What is Chiropractic?

Before we start....

So, before we answer the question ‘What is chiropractic?’, we need to give you some information on how your body works, so bear with me.

What does your nervous system do?

EVERYTHING!

A chiropractor’s primary focus is your nervous system. Your brain and spinal cord co-ordinate everything that occurs inside your body, from controlling things you don’t think about, such as hormone production, immune system regulation, and processing all sight, sound and touch to things you do think about, such as picking up a glass of water or brushing your teeth.

How does your body let you know there's a problem?

SYMPTOMS!

Your nervous system has ways of communicating with you, such as thirst, hunger and fatigue. Your body is pretty quick to let you know when it has an immediate need for nutrition, hydration or rest. However, when your body starts to break down, or parts of your body become irritated or damaged, it’s not so good at giving instant messages, because it’s so busy coordinating everything else it does on a second-by-second, minute-by-minute or hour-by-hour basis.

If we use the analogy of an email account, immediate needs such as hunger or thirst are those urgent emails from your boss. You have to respond quickly or they will keep nagging you!

If parts of your body start to break down and degenerate due to poor posture, lack of movement or too much repetitive movement, your body doesn’t necessarily require immediate action–a bit like a colleague sending you an email to give you yet another task. You file it away to revisit another day–you’re too busy dealing with your boss’s email! Then eventually your colleague’s nagging starts to pick up pace and gets more annoying! You may experience aches, pains, numbness or tingling. This is your body forcing you to take action through symptoms.

So where does Chiropractic come in?

IT’S ALL IN THE SPINE!

Your chiropractor will assess your nervous system during the consultation process.

The nerves from your spine spread out to all areas of your body, to the organs and limbs. By checking which areas of your spine are working well and which are not–by assessing the weak points–the chiropractor knows which segments of your spine need attention.

When the nerves have interference, such as a joint that doesn’t function correctly, a chiropractic adjustment (an intervention to that specific area of the spine) can increase the flow of information from the brain to that area of the body.

The consequence of getting the joint to move and function better is that symptoms of pain, numbness and tingling decrease. So not only do you have reduced symptoms but your nervous system is also functioning better than before. It’s not just able to keep doing the second-by-second jobs, it can also answer those emails to your boss and your colleagues!