What is Chiropractic?

What's the first thing you think of when someone mentions the fact that they have been to see a Chiropractor? They must have a bad back? Or neck? Or maybe they are having headaches? Or maybe you have heard from a parent that they took there 6 week old baby who had colic?

Chiropractors adjust misalignments primarily in the spine. So when they do an adjustment what affect is it having on the body.

Our body is constantly sending and receiving messages, up and down via nerve impulses up to and from the brain. These messages go via the spine. Put simply the body perceives something, it might be a smell, a sight or a painful stimuli, and nerve impulses take that via the nervous tissue to the brain for interpretation, via the spine.

This is a diagram of the nerve pathways travelling up and down the spinal cord.

A reflex, such as the knee-jerk reflex when the patela is hit, does not travel up the spine to the brain, but goes as far as the level of the spine, and reflexes back. This is why you pull your hand away from something hot before the brain has registered the heat involved. It is a reflex. Again we see the spine involved, but only at one bone level, or vertebra.



And what covers the spinal cord? The spinal column!

So maybe you are beginning to see the effect that Chiropractic may have on all sorts of processes within the body, if it inolves a message going up or down the spinal cord? And that covers most things!

There have been many studies to show the effects of Chiropractic on performance, testing reaction time, vertical power jump and numerous other bodily functions.

So next time someone tells you that they have just seen their Chiropractor and they say that they always feel so well after being adjusted, you can tell them about the affect that adjustments have on their spinal cord and brain, the Motorway and "Central Control" of nerve tissue.

Ask yourself this question. Is your "Nerve Highway" a straight and wide, free from kinks and bends, or is it a country road, with twists and turns every way you go? Do yourself a favour and give your local McTimoney Chiropractor a call.