Trauma

Life is physically demanding and at times even traumatic. By the age of eighteen, most people have had enough stress applied to their bodies that they show imbalance. Once out of alignment, the messages between brain and body cannot be transmitted clearly. With the brain/body connection negatively altered, even more stress is generated.

The causes of physical or traumatic stress are multiple. The birth process itself can lead to misalignment. C-section, forceps delivery, and suction extraction are all immensely stressful on a baby’s spine and nervous system. Childhood accidents on the playground can easily lead to misalignment. Falling out of trees and going over the handlebars of a bicycle commonly involve head and neck injuries.

Later in life, many people tend to sit at desks, at computers, or behind the wheel of an automobile for periods of time that are longer than healthy. Others do jobs that involve a lot of repetitive motion or heavy manual labor without getting enough time to recuperate which gradually wears their body down.

Toxins

Our modern world has become increasingly toxic. Over the past seventy years or so, we have all become exposed to many new chemicals in our air, food, and water that are very stressful to our bodies. In addition, many of us voluntarily poison ourselves by using caffeine, nicotine and/or alcohol in excess. Not to mention poor dietary choices and prescription medication.  These lifestyles and habits deplete our health reserves, disrupt our body chemistry and weaken our body’s ability to heal itself.

Thoughts

Many of us suffer from increased emotional stress due to the constantly elevated pace of life created by our consumer society, mass media, and new information technologies. Our thoughts or “self-talk” can be very defeating as well. It’s been said that “attitude is everything,” and of the three “T’s” our thoughts may well deserve the most attention in making a positive and permanent life change.

Because of your body’s innate intelligence and its natural self-healing abilities, you do not completely breakdown when immediately subjected to any of these injuries or insults. But stress is cumulative and eventually breaks your body down. You have only so much energy every day to handle the regular daily functions of the body. All the unavoidable environmental, emotional, and traumatic stress uses up additional energy. Over time, the forces of stress accumulate and your body finds it harder and harder to stay in balance.

Your body will expend tremendous energy to stay in balance. This energy might otherwise be used to support your immune system and thus prevent illness. It might be used to keep your digestive system healthy so you can properly assimilate nutrition. The loss of this energy to those systems will have a negative effect on your health. If your body requires more energy to stay in balance than you can provide, then your body can no longer maintain complete balance, and you will become ill.

Getting your body and its systems back in balance so it can heal itself is our goal.