The human immune system is in the spotlight like never before, as individuals across the globe are doing everything in their power to boost their immunity and ward off illness. From taking daily vitamins and incorporating more whole foods into their diets, more frequent hand washing and avoiding large crowds, to ensuring a better night’s sleep and using stress reduction techniques, there are countless ways to help keep sickness at bay. Could chiropractic treatment also help boost the immune system? According to science, there are promising results.
Chiropractic Care and the Immune System
Chiropractic treatment can benefit the immune system in several ways. It is essential to note that chiropractic care alone is not a substitute for other healthy behaviors, and is rather an ancillary treatment that helps promote whole-body wellness. However, chiropractic treatment can help alleviate many everyday ailments that lend to a lower quality of life and therefore decrease the human body’s ability to participate in the proper immune response.
Chiropractic Care and Better Sleep
Getting a good night’s sleep is essential to supporting your immune system and many patients find that chiropractic treatment helps them achieve this goal. Minor aches and pains, poor sleep posture, and more contribute to tossing and turning throughout the night and a sluggish feeling in the morning. When the human body doesn’t get the chance to properly rest and repair itself overnight, the immune system takes a hit.
Chiropractic Care and Stress Reduction
Additionally, experts state that chronic stress can have a negative impact on the human immune system. Individuals who struggle with long-term stress tend to get sick more frequently and have a more challenging time fighting off infection compared to those who don’t. Many chiropractors offer services that can help patients reduce their stress levels, including massage therapy, aromatherapy, and more. Seeking relief from everyday aches and pains can help reduce stress levels significantly, helping individuals to improve their immune systems.
Chiropractic Care and the Muscular-Skeletal System
Chiropractic treatment addresses the muscular-skeletal system in the body, which includes each of your muscles, tendons, ligaments, bones, and nerves. When your muscular-skeletal system is off-balance, due to a spinal misalignment, a pinched nerve, or otherwise, you may experience a reduction in blood flow to specific areas of the body, or negative side effects such as digestive problems, difficulty concentrating, and irritability.
Chiropractic Care and Ancillary Services
As a holistic treatment option, chiropractic care looks at the entire human body and the ways that each system is independent of one another. Chiropractic doctors will get to know each patient’s unique lifestyle and work with patients to develop healthy habits that go beyond traditional spinal manipulations. Chiropractors often work with individuals to develop healthy eating plans and to eliminate unhealthy behaviors like smoking, which all play a role in immunity.
Chiropractic Care and Injury
Not only can chiropractic care help alleviate troublesome symptoms associated with everyday aches and pains, such as backaches, migraines, and joint pain, but it can help promote healing when an individual suffers an injury. Common examples include injuries that result from car accidents and sports. When a person suffers an injury, their body will go into overdrive as it attempts to fix whatever may be broken or damaged. This takes away from the proper function of the immune system, making it more challenging to fight off sickness.
Chiropractic care uses many different treatment techniques to help patients heal from all sorts of injuries. With techniques ranging from ultrasound therapy to electrical stimulation and physical therapy to cryotherapy, there are a variety of ways to help your body heal and return to optimum health.
Chiropractic Care and Mental Health
In addition to the countless physical benefits that chiropractic treatment can have, positively impacting the immune system, it can also significantly benefit mental health and mood. Individuals who struggle with mental health issues and mood disturbances are more likely to experience frequent illness. While chiropractic care is not a substitute for treatment from a mental health professional, it can help alleviate symptoms, boost energy, and improve mood in patients when used as an ancillary treatment option.
Who Needs Chiropractic Treatment?
Many people wonder if chiropractic care is right for them and whether or not they will see the benefits on their immune system from treatment. In short, virtually everyone can benefit from chiropractic care. Even babies and children can receive pediatric chiropractic care for issues like ear infections and gastrointestinal problems. Senior citizens can benefit from treatment for conditions such as osteoarthritis. Chiropractic treatment truly is for everyone.
The best part about chiropractic care is that since it is a holistic treatment that is non-invasive and does not involve the use of medications, there are rarely adverse side effects. This makes chiropractic treatment the option of choice for many patients in helping to manage symptoms and chronic conditions, alleviate common aches and pains, and support healthy immune function.