Chronic Stress

I found an article in Brain World titled, “Chronic stress and how it can harm you.  In the article, they compared psychological stress to mechanical stress as in engineering.  This engineering outlook defines stress as the amount of resistance a material offers to being reshaped and reformed.  In other words, a steel beam can handle a certain amount of stress before it collapses under the load and the structure suffers.  The authors in this article look at psychological stress in the same way, stating that we can all handle a certain threshold of stress, but at excessive levels, we breakdown.  What I liked about this particular article is that the authors offer a slightly more complete picture than what has been presented in the past.

Emotional stress is perceived in the brain, but then chemically generated by the stress hormone cortisol from the adrenal glands.  In chronic stress, the adrenals will produce higher and higher levels of cortisol that act to decrease a part of the brain’s resistance to free radicals.  This part of the brain is called the hippocampus and it is associated with converting short-term memory to long-term memory.  The free radical damage to the nerve cells of the hippocampus will negatively impact memory, learning, and creativity.  The cells actually shrink and die in this process.  In studies using rats, they found that the stressed rats became less creative and cunning predisposing the animals to doing the same thing over and over.  There’s more to this, but this damage to the hippocampus is the mechanism by where memory and our ability to learn effectively are diminished as a result of chronic stress.  As it turns out, the hippocampus is also the mechanism by which the adrenals are regulated or shut off.  Thus, as the nerve cells in this part of the brain become damaged and die, there is no regulator for the adrenals and the process spirals out of control until the adrenal glands become damaged themselves.

There is a big silver lining to this study however.  The authors researched how this process could be reversed and how the damaging effects of stress could be limited.  They found that the hippocampus could be protected through calorie reduction, fasting, and mental and physical exercise.  These healthy activities increase a hormone that acts to protect the hippocampus from free radicals associated high cortisol levels.  In past articles, I’ve made reference to our Wellness Program.  The research documented in this study is precisely why we incorporate, meditation, massage, and chiropractic along with a healthy diet and exercise into our program.  In fact, I would argue that if you’re doing any kind of weight loss program that doesn’t include physical exercise and stress reduction, you’re not going to get favorable results.  Understand that stress literally is the silent killer and the goal is not necessarily to try to eliminate all forms of stress.  Rather, promoting healthy activity such as proper diet, exercise, meditation, massage, proper sleep and chiropractic care all combined to help shut off the stress response and the associated damage to the brain is the way to go.

Startling Stats

I ran across an article titled, “Routine physicals don’t save lives.”   In a study conducted by the Nordic Cochrane Centre, they looked at 183,000 patients and evaluated the efficacy of their physical exams.  The study reported that, “Patients who had regular health check-ups died from cardiovascular disease and cancer at virtually the same rates at those who did not have regular check-ups.”  They also found that both groups die of all other causes at about the same rate.  The researchers of the group concluded that “General health checks are unlikely to be beneficial.”

Please don’t misinterpret this data and decide that physical exams are pointless.  The information from exams is useful and very indicative of problems with physiology that can lead to disease.  But what are we doing with that information?  For instance, if you had a physical and your blood came back with high cholesterol, what should you do?  Most likely your doctor would recommend a prescription to help lower your cholesterol numbers.  But the reason that outcomes from physical exams aren’t better than those who don’t get checked is that far too often managing the numbers on the exam with drugs is where it all stops.  Let me ask you this: If you lower your cholesterol number effectively with medication, do you still have a cholesterol problem?  What most likely happens if you go off the drugs?  Did you ever ask what is causing my cholesterol to suddenly be high in the first place and what do I need to do to address this cause?  Physical exams and doctors are there to identify the problems and co-manage the solutions with the patients who have the problems.  But there has to be an active part on behalf of the patient beyond just taking a pill to suppress the numbers.  In my opinion, it’s not that physical exams aren’t working; it’s that we’re not doing enough with that information.  With all the drugs being given out for blood pressure, cholesterol and other risk factors, shouldn’t we expect a decline in the rates of cardiovascular disease?  I can assure you that no such decline has occurred.  We as patients have to start taking an active role because you cannot just medicate a lifestyle problem!

In the old days, doctors would say, “I’m concerned that your blood pressure is getting high and I want you to try this medication for a couple months to see if we can’t control these numbers.  In the meantime, I want you to follow this diet, reduce your salt intake, quit smoking, look for causes of undue stress and begin a program of regular exercise and we’ll check this again in two months.  Don’t you think that this approach is more likely to create results?  Hopefully your doctor is telling you what is causing your conditions and providing you with solutions to address these causes.  If he or she is not, you need to ask them and be willing to do the work beyond taking a pill a couple times per day.  This approach w orks every time!

The Cause is the Cure

Last week I discussed the common cause of neck, shoulder, and upper back pain as well as the root of many tension headaches.  I referred to this as Upper-Crossed Syndrome and reported that it is most often the result of poor posture generally from prolonged sitting.  It turns out that there is a similar phenomenon in the pelvic region known as Lower-Crossed Syndrome and it is a common cause of low back and hip pain and is also the result of poor posture and prolonged sitting.  Recognizing the cause of these syndromes is the key to correcting the problem and recovering from or even preventing much of the spinal pain that afflicts a large portion of our society.

Think about the posture of your low back when you sit at a computer, slouch on the couch, or drive in a car.  The hamstring muscles on the back of the legs and the abdominal muscles are shortened while the quadriceps muscles on the front of the legs and the low back muscles are stretched.  Over time we assume this posture and the imbalance that is created causes tension pulling from the back of the legs and deep abdominals coupled with weakness of the low back and gluteal muscles.  This causes a shearing effect that results in misalignment or subluxation of the low back vertebrae and an excessive wear-and-tear on all the soft tissues.  This imbalance and wear-and-tear is what promotes pain and inflammation initially in the lower spine, pelvis, and hips and eventually results in degeneration and arthritic change in the same areas over time.  The other problem is that shortened muscles will result in a lower irritability threshold or a hypersensitivity that will cause more chronic pain and also change the firing patterns of the muscles creating coordination problems.  While chiropractic adjustments and various other approaches can be very effective at relieving the misalignments and muscle imbalances,  as long as we’re continuing the same behaviors and assuming the same postures that created the problem, the symptoms will often return.  This is precisely why I’ve reported in the past that you must do both – you must correct the misalignments of the spine while at the same time strengthening the weak muscles of the low back and stretching the tight muscles of the deep abdominals and the back side of the legs.

The exercises and stretches to reverse Lower-Crossed Syndrome are actually quite simple.  You must stretch the hamstrings by flexing the hip – I instruct people to touch their toes in the shower.  The hot water provides a better stretch.  Stretching the abdominals can be done by performing a lunge while on one knee or performing a cobra stretch while lying on your belly.  Strengthening the lower back and glutes is a little tougher, but if you look up exercises for this syndrome you will find what you’re looking for.  The moral of the story is that most of the things that cause us to walk into a doctor’s office are caused by things we’re doing outside of the office.  Find the cause and you’ll often be on the right track for the cure!

A Double Cross

As a chiropractor, neck pain, headaches, and shoulder pain or tension are some of the most common complaints that walk through the doors.  While spinal adjustments are usually very effective at providing relief for these symptoms, just like with any health problem, when you go back to the very same lifestyle habits or routines that were the root cause of the problem to begin with, the pain or ailment often returns.  When it comes to spinal or muscular pain, the root cause is often very simple – our posture and daily activity alter the alignment, balance, and function of our spine as well as the muscles that move and support our spine.  In recent decades, we have become world–class sitters and the posture we assume during prolonged hours of sitting becomes the regular posture of our spines.  In the upper back and neck, this postural distortion is known as Upper-Crossed Syndrome.

In Upper-Crossed Syndrome (UCS), tightness of the upper shoulder or trapezius muscles on the back side “crosses” with tightness of the chest muscles on the front side from sitting with rounded shoulders.  Likewise, weakness of the front neck muscles crosses with weakness of the middle back muscles as a result of not using these muscles when we sit. This pattern of imbalance creates joint dysfunction, particularly in the neck and upper back.  Think of this phenomenon literally as a tug-of-war on the muscles and internal structures.  This imbalance and stress on the spine correlates with the primary areas of spinal misalignment or subluxation, disc degeneration, and arthritic change we commonly see in the spine as we age.  These postural changes seen in UCS, include forward head posture, tension up the back side of the neck, loss of curvature in the neck and an increased curvature or “humping” in the upper back resulting in “winging” of the shoulders.  In addition to neck and upper back pain, these postural changes are known to cause numerous problems and excessive wear-and-tear in the shoulder joints.  While this postural change is very common, it is also completely preventable and usually reversible.

Think of what your neck, upper back, and shoulders look like when you sit at a computer, drive in a car, or relax on the couch.  The head is forward and bent, and the upper back and shoulders are rounded.  The good news is that when you work to reverse this posture, the syndrome and the pain associated with it can be reversed as well.  In this case you simply need to perform stretches and exercises to move the head backward to bring the ears over the shoulders.  Similarly you need to perform stretches to open up the chest and exercises to strengthen the shoulder blades and bring the upper back into extension.  In most cases, it may take several months to reverse these changes, but for someone suffering from chronic upper back, shoulder, neck pain, and tension headaches the work is worth the effort.  Reversing these postural distortions is also the key to getting the longest lasting results with your chiropractic care by addressing the root cause of these particular spinal problems.  If you’ve been dealing with these problems, I encourage you to get with a chiropractor who incorporates this work or simply look up Upper-Crossed Syndrome to learn more about the appropriate exercises.  

It’s All Perfect

In 2013, the world lost an innovator and visionary in the field of healthcare.  Dr. M.T. Morter Jr. devoted his life to learning and teaching the truth of human physiology, spirituality, and the nature of health and disease.  He was one of the wisest men I’ve met, possessed of absolute clarity of thought.  He was a man driven by purpose and his purpose was to change the health of mankind worldwide.  I first saw Dr. Morter speak several years ago and it instantly changed the way I looked at health and physiology forever.  I thought I’d share a few of these basic concepts and “Morterisms” to see if they can shift your way of thinking as well.

One of the biggest ideas that Dr. Morter taught is that our bodies are smart and that physiology is always perfect.  In the same way that we develop from two cells into 75 trillion cells without any help, our body is designed to function perfectly on its own.   This means that our cut finger knows how to repair just like our broken arm does.  However, this also means that illness is a perfect response as well!  Just as a stomach ache is the perfect response to a full day of junk food at the fair, so is the flu, arthritis, lupus, and yes, even cancer.  I understand that this may be difficult for some to swallow, but after teaching anatomy and physiology for many years, I’m confident that it’s true.  You have to accept that the body was not necessarily designed for health, but rather, it was designed to survive and adapt.  In other words, the body is constantly reacting and responding to our environment.  A healthy environment will promote normal, healthy physiology or “ease.”  An unhealthy environment will promote a state of dis-ease or illness.  The entire field of epigenetics has proven this to be true.  Now some will still say, “It’s all about our genes.”  But even the latest research proves that genes are merely 25% of our potential; the rest is environment.

So what environment are we adapting to?  Dr. Morter referred to this as the Six Essentials which are: what we eat, drink and breathe, and how we exercise, sleep and think.  All six of these are important, but by far the most important is how we think.  “We cannot be in a healing mode and a survival (stressed) mode at the same time.”  Morter also taught that the body is designed to deal with present physical stressors, but it cannot heal a negative memory or emotional stress from the past embedded in our subconscious.  These negative memories in the brain produce stress hormones which lead to a state of exhaustion over time, and ultimately to symptoms and a state of disease.  We need to follow the rules of all six essentials, but most importantly, we need to heal our emotional pasts and live in the present.  Looking at all life’s encounters as a lesson is one tool to this; practicing meditation is another.  But, “thinking about what we think about” is the key.  Begin to replace negative thought patterns with positive thoughts and the most universal and potent of these is gratitude and forgiveness. Dr. Morter authored numerous books, cd’s, and dvd’s, all available at morter.com.