Can Chiropractic Care Help With Stress?

August 13, 2022

Stress is a part of everyone's life and a small amount of stress isn't necessarily harmful and can in fact be beneficial in many situations (e.g. before an exam or sports game). Chronic stress, on the other hand, can have a negative effect on your mental health and can even have serious physical health consequences. There are a variety of methods that you can use to reduce your stress levels and chiropractic care can be an excellent source of both practical hands-on treatments and personalized advice.

What is stress?

Stress is your body's natural response to a potentially harmful or dangerous situation. In our evolutionary history, these types of situations would often involve facing a dangerous foe that you would either need to defend yourself against or to be able to run away from. And this is reflected in the way our bodies respond to perceived stress.

When you encounter a stressful situation, your body goes through several powerful processes, triggered by a hormonal response of releasing epinephrine. These processes are known as the "fight-or-flight" response and they prepare your body to survive against something life-threatening. These include:

• increased heart and breathing rate to push oxygen to the muscles and vital organs

• pupil dilation for greater alertness

• tightening of the muscles for increased strength and speed

• extra oxygen sent to the brain

• release of glucose and fats from their temporary stores for extra energy

Your body will also temporarily divert energy from bodily processes such as the digestive and reproductive systems to allow as much energy to be put towards dealing with the threat. After this initial rush of hormones and the threat has subsided, a secondary hormonal response which triggers the body to relax from its stress response.

What happens during chronic stress?

In the modern world, the threats that we face are very different from those our ancient ancestors were likely to come across. Rather than the threat being defeated or being able to escape from it, many of the situations we encounter that trigger our stress response are long-term. This can be anything from a difficult work environment to living in an unpleasant area or dealing with financial worries.

Our bodies, unfortunately, deal with these modern threats in exactly the same way as if they were a threat from our ancient past. But the response isn't designed to cope with long-term stress and this shows in the effect on our bodies when we are stuck in a flight-or-fight response without being able to go into the second relaxation stage.

If you suspect you are living with chronic stress, you might be encountering some of these symptoms:

Physical symptoms

• Pain from constant muscle tension, including headaches and muscles aches/pains

• Nervousness

• Chest pain

• Digestive problems

• Problems with sexual desire and performance

• Insomnia

• A lowered immune system, which can show in increased viral infections

• Clenching of the jaw

• Fatigue

Emotional and cognitive symptoms

• Uncontrolled worrying

• Feeling overwhelmed

• Irritation and frustration

• Depressive symptoms

• Difficulty relaxing

• Forgetfulness

• Problems with attention and focus

• Fidgeting and nail-biting

• Increased use of alcohol, smoking, or drug use

• Avoidance of people and responsibilities

• Appetite changes

Over time, these physical and mental symptoms can start to have a serious impact on our health, and some of these issues can even be life-threatening. This can include menstrual changes and sexual dysfunction, mental health issues such as depression and anxiety, gastrointestinal problems, obesity and eating disorders, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.