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– There’s no doubt that right now, the state of the world is really causing a lot of stress on all of us. Physically and emotionally. And even before all this, I think we can say that the majority of the United States we’re just overly stressed out.
– I don’t think most of us are strangers to stress and it’s almost even part of our society. Right now everyone is busy, everyone is stressed.
– Go, go, go, go. Exactly. It’s almost like a badge of honor.
– It can be sometimes, but there are some real serious underlying health implications to being stressed all the time. I’m Dr. Christy Flick.
– And am Dr. Jennifer Taylor.
– And we’re with HealthWorks: A Family Wellness Center in Plano, Texas.
– Now, did you know that stress can cause inflammation in your body? And your inflammation obviously causes pain, right? So it’s kind of like this perpetual forward motion of a pain cascade that can occur throughout your body. I mean, you can have everything from headaches to neck pain, to shoulder pain, to even stomach pain. You know, when you’re under stress, right?
– Inflammation is: most people are familiar with it when you get a cut and there’s, you know, you see the little cut, but then you see the area that’s swelling up around it and getting red. That’s inflammation. And that can happen all throughout your body. And what this research talks about is that systemic inflammation, inflammation throughout your body is increased by stress.
– Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this right here was actually put in The Frontiers of Human Neuroscience. It’s called “Inflammation, the common pathway of stress-related diseases.” So, you know, we’re just talking about pain here. But this can actually cause a lot of diseases that we see on a regular basis, everything from heart disease to even cancer.
– Yeah, yeah. And specifically in a chiropractic office where we see this is with headaches, with joint pain, low back pain, shoulder pain, neck pain, and even some things that you might not associate with the chiropractic office like dizziness when going from sitting to standing or laying down to standing. All of these can be stress-related. And the bad news is if you let that continue, you are perpetuating a disease process that just gets worse and worse and worse and that’s not okay. The good news is that you can take a two-pronged approach to stop this in your body. Number one, you can start to recognize stress and use some stress-reducing techniques in your life.
– Yeah, you know, a lot of times people find things that they do when they have the time. Hobbies they enjoy. You know, just taking a 15 minute time out during the day. But we only do that when we find the time. Well, if you’re really stressed out and again the badge of honor of being stressed out, rarely does it ever happen? I always say, put it in Sharpie on your calendar. It’s not something you mess with. This is sacred time for you. So even if it’s 15 minutes a day, that can make a big difference.
– Yeah, yeah. For me, I love to take a hot bath or in the summertime float in the pool. And those are really stress-relieving activities for me and I know everybody has something like that.
– Yeah, so find yours. That’s it? That’s the first.
– Yeah, find yours. And then the second thing is that a chiropractic adjustment can help to relieve physical stress from the body, which reduces your overall stress load. So sometimes we might have a stressful job or a stressful family situation that we can’t entirely control, but what we can control all of the other factors that are adding to the stress in our life. So if you have stress in the vertebral column in your spine, it acts as your overall stress load. And so with a chiropractic adjustment, what we’re doing is taking some of that stress out of your body. So that your body can function better. And your overall stress load is reduced.
– Yeah, you’re able to handle more because you’re taking away some of the things that you can’t control.
– You have increased capacity.
– Yeah and we all need that.
– We all need that. So, I encourage you to think about this two-prong approach. Find something, Some things in your life that, that are just relaxing for you that can help you to manage some of those stress. And number two, make sure you get your chiropractic adjustment this week.
HealthWorks: A Family Wellness Center is a chiropractic and wellness center located in Plano, Texas. Our chiropractors, Dr. Christy Flick, Dr. Jennifer Taylor, and Dr. Aanchal Mendoza have been helping patients function better since starting private practice in 2005. For information about this article or other chiropractic questions, please contact our office at 972-612-1800.