Holidays, Tigers, & Bears, Oh My!

The holidays can be stressful. 

Less and less people care about Halloween, so holiday marketing begins as early as August or September in some places.

Four to five months of marketing for shopping, food, and festivities is a lot for any of us to take in, but take it in we certainly do!

Preparing for the holidays can be a burden to many of us. And with burdens comes stress. And with stress comes our bodies’ sympathetic, fight-or-flight, stress responses. 

Don’t get me wrong, having the stress responses we have can keep us alive in precarious situations. Were we to encounter a tiger or grizzly bear in the wild, our pupils will dilate much more than usual to take in more of our surroundings; Our heart will pump more blood at a faster rate throughout our bodies in order to oxygenate our muscles so that we can run like hell away from that tiger or grizzly bear; our nervous system will respond to the uptick of stress hormones racing through our veins and arteries by emptying our bladders and bowels.

But most of us won’t encounter a wild tiger on the hunt or a grizzly bear mama incensed that some two-legged idiot is wandering too close to her cub.

No, what we all face is LIFE, with all of its emotional, spiritual, and financial stressors on a day-in/day-out basis, stressors like *gasp* getting prepared for the holidays.

When we are consistently stressed, our bodies go into a sustained fight-or-flight mode, and this is where disease originates. Symptoms like high blood pressure, increased pulse, ulcers, constipation, anxiety, depression, and the list can go on and on.

Chiropractic adjustments are important because they remove the pressure off of the nerves up and down the spine. With these nerves branching off into every part of the body, it’s impossible for the body to be in anything other than a parasympathetic, calm state. 

And with the holidays around the corner, doesn’t that sound like something we all need?

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