Imagine you are hiking in the mountains and you encounter a large grizzly bear! As you stand there in complete terror, your heart would began to race, your respiratory rate would increase and your pupils would dilate. This response would be totally normal in a life threatening situation like the one described above. Your body innately knows that it needs to circulate more blood to your extremities so you can run faster, it knows you need to breath faster to exchange more oxygen and it naturally dilates your pupils to expand your visual awareness.

The situation described above is what we call a “sympathetic response” in Minnetonka MN. The problem today with most people is that their sympathetic response is becoming WAY too overactive, even in non-life-threatening situations.

Parasympathetic System in Minnetonka MN

You may be running late for work and it causes your heart to race. A coworker does something to annoy you and your blood pressure spikes. Even watching the news might cause your sympathetic nervous system to activate. All of these scenarios are an unnecessary stress response by your nerve system.

When your body is in a constant sympathetic state, your body is at a much higher risk to develop chronic diseases. Elevated stress hormones like cortisol and epinephrine mixed with increased blood pressure are a recipe for disaster. In addition, when your body is constantly stuck in a sympathetic state, your body has no chance to rest, heal and repair itself, since all of your energy is being used for survival from the perceived “life threatening” scenario.

Many people who are stressed out all day have an overactive sympathetic response and get stuck in this pattern all day every day.  This is where chiropractic comes into play. One of the main objectives of the chiropractic adjustment is to help balance the function of your sympathetic and parasympathetic nerve systems. New research is coming out showing that chiropractic adjustments have a direct impact on slowing down and even reversing the sympathetic stress response!

In addition to getting adjusted on a weekly basis, there are other strategies that you can use to help mitigate your sympathetic activation throughout the day such as getting enough sleep, exercising regularly, and practicing mindful breathing.