What's in an Adjustment?

Why are you getting adjusted? To feel better? To reduce pain levels? To hear a pop? There are a multitude of reasons I will have someone walk in the door and want to be adjusted (though I will admit that pain is probably the number one reason); but what if the benefits are so much more than just pain relief? What if chiropractic care can provide something that is more than just a quick release or a quick limbering up? The reality is that chiropractic care has been shown to be extremely helpful in relieving pain and providing long-lasting relief, but it also has benefits that are over and above just some basic pain relief!

Let's start with joint mobility. Joints, like every other part of the body, require nutrition and a good blood supply to remain healthy. But they also require something else. Joints require motion! In fact, motion is as vital to a joint as air is to the lungs. Motion allows the joint to circulate fluid, receive proper nutrition and maintain its structural integrity. In fact, joints that no longer move will degenerate and often rather quickly. A joint that has undergone degeneration loses its ability to move fully and smoothly. Think of a degenerate joint like a hinge that's been left in the rain for a while. If the hinge doesn’t seize altogether, it's hard to move; it creaks and groans when you forcefully get it moving again (sound familiar?). Chiropractic adjustments work to restore a joint's full ranges of motion and, just as importantly, they work to maintain those ranges. A well-adjusted spine can be thought of as a hinge that’s regularly greased and not left out in the rain to rust.

So having great moving joints is important because it means you can use those joints for years to come. But there is still more yet, there are deeper benefits of the chiropractic adjustment as well! To understand the further benefits we must first understand something called allostatic load. Allostatic load can be defined as the sum of all the stressors your body has to deal with. The more stressors, the higher the load. As this load of stressors increases, it moves your body into a state of sympathetic dominance. This state is most commonly known as your fight or flight response. In short bursts this state is beneficial, it results in higher wakefulness and higher energy output. But this increased energy output comes at a cost, our bodies give up on their basic maintenance. Things like sleep and digestion are put on the back burner, and cellular healing is also slower to work. If we remain in this state for a few hours our bodies are able to recover fine, even a few days and our bodies can get back to healing themselves with little consequence. However, if left for weeks to months we can start to run into some real issues. Chronic stress can lead to higher sensitivity to pain, increases in headaches, insomnia, and low energy levels. So how do we combat this state of sympathetic dominance? This is where chiropractic comes in. Chiropractic care and adjustments work specifically to reduce your allostatic load. By decreasing the physical and neurological stressors on your body, chiropractic is able to help you out of this state of fight or flight. When your body is no longer feeling tension and joints are free to as they are designed, your body can better divert energy to where it is more needed.

The best thing about chiropractic is not that it gets you out of pain, the best thing about chiropractic is that it allows your body to better modulate itself and do its job properly. After all, our bodies are designed to be healthy, we just have to make sure there's nothing getting in the way. When our bodies are moving well and the joints are able to go through their full ranges, when our allostatic load is low, our bodies are able to maintain themselves and make sure we have the energy to focus on other things.

-Dr. Benjamin Davey D.C.