Quite simply it’s an accumulation of physical, chemical and emotional stress over time. Now that may not be the answer we expect or want to hear, because we want to know what we can do differently to change moving forward. But I can tell you it’s not just one thing, it’s many things, and an accumulation of them all over time.
We always think of the physical things we do such as sitting at a desk all day, looking down at our phones, manual labour, motor vehicle accidents, birth (that’s why we check babies and kids), the list goes on. But so easily forgotten is our emotional stress/state. That may look like old emotional trauma, whether you love or loathe your job, pressure from your family or yourself, the list is endless. I cannot tell you how important this area is! Often the emotional component will account for more of our physical state than our physical or chemical stress.
I had a woman recently who came back to see me after about 6 months of not coming into the practice. Previously we had been getting good results with her chiropractic care, it was taking longer than we would have liked and it was gradual, and I could clearly see that there was a big emotional/stress component which was slowing down her healing, and many times she mentioned how much she hated her job but was too scared to leave. Covid happened, she found a new job and when she came back in recently, the difference was phenomenal! I said to her after doing her re-testing to see where she was at when she came in “You are doing better now than I’ve ever seen you do and you have been away for 6 months! What’s different?….Turns out of course, that she left the job she hated and got a new one.
Her body feels and is completely different (to me and to her), and now we don’t have to see her nearly as often to tune her up!
It all comes back to the physical, chemical and emotional stress.
Chiropractic helps to increase RESILIENCE within your system so you adapt better to those stresses and helps to unwind previous stress in your system. Increasing your awareness around the P/C/E stresses in your life where possible helps to create positive CHANGE and help your body thrive not just now, but in the future.
-Dr Katelyn Boucher
Chiropractor