Thursday 1 June 2017

What does Stress have to do with Spinal Subluxations?

Did you know that spinal subluxations are really at the root of bad posture?

When too much stress is perceived from either the internal or external environment, the body launches a sympathetic stress response to ensure survival.

During the sympathetic stress response the brain undergoes neurochemical changes. These neurochemical changes make us feel bad as opposed to good.

This is a good thing.

We feel anxious, worried and nervous during a stress response as a survival mechanism to flee the stressful event.

Who wants to feel good when we are ready to experience a bad event?!

We undergo a reflexive, flexion response. Like a cat arching its back, we curl up or flex the stressed spine. This flexion response causes musculoskeletal changes that lead to Spinal Subluxations.

Subluxations are musculoskeletal adaptive response mechanisms that the body has developed to deal with the stresses in the environment. Subluxations are not good or bad, but simply an adaptation mechanism. The subluxations arise from prolonged or overwhelming physical, chemical and mental/emotional and spiritual stress in the environment.

It is easy to understand how too much physical stress can cause a sympathetic response and subluxations. When we roll an ankle, the result is a sprained ankle and the rest of the body undergoes compensatory subluxations.

We can make sense of physical stress subluxations.

What is less obvious is how chemical, mental/emotional and spiritual stresses can cause a sympathetic stress response and spinal subluxations.

If stress is detected in the internal environment because of the food we just ingested, or we recycle the same negative thought(s), the body activates the same sympathetic stress response as it would if we sprained an ankle.

Remembering that the mechanical tension placed at the ligamentous attachments on the cord determines the tone of the spinal cord. This flexed posture alters the length of the cord and increases cord tension and torsion.

The change in tension and torsion on the spinal cord changes the tone of the nervous system. The increased tone changes which neurochemicals will be released from the nerves at the target tissue. The body compensates for the increased stress in the system with spinal subluxations. This is how you develop bad posture.

The spinal subluxations are the body's stress adaptive mechanism because subluxations try to change back the tension and torsion placed on the spinal cord, all in an attempt to create better tone.




Your Chiropractic Lifestyle Doctor


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