Everyone knows 2020 was a tough year - but do you know the physical effects of stress on your body? Here’s how chiropractic can help relieve your stressed out nervous system.

The Physical Effects of Stress

First, realize that all stress is stressful! Our body doesn’t differentiate between a tension-filled job and a near-death experience. It triggers adrenaline, cortisol and epinephrine to prepare you to fight or flee, (though you’ll get a bigger response for a bigger threat.)

These stress hormones accelerate your heart rate, increase blood flow to the muscles, speed up your breath rate and elevate your blood pressure.

It’s important to be able to go into this “fight or flight,” or sympathetic state, when needed. But you also need to switch it off. Just like you need to rev an car engine occasionally, but not the entire time you’re driving.

If chronically stressed, not only will you burn out, but other systems suffer. Your body reduces and shuts down various functions when it's in fight or flight, including digestion, waste elimination, the immune system and healing.

Have you had a day (or season of life) where you felt revved up on stress and couldn’t just chill out?

How Chiropractic Helps You Adapt to Stress

We need to get back to a parasympathetic state, where our bodies can restore, rest and digest. This is where chiropractic comes in; it helps our body’s adaptability.

When you’re healthy, your body can switch easily between fight or flight and rest and digest, adapting to what the situation calls for.

Sometimes, your body has trouble adapting to trauma, toxins or thoughts (physical, chemical and mental stressors). This leads to inflammation, disease and even misalignment of your spine.

Chiropractic moves the bones back into alignment so they aren’t putting pressure on the nerves. This is especially important in the upper cervical vertebrae that surround the brain stem, where a lot of our stress responses originate.

When the nerves can freely send their messages, our nervous system can adapt from stress to rest more easily. It can also start to heal and repair the damage done due to stress.

It's not stress that kills us, it is our reaction to it,” said Dr. Hans Selye in his book The Stress of Life.

We’d love to show you how you could feel and function better with chiropractic.

What OneHealth Chiropractic Edmond Offers

Dr. Vernon Millspaugh has been helping people with specific chiropractic adjustments for over 20 years.

Many patients find that their physical AND mental stress goes down while under chiropractic care. They begin sleeping better, digesting better and function optimally.

We also have talented massage therapists to help your muscles and tissues to relax and give you a moment of peace, as well.

If you are local to the Oklahoma City and Edmond, Oklahoma area, our OneHealth Chiropractic Edmond team would love to serve you.

We offer a complimentary consultation to answer any questions! Give us a call at (405) 478-1507.

We are located at 3012 E Memorial Rd, Edmond, OK 73013. If you’re not local, give us a call and we can try to help locate a great chiropractor near you.

Follow us on Instagram @onehealthedmond and Like our Facebook page for more information and updates.

What Our Patients Say:

"I was in constant back pain until I came in contact with OneHealth at a health fair at work! I went in for a consult and the rest is a blessing! My back is better than I expected and continues to get even better!!"

- Mel F.

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References:

https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/understanding-the-stress-response