The First Lesson of my Chiropractic Philosophy

1. Awareness of posture is essential to optimal biomechanical functioning.

“Posture affects and moderates every physiologic function from breathing to hormonal production. Spinal pain, headache, mood, blood pressure, and lung capacity are among the functions most easily influence by posture. The corollary of these observations is that many symptoms, including pain, may be moderated or eliminated by improved posture.”[1]

 I first began to realize the amazing power of biomechanics when I was doing board-breaking in my karate studio.  When setting up to do a demo, I would break a series of boards and as the breaks got more technical, my strikes needed to be very precise. Training for multiple breaks taught me that the physical force that affects our bodies in all different things from sitting, walking, driving, and especially board striking, can be performed in better positions than others. The key point to remember is this: there are natural forces in the world—gravity, in particular—that inform the best way to properly manage our musculoskeletal posture.

Maintaining positions of better posture has huge effects on our central nervous system, which is a very complex network of nerve impulses. Evidence exists that spinal posture and position affect the nerve tissue by altering blood flow to the spinal cord. We may never know all the interactions of the three billion neurons of our central nervous system, each of which has up to a thousand connections (synapses) with other neurons. But one thing we do know is that it is deeply interwoven into the health of the spinal column, and I will tell you from experience that the healthier the spine is and the freer it is from subluxations, the healthier your mind and body feels as a result.

That is the basis of chiropractic adjustments—they allow the body to function properly. Arthritis is a function of faulty biomechanisms and is your body’s “normal” way to deal with the problem. Other people with poor postural positions can potentially suffer chronic or unpleasant conditions like pinched nerves and blood vessels, thoracic outlet syndrome, muscle and tissue pain, syndromes like fibromyalgia, chronic strains, and early skeletal degeneration like the aforementioned arthritis.

Monitoring good posture is a life commitment. With a little effort and a chiropractor on your health care team, you can be assured of a future doing things you love to do, rather than suffering from the damage and degeneration that poor posture can bring due to its compounding effects on nerve function and health.

On the flipside, a dedication to improving posture is an effective way to look younger and increase your enjoyment of all the activities of daily life.

The next blog post will continue with the second tenet of my Chiropractic Philosophy: Our natural state of being is a healthy system of mental, physical, and spiritual balance. Toxins and trauma cause the balance of each of these areas to shift out of equilibrium.

---

[1] AJPM, Vol. 1 No . 1 Jan. 1994 Posture and Respiratory Modulation of Autonomic Function Pain and Health. J. Lennon, BM, MM, C, Norman Shealy, MD, Roger K. Cady, MD