3 Little Known Ways to Use Chiropractic to Break Free from Stress

Whether or not you think stress is impacting you, it is! And, if you firmly believe that stress is affecting you the impact is likely much greater than you imagine. As you will discover shortly, stress is so much greater that we’ve been taught. 

It’s estimated that as much as 90% of illness and disease is stress related. And, the CDC estimates that stress accounts for 75% of all doctors visits. Stress impacts every system of the body negatively. 

The challenge is that in the early stages of stress it can actually feel good. It can be energizing, focusing, motivating. And, if it were only occasional and episodic it wouldn’t be an issue. But, it isn’t and let’s explore why. 

The Nervous System and Stress

There is a part of your nervous system that runs all your internal functions without your awareness. This includes breathing, heart rate, blood pressure, hormones, neurotransmitters, enzymes, digestion, immune system, etc. 

There are two divisions to this part of the nervous system:

  • Sympathetic “Fight-or-Flight” System (SNS)
  • Parasympathetic “Rest and Digest” System, also called the Vagus Nerve

The Sympathetic Nervous System

The Sympathetic System has been tasked with survival. It mobilizes all the resources of the body in preparation to fight or flee for one’s life. This was essential generations ago when we periodically encountered threats to our survival. 

When the Sympathetic System is activated it:

  • Raises Heart Rate and Blood Pressure
  • Impairs Digestion
  • Impairs Sleep
  • Impairs Immune Response
  • Raises Inflammation
  • Raises Stress Hormones

Those threats are few and far between in modern life so the Sympathetic System should rarely get fully activated. But, that’s not the case.

We encounter many stimuli or triggers in daily life that our nervous system interprets as a threat. You see it doesn’t have to be a real threat, just one that our nervous system perceives as a threat. 

Why would that happen?

The reality is that our nervous system can’t keep up with the changes in our world. It takes about 2000 years for the body to change appreciably and our has changed radically over the past 50 years. 

Think about this…

  • The light bulb was invented in 1879, before that the only lights humans were exposed to were fire and sun.
  • Computers, cell phones, tablets
  • Cars
  • Airplanes
  • The nature of work

We have a tendency to think of stress as emotional or psychological but the reality is that stress is any trigger that activates our Sympathetic System. 

The consequence of modern life is that the Sympathetic System gets activated so often that many of us begin to live in a state of perpetual Sympathetic Dominance. When the Sympathetic System is over activated we also experience a lowering of the Parasympathetic System or Vagus Nerve. 

Parasympathetic Vagus Nerve System

The Vagus Nerve’s role is to support your ongoing health and well-being. A healthy Vagus Nerve supports:

  • Lowered Heart Rate and Blood Pressure
  • Healthy Digestion
  • Healthy Immune Response
  • Rest and Recovery
  • Healing
  • Restorative Sleep
  • Lowered Inflammation

When the Sympathetic System becomes dominant the long term impact is in the inhibition of the Vagus Nerve. When you experience long term lowering of immune response along with elevated heart rate, poor sleep, higher inflammation, poor recovery and immune response the impact on your health is inevitable. 

This is why 90% of all illness and disease is stress related!

Activation of the Sympathetic System creates an environment for health to decline. This is the true cost of stress. 

Here’s a post I did: Vagus is the Highway to Wellness

Using Chiropractic to Break Free from Stress

Let’s explore how chiropractic can help change the impact of stress on your body. When the Sympathetic System is activated it causes increased muscle tension, especially through the neck and shoulders. 

The upper neck can get locked and the top vertebrae stuck out of position. This puts pressure on the brain stem and irritates the Vagus Nerve. The goal of chiropractic is to eliminate nervous system tension and interference. 

#1 – Upper Cervical Spine – The upper cervical spine is of critical importance to how you process and manage stress. At the top of the neck is the brain stem, home of the autonomic nervous system – Sympathetic and Vagus Nerve – and the most common source of irritation to the Vagus Nerve. 

The Vagus Nerve runs right in front of the C1 vertebra and any misalignment is a source of interference to the function of the Vagus. The upper neck supports the 11 lb weight of the head and imbalance here increases the tension of the upper neck muscles in their attempt to balance that weight. 

Balancing the Occiput, Atlas, and Axis of the upper neck is vital to reducing the baseline level of stress in the nervous system. 

#2 – Spinal Balance – There is an intimate relationship between structure and function. When your structure is out of balance it causes a series of adaptations and compensations, all in an attempt to maintain as much balance as possible. 

Your pelvis, shoulders, and head should be level from the front and back, and your head should be right over your shoulders. Any significant deviations from this puts tension on the nervous system and causes muscles to spasm in an attempt to maintain as much balance as possible. 

Correcting this means restoring joint balance from the pelvis up to the upper cervical spine. Because of attachments to the covering of the spinal cord the pelvis and cervical spine are priorities and often lead to correction of other compensations. 

This balance involves everything moving properly in addition to being in alignment. 

#3 – Vagus Nerve Activation – Long standing over activation of the sympathetic system suppresses the Vagus Nerve. Removing tension and interference is a great start but most people benefit from actively raising the tone of their Vagus Nerve. 

We live in a soup of triggers that activate the Sympathetic Nervous System. We can’t really avoid the majority of those triggers but we can change how our nervous system responds to them. Strengthening the Vagus Nerve can transform your relationship with stress.

This leads to what I call resilience. This is the state where stress triggers push you off balance but your system is so strong that you immediately return to balance. 

If your focus is solely on Vagus Nerve Activation you will benefit greatly but it is a much longer and more difficult path to take without correcting the underlying structural and functional sources of nerve interference. If you don’t correct the imbalances we’ve discussed they will continue to be an internal driver of stress even as you work to change your response to stress. 

Chiropractic care that is focused on correction and balancing, with special attention to the pelvis and cervical spine will help dissipate years of stored stress and tension. This alone will bring much greater ease to your body. 

Even before implementing Vagus Nerve training people notice a dramatic reduction in tension, more ease, better breathing, improved sleep, better digestion and more. Over time this continues to improve and activating the Vagus Nerve is like locking in these gains. 

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