Can you be healthy and have cancer??
I don't know about you but I always seem to be caught by the headlines when I check my email in the morning, and this morning was no exception.
Just as I logged on to my computer a story was pinned to the top of the screen about a young football player named Foster Moreau who was formerly a tight end with the Raiders who was surprised to be diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma during a routine physical.
This reminded me of a health talk I did just last week at a local school. One of the first "housekeeping" items I like to talk about is health, in particular, "how do you know you are healthy?"
I know all too well as a former registered nurse that we, as a society, are pretty well conditioned to judge our health based on how we are feeling. In fact, our health care system should really be called "sick care" because we don't seek out care until we are sick.
Just about every time I ask this question the answer is some version of "I know I am healthy if I am feeling good". However, just like in the case of this young athlete, you can feel great but be unhealthy at the same time. Let's talk about how this is possible.
First, and maybe the most important reason this is so is your body is brilliant (I mean really BRILLIANT). What I mean by that is your nervous system is constantly scanning the environment in and around you and is adapting and changing to that environment in an effort for you to navigate through gravity and life and to stay upright and functioning.
The stresses and storms of life, and how we are conditioned to deal with those stresses and storms, will impact how our nervous system functions.
When we are in a state where our nervous system feels a threat, a stress that cues us to fight or flee, the nervous system focuses on regulating the systems of our body that will keep us safe.
For example, if you live with chronic stress in your life, your body is going to adapt to this stress by keeping your heart rate elevated, blood pressure elevated, and muscles primed and ready to run or fight all while other systems like digestion, reproduction, and immune system are left dysregulated because they aren't as vital to survival in the short term.
This dysregulation will leave subtle cues like muscle fatigue, muscle spasms, digestive issues, high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol, etc, etc until enough symptoms are collected to support a diagnosis. Sometimes this diagnosis isn't a shock, sometimes, like for this young man it is.
Regular chiropractic care helps to impact your nervous system in a way that helps the body to dial down the stress response and helps your nervous system better regulate all of the systems of your body.
We are all created to be self-healing and self-regulating. Chiropractic care helps to support what the body already knows what to do when the stresses of life get in the way of health and healing!
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