Most people understand that preventing disease makes a lot more sense than trying to recover from a chronic disease process. We hear a lot about prevention but most of us feel overwhelmed and are doing very little to protect our health. It's true there are a lot of voices sometimes telling as contradictory things to do to maintain our health.
Which one do you follow? Unfortunately a large percentage of the population feels frustrated and end up doing very little to nothing. At Keefe Clinic we attempt to stay balanced and offer direction that is attainable. Eating properly, most people realize that's important yet are unsure what that fully means. We all know exercise is important but sometimes finding the time can be difficult. Rest and relaxation or stress management is something we all understand is important to reduce the potential of health problems. Positive mental and spiritual attitudes we've heard is important. A healthy nervous system is one most of us are totally in the dark about. These five components are what we call the five laws of health. We have a pamphlet on each one of these components if you're interested in further study.
A Healthy Nervous System
What does it mean to have a healthy nervous system? Did you know your nervous system controls and coordinates everything in your body? Did you know your stomach could not digest food properly if the nervous system was not regulating and controlling it? Did you know that your heart would beat erratically if the nervous system was not controlling and coordinates it. Did you know without your nervous system's proper function you couldn't even sleep, breathe, move are have a normal existence?
We don't hear much about the importance of the nervous system, frankly because there's no pharmaceutical drug to make the nervous system function properly in each of these areas.
Your ability to be aware of yourself and your environment, to be able to think or reason is dependent on a properly functioning nervous system. Even to have a healthy sense of well-being depends on a cascade of chemical reactions that take place within a healthy nervous system. In a sense, physically, you are your nervous system. I don't mean that you're just physical; I mean that your ability to be self-aware is a function of your central nervous system. So doesn’t it make sense that if you take care of your nervous system, then you take care of your health? And did you know that the most common stress to your nervous system is misalignments of your neck and back?
Initial care for these misalignments is an intensive program of adjustments to obtain maximum balance to the spine. But due to the limitations of matter and malformations due to genetic weaknesses, a perfect spine is not possible. So after a corrective program we recommend some type of ongoing care. Though each patient is responsible for determining how they're going to take care of their health we have recommendations that we encourage patients to consider. One of those is our once a week wellness program.
Why once a week?
After a corrective program the problems that are corrected tend to stay corrected unless you hurt that section again. The problems that are left in the spine are usually related to subtle malformations that don't allow certain joints to completely lock in place. These joints are particularly sensitive to the normal stresses and strains that we put our bodies through on a 24-hour basis. Coughing, sneezing, sitting postures or poor sleeping postures are just a few of the stresses that our bodies deal with everyday. Add to that a lack of regular exercise, faulty diets and the effects on nerves and muscles of stress. These factors can cause the loss of alignment and a buildup of stress (without pain) on the nerves that are responsible for controlling our bodies. The more often that you line up your spine the less stress that will be on your nervous system. The more that your nervous system is free of stress the higher energy level that you'll experience. Your resistance will be higher, in fact it has been shown that chiropractic patients who get regular chiropractic care have an immune system that functions 200% more effectively than the average person’s on the street.
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN POSTURE AND HEALTH Roger Sperry,Ph.D. (Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1981) discovered that 90% of the brain’s activity is used to balance your body within the gravitational field of earth. If your body is mechanically distorted, it will affect the other 10% of the brain’s activity, which controls all the other body functions such as breathing, digestion and cognition. If the body framework (bone structure and spine) is misaligned it can impede or block the electrical and chemical transmissions of the nervous system, which controls all of your body’s functions. This interference to the nervous system can cause or contribute to all kinds of symptoms and illnesses (in other words, the feeling that “I am hurting or I am sick”). Published research studies indicate that when body balance is restored, the body enters a healing cycle that alleviates pain and symptoms, elevates the immune system, increases blood and oxygen circulation, normalizes nervous system communication and creates more optimum body performance (“I feel good again”).
A recent study indicated patients who receive regular chiropractic care have a higher sense of well-being and a greater ability to cope with stress. Your body will be more relaxed and thus sleep better. Better sleep will lead to a sharper mind and higher energy levels. Pretty soon you have an increasing domino effect toward better and better health.
CHIROPRACTIC CARE AND DNA REPAIR. Patient satisfaction has always driven chiropractic acceptance. Several surveys covering thousands of chiropractic participants have shown quantitative benefits to periodic long term care. They include reduced use of health care services (including hospitalizations and prescription drugs) and better sense of well-being even for seniors over 75 years of age. Geneticists in the area of ecogenetics have periodically looked at chiropractic since the late 1970s as a potential source of reducing what was called mutagen sensitivity back then. Thiol is one of the chemicals your body makes to repair damage to your DNA. A study of regular chiropractic patients in 2005 showed an increase in this DNA repair chemical compared to the general public. DNA damage leads to disease even cancer and early death. This is one of the reasons we recommend wellness care. Chiropractic helps keep your DNA healthy. But hang on: in the long-term chiropractic treatment group, the average level was 146. It was significantly higher than the control group’s average of 124. And the ill group of 90. DRUGS CAN'T DO THAT.
I believe in wellness care and have followed once a week adjustments for over 40 years. I can tell you from personal experience it makes a huge difference. That's why we offer a 50% discount to encourage patients to choose the highest level of health. You can decide to come in less often. Or you can decide to wait until your body hurts or have some other symptom before you seek care. The choice is yours. We hope you pick wellness. And quite frankly so does your body.
The choice is yours.
Your health is your responsibility. Good choices or bad choices, you have to pay the Piper.
