Your Nervous System
Your Nervous System...And the Stress You Put it Though
Your nervous system is the most important system within your body, as it is the communication network from cell to cell, brain to cell, and most importantly, the link between the outside world to the inside world. When the lines of communication are open, the body is constantly talking to each of its parts and cells to coordinate movement (through muscles) and to coordinate function (like glands, organs and blood flow).
It also coordinates our interactions with our environment and formulates our responses to that environment. We don’t live our lives in test tubes, and we are in need of constant feedback as we navigate through our lives, both with our internal selves, and the outside world.
Without this communication—movement, function and perception—break down. When this happens, our bodies function at less than optimum, which affects our responses to life’s challenges, and our performance in activities, work and family demands. If this breakdown in communication continues, this can lead to health concerns.
The road to health, wellness and improved vitality is through the nervous system. As a chiropractor, I want to know how much stress your nervous system is under, first and foremost. By doing this, we are not only measuring how much stress your body may be under, but we now have a baseline measurement which we can compare to any interventions.
If someone has long standing issues, it’s not unusual to see objective improvement before the person starts to feel it within their bodies. In my first year of practice, I had a young woman who had lost her monthly menstruation, because of a dramatic weight loss. She had been to many of the city’s leading endocrinologists for the previous two years, and used many medications, but none of the interventions had any help in restoring her monthly cycle.
We did a graph of her system, which showed to be greatly unbalanced. We treated her weekly for three months, re-tested her regularly and watched her graph greatly improve. By the 12th week, the graph was totally balanced—but still no period.
The following week, when I walked into the gym where I treated her (I was doing house calls at the time), she came running across the workout area screaming, “I got my period! I got my period!” I was a little embarrassed, as I was unsure of how this sounded to those looking at me getting a huge hug from this young lady in the middle of the gym!
We checked her graph for balance for several months, and her cycle continued to be regular. Her body’s innate healing system was turned back “on” with the care. But her graph was balanced before her function returned to normal. That is why I don’t rely solely on a person’s symptoms as a guide to their progress.
When I look at the nervous system, it’s important to understand that there are three parts, and in my testing, I measure the largest two of those three. The first is looking at stress within the autonomic system, using thermal scanning. The thermal scanner measures temperature differences in the spine, where nerve roots exit the spine, branching out to supply communication.
The autonomic system is responsible for the control of the organs, glands, blood flow, metabolism and temperature of the body. I refer to this as the deep nervous system, because these are the important, deeper functions of the body. You can live without muscles, albeit not very well, but you aren’t living without organs or glands.
I next look at the nerves that control the muscles, the motor nervous system. Using sensitive electrical sensors, the SEMG analysis, I look for the status of muscle tension patterns at each level of the spine. SEMG stands for Surface ElectroMyoGraphy. The amount of electrical activities corresponds to the amount of tension in the muscles.
Muscles provide movement to our bodies, and our bodies are dependent on normal, balanced muscular coordination. When there is too much tension, this could indicate a spasm or compensation by the body for unbalanced movement somewhere else in the body. When tension patterns are abnormal, movement is unbalanced, which could create joint injury, nerve injury, or muscle spasm. When these abnormal tension patterns show up, they indicate that the motor nervous system is under stress.
With these tests, I can then start to see how the whole nervous system is reacting to the stresses in your life, and how your body is trying to deal with it. It is very normal to see stress patterns in people who have no symptoms or health concerns, as our bodies are capable of handling large amounts of stress before symptoms show up.
But just because your body can handle the stress doesn’t mean that you're not effected. Usually stress hits the more subtle areas of your life—compromising your energy, concentration or perhaps your creative process.
Stress can even cause you to lose your edge on your performance—whether thats within sports, or dealing with your family or work. Dealing with excessive stressors takes energy from our bodies, and we have only a limited supply. How do you want to spend your energy? Being creative, inventive and resourceful? Or tired, cranky and uninspired?
Jeff Donahue is a local chiropractor, acupuncturist and nutritionist who has practiced lifestyle medicine for more than 20 years. www.DrJeffDonahue.com or 480-654-2920.
This article is for the sole purpose of information and is in no way intended to diagnose, offer medical advice or recommendations. All information included represents the view of the individual and not necessarily those of LiWi.
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