The
foundational philosophy behind modern medicine as we have come to know it is
referred to as allopathy, which is defined as the treatment of disease by
methods that produce the effects opposite of symptoms. Our pharmaceutically-driven healthcare system
has pierced to its core the societal perception of what it means to be
healthy. We have been indoctrinated by a
paradigm that strips away the control that we can and should maintain over our
own bodies, all while preaching the virtues of faulty theories that, if the
history of healthcare is any indication, will eventually be disproven in favor
of the next generational hypothesis; the vast majority of us consequently take our
health for granted, as evidenced by seven out of ten Americans taking
prescription drugs but only one out of ten consistently eating quality food.
In our quest
to take back control of our health, we would be wise to take a peek inside the
minds of elite athletes, who embody that which health is really all about:
being the best version of ourselves.
They work hard to achieve and sustain peak physical and mental
conditioning; when an aspect of their game is weak, they seek the necessary help
to make it a strength, be it through counseling to manage stress, coaching to
maximize nutritional efficiency, training to enhance athletic performance, or
chiropractic care to optimize their structural integrity and functional
resiliency.
Focusing on
that final point, it is of note that only 10% of Americans seek chiropractic
care and that, of those 10%, the vast majority go for a limited time in order
to address only a specific symptom (or diagnosis), rendering the practice a
more natural version of drug-therapy. By
comparison, “I would estimate that at least 90% of world class athletes use
chiropractic on a regular basis to prevent
injuries and to improve their
performance,” Sean Atkins, who holds a PhD in Exercise Physiology, has stated.
The science
of chiropractic often gets scrutinized in the medical community for its lack of
studies set against specific conditions.
Though such studies do exist and often produce profound results in
helping people with diagnoses like hypertension and multiple sclerosis,
especially in the upper cervical specialty, the historical focus of the
chiropractic profession has not been on treating disease, but rather optimizing
the body’s ability to heal itself. Thus,
research abounds when studying the chiropractic paradigm’s effectiveness in
helping athletes. For instance, one
study concluded that collegiate baseball players were more effective
statistically and healthier physiologically after Upper Cervical Care. Another found that chiropractic helped
injured female long distance runners both recover quickly and post personal
bests in subsequent races.
One of the
key elements that separates an elite athlete from an average one is reaction
time. In soccer, for instance, a striker
breaking free into open space needs a teammate to pass the ball at the right
moment so that the striker can run onto it behind the defense without being
called offside and have a breakaway opportunity for a goal; reaction time, in
this example, is the ability to see the streaking striker and to make the necessary
pass literally within a second. Several
years ago, research showed that athletes under Upper Cervical Care had a
reaction time 15% faster than their peers.
Extrapolate that data out into the general population and think of how
it might positively affect your ability to drive or to make quick, important
decisions to simply (and literally) get your head on straight.
From Arnold
Schwarzenegger to Jerry Rice to Michael Jordan to John Stockton to Wayne
Gretsky to Serena Williams to Usain Bolt to Aaron Rodgers (whose dad is a
chiropractor), athletes have become increasingly aware of chiropractic’s
effectiveness for decades.
Traumas
occur throughout our lives (especially during youth) that disrupt the delicate
balance between the head and the upper neck, the proper alignment of which is
foundational to our structural integrity and the misalignment of which begins a
head-to-toe compensatory domino effect that causes the body’s natural
biomechanics (how it moves) to change.
The widespread physical adaptation prompts the muscles of the body to
pull against each other instead of work together, creating a destructive
dynamic that makes the body more prone to injury and various symptoms of
distress (pain among them). That same
misalignment also compromises the brainstem, the organ responsible for routing
the communication between the brain and the organs, muscles, and tissues like a
cell tower in a phone network; a lack of normal function internally has a
globally detrimental effect on the body.
Most people
address fundamental problems with their health, such as the upper cervical
misalignment and its cascade of side effects, long after they become symptomatic;
this is largely because our health system has taught us to be reactive. Elite athletes, on the other hand, have been
taught to be proactive.
Jerry Rice,
an NFL Hall of Famer and Upper Cervical advocate, once said, “Life requires the
edge that chiropractic provides.” Upper
Cervical Care keeps the structural frame balanced and keeps the brainstem free
of neurologic distortion to allow for top notch internal networking, resulting
in optimal heart, lung, and musculoskeletal function among a great many other benefits. Athletes desire that edge because it helps
them to train harder, recover faster, and perform better. Why are the rest of us not following their
lead, collectively tweaking our mindsets toward health in order to become the
best possible versions of ourselves?
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