Chiropractic Helps Your Heart?
Yes. It turns out chiropractic helps your heart. February is American Heart Month, but it should be something we all take seriously all year long. Just as January is when people usually kick off their new year’s resolutions, February is a time when many people have already forgotten theirs. Heart health is no joke, and any way to help should be welcomed with open arms.
Many think that adopting a healthy lifestyle is the only way to increase heart health. Exercise and nutrition are extremely important, but they aren’t the only thing to consider. To prevent heart disease, regular trips to a chiropractor may play a big role as well. One of the best-kept secrets is that chiropractic is not just for a sore neck and back. It helps with a variety of other issues. Think about it; your body is a complex machine. All machines get blockages, either electrical or otherwise. Your body is no different and has a complex nervous system. The blood supply feeds every organ and muscle carrying vital nutrients, your lymphatic system helps filter things that could make you sick, your kidneys and liver provide vital functions, and what can disrupt all of this? Tension, inflammation, stress, subluxation, nerve disruption, and even poor posture.
Your spine carries sympathetic and parasympathetic nerves. In particular, for heart health, they regulate your heartbeat. They are located in your neck and upper back and control a variety of important functions. If there are areas of inflammation or subluxation that block these nerves, leading to the heart, it can cause disturbances and affect the regulation of your heart.
Without repair, the nervous system disturbances in your neck and upper back can affect your blood pressure, heart rate, rhythm, and more. Disturbances interfere with important communication from your spine to your brain and hinder the heart’s ability to respond. It’s like static on a telephone line. Have you ever tried to hear important communication over the phone and you end up hearing every other word? That can be annoying at best and dangerous if the information is urgent. All communication between your brain and heart is urgent!
Chiropractic adjustments correct misalignments and help the body function as it should. This includes helping remove blockages to nerve communication, blood flow, and nutrient distribution because all of that happens through your musculoskeletal system. Chiropractic can help lessen the work your heart needs to do to pump blood throughout your body, lower your blood pressure, and prevent other degenerative issues like an enlarged heart, which can lead to heart attacks.
Chiropractic helps your heart and can:
- Reduce inflammation – Inflammation can be dangerous, particularly if it’s constant. Chiropractic adjustments could help reduce inflammation in your body.
- Reduce blood pressure – Hypertension is common (high blood pressure), and it puts constant stress on your veins, arteries, and heart in general. Upper cervical adjustments can help.
- Improve heart rate – Stress and nerve impulses dramatically affect heart rate and variability issues.
- Improve blood and oxygen flow – Your heart works directly with your lungs to provide oxygen to every tissue in your body, down to the tips of your toes and the outermost layer of your skin. Your eyesight, hearing, taste, touch, temperature regulation, and more are all affected by your lungs and heart. Chiropractic can help with oxygen assimilation, especially for those with asthma and other obstructive pulmonary issues.
- Protect your heart – Autonomic nerves work without you thinking about it. They work on their own and are particularly affected by blockages and trauma in your body. Chiropractic can help them function without disruption.
- Prevent or help chest pains – Chest pain that is musculoskeletal in nature can be helped by chiropractic care. A simple chiropractic adjustment can sometimes alleviate chest pain because it helps reduce blood pressure and stress on the heart, restoring a better flow of blood, oxygen, and other nutrients throughout the body.
These are just some of the benefits of chiropractic. When you visit Bronson Heritage Chiropractic, ask Dr. Bronson about anything you’ve noticed with your health and how chiropractic can help you. You may be surprised to learn that many things you would normally take prescription or over the counter drugs for can be helped naturally.