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What is health? What really is health?
We can go to a medical dictionary but what I have learned years ago is that health is an optimal state of physical, mental, and social well-being, not just the absence of disease. Just because someone feels good doesn’t mean they are healthy! Do you know of someone that felt good one day and then the next was in the hospital from a stroke? On the other hand, do you know someone that states they have pain and discomfort but yet they are 85-90 years old and still here!
So health is not the absence of feeling sick or having pain but it is an optimal state of physical, mental and social well being!
There are 5 factors that make up health (in no particular order):
How we FUEL our body.
How we EXERCISE
How we REST our body
The ATTITUDE we have or the mental health of our body
And of course we have the CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM that controls and coordinates all of those actions.
Each of these 5 factors are critical to your health! You have to eat the right things and be fueled properly, you have to have activity and movement on a daily basis, you have to get quality rest so your body is able to adapt to all the stresses being thrown at you, you have to make sure to keep your attitude thankful and grateful at all times despite what is going on in the world around us, and lastly you MUST make sure you have a sound nervous system.
What I mean by a sound nervous system is you have to make sure you are not having any bones within the spine putting pressure on nerves. Did you know that you only feel 10% of your body and of that 10%, pain is the last symptom to come about?! We can have nerve interference for years due to the job we have or playing sports as a child. But just because we have nerve interference doesn’t mean that we will have pain to typically follow. But at some point in the future (usually when we are older) our body will eventually give up and present pain to make you do something about it.
Let's go through and talk about how having an interrupted nervous system can affect the other 4 factors of health that we know are crucial to life.
FUEL - It does not matter how healthy you eat if the power from the brain to the stomach is only working at 70%. If your stomach is only getting 70% of the message then your body may absorb more nutrients that you already have vs. the nutrients that you really need.
EXERCISE - It doesn’t matter how much you exercise and weight lift if the power from the brain to the a group of muscles in your arm are only at 65%.This can affect blood flow and nutrients to that area in order to replenish the fatigued muscle. A fatigued muscle can cause numerous injuries along with little to minimal muscle growth.
REST - You aren’t going to rest when these vertebrae are putting pressure on a nerve that causes the numbness, tingling, pain, inflammation, or swelling at the site. Imagine having nerve interference to your right leg that is causing pain and you have Restless Leg Syndrome at night. You are tossing and turning to get the pressure off your back which causes you not to sleep.
ATTITUDE - and when you aren’t getting the weight loss goals you set or when you aren’t getting the adequate sleep at night that you need, how is that going to affect your mood or your attitude? It has been proven that when we look at the world in a more positive way, or scan our surroundings with a positive mindset we achieve our goals quicker and maintain our satisfactory state. This is called the “Tetris Effect” and you can read more about it in Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor.
All of the factors are important but what you need to understand is yes we have to eat well, improve our attitude, exercise and rest but the one key to all of these is the master control system. That of course is our incredible brain and our incredible spinal cord that is running the entire body with power and receiving info and coordinating all aspects in the body to function.
With it being a New Year with new goals in mind, let's remember the 5 factors of health! Let's take them all seriously and let's take our health to another level anchored of course to chiropractic care.