Today is Halloween, a Chiropractor’s favorite holiday. It’s the one time of the year we can cover our offices in skeletons and not seem weird. I even took the opportunity to wear my corny “I got your back” t-shirt, featuring two skeletons with one holding the other’s spine.
Chiropractors are obviously viewed as musculoskeletal and spine doctors. The majority of offices have spine posters on the wall, spines in their logos, spines in their marketing, etc. But to be honest, the real reason we focus on the spine is because it houses the nervous system. When the joints of the spine, discs, lose mobility not only does it affect the structure of our entire body, but it changes the way our nervous system works.
The spine is like armor to the neurological superhighway that is the brainstem and spinal cord. A subluxation, the area of the spine a chiropractor adjusts, is a joint that has lost its motion or changed position relative to the bone above or below. Commonly, this can feel like achiness, stiffness, or pain. The body senses this as an injury and sends swelling to the area. If not addressed, this subluxation begins to alter patterns in the mechanics in the rest of the spine and body.
Yes, the spine is important. Yes, as Chiropractors we are obsessed and love to talk about bones. More importantly is the nervous system component of subluxation. The brain is a sensory organ. It takes in information from our environment, processes that information, and sends signals to our body to respond and react. The brain also senses our internal body. When it senses stress in the form of pain, stiffness, altered motion, or subluxation, it changes the way it communicates with the rest of the body. Sensing stress is similar to sensing a threat. Oftentimes, the body will go into protection mode, or fight or flight. As a result, we see changes in heart rate variability, sleep, digestion, mental clarity, and so much more.
The nervous system controls everything in our body. Personally, I’m more obsessed with the nerves than the bones. You won’t see many, if any, spines in our advertising. The nervous system is where we do a lot of our education in our office and is the basis of explaining how chiropractic can help someone with problems that stem deeper than just back pain.
As much as I love the spine, the amazing results we see everyday at Sprout Family Chiropractic come from removing stress to the nervous system. In doing so, the body is able to do what it does naturally, heal and grow.
For over 125 years, Chiropractors have dressed up as skeletons on Halloween. As we now know though, Chiropractors truly focus on the brain and nervous system to heal. So in reality the perfect Halloween costume is not a skeleton, but a zombie!