WARNING: This article will provoke you, move you and maybe even cause you to view the world differently.
I’m sure everyone would agree that good health is very important – perhaps more important than all else. However, actions and lifestyle choices often speak otherwise. Far too many people take their health for granted or assume that just because they feel good, they are healthy. This is not always true…
What is health? The World Health Organization defines health as:
“…a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”
Websters Dictionary defines health as:
“A condition of wholeness in which all of the organs are functioning 100% of the time.”
Think about these two questions:
Is it possible to have symptoms and be healthy?
Is it possible to have no symptoms and not be healthy?
The answer to both of these questions is YES! Presence or absence of symptoms doesn’t define health. For example, you can have symptoms – such as sore muscles after a good workout – and have great health. Conversely, you can have no preceding symptoms but have a heart attack or be diagnosed with cancer tomorrow. If you are truly healthy, then you won’t develop these conditions. In fact, there is a process that leads to their development – and it doesn’t occur over night. Most conditions in present society are largely due to poor lifestyle choices accumulated over time. Most people carry on with poor choices and only do something different once symptoms appear. To make matters worse, they look for the “quick fix” solution – like popping a pill to mask the unwanted symptom – instead of sorting out the underlying cause. It shouldn’t be this way!
To make matters EVEN WORSE, medicines used to mask symptoms come with all kinds of unwanted side effects. Isn’t it better to address the underlying cause? Isn’t a natural solution better?
According to Statistics Canada, the leading causes of death in Canada are cancer, heart disease and stroke accounting for ~57% of all deaths in 2008. To a significant extent, these are preventable – yet people are dying from these every day!
And I repeat: It shouldn’t be this way! We have a disease intervention system as opposed to a health care system. When it comes to health, it is far better to be proactive as opposed to reactive. It is far better to choose a wellness based lifestyle and maintain your good health than to wait for a disaster to ensue.
So, what can we do about this? What are the prerequisites to good health? Look after these criteria and you’re set:
1) regular cardiovascular exercise
2) nutritious, balanced diet
3) adequate rest, relaxation and sleep
4) positive outlook and mental attitude
5) good ol’ common sense (for example: don’t smoke!)
6) optimally functioning central nervous system
The first five things are up to you. Your chiropractor can help you with the last one. Many people view chiropractors as back doctors who fix you up when you are broken and in pain. While chiropractors are excellent at dealing with acute injuries and chronic pain conditions, there is more to the chiropractic story than a mechanistic explanation.
Your spine houses and protects your central nervous system. There is constant communication from your brain, through your spinal cord and out via the nerve roots to all your muscles, organs and body tissues. As well, there is communication from all your body’s tissues back up to your brain, relaying their state of health. Having this communication network fully functional is essential to good health.
A Healthy Spine = A Healthy Body
Slips and falls, inactivity, poor postures, daily stresses, anxiety and other things can wreak havoc on your body causing muscle tension, joint fixation and misalignment in the spine. Interestingly, you don’t necessarily need to have pain for there to be an effect on the nervous system.
Only ~10% of the nervous system carries pain sensory information. 45% is dedicated to muscle function and the other 45% is autonomic function which controls and coordinates the body’s organs.
The human body truly has a remarkable ability to self-regulate and heal and does so optimally when the nervous system is functioning 100%. There is an innate intelligence that heals the body.
So… Regardless of symptoms, everyone should have their spine checked. Chiropractic works.
“The doctor of the future will give no medicine but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, in diet, and in the cause and prevention of disease.” – Thomas Edison
Health is a lifestyle choice. Choose it.
