1 in 5 Americans suffer from mental illnesses, ranging from anxiety disorders to schizophrenia and more. The majority of people who have mental illnesses have not received help, in large part due to how mental illnesses are stigmatized, societal ignorance towards mental health treatments, and a general lack of adequate mental health services. This leads to many people struggling in silence and being unaware of all the ways they can get help, simply because mental health and help for it isn’t talked about anywhere near enough. 

While no substitute for psychiatric treatments, chiropractic care helps mental illnesses in a number of ways. Chiropractors are more easily accessible than most mental health care, so if you’re struggling with a mental illness, you may consider seeing a chiropractor, as chiropractic care helps mental illnesses with relieving some of the symptoms that result from them. 

Symptoms Of Mental Illnesses Chiropractic Care Can Help

Chiropractic care helps mental illnesses, but it’s no substitute for medication and treatments such as talk therapy. It won’t cure you, and it won’t stabilize depression and mania in something like bipolar the way mood stabilizers would. However, this doesn’t mean seeing a chiropractor isn’t beneficial. There are many symptoms that result from mental illnesses that chiropractors can help with. Chiropractic care helps mental illnesses through making managing some of the symptoms easier, which thus improves your quality of life.

Some of the symptoms chiropractic care helps mental illnesses with are:

• Stress
• Aches and pains
• Fatigue/not being able to sleep
• Headaches/migraines
• Muscle tension/stiffness
• Inability to relax

5 Ways Chiropractic Care Helps Mental Illnesses

Chiropractic care helps mental illnesses through utilizing a natural, non-invasive, mind-body approach. The goal of chiropractic care is to balance your body, and ergo, your mind. While chiropractors are most known for their spinal adjustments, that’s not the only way they can improve your health. Chiropractors also have an arsenal of other treatment methods, such as stretches, exercises, nutritional advice, massages, and supplements, in addition to their famed adjustments. 

As such, there’s a variety of ways chiropractic care helps mental illnesses. Let’s look at some of them.

#1. Lowered Blood Pressure

Both massage therapy and chiropractic care can help to reduce your blood pressure. If you struggle with stress or anxiety, high blood pressure is one of the most common symptoms of these struggles that you’ll deal with. Chiropractic care helps mental illnesses like these through utilizing tactics such as chiropractic sessions and massages to bring your blood pressure down. 

#2. Lessened Headaches

If you have a mental illness, chances are, your muscles tense all the time. This can lead to tension headaches and migraines. Chiropractic care helps to reduce muscular tension and stiffness in your body, which can relieve headaches caused by that. In general, if you’re looking for a natural solution for your tension headaches, chiropractors can help. 

#3. Reduced Stress

Mental illnesses are often very stressful. You either don’t understand what is wrong and why things are happening or you’re fully aware of the problem and get frustrated and stressed because even though you know there’s no reason to be anxious, your body still throws a fit and your anxiety spikes. Chiropractic care helps mental illnesses through promoting relaxation, which can alleviate some of that stress.

#4. Better Sleep

Trouble with sleep patterns is a common symptom of many different mental illnesses. For instance, if you have depression, you may find you either sleep too much or you struggle with insomnia. Massage therapy and chiropractic treatments may be able to help improve your sleep patterns, which can make getting better sleep easier. 

#5. Mental Clarity = More Willingness To Get Additional Help

Many who suffer from mental illnesses complain about not being able to think clearly, either through brain fog, being unable to focus, having too much going on in their head at once, or any number of other reasons. Since chiropractic care helps mental illnesses through relieving muscular tension and promoting relaxation, this can make it easier to think. When you have more mental clarity, it makes it easier to think of additional ways you could get help for your mental illness. 

Mental illnesses can feel both isolating and hopeless. Many people resign themselves to them and feel as though they just have to put up with the havoc these illnesses can wreak on their lives. However, there are many ways you can obtain help, which makes living with mental illnesses easier, from medications to therapy to chiropractic care. There are ways you can improve your quality of life. 

Health And Wellness Clinic cares deeply about using natural, non-invasive methods to improve the health and wellbeing of our patients. If you’re fighting a mental illness, you may consider scheduling a massage therapy session or chiropractic adjustment with our professionally trained team. Contact us today, and let’s get started on improving your quality of life.

It’s the dawn of a new year and that means that it’s time for one of the most common New Year’s resolutions: getting in shape and improving your fitness levels. Gym memberships spike at this time of year, but unfortunately, most people abandon their fitness goals before January is even over. This is because people often set very ambitious fitness goals, which, while admirable, can have the adverse effect of making you discouraged rather than motivated when you don’t immediately see the results you want. 

There are several ways chiropractors help with your fitness goals, so you can both stay motivated and healthy. Here are some of the ways chiropractors help with your fitness goals, ranging from our top fitness tips to how chiropractic treatments will keep you in good condition so you give yourself the help you need in order to reach your fitness goals. 

Set Yourself Up For Success With Chiropractic Fitness Tips

So, you’re fresh into the new year and ready to tackle those fitness goals. Let chiropractors help with your fitness goals with some tips to help you achieve them.

Be Mindful Of Your Fitness Levels

A common mistake people make when they resolve to get in shape is to forget that it takes time in order to up your fitness levels, especially if they used to be very active, but aren’t anymore. When you try to do something you used to be able to, but can’t, it can be very discouraging. Keeping your current fitness levels in mind and being aware that it takes months in order to go from being inactive to an athletic lifestyle will help you set realistic goals. 

Rather than “I want to lose 20 pounds in a month”, which may be possible, depending on your body fat percentage and how overweight you are, but generally is very unrealistic, as most people can only lose 1-2 pounds in a week, try goals like “I want to be able to run a mile without stopping by the end of the month”.

Though you may roll your eyes at small goals like “a plank a day”, those small goals are easy to incorporate into your routine and are easy to build on as your fitness levels progress. This makes sticking with your fitness goals so much easier and will help you see the results that you want in the long run. 

Warm-Up Properly

If there’s one way chiropractors help with your fitness goals more than anything else, it’s emphasizing the importance of warming up before doing any exercises and providing you with the stretches and exercises in order to do so. If you don’t warm up, you’re exercising with stiff and cold muscles, which greatly increases your risk of injury. If you’re not sure what warm-ups you should be doing before you hit the weights, let chiropractors help with your fitness goals by advising you and showing you how to do the best warm-ups for you and your body. 

Ensure You’re Doing Exercises Correctly

It’s easy to just see exercise videos online and think there’s nothing more to doing said exercises than following along. However, many people do exercises incorrectly and don’t even realize it unless they get a set of professional, trained eyes on them. Doing exercises incorrectly will increase the likelihood of injury, since you could be doing something in a way to hurt rather than help your body. 

Hydration Is Key

Yeah, yeah, everyone says drink more water, we get it. It’s such a common statement because it’s true, though. Our bodies are comprised of 70% water, which makes staying hydrated an absolute must, especially if you’re exercising and sweating, which expends moisture from your body as it tries to cool itself down. 

Cool It Down

Warming-up is important, but cooling down is just as much. If you’re unsure of how to cool your muscles down in order to prevent soreness and cramping and injury, a chiropractor can help. Chiropractors help with your fitness goals by making it so that you have all the tools you need in order to exercise safely. 

See A Chiropractor Regularly

There’s a reason why so many athletes see chiropractors, and that’s because regular chiropractic care keeps your body in good condition, can treat any injuries like sprains or back pain or the like, and will ensure that you have the knowledge about stretching and exercises and how your body works that you need in order to set yourself up for success. 

How Chiropractors Help With Your Fitness Goals

Chiropractors help with your fitness goals through more than just professional advice, though. With regular chiropractic treatments, you can prime your body to better achieve your fitness goals. This is because regular chiropractic care comes with the following benefits:

• Pain Reduction
• Improved Range Of Motion
• Improved Bodily Functions
• Improved Nerve Communication
• Reduced Risk Of Injury

Exercise Rehabilitation

So, the worst has come to worst, and you got hurt while exercising. Luckily, chiropractors help with your fitness goals through the use of exercise rehabilitation to get you back to life as normal as soon as possible. With chiropractic treatments, exercise rehab technology, and personalized care, we’ll help you rehabilitate from injuries you sustain in a way that gets to the very root of the problem. 

Let Our Chiropractors Help With Your Fitness Goals

Health And Wellness Clinic values the health and wellness of each and every one of our clients. Our chiropractors help with your fitness goals with expert advice, chiropractic adjustments, and exercise rehabilitation. To learn more or to set up an appointment, please contact us today!

The holidays are an exciting time of the year, with travelling to visit friends and family, parties and events, and general spiked enthusiasm and cheer. Unfortunately, the holidays are also when car accidents increase. Nothing ruins the holiday spirit like being a victim of a car accident. But why is this time of year so much worse than the rest of the year for car accidents?

Reasons Car Accidents Increase During The Holidays

In order to do your best to avoid car accidents, it’s important to understand the factors behind why they increase during the holiday. Here are some of the main reasons why you see car crashes spike this time of year.

Increased Traffic

More cars on the road means a higher likelihood for accidents. During the holidays, many people are taking work off to travel, and there’s a general increase in activities. More people are going shopping in order to get presents, running errands, eating out, going to events and parties, and visiting their friends and family. This buzz of activity results in an increase in traffic volume – and potential for crashes.

Bad Weather

If you live somewhere or visit somewhere where it snows, this is another contributing factor to increased automobile accidents. Snow storms lower visibility, and snow and ice can make the roads slick, causing cars to slip and slide.

Buzzed Or Drunk Driving

Holidays come with parties and many parties come with alcohol. Unfortunately, in spite of all the warnings about how you shouldn’t drive after drinking, many people still do. Alcohol impairs your judgement, vision, and ability to drive, which makes driving while buzzed or drunk extremely dangerous. Since there are more parties during the holidays, there are also more buzzed or drunk drivers, which makes the roads much more hazardous.

Holiday Stress

Traffic gets on the nerves of the best of us, and with increased traffic volume during the holidays, traffic only ever gets worse. This combined with how the holidays themselves can already be stressful due to everything you have to get done can lead to extremely stressed out drivers who ignore traffic rules or who drive distracted and ergo, recklessly. 

Neglected Car Maintenance

For many people, the holidays bring on financial stress, since you have gifts to purchase in addition to all your normal bills. This can lead to people neglecting their car maintenance in order to prioritise other things financially. However, keeping your car in good condition is essential to driving safely and avoiding accidents from an issue maintenance could have prevented.

Common Injuries From Car Accidents Chiropractors Can Help With

If you’ve been in a car accident, it’s vital to seek medical attention right away and call 911 if necessary. There are some injuries resulting from car crashes that chiropractors can help with. Many doctors will recommend chiropractic treatment in addition to medical care if you’ve experience any of the following injuries: 

Whiplash

Whiplash is when your spine and head snap back and forth rapidly, like if you go from driving to an abrupt stop in a crash. Chiropractors can help with whiplash in a number of ways, depending on how it has affected you. Your treatment options may include: spinal manipulation, muscle stimulation, specialized exercises and stretches, and suggestions for lifestyle changes to reduce muscle strain.

Pain In Your Back, Neck, And Shoulders

These are some of the most common kinds of pain resulting from a car accident. Chiropractors specialize in the spine and joints, so they can give you expert, personalized care in order to determine the specific cause of your pain and develop a treatment method tailored to you. 

Inflammation

Spinal manipulations and muscle relaxation techniques can stimulate your body’s natural healing process, including the release of IL-6, which is a natural substance in your body that works to reduce inflammation. 

Reduced Range Of Motion

Chances are, you’ll probably be feeling stiff after a car crash, and it’s harder to move. Stimulation therapy can improve your blood flow which can assist your muscles in their healing journey, restoring your range of motion.

Dizziness/Blurred Vision

If your spine gets misaligned after an accident, you may end up feeling dizzy or with blurry vision. While seeing an eye doctor should be your first step, chiropractors can help with blurred vision and dizziness if they result from obstructed pathways in your central nervous system, which is located in your spine and affects your optic nerves. Spinal manipulations can realign your spine and potentially resolve dizziness or blurred vision, if this is what was causing them.

Chiropractic Treatments After A Car Accident

Injuries from car accidents shouldn’t be ignored. Left untreated, many have the potential to worsen into more serious issues. If you’ve been in a car accident recently, you may consider going to a chiropractor to help treat your injuries. 

Have You Been In A Car Accident?

Health And Wellness Clinic specializes in auto injuries. We know how even though the holidays should be merry and bright, they also come with a lot more car crashes than is normal. We can help you with chiropractic treatments to get you feeling healthy again. For more information or to schedule an appointment, please contact our office today!