How Chiropractic Can Help with Anxiety
Anxiety is widely prevalent and can negatively impact all areas of your life. You might feel like you've tried everything to help your anxiety... but have you thought about trying chiropractic? Chiropractic can help patients with anxiety by balancing the fight-or-flight response and helping the body balance its chemistry.
Chiropractic Balances the Nervous System
While anxiety can have several factors contributing to its cause, chiropractic may be able to help with the physical component. When a misalignment in the spine is present, it can interfere with our neurology and cause the body to get stuck in a fight-or-flight response. This can cause body-wide tension, racing heart, and digestive complaints, among other symptoms. Feeling stuck in a state of fight-or-flight can be very uncomfortable and exacerbate and/or contribute to anxiety. Chiropractic care balances the nervous system, helping the body regulate its fight-or-flight response so that it is only used when necessary.
Your Nervous System Regulates Your Body Chemistry
The nervous system (brain, spinal cord, and nerves) coordinates everything in the body, including our body chemistry. The glands that produce hormones and neurotransmitters in the body send and receive messages to and from the brain along our nerves. If there is a misalignment in the spine, it can interfere with the brain's ability to communicate with our glands. This means that those glands might be receiving incomplete or incorrect instructions from the brain, kind of like a game of "telephone" where the message gets translated incorrectly from one person to the next. This can mean that the gland produces something in a different amount from what the brain told it to make.
There can also be miscommunication in the opposite direction. A misalignment in the spine can interfere with the status reports that your glands and other areas of the body send to the brain. The brain uses this information to coordinate appropriate responses throughout the body. If the brain has incomplete information from the body, its instructions to the organs might also be insufficient. The brain can't fix a problem it doesn't know about! When there is interference in the communication between the brain and the glands, it can result in chemical imbalances in the body, which can contribute to anxiety and depression.
Healing from Within
Chiropractic can be part of the solution in healing anxiety by helping the body heal from within. Interested in scheduling an appointment to see if chiropractic is the right fit for you? Contact us here.
