How Maple Grove Chiropractic Helps with Anxiety and Depression
Most Minnesotans who struggle with mental health issues don't think chiropractic care can help with stress, anxiety, or depression. But a growing body of research is shedding light on the fact that regular spinal adjustments offer benefits beyond mobility, flexibility, and overall physical health.
The holistic health benefits of chiropractic treatments are rooted in several biological and physiological reactions to the stretches, movements, and massage therapies that patients experience during treatment.
Although we recommend that anyone working through mental health issues prioritize counseling and therapy over chiropractic care, regular adjustments are a complementary treatment with proven benefits.
Understanding how Mental Health Issues Affect the Body
Anxiety and depression can have a severe impact on physical health. Both conditions can lead to heart disease, diabetes, and other chronic health conditions. Conversely, poor health habits can significantly contribute to mental health issues.
Regardless of whether mental health is causing physiological stress or vice versa, the Mayo Clinic considers these to be the most common signs of anxiety or depression:
- Increased heart rate
- Tightness in the chest
- Fatigue or frequently feeling tired
- Muscle tension
- Difficulty falling or staying asleep
- Significant weight fluctuations
Rather than relieving the surface-level symptoms of mental health afflictions, chiropractic care can help address the root causes. Let's take a closer look at the physiological benefits of regular spinal adjustments for patients in Maple Grove.
What are the Mental Health Benefits of Chiropractic Care?
Dr. Tieri of Total Spine Health & Injury Center is intimately acquainted with the relationships between musculoskeletal problems and mental health. During his time over the last 12 years in practice, he's seen the incredible benefits of chiropractic care and how they can extend beyond pain relief.
Increased Production of Helpful Hormones
Spinal health has extensive and far-reaching effects throughout your body. Regular and precise treatments from a licensed chiropractor can help naturally modify specific hormones that are crucial to managing mental health.
One such hormone is neurotensin, which is associated with relieving stress-related pain. Another vital chemical triggered by chiropractic adjustments is oxytocin, which encourages social bonding. Finally, there is the all-important cortisol, which plays a critical role in stress management and inflammation.
Fewer Headaches and Less Muscle Stiffness
While certain positive hormones can reduce the effects of physical pain, consistent therapeutic rehabilitation can eliminate the causes of pain itself. A chiropractic adjustment increases blood flow and circulation to injured muscles, encouraging them to relax and heal.
Once muscles are fully recovered, ongoing chiropractic care can help keep your spine healthy and aligned in a way that reduces the risk of future muscle tension and stiffness. These treatments also work for headaches and migraines, which are often caused by tension in the neck and shoulders.
More Stable Blood Pressure
As one of the most common signs of mental distress, high blood pressure is an issue that patients must confront to improve their quality of life. General practice doctors will be the first to admit that their patients rarely follow lifestyle adjustments to lower blood pressure. But despite this, GPs rarely recommend chiropractic and massage therapy as potential solutions, even though recent studies have shown that these treatments can provide significant benefit for their patients' blood pressures.
Better Outcomes from Diet and Exercise
Most chiropractors in Maple Grove offer diet and exercise plans. Unlike the generic and vague recommendations offered by most GPs, chiropractors have unique insights into what lifestyle changes are most likely to succeed relative to a patient's specific situation.
Since most patients will have four to twelve chiropractic adjustments per month, accountability is another reason that diet and exercise routines provided by a chiropractor are far more likely to succeed.
Healthier, More Natural Sleep Patterns
An inability to sleep or an inability to relax are persistent problems for people struggling with anxiety or depression. Institutionalized healthcare is quick to dole out pharmaceutical solutions, but these often exacerbate the underlying problem. Over the past 20 years, dozens of studies have examined the relationship between tension relief and quality of sleep.
It's not hard to see why reducing musculoskeletal aches and pains leads to better sleep. Still, the research seems to suggest that chiropractic care leads to circadian rhythm improvements that we don't yet understand.
How Many Chiropractic Sessions are Needed for Mental Health Improvements?
A patient suffering from anxiety or depression related to a traumatic injury will follow a very different chiropractic treatment schedule than a patient with chronic pain. That said, most Maple Grove residents should aim for at least one weekly adjustment, if possible. In some cases, the recommended appointment frequency could be as high as three times per week.
Mental health is a moving target for most people. Patients can develop the perfect chiropractic schedule accompanied by healthy lifestyle changes and still struggle with circumstances outside their control. When it comes to issues of anxiety and depression, spinal adjustments should be viewed as a supportive or complementary treatment.
Helpful hormones, healthy blood pressure, optimal sleep habits, and other benefits of chiropractic care will strengthen Maple Grove residents fighting to overcome obstacles to everyday happiness.
One of the biggest causes of stress and anxiety for Americans is healthcare costs. More and more Minnesotans are seeking affordable treatments outside of conventional options. Schedule a chiropractic consultation with the Total Spine Health & Injury team to learn about your natural, non-invasive treatment options.
