Everyone feels stress or anxiety sometimes. In Canada, as many as 5 million Canadians suffer from mental disorders. Sometimes, stress can be a good thing. It’s a natural physical and mental response to demanding situations, which can help improve your focus and performance when it counts. However, too much of anything can be bad for you, and stress is no different. Living with stress for long periods can cause mental issues like anxiety or depression. Over time, these mental issues can even impact your physical health.
How Anxiety Works
Anxiety is what happens when your body’s natural stress response goes into overdrive. Normally, when you’re under stress you enter fight-or-flight mode. When you encounter a potential threat (e.g. a car unexpectedly bearing down on you), the hypothalamus sets off an alarm system in your body. This system prompts the body’s adrenal glands to release certain hormones, specifically adrenaline and cortisol. Adrenaline increases your heart rate and boosts your energy supply. Meanwhile, cortisol increases sugar in the bloodstream, enhances the brain’s use of that sugar, and stimulates the availability of substances that repair tissues. Cortisol is also responsible for dampening the body’s non-essential functions in a fight-or-flight situation, like the immune or reproductive systems. What’s important to note is that the body’s stress-response system is self-limiting. Once a threat has passed, hormone levels return to normal, and the body’s processes resume regular activities.
Anxiety is what happens when this system switches on when you aren’t in a fight-or-flight situation. The uncomfortable symptoms of an anxiety attack are what the body typically uses to defend itself when under threat. That explains why your muscles go tense or why you suffer insomnia during an anxiety attack; your body thinks you’re under threat and responds appropriately.
How Does Chiropractic Help Anxiety?
As a method of treatment, chiropractic is intended to improve spinal motion. A chiropractor uses their hands to apply gentle pressure to the back and neck to stressed joints restoring mobility and improving nervous system function.
Chiropractic can be an effective treatment to address those mental ailments and their associated symptoms. Chiropractic adjustments are a noninvasive alternative to traditional treatments for anxiety and depression like therapy and medication. While not a replacement for those traditional methods, chiropractic offers a solution that works in tandem with those methods. Some of the ways chiropractic can help alleviate some of the symptoms of anxiety include:
Some ways chiropractic helps:
1. Vagal Tone Stimulation and Heart Rate Variability Improvement
Vagal Tone is a marker of how relaxed or stressed out your nervous system is.
Chiropractic has been shown in research to positively stimulate the vagus nerve by reducing stress on the the spine and thereby improving vagal tone and therefore Heart Rate Variability. When this improves, your body and state of mind improves. It shifts you out of ‘fight-or-flight’ mode to more ‘rest-digest-grow-repair’ mode.
2. Provides natural treatment
There is no denying medication works for combating anxiety, but there are some things to watch for. Many medications have side effects that can affect your quality of life. Some side effects include insomnia, weight gain, and fatigue. While these side effects aren’t as bad as anxiety itself, it’s not uncommon for those side effects to become problematic themselves. For many patients, side effects are the last thing they want to deal with while facing anxiety.
3. Lowers blood pressure
When considering anxiety and chiropractic care, it helps to remember that anxiety and blood pressure are directly connected. One symptom of the fight-or-flight response is increased heart rate, and therefore blood pressure. Like massage therapy, chiropractic is a powerful method of addressing the problem of high blood pressure due to physical stress and alleviating that symptom of anxiety. Some studies suggest that chiropractic has drastic and noticeable effects on blood pressure. On its own, chiropractic can have a positive impact on blood pressure, and if combined with other methods of treatment, you may expect significant effects on your blood pressure. Chiropractic can increase blood flow to affected areas. Aside from easing any muscle tension, this also improves circulation and makes it easier to relax.
High blood pressure also exacerbates existing symptoms, making it harder to get out of the rut once anxiety sinks its claws into you. Lowering your blood pressure helps you stay calm and relaxed, making you less likely to suffer attacks.
4. Improves sleep quality
In many ways, anxiety can be a self-perpetuating issue. One particular way that applies is in how it disrupts sleep patterns. Less sleep, and lower-quality sleep, can leave you fatigued and irritable, and more prone to further anxiety attacks. When it comes to anxiety and chiropractic, this method can also improve your ability to relax and get more quality sleep at night. Chiropractic treatments help relax the joints and muscles, reducing pain and fatigue, as well as making it easier to fall asleep. A good night’s sleep goes a long way toward improving mood and concentration in general, making you less likely to suffer anxiety attacks during the day. Furthermore, once you’ve developed some techniques to help you sleep more easily, it becomes easier to do it regularly.
5. Eases muscle tension
Chiropractic works by reducing stress on your nervous system. And since your nervous system controls your muscles – we often see muscle tension ease significantly. There is a circular momentum that comes from anxiety, muscle tension, pain, and increased anxiety. Chiropractic can help break that cycle.
6. Provides a holistic approach to health
Unlike many other treatment options, chiropractic for anxiety and depression does not actually end once you leave the clinic. Chiropractic usually does not focus on specific ailments or symptoms. Rather, it aims at aiding your health as a whole, including finding a healthy balance between body and mind. In addition to knowing how to manipulate the spine and neck, chiropractors are also trained to advise you concerning your diet, sleep patterns, exercise, and other habits. Your chiropractor will tailor your treatment according to your condition and lifestyle to find an approach that works for you. For a chiropractor, it’s not just about providing chiropractic care for your anxiety and depression, it’s also about focusing on your wellness as a whole.
Anxiety is a common ailment for a great many patients, but it isn’t one you have to live with. Treatments like chiropractic offer a holistic, non-invasive approach to dealing with anxiety. When it comes to chiropractic and anxiety, the treatment can work in tandem with your existing treatments to offer significantly more comfort than either treatment would on its own. If you’re thinking about getting chiropractic anxiety relief, consider calling a chiropractor right now.
At Fairway Chiropractic, we are dedicated to providing quality chiropractic care in Kitchener for your physical and mental ailments. Whether you’re looking for chiropractic anxiety treatments or pain relief, we have the training and empathy to address your issue and offer you relief. We’re here for you.
Give us a call at 519-748-5535 to get in touch.
