What does it mean to be healthy? Does being in “good” health mean your body doesn’t hurt? That you aren’t coughing up a lung or trying to catch a runny nose? Does it mean that you eat a balanced diet with all the right amounts of vegetables instead of heaps of ice-cream for dinner? Does it include running, walking, biking, climbing, or swimming every day? Your definition of health might very well include some or all of these things, but I’m going to challenge you to think about one other aspect of health that is arguably the most important, but most overlooked: being “healthy” is based on your body functioning the way it was intended to function. Unlike the statements I previously mentioned about the definition of health, this new aspect may be expressed with the runny nose, cough, a fever, or even vomiting.

 At this point, your brain is probably screaming, “Stop reading! This person has no idea what she is talking about! That is the opposite of being healthy!” But, consider the alternate definition of health I presented and relate it to the “unhealthy” symptoms. Aren’t those examples of your body doing exactly what it was created to do? We cough or vomit to remove some kind of foreign bacteria that doesn’t belong inside our bodies. We get a fever because bacteria can’t live in the overheated environment created by the increase in our body temperature. Our bodies are total geniuses! They were created to sustain us and thrive. They know when something is out of order and usually how to correct it. The symptoms it chooses to express are like the fire alarm signaling to us that there’s a problem, but that the body is on it. Cool, right?! But, how does this relate to chiropractic?

Chiropractic adjustments, in simple terms, allow the body to communicate with the brain and the brain with the body through the nervous system. The nervous system is housed in the spine and reaches out through nerves to connect every cell, tissue, and organ to the brain. The nervous system is the reason why we can cut our foot on a piece of glass, register the pain, sense the bleeding and begin to clot and heal the wound almost instantaneously without us needing to think specific instructions. Chiropractic adjustments free the nervous system of any roadblocks that may interfere with any of this communication. Pretty important stuff, right? Chiropractic isn’t just about getting rid of neck or back pain. It is about hearing the fire alarms of the body going off and finding the cause of the fire instead of taking out the batteries. It is about unkinking the body’s water hose so the water (or in this case, the body/brain messages) can flow freely instead of barely trickling through. Chiropractic is about freeing the body so it can function the way it was intended to function which, in essence, makes chiropractic the facilitator of true health. I would say that makes chiropractic pretty good for you.