The Fight or Flight Response
The stress response is the sympathetic division of our nervous system. When your body is in more of that stress or alarm state, it’s also referred to as a fight or flight response.
Your body needs that response to protect yourself (e.g. if you were chased by a bear and needed to get away), but your body doesn’t want to be there unless it really needs to be.
Are You Stuck in a Sympathetic State?
If someone is chronically in that stressed state, the body’s systems, including the digestive and immune systems, slow down dramatically. So our ability to properly digest and absorb nutrients, have good immunity and keep ourselves well all get inhibited when we’re in that stress state.
When a person is stuck in a sympathetic state, they often experience chronic illness, persistent pain, irritability, poor digestion, and inadequate sleep. All those things start to compound over time if you’re chronically stressed.
How Chiropractic Helps
The good news is that you can reduce stress by improving neurological flow, reducing muscular tension, improving movement in the body, and helping the breathing cycle. A lot of that links into hormones, too; when we’re stressed, the hormone levels change, which, again, affects digestion and immunity.
Many people we see chronically run on that high stress and anxiety wavelength. We want to reverse that cycle and take them out of it so they can be in the parasympathetic state (sometimes called the “rest and digest” state), which is responsible for the body’s relaxation response.
Take that first step toward being less stressed. Give Spine Body Collective in Centennial, Colorado, a call today to book an appointment with Dr. Ryan Ronnebaum!