All humans experience stress, sometimes multiple times in a day. But if you are experiencing stress over prolonged periods, it can affect your health. The process to relieve stress is not always as simple as taking a break, dealing with stress disorders or anxiety can make it hard to feel like you are in control. While chiropractic treatment can’t cure all problems, there are studies and research that show that consistent treatment by a chiropractor can help reduce and relieve some of your daily stress.
The first step is knowing what causes you stress and what type of stress you are experiencing. Talking with a doctor about what pain you experience, what seems to make it worse, and how you want to feel, will get you on the road to feeling better, faster.
The Three Types Of Stress
Acute- This is the most common type of stress that we experience. This can occur multiple times a day and usually comes on with instances such as getting stuck in traffic, getting pulled over, arguing with a spouse, or giving a speech. This usually develops quickly and can present itself in headaches, stomach pains, or rapid heartbeat.
Episodic Acute Stress- This type of stress occurs when you frequently experience acute stress. Most “Type A” personalities or people who worry a lot are more prone to this type of stress. Experiencing episodic acute stress consistently can lead to depression or heart disease.
Chronic- Chronic stress is stress that persists over time and is constant. This can be harmful to our health and cause symptoms that are debilitating. This can be caused by abuse, poverty, a poor work environment, or dysfunctional marriage. When left untreated, people with chronic stress can develop problems like insomnia, obesity, hypertension, heart disease, and more.
Because stress can present itself in so many different ways, it also may lead to more anxiety and muscle tension. Experiencing stress puts a strain on all parts of your body. Chiropractic treatment works to help move that stress out of your physical body.
Relieve Stress From Muscle Tension
When we become stressed or nervous, we tense up our muscles. When individuals experience high amounts of stress for long periods, these muscles become harder to relax. You may also let yourself sit or stand a different way when you are experiencing stress. Over time, this puts strain on your body and your muscles may send signals to you that you are in pain and need to relieve stress and tension.
Chiropractors adjust your spine and can even work specific muscles to help your body become more balanced and relaxed.
Adjust Posture
Your posture, especially if you sit at a desk all day, can affect your spine and how your body holds tension. Because chiropractic treatment works with the spine, aligning your spine can help you to have better posture, and reduce the amount of pressure put on them.
Chiropractors can also help give you education on how to adjust your posture and what you can do when you work at a computer all day. Getting up to walk or stretch every 30 minutes can help reduce tension in your spine.
Spine Alignment
As your backbone, the spine does a lot of work to help our bodies function every day. When you tense up from stress, your spine begins to move. Chiropractors know where the proper alignment of the spine is and can help your spine be able to communicate properly with the brain. Because our spine helps us function, its proper alignment can help relieve stress, keep us from getting sick as often, and have more energy.
Massage To Help You Relax
While you may not need to go to a licensed chiropractor for this, massage helps the body relax. A massage therapist or a chiropractor can work the knots and tension out of your muscle groups and help reduce the amount of tension you feel. Massage also helps to decrease the stress hormone of cortisol. Massage can help your nervous system come back to a more relaxed state and take it out of flight or fight mode.
Advice For Outside The Office
While patients can not perform adjustments or chiropractic treatment on themselves, there are small ways that you could help alleviate some pain at home. Having a healthy diet and exercise helps your body to release good chemicals and function properly. There is also food that can help reduce stress. If your stress is also affecting your mental health or is connected, seeing a professional therapist may help to put your mind at ease, helping your body to relax as well.
Meditation, spine stretches, and relaxation techniques can also be suggested to help outside of the office. This advice can help you to sleep better and feel more relaxed throughout the day.
Elevate Wellness Chiropractic
Our team at Elevate Wellness wants to help you understand why you are experiencing pain and works to help your body heal naturally. Dealing with pain each day can be exhausting so we work with you to target the specific pain you’re feeling and get you back to better movement.
Stress is common in our world, and should not be taken lightly. We work with patients of all stress levels and help you to relax and feel more present in your body. Dr. Casey Simmonds knows the best treatment for patients of all ages and is certified in Webster’s Technique, an area of prenatal chiropractic care. Simmonds is also a member of the International Chiropractic Pediatric Association and has trained with other doctors in the EPIC Pediatrics group.
We want to help you overcome dysfunction and long-term pain. Functioning as a human can be hard enough without back, neck, or other nerve pain. Visit our office in Bountiful, UT, today and see what we can do for you. Our office is open Monday through Thursday and works with patients from young to old.