The Attitude Adjustment
Did you know that chiropractic care can quite literally help change your attitude and outlook on life?
Depression is not uncommon today. According to the World Health Organization, an estimated 5% of adults and 5.7% of adults over age 60 experience depression, and is about 50% more common among women than among men.
While back and neck pain are prominent reasons people seek chiropractic care, adjustments have also been shown to give patients relief from anxiety, sleeplessness, agitation and other symptoms of depression. Interestingly, pain and depression have similar neurological pathways in the brain and spinal cord, and often occur together. Both are dysfunctions involving the nervous system, the body’s central control. Depression is closely related to imbalances in the activity of the autonomic nervous system – the part under unconscious control – which is the chiropractic wheelhouse! The fact that chiropractic adjustments stimulate and correct dysfunctions in the autonomic nervous system helps explain why research (and many patient stories!) shows how chiropractic can help both pain and depression. Adjustments cause the body to release various neurotrophins: specialized proteins designed to regulate the life, health and function of nerve cells, among other things. And some of these neurotrophins are the same chemicals essential in the treatment of depression! For example, depression is associated with lower levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor, which also regulates blood sugar metabolism and maintains specialized β cells in the pancreas, and neurotrophic growth factor, which coordinates the life-cycle of nerve cells and aids the immune system. These are just two of the many natural chemical compounds regulated by the nervous system.
Getting regular chiropractic checkups helps the nervous system better maintain and calm itself, reduce inflammation and of course stimulate the release of those all-important neurotrophins for keeping the brain happy and healthy. Better than any happy pill, chiropractic adjustments let your body do it’s own work, naturally, to balance and heal.
Get your spine checked for an attitude adjustment!
W.H.O. statistics on depression:
“Neurobiological basis of chiropractic manipulative treatment of the spine in the care of major depression” published in Acta Biomedica 11/9/20
