal and depression. The unbalanced stats lead to other health consequences which today we call disease. Your stress response is the all important factor in your past, present and future health.

The real challenge of the stress response is that you are wonderfully made as individuals with your own unique response mechanisms and while we may know the ideal responses, it doesn’t mean that everyone follows the rules.

An example of bending the rules is the ADD response. Attention Deficit Disorder has gained much publicity in the last few years but is still greatly misunderstood. It is not, as presented, a challenge of an overactive nervous system, but rather an under-active nervous system, so that instead of the nervous system moving into high brain activity (Beta or flight/fight response) it drops into the light sleep/subconscious response (Theta). In other words, this nervous system is so unbalanced that it is stuck in withdrawal, light sleep mode all the time - it wants to shut down. The individual needs further alternative stimulation (Ritalin is a stimulant) to remain alert. This is like putting gasoline on a fire to keep it burning - not the best way to solve the problem. There is a direct link between Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and ADD response patterns. ADD children grow up to be ADD adults.

This is where chiropractic comes in. The public’s misconception of what the Chiropractic Adjustment does is the greatest challenge of the Chiropractic profession. Most people think that the adjustment moves joints and/or bones. While that appears to be what we do, it is far from the real benefit of the Chiropractic Adjustment. The adjustment stimulates a complex nervous system response. The important factor is that the adjustment has the power to alter the body’s physiology so that it can return to a normal healthy state. We are able to demonstrate this with pre-care and post-care stress tests (SREs). At Chiropractic Today, we can now prove what Chiropractic has been doing for the last 100 years - helping the body’s nervous system restore natural balance and healthier function.

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