Defeating Stress with Chiropractic Care
One of the most prevalent issues during the holiday season is stress. Of course, stress isn’t a problem only during the holidays. Stress is prevalent during every day of our lives. With the speed of events, schedules, our work responsibilities, and our personal and family lives, there’s hardly a moment to pause. Most of us are living on the verge of a breakdown, only one stressful event from collapse—sadly, this is completely normal in our modern society. Fortunately, there’s a solution for that. When we’re extremely stressed, our nervous system requires support. Chiropractic care is a fantastic way to support the nervous system—it offers global healing to the entire body and focuses on balancing some of our most influential body systems. Read on to learn more about how chiropractic care can help you to defeat stress!
How Stress Influences Your Daily Life
Mental Stressors
Most of us have a to-do list that is constantly floating around in the back of our minds. This is called a “mental load,” and research shows that this can have a significant physiological impact on our bodies. In addition to the mental to-do list that we’re all carrying, which comprises our tasks, worries, random thoughts, and goals for the future, we also have very real physical stressors that affect our daily life.
Physical Stressors
Physical stressors are the literal circumstances and factors that cause a direct physical response in our bodies. Common physical stressors are commuting, sitting at a desk for a long period of time, standing for long periods of time, exercising, drinking caffeinated beverages, intense meetings, answering phone calls or emails, and rigorous physical movement. Other physical stressors are injuries and accidents, which can cause immediate stress, as well as long-term stress to the physical body if left untreated or unhealed over time.
Environments That Cause Stress
All of us will find ourselves in situations and environments that cause stress. This cannot be avoided, it’s a part of life, and if properly handled, these environments can actually help to build resilience in the body. Here are some environments that cause stress:
Work:
Work environments are the number one cause of stress for many people. This is because the work environment often has demands and responsibilities that are not necessarily flexible to your body or mind’s needs. The rhythm of the work environment can often be contradictory to the rhythm of your body, or what you need at any given time to achieve mental and physical equilibrium.
An example of this is the notorious desk job. While at first a desk job may seem like a respite, desk jobs eventually cause people to feel “chained to their desk,” unable to get up and move, walk, stretch, or pace when they need to. This can cause stress in the body.
Another example of a stressful work environment can be a fast-paced workplace where you’re always on your feet, moving from one situation to another. This is a common phenomenon in warehouses, commercial businesses, restaurants, hospitals, and customer service roles. Contrary to the desk job, this work environment can produce the challenge of not being able to rest or retreat when necessary. Jobs like this can be stressful and exhausting because they present too much of a necessity to be “on.”
Home:
The home environment can be just as stressful as the work environment, and in some instances, even more stressful. Whether it’s the responsibility of caring for family, the isolation of living alone, or the tasks required to keep a home running, the home environment can be a very stressful place.
Whether your home is full of people, you have a single roommate, or you live completely alone, each home environment presents its own unique challenges. Homes full of people can be bustling constantly with noises and social interactions. A single roommate or partner can bring varying levels of energy and stress to your environment, sometimes adding more stress. Living completely alone in isolation has its own stressors, and research shows that isolation isn’t a guarantee of stress-free living.
In addition to the social dynamics of home life, there are also the responsibilities and tasks required to make a home “run.” This can mean tasks like laundry, cooking, cleaning, repairs, installations, appliance maintenance, and more. Home environments can be high contributors to stress.
Public:
It seems like there’s no escape from stress! Between work and home is interaction with the public space. This can mean commuting, grocery shopping, running errands, visiting friends and family members, soliciting business, and recreational activities. In any context, interacting with the public can be a stressful experience. It’s common for public interactions to generate anxiety and stress, and some situations, like sitting in traffic, are known to raise blood pressure and heart rate.
Defeating Stress With Chiropractic Care
In this day and age, it’s critical to have a strategy to deal with stress and ensure that you are resilient and equipped to handle whatever life serves. For most of us, we are constantly barraged by stressful situations, and we can all benefit from extra protection from the ill-effects of stress.
While the effects of stress range, they typically manifest in the body in similar ways. Stress can exacerbate pre-existing conditions, and worsen conditions that you’re already experiencing. Here are some examples of conditions that can be created or exacerbated by stress: back pain, neck pain, headaches, migraines, GERD, acid reflux, joint pain, sciatica, fatigue, and exhaustion. Depression and anxiety are also two conditions that can be induced or worsened by stress.
Can chiropractic care help me with stress?
Absolutely! Chiropractic care can help to regulate the nervous system, which is the body’s own anti-stress machine. The nervous system is responsible for receiving and processing feedback from the world outside of you, and from the world inside of you. That means that the nervous system is the go-to intermediary between what the world gives to you and what you feel, and vice versa.
By receiving chiropractic adjustments, spinal traction, deep tissue laser therapy, spinal alignment treatment, decompression therapy, and the other powerful chiropractic interventions available at North Alabama Spine & Rehab, our patients report significant decreases in stress. They typically leave feeling more relaxed, clear-headed, and energetic. These effects can last for hours, days, and weeks, and over time can build on each other to develop a whole new way of functioning in your body.
Chiropractic Care in Huntsville and Decatur, Alabama
Chiropractic can help to build resilience in your body against stress, disorders, and disease. If you’re ready to experience the wealth of benefits that chiropractic care has to offer, Dr. Adam Shafran is prepared to create a treatment plan specifically for your needs and goals. With over twenty years of experience treating car accident injuries, falls, back pain, neck pain, and more, Dr. Shafran and his team are standing by to help you heal. Call us and book your appointment today!
