Did you know that chiropractic care can help your immune system? Read on below to find out how chiropractic care supports our immune system and immunity.
It’s estimated that the average person gets sick around three times per year. Sometimes sickness is unavoidable. However, most of the time it can be linked directly to the state of a person’s immune system.
The stronger your immunity is, the more likely you’ll be able to fight off any viruses or bad bacteria that enter your body. There are multiple ways to improve your immune system.
However, one of the less-known ones involves chiropractic care. But exactly what are some of the ways that a chiropractor can benefit your immunity? In this guide, we’ll be discussing how chiropractic care can support your immune system.
Why Is a Healthy Immune System Important?
When a threat enters our body, it’s up to our immune system to fight it. It does this by releasing antibodies and hormones into our system that rid the body of the threat. As such, a healthy immune system is important because it helps us get sick less frequently.
However, that’s not all it’s for. New research suggests that our immune system is tied to multiple systems in our body. As such, a compromised immune system can lead to mental health conditions like depression, fatigue, and anxiety.
That’s why it’s so vital to care for our immune systems in whatever way we can. This is especially true for people who have immune disorders that make them more susceptible to viruses and bacteria.
How Does Chiropractic Care Help Our Immune System?
Chiropractic care is often tied to benefits for our nervous system. However, the reality is that it can also help promote good health in our immune systems.
It does this by doing things like reducing stress, clearing communication between the nervous system and immune system, and increasing the production of antibodies. In this section, we’ll discuss each of these areas in more detail.
It Reduces Stress
Stress is a perfectly normal physiological function in low doses. Unfortunately, humans these days tend to experience large amounts of it. As this study notes, continued stress affects every system in our body, including the immune system.
Specifically, stress can impair the communication between the hypothalamus and the immune system. Typically, during times of stress, the hypothalamus will react by secreting large amounts of glucocorticoids which can help regulate our immune functions.
However, chronic stress causes the communication between these two systems to break down. If left untreated chronic stress can cause things like:
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Chronic fatigue
- Metabolism disorders
- Immune disorders
Luckily a chiropractic adjustment is a great way of reducing the amount of stress that builds up in the body. It does this by relieving the tension found in misalignments. This not only helps with our mental health but also every major body system, including the immune system.
Clears Communication Between the Nervous and Immune System
Clear communication between the nervous system and the immune system is vital. Here’s how it usually works: the nervous system will detect something like a virus, bad bacteria, or allergen.
Then it will alert the immune system which releases things like white blood cells, antibodies, or hormones to combat the threat. Our spinal cord, which is a communication highway, is needed for facilitating the response to these two systems.
As such, if you have a misalignment in your back, it can prevent proper communication between the brain and the immune system. That’s part of the reason why chiropractic care can help with allergies.
Clearing up communication between these two systems, allows the immune system to properly function in response to a foreign allergen.
Increases Antibody Levels
If you go to the doctor sick, they might give you antibiotics. This type of medication gets rid of the invader in your body. However, it also gets rid of a lot of the good bacteria too.
What’s more, this method doesn’t teach your body how to fight the illness. Chiropractic care, on the other hand, naturally increases the amount of antibodies in your system. This helps you get sick less often. And, if you do get sick, you’ll be able to get over it more quickly.
What Are the Other Benefits of Chiropractic Care?
As you can see, chiropractic care has an indirect, positive response to our immune system. However, it’s important to note that it’s far from the only benefit that this care can provide.
Perhaps the biggest advantage of chiropractic medicine is that it provides pain relief for a variety of conditions. Whether you’re experiencing soreness in your leg or shoulder, a chiropractor can probably help you with it.
The same goes for chronic conditions like osteoarthritis and migraines. What’s more, it does so in a way that’s natural and drug-free. It can also help with things like:
- Lowering inflammation
- Improving your posture
- Helping you fall asleep
- Improving your range of motion
- Reducing blood pressure levels
What’s more, it accomplishes all of these things without costing you a fortune. Compared to other medical treatments, chiropractic care is extremely affordable. Make sure to check out this resource to learn more about the benefits of chiropractic care.
Other Ways to Improve Your Immune System
Chiropractic care isn’t the only thing you should be doing to boost your immune system. There are a variety of other lifestyle changes you can make that will naturally keep your immunity in working order. This includes things like:
- Quit smoking cigarettes
- Exercise
- Reduce alcohol consumption
- Reduce stress
- Eat healthy
- Get enough sleep
- Wash your hands
- Get the vaccines updated
If you pair these types of healthy lifestyle changes with chiropractic care, your body will be much better equipped to fight illness with immune system support.
Ready to Improve Your Immunity? Contact AArrow Straight Chiropractic
We hope this guide helped you learn more about how chiropractic care can strengthen your immune system. During his thirty years of experience, Dr. Roger Gosselin has seen chiropractic services help patients with a wide variety of issues.
While back pain and headaches are the usual suspects, he’s also seen promising potential in treating a wide range of immune system problems. So if you’re ready for a personalized treatment plan for your health problems, schedule your appointment with us today, or call 603 882 7769.