How Chiropractic Care Can Help You Reach Your Wellness Goals

Getting up at dawn to run with the dog only to get tugged and tangled in three leashes? Taking a conference call en route to piano lessons while feeding your back seat boss? Booking appointments while scouring the produce aisle for the crunchiest grapes (you know they’re gonna spill…) It may be time to prevent your octopus-worthy multi-task habit from stretching and twisting you into painful knots — and time to check in with your chiropractor. 

Doctors of Chiropractic focus on preventing the pain and inflammation that can lead to serious injury by promoting overall health and wellness via adjustments and active therapies. 

Fun Facts About Chiropractic

If you’re one of the 35 million Americans who already visit a Doctor of Chiropractic (DC) regularly you know the benefits of chiropractic for neck pain, chiropractic for shoulder pain, for headache disruptions and, most commonly, low back pain chiropractic transformations. But did you know that chiropractic can also help prevent or reduce pain, stiffness and inflammation before they develop into debilitating injuries?  

These fun facts about chiropractic shed light on how chiropractic care can support you in your wellness journey and help you feel your best.

• The chiropractic profession was founded to prioritize “maintaining health” over “treating disease” 
• All 32 National Football League teams have a chiropractor on staff to improve performance and promote wellness
• To uncover the root cause of your pain, DCs consider your age, medical history, lifestyle and goals before personalizing your care plan 

Benefits You Can Expect from Chiropractic Adjustments and Active Therapies

Beginning your wellness journey before serious conditions arise can lead you to optimal function and joy of movement sooner and more efficiently.  How long will it take?  That will depend on how well your DC personalizes your care plan and how thoroughly you follow it. Together, you’ll likely be able to:

What’s likely causing your shooting, throbbing or jabbing pain? A misaligned vertebrae or compressed joint that’s putting pressure on your nerves. So, when your DC uses hands or a small instrument to apply quick, targeted force to one (or more) of your joints it encourages your body to re-align into its natural position.   

Multiple studies have demonstrated that this relieves nerve pressure and improves your mobility — so multi-tasking is no longer such a dangerous act. 

After delivering your adjustments to realign its natural curve, your Chiro One doctor will help you maintain that alignment by prescribing active therapies proven to: 

• Enhance your mobility 
• Improve your flexibility 
• More evenly distribute the physical stress you put on your body 

This will save wear and tear on your joints and muscles and save them energy it takes to function in suboptimal positions — all helping to reduce your risk of overuse injury. 

Your vertebrae enable you to sit, stand, walk, bend, crawl, twist and turn while protecting your spinal cord. They also serve as the exit route for your peripheral nerves which travel and send messages between your joints and muscles (musculoskeletal system) and your brain and spinal cord (nervous system — your head-to-toe master control center).  

When your spine is misaligned and your nerves compressed, those messages can’t get where they’re supposed to go. Just like losing Wi-Fi causes all your home systems to go down, losing nervous system function disrupts all your other body systems. Misalignments can lead to inflammation and irritation (of muscles and mind). 

When you’re aligned and functioning optimally, your biochemicals (hormones like the stress regulator oxytocin, insulin, progesterone, testosterone and estrogen) are balanced too, so you feel better about life.  

International research has been demonstrating this for years. For example, getting adjusted can increase your levels of neurotensin — a peptide that regulates your sleep, pain perception and appetite. 

When your nerves become increasingly kinked, it can cause your brain to send pain messages, which can disrupt other body systems and functions like sleep, appetite and even mood.  

Preventing costly disorders in all your systems is a team sport — your provider may guide you, but you must follow through. Chiro One DCs will ask which of the above goals you intend to pursue before deciding which adjustments and active therapies can help you achieve them. 

How Your Customized Care Plan Works

Whether you’re seeking chiropractic for neck pain, chiropractic for shoulder pain, or back pain chiropractic solutions, understanding a bit about your treatments will make you feel more comfortable and confident about getting adjusted.

To resolve your pain, enhance your mobility and improve your function your DC will customize these 3 critical elements of your care plan:

1. Gentle Targeted Adjustments 
   
   
   That quick, targeted force your DC applies to your joints and spine comes in various forms: 
   • Toggle drop: pressing crossed hands and applying quick thrusts firmly on the affected area of your spine to help improve mobility in your vertebral joints
   • Lumbar roll: realigning the spine by applying a quick thrust to the misaligned vertebra while you lie on their side
   • Release work: applying gentle manual pressure to gently separate compressed vertebra 
   • Table adjustment: a specialized table with drop down sections allows your DC to: 
     • Target specific misaligned areas
     • Apply quick pressure at the same time the section drops
     • Deliver more gentle adjustments without twisting the body
     • Leverage the force of gravity to amplify the adjustment
       
2. Active Therapies 
   
   
   After getting adjusted, you’ll want to reinforce the effect of your DC’s gentle realignment techniques.  Depending on your condition or dysfunction, you’ll be assigned active therapies which your care team will supervise the following: 
   • Wobble therapy: to relieve pain by increasing low back range of motion, hydrating lumbar discs and strengthening spine musculature stability you’ll sit in a wobble chair while raising your hips up and down without moving your upper body to promote “active sitting”
   • Wall therapy: to strengthen specific back and neck muscles you’ll repeat targeted lifts and stretches while standing against a wall in your clinic
   • Precor stretcher therapy: stretching to improve flexibility, coordination and overall athletic performance targeted key muscle groups like the lower back, hamstrings, gluteal, hips, legs, back, inner thighs, groin, upper back, shoulders, and quadriceps 
   • Floor Exercises Using These Proven Tools:
     • Foam roller to improve circulation, flexibility, and range of motion; to correct muscular imbalances, to eliminate lactic acid; or to ease trigger points and fibrotic adhesions you may be assigned a protocol of highly targeted foam roller exercises  
     • Exercise ball to relieve back pain and engage your core muscles including those in your deep back, abdominal, and pelvic floor to improve your posture 
     • Resistance band to improve strength, size, and function of muscle 
   • Traction therapies: for your unique cervical, thoracic or lumbar spine needs, you may be prescribed one or more of these:
     • Seated traction: to relieve pain by taking pressure off your discs and restoring the natural curve of your spine, you’ll be asked to sit in a sturdy, comfortable cervical decompression chair for a condition-specific number of minutes (which usually increase as your care plan progresses) 
     • Walking traction: to relieve pressure, pain and stress you’ll walk around the clinic wearing a cervical traction device which creates space between compressed vertebrae to relax stiff, strained muscles 
     • Laying traction: by reversing gravity’s effect on the spine, this therapy relieves neck pain and back pain by stretching and realigning the spine 
       
       
3. At Home Exercises 
   
   After seeing how you’re progressing with your in-clinic active therapies protocol, your DC will determine which type of at-home exercise routine can support it.  Doing these prescribed exercises daily can enhance your flexibility, mobility and posture — turning them into wellness habits you don’t even have to think about.
   
   Your DC will also teach you new ways of sitting, standing and moving to gradually encourage the kind of spine alignment you need to live the lifestyle you want.  

Simple Spinal Hygiene Exercises To Do Between Appointments

You feel so good after a visit with your DC. Wish you could replicate that feeling any time? You can get close by doing some at-home exercises until your return to the clinic and your supervised active therapies. 

Whenever you’re stressed, stiff or achy, take a break and enjoy these simple stretches to refresh body and mind. 

The Tilting Star 

• Stand with your feet shoulder width apart 
• Reach your right hand over your left shoulder and bend as far as you can 
• Repeat 5 times then switch sides 

The Twisting Star 

• Stand with your feet shoulder width apart 
• Raise your right knee up to meet your left elbow 
• Raise your left knee up to meet your right elbow 
• Repeat 10 times 

The Spinning Star 

• Stand with your feet shoulder width apart 
• Lift your arms out to your sides at shoulder height 
• Spin as far to the right as you can 
• Spin as far to the left as you can 
• Repeat 10 times 

Health and Wellness Quotes From Chiropractors Who Change Lives

We get it. Researching, booking and attending an appointment with a wellness chiropractor takes time and energy out of your already crazy-busy day.  Sometimes you just need a tiny bit of inspiration to rev up your motivation. Hundreds of our blog visitors search for quotes like this one every month. 

Ready to Take your Wellness Goals into Your Own Hands Naturally? 

Check in with your nearest Chiro One doc at one of our welcoming open-plan clinics across the country. They’ll perform a thorough exam to investigate the root cause of your pain, then personalize your care plan — a combination of gentle chiropractic adjustments and active therapies to help you feel better longer.

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