It’s hard to not feel stress at this time of year…finances, traffic, colds and flus, Christmas gifts, holiday foods…everything seems to hit us at once! The problem is that stress causes your immune system to function poorly and that leads to getting sick and healing poorly.
My best suggestion to keep yourself healthy for the holidays? Get adjusted more often! I know what your thinking; how does keeping my spine in better alignment help with mental stress? or eating too many sweets? It’s all related to the nervous system.
First off, remember that stress comes in three forms; mental (money, relationships, job), chemical (eating junk food, chemicals in the water and air), and physical (sitting poorly, bad posture, traumas, bad joints). All of these create stress on your body. But the question is…what is stress? Turns out stress is really a change in your nervous system that leads to a change in your hormones. Specifically, all types of stress (physical, mental or chemical) increase the stress hormone, cortisol.
Here’s the cool part! Getting adjusted helps to increase the nervous system function which ultimately decreases cortisol levels! There are more joint and movement receptors in the spine than anywhere else in the body, so keeping your spine moving and functioning well is essential to your nervous system function. This explanation is what many researchers are using to explain why people who get adjusted regularly tend to get sick far less often. Simply put, they have less stress on their body, their nervous system functions better and that keeps their immune system stronger!