Salina Galvan Photography
Stress has a sneaky way of catching up to us. Dr Michael Poulsen from Chiropractic Life explains the importance of chiropractic when tackling stress effects on the body.
There are many causes of stress. Whether you’re dealing with issues at work or with your family or you’ve been fostering poor posture, they all have the ability to manifest themselves physically.
“Stress creates an imbalance in our autonomic nervous system,” Dr Michael says. It does this by shifting us into the ‘sympathetic’ side of the nervous system, colloquially referred to as your flight or fight response. “Increasing stress and a busy lifestyle can cause your nervous system to get stuck on that sympathetic side,” he says.
Getting ‘stuck’ on that sympathetic, flight or fight side of your nervous system causes a range of health issues, including high blood pressure, increased heart rate, high respiratory rate, decreased immune regulation and hormonal imbalances. “We also lose the physical ability to adapt to stress properly,” says Dr Michael.
“This stress, over time not only effects the nervous system but also our posture and spine. Most people come to a chiropractor for neck pain, back pain or headaches, however when we do a thorough exam we can see their nervous system is not adapting properly, which is the primary cause of their issues.” This is where the importance of chiropractic comes in. Dr Michael likens the spine to the foundation of a building – if the foundation was off, the floors would creak, the walls would crack and the windows wouldn’t close properly.
Dr Michael explains that you can spend time fixing those issues as they come up or you can fix the foundation and correct the underlying cause. “Neurostructural correction looks for the underlying, structural shifts in the spine that might be causing your foundation to be off,” he explains, “In the majority of cases there is a significant structural shift that can be causing many issues for a person.”
Neurostructural chiropractic helps to improve the balance and coordination and reduces the effects stress has on your body.
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South Australian Style Magazine 