Your nervous system is the primary control mechanism for every cell in your body. Your spine allows you freedom of movement, protects your spinal cord and also distributes the nerves that transmit important information from your brain to and from all areas of your body.

With today's busy lifestyle, your spine is subjected to stress from a variety of sources. The three main causes are physical, emotional and chemical. Such common events such as accidents, slips and falls, exercising, and normal, daily repetitive motion put physical stress on your spine. Emotions such as anger, frustration and sadness create emotion stress, and the use of alcohol or drugs add chemical stress to your spine.

Even the process of birth may stress a baby's brand new spine. All of these forms of stress can cause muscles to tighten up and pull spinal vertebrae out of alignment. Chiropractors call these spinal misalignments, subluxations. Subluxations compromise freedom of motion and put pressure on essential nerves, blocking critical communications to and from your brain.

This interruption in signals from these nerves can eventually lead to pain, discomfort and disability. Subluxations can be an underlying cause of many conditions, including headaches, back pain, bursitis, carpel tunnel syndrome and sciatica. As stress continues, the body's immune system is weakened, resulting in greater susceptibility to disease.

It is true that our bodies have marvelous self-healing mechanisms built in that can sometimes correct subluxations as we move about and sleep. However, when you experience pain or other symptoms, it may be a sign that they are already interfering with your body's normal healing ability.

To restore good health, it is important to know whether you have subluxations or not. They can only be found through a professional examination by a doctor of chiropractor. And, the only way to correct them is through chiropractic adjustments.

Chiropractors, through adjustment of the subluxation, can free the vertebrae, remove pressure on the nerves and bring back normal nerve flow. The body can again respond to any imbalance in the system to relieve symptoms and restore health. When nerve interference is removed, there are significant, lasting health benefits.

Chiropractors may also work in conjunction with massage therapists, who use techniques to loosen tight muscles and increase blood flow, which enhance your chiropractic adjustments and help speed healing. Through regular chiropractic adjustments, your spine can achieve and maintain proper alignment so that your body can heal itself more quickly and fight diseases more efficiently.

Visit your chiropractor to find out if you have subluxations that are keeping you from enjoying optimal health. Whether you are an athlete seeking to improve performance or an accident victim looking to regain mobility and normalcy, your doctor of chiropractic can find and help remove subluxations so you can live a better quality of life.