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.