Want to know how to make your adjustment “hold” longer and stay pain free? Here’s our top 5 tips!
Chiropractic care and specifically the Chiropractic Adjustment is known for being an amazing and safe way to treat the body and improve overall health. While most people utilise it for relief of their neck pain, back pain, headaches, and stiff and tight muscles, it does a lot more than that.
A Chiropractic Adjustment helps to remove interference from your Nervous System, that is the connection of your brain to your body.
A better-balanced spine, and Nervous System, helps your body to heal and function at its optimal level. This is why patients report sleeping better at night, feeling more focused, better energy, feel looser and more relaxed, and overall feel less mentally stressed.
For reference, using the phrasing of an Adjustment “holding” is often limiting the changes to only biomechanical, like the struts holding up a bridge. What actually happens is much deeper neurologically. We prefer the concept of adaptability, as it explains our health and progression much more accurately. A better question, is the patient better at adapting to stressors in their environment or not?
An Adjustment “holding”, or becoming more adaptable, can only be confirmed by a highly trained Chiropractor. Holding is not about symptom/no symptom, it’s about how well the spine and the surrounding area are maintaining and adapting their initial neurological checks and how they are functioning biomechanically.
As your body begins to heal and restore more function, these indicators will become less and less intense. Every case is unique, but often most patients (in the beginning) need Adjustments 1-2-3 times a week in order to help restore proper spinal motion. Our goal is always to create optimal spinal health and wellness, and monitoring your progression is very important to achieve that.
One of the simplest questions that tells a lot about your neurological health is, “How many hours do you sleep a night?”. While some may feel ok with 5-7 hours, most adults need at least 8 hours of sleep to function well. With insufficient sleep, your body simply cannot fully recover!
During sleep, your Parasympathetic Nervous System is a lot more active, and it’s known for stimulating a lot of healing processes.
This is partly why after a terrible short night of rest; we feel sluggish and can’t think clearly. If you have been chronically under-sleeping, this process (and your internal healing ability) has been dramatically decreased.
Our Chiropractors at Align Chiropractic utilise Sacro-Occipital Technique (S.O.T.), which allows us to detect a fast or slow C.S.F. pulse and help to correct any imbalance in its rhythm. By restoring better balance, and better C.S.F. flow, patients can often get a deeper and better-quality sleep.
Did it feel like most of the breathe came from your upper chest, with your shoulders rising? That is a sign you have “Switched Breathing”.
A normal and relaxed breathe should come from your diaphragm, your lower abdomen, and gently expand up your body. This can only occur if the body is in a relaxed state, not stressed, when there is good core strength, and proper nerve communication.
If you wrongly breathe with your upper chest and shoulders, your muscles will often get tired and tight much quicker since they are now responsible for every breathe. This is often an underlying pattern to chronic shoulder and neck tension. If this has been occurring for years, we now have some deep set dysfunctional neurological patterns and habits.
Despite living in hot Singapore, we find most patients don’t drink enough water. How much you say?
There is no specific mL, as your activity level, physical fitness, diet, and many more factors can influence your optimal intake. But for an estimate, take your weight in kg and multiply it by 32. You’ll find the minimum amount of water recommended to intake throughout the day to keep you fully hydrated!
Roger Sperry, a 1981 Nobel Peace Prize winner stated, “90% of the stimulation and nutrition to the brain is generated by the movement of the spine”. Keeping your body upright against gravity and sending proper information to the brain about how the body is functioning takes up the vast majority of your brain’s energy!
A great way to help maintain your aligned spine is to use it and move! A sedentary lifestyle creates little spinal motion, which can increase the amount of stiffness felt with your neck and back.
While everyone has different genetics and physical status, make sure to be active throughout the entire week. We always recommend doing both cardio and weight training, as only doing only one of those limits the amount of benefits gained.
If you haven’t been very active, start slow with light jogging or light sports and be consistent. If you train and exercise frequently, also make sure to take rest days and perform those exercises with good form.
“Text neck”, or having a very forward and rounded neck, is a real daily concern for everyone, not just the younger generation. Craning your neck over the phone places tremendous stress onto your cervical (neck) joints and muscles. Even after a great Adjustment, we often see people reach for their phone only to start straining their neck all over again.
Being diligent and consistent with holding your phone up closer to eye level and decreasing the amount of slouching will go a long way to helping you hold your correction.
admin
