Love Your Nervous System!

In honor of Valentine's Day, we are giving the Nervous System some love! Did you know that your Nervous System controls every single little function in your body? It works hard and needs TLC. That's where your Doctor of Chiropractic comes in.

Your nervous system is made up of your brain, spinal cord, and nerves. Your nerves branch out from the spinal cord and go to every organ, muscle, and cell in your body. Your brain uses your nerves to get information about your surroundings and give commands on what to do about it.

For example, let's say you touch a hot stove. The nerves in your fingers send a question to the brain, “Is this stove hot?” Based on information from those nerves your brain says, “Yes, it's hot! Get away!” and sends the command for the muscles in your hand and arms to pull away from the stove. You are saved from burning your fingers!

Your Nervous System can be interfered with. Most interference happens when two vertebrae in your spine are moving incorrectly and irritating the spinal cord and the nerves branching off between the vertebrae. That's why Doctors of Chiropractic spend most of our time focusing on the spine. We want to correct that interference at the source and restore normal function to the vertebrae, spinal cord, and nerves.

Let's look at the example again, but this time with nerve interference present. You touch the hot stove, your fingers ask the brain, “Is this stove hot?” Because of the nerve interference, the nerves in your fingers send the brain incorrect information. This incorrect information leads the brain to say, “No, it's cold. You're ok.” It doesn't send the command to your muscles to pull away and you burn your fingers.

Chiropractic adjustments remove nerve interference by restoring normal function to the vertebrae over time. Research also shows that chiropractic adjustments act as a “reset button” to the nervous system. Just like your computer needs an occasional reset, so does your nervous system.

I recommend that everyone has their nervous system checked regularly. This ensures that your entire body is functioning optimally.