Many Americans are already thinking ahead to the new year and the goals they hope to achieve in 2022. Surveys show that most New Year’s Resolutions are health-related. Hitting the gym more often, eating healthier, and spending more time on self-care are common new year’s goals. Chiropractic care can help you meet many types of goals related to health and wellness. Here are four reasons why your chiropractor should be in on your New Year’s Resolutions.
Chiropractic Care Balances the Nervous System
Your vertebrae protect your spinal cord–the highway of the nervous system. Nerves branch out from the spinal cord to every other part of your body. The daily stresses of living can cause our vertebrae to become misaligned and put pressure on these nerves. Chiropractors call these misalignments subluxations.
Sometimes the symptoms of subluxation are obvious; you might feel burning, numbness, or tingling in your back or extremities, but often symptoms pop up that you may not immediately equate with a nervous system problem. Symptoms like frequent headaches, digestive problems, and impaired balance or coordination can all be signs that you have a subluxation that’s impacting your nervous system. Depression and anxiety can also result from nervous system misalignments. Chiropractic adjustments fix subluxations that cause these issues. Getting adjusted regularly acts as preventative healthcare and keeps subluxations from causing long-term, systematic problems.
In addition to impacting your health, spinal subluxations can also harm athletic performance. Professional sports teams keep chiropractors on contract to adjust their players because they know adjustments improve range of motion and coordination. Athletes who get adjusted regularly are also less likely to get injured. These benefits apply to any physical activity. If your New Year’s resolution is to work out more often, seeing a chiropractor can help you perform better and avoid injury.
Adjustments Prevent Chronic Pain
Every year thousands of people injure their backs and end up with chronic pain. Many of these people are prescribed addictive medications or undergo surgeries that don’t completely fix the problem. Chiropractic care can both prevent and heal injuries that cause long-term pain.
Subluxations in the spine and other issues like poor posture, lost or exaggerated spinal curves, and trauma can cause chronic pain if left untreated. Some of these common causes of chronic pain are preventable with regular care. Frequent spinal adjustments fix small subluxations before they become serious. Regular visits also give your provider the chance to evaluate your spine for curvature problems. Your chiropractor can provide therapies to correct your posture and custom orthotics to keep foot problems from affecting your back.
Trauma is not always preventable, but a healthy back will endure trauma better than a back that was already in bad shape. Getting prompt treatment after a fall or a car accident can also prevent the acute injury from turning into chronic pain. A variety of treatments are available to treat traumatic back injuries, including injuries to spinal discs. Spinal adjustment, spinal decompression therapy, and laser therapy can be used separately or as part of a treatment plan to address the structural and soft tissue damage associated with a traumatic injury.
If you are already struggling with chronic pain, there is hope for relief. Over sixty percent of patients with chronic back pain experience long-term relief after spinal decompression therapy.
Whatever your resolutions for the new year, you will be able to meet them better if you aren’t struggling with back pain.
Chiropractic Care Helps You Live a Healthier Lifestyle
In addition to providing in-office care, your chiropractor can advise you on improving your nutrition and posture. Most chiropractic care takes place outside of your provider’s office. They can advise you on how to make your workspace more ergonomic or give you exercises and stretches to do at home to correct your posture.
Chiropractors are holistic practitioners who evaluate their patients’ overall health. When appropriate, they recommend nutritional supplements or dietary changes. It’s a good idea to talk to your chiropractor if you are thinking about changing your diet or losing weight in the new year. He may even recommend weight loss as a solution to knee or hip pain.
If like many Americans, you are planning to start a new workout routine next year, your chiropractor can also be an important coach throughout that process. Your body undergoes some stress as it gets used to the increased activity. People who work out with weights and gain muscle may accidentally overbuild one part of their body. A chiropractor can help you spot this problem and correct it before it leads to a back injury. He can also advise you on postures to use when working out and on how to avoid injury.
Good Spine Health Equals a Stronger Immune System
Everyone gets sick occasionally, but frequent sick days can impact your life in a number of negative ways. Kids who miss a lot of school may not learn as well, and adults often find workplaces less than sympathetic to their health needs. Getting sick can also interrupt that new workout routine. Because chiropractic care helps align the nervous system, it improves immune function.
Studies have shown that children and adults who get adjusted once a month get sick less often than those who don’t. Its been proven that getting adjusted lowers stress levels which may contribute to the positive immune effects. Chronic stress lowers our immune function and interferes with sleep, leading to a ‘run down’ feeling and an increase in infections.
Chiropractic Care in Grand Rapids
At Burkhart Chiropractic, we spend time with our patients and help them make healthy lifestyle choices. We believe that chiropractic care is preventative health care. Our goal is to help our patients maintain health, so they don’t have to treat illness. We also have years of experience helping patients who have been injured avoid chronic pain, surgery, and dangerous prescriptions. Make a consultation today to find out how we can help you reach your New Year’s wellness goals.
