Your inner doctor

How Spinal "Traffic Jams" Affect Your Whole Body (And How to Fix Them)

Let’s start with a simple assumption: you have a body, and you want it to work as well as possible. To understand how your body works, we have to look at the nervous system or as I like to call it, the “nerve system”. The brain, spinal cord, and nerves form a map that connect messages between your brain and body.        

The Information Superhighway

When you were forming in the womb, the very first organ to develop was your brain. From there, your brain built the rest of your body using a brilliant blueprint.

 First, it constructed a single information superhighway: the spinal cord. Next, it built exit ramps (spinal plexuses) and roads (nerves) into towns (organs). 

Because this system is so vital, nature surrounded the brain and the highway with hard bone for protection. It’s just like wearing a helmet and having guardrails along the road.    

Your brain and body are constantly talking back and forth using superfast nerve signals to coordinate millions of functions at once.  It works as fast as touching a hot stove, having that message reach your brain and within a split second, your hand reacts.   

What Causes Internal Traffic Jams?  On any busy highway, accidents happen, and traffic suddenly grinds to a halt. The same thing happens inside your body. If you have ever experienced stress—whether physical, chemical, or emotional—you have experienced traffic jams in your nerve system. 

Common culprits include:

• Slips, falls, or sports injuries

• Car accidents and whiplashes

• Repetitive motions at work

• Pesticides and chemicals in our food

• Emotional stress from life events

These stressors cause subluxations (bones in the spine that go out position and create tension and inflammation in your system), which become traffic jams on your internal highways.

Why You Shouldn't Wait for Symptoms - Your bones and joints are linked by muscles, tendons, and fascia. When a traffic jam occurs, you might feel a kink in your neck or a tight spot in your back. And, you may feel nothing at all. Unlike a car, your body doesn't have a colored light on the dash to warn you before a total breakdown. It simply adapts and deals with the stress, often keeping you in the dark until years down the road, when it’s run out of alternate routes and starts honking at you. If you were planning a long road trip, you’d check your car over to prevent a breakdown.  You might even give it a tune-up.  Life is the ultimate road trip. Yet, we are often taught "don't fix it if it’s not broken." How does that work for us if we are meant to have free movement in every joint and we may not even know there is a problem until it’s too late to fix it?  We can’t just junk our body and go buy a new one, like we can with a car.    

The Long-Term Cost of Neglecting Your Spine - When your body stays stuck in traffic jams for years, it tries to stabilize the situation by creating arthritis. Over time, the vital nerve messages going back and forth between the brain and the organs becomes a trickle instead of a river. Nerves are delicate and don’t like being in traffic jams. You know that too if you’ve ever felt nerve sensations such as numbness, tingling, itching, burning, or PAIN.  Once a bone has degenerated, you may have lost function in your nerves or discs.  Nerves and discs can be very slow to repair, which translates into a quality of life full of pain and loss of function. The "towns" (your organs) at the end of those blocked roads begin to suffer too. When organs don’t receive proper signals from the brain, they can't maintain health, opening the door to chronic illness.

Your Inner Doctor - Your body possesses an innate (inborn) wisdom that is constantly monitoring, healing, and working to keep you alive from the inside out.  Not only does it want to protect the nerves, but the vitally important bones and discs too.    The discs are the spacers between the bones that give the nerves enough room to do their job. 

Chiropractic care is a simple, painless approach based on restoring your anatomy to its normal position.  This works with nature rather than against it.  A chiropractor goes

to the root of the problem—and flips the switch back on at the fuse box.  It’s normal to have good health, and we are designed for that. By prioritizing regular spinal care, you can program your body into consistently having better health.  It’s time to clear the traffic jams and let nature do its thing!  My goal at Chirosessions in Keizer is to help others understand and use this approach to live their best lives.    

Chiropractic completely transformed me, allowing a high quality of life without relying on prescription medications as I once had to do.  I found my inner doctor and chiropractic is the vehicle I now use to travel down life’s highways and byways.  And my dashboard lights stay OFF!  I make sure of that by getting my spine tuned up regularly.    

Schedule Your Complimentary Consultation in Keizer with a text or phone call to

360-255-1414.

Don't wait for major breakdowns to listen to your body. Whether you are dealing with pain or simply want to optimize your health, I am here to help.  Let me check you for traffic jams with simple tests and palpation of your spine. 

Allow Chiropractic to add years to your life and life to your years today. 

 Lighting a candle to your health - Dr. Deb Hirabai, 3789 River Road N, Keizer, OR