By Dr. Kelly Herta, DC

Traffic jams! Paying bills! Deadlines! These unpleasant and challenging situations create stress in our lives. In fact a study in The Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics revealed that nearly 1 in every 3 patients viewed their lives as moderately to severely stressful, and more than 50% felt that stress had a moderate to severe impact on their health problems. Additionally, 71% of the patients indicated that it would be helpful if their chiropractor offered advice to help them cope with these stressful life situations.

In fact communicating with your chiropractor about how to deal with your stress can be very beneficial to your health. The shared information about ones stress can offer clues to many health conditions since stress can affect your health in many ways, both major and minor. Sometimes stress is the sole cause of a health problem, and sometimes it is a contributing factor, but it’s hard to experience ongoing, significant stress without it affecting your health and wellbeing in one way or another. Some of the common health problems related to stress in life include headaches, backaches, fatigue as well as cardiovascular disorders such as high blood pressure, arteriosclerosis, and digestive problems like ulcers and sleeping difficulties. So, as you can see stress should not be taken lightly.

Although, eliminating stress completely from your life is impossible, implementing some stress management techniques to release tension from your body can subdue some of its harmful effects. Stress management should always include such things as following a healthy diet, exercising on a regular basis, chiropractic care and massage treatments.

Chiropractic care as well as massage, involve touch, setting the stage for the release of muscular tension, in turn releasing stress. Chiropractic care and soft tissue massage treatments work to release tension in the spine and its surrounding musculature thus resulting in decreased fatigue or stress by removing nerve irritation, releasing muscular tension and improving blood circulation. Both treatments can in turn help to reduce the stress in ones life as a result improve their health.

For more information, Dr. Kelly Herta, DC at Aligned Health Chiropractic & Wellness Center. 27875 Smyth Dr. # 100, (661)295-5200.

Read more articles from Dr. Herta’s Body Wellness series by clicking here.