In our mainstream culture, it’s really easy to get confused about health, healing, and where it comes from. There are multiple reasons why people heal and why they don’t! It’s ultimately up to you to begin to take control of your life and health and begin to understand the factors that affect your ability to heal. Let’s evaluate some of the reasons why people don’t heal! One of the greatest missing pieces in people’s understanding is…
Chiropractic’s role:
It’s important to understand chiropractic’s role in your healing potential. In fact, its role is hugely important! Many people view chiropractic as simply the treatment of pain and conditions related to the back. This is like using your smartphone to only make phone calls! Kinda silly right? Chiropractic’s role in your health has to do with the function of the nervous system. The nervous system is your brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nerves. These structures carry out messaging to and from the organs of the body, skeletal muscle, body chemistry, immune system, and more! Literally, every system in the human body is under the influence of the nervous system! This system can be interfered with! A chiropractor's job is to locate and correct subluxations or misalignments of the spine for a better expression of communication, coordination, and function within the body. It is vital that this system is working at 100% for your benefit!
What else matters?
There are literally dozens, maybe hundreds or thousands of factors, let’s look at my favorites!
Stress!
Stress is one of the biggest causes of disease in the world because it’s not an object and you can only witness the effects of it. Because of its phantom nature, many practitioners ignore, minimize, and disregard its importance. Depression, anxiety, and suicide rates have all increased since 2020, and there is no sign of slowing. We are constantly on screens, hiding from nature, consuming too much news, and piling on stress in the forms of sugar, alcohol, caffeine, and prescription drugs. How do you lower your stress? There are many different ways, but I am a fan of these 2 practices:
- Breathing: Nasal Breathing (especially through the left nostril) assists in relaxation and an increase in parasympathetic activity (rest and digest) within the body. Try this, take 2 minutes and breathe completely through your nose for 4 counts in, and 8 counts out… how do you feel? Now do it again, do it multiple times a day until you are feeling relaxed!
- Meditation: I am a huge fan of meditation, in fact, I have an entire center called The Center at Keystone, located below Keystone Specific Chiropractic that is dedicated to meditation and ancient spiritual practices to help people de-stress, relax, and achieve greater inner awareness and peace.
Letting go of control is a big part of the healing journey too. If you are trying to micromanage every single aspect of your life perfectly…good luck, you are going to stress yourself out!
Sleep:
We’ve all had sleep issues at some point in our life. Some for only a night or two, but we can all relate to what a bad night of sleep can do. If you don’t know, ask your spouse or significant other! Many of us have either slept too much, slept too little, woken up exhausted, or found ourselves waking up multiple times a night. Approximately 35% of adults sleep less than 7 hours a night. Sleep is absolutely crucial to healing optimally. What does your body naturally want you to do if you are sick or under the weather? SLEEP! One of the best things I ever heard for people who have trouble sleeping is, to start getting up early at the same time every day!… no matter what time you go to bed this will help you get tired enough to actually fall asleep at a reasonable hour, adapt, and begin to get a good nights rest…also, no caffeine after lunch!
Toxicity:
Too much of anything can be a bad thing, and also a little bit of some things can be toxic! Added Sugar, processed foods, smoking, alcohol, prescription, and non-prescription drugs, and dehydration can all contribute to an overall toxic presentation. These factors can limit your ability to heal and repair. I’m not telling you to stop taking your medications ( talk to your medical doctor if you are looking to achieve that, hopefully, they support you in that endeavor) but you can start to take inventory of what you’re putting in your body and exposing yourself to. Saunas, sweating, hydration, and mild sun exposure can all support your detoxification process.
Negative outlook:
There are plenty of people that continuously speak negatively about themselves and their situation. I call it the “I’m too…” Syndrome. I’m too fat, unhealthy, tired, stressed, blah blah blah. All of this may be true (and it’s important to be honest), but it's going to be hard to move past the labels if you keep reassigning them to yourself. Though you may not be where you want to be in your healing journey, that’s OK. It helps if you become the first person to speak LIFE over your own SELF… and then see how people respond. Speak with authority and authenticity to the most important person in your life. YOU!
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