Why You Need Chiropractic Care in the New Year
While the holidays are a time to be merry for most people, it’s also the season for a lot of anxiety, stress, and anguish, leading many of us to act in ways we are sure to regret in the near future. During this season of joy and merrymaking with loved ones and friends, most people usually resort to harmful habits like overdosing on alcohol, caving into sugar cravings, and subjecting their bodies to excess physical and mental strain. To make matters worse, the pressure to host several family gatherings and having to attend many others organized by friends and family, can be a lot to cope with.
Learning how to manage both physical and mental stress during the holidays is a useful tool that will serve you not only during the coming holidays but throughout life and its seasons. Here are some stress management techniques that can be helpful.
Plan and Prioritize
In many instances, your brain will feel overwhelmed by all the things you need to do during the holidays. You will be asking yourself questions like “Which gift can I buy for so and so?” and “How do I deal with my kids demanding lots of stuff?” or “Which meals should I prepare for our family gatherings?”. All this information can be hard to process at once, and it often gets a bit heavy.
The best approach here is to prepare a to-do-list. If this idea also sounds too overwhelming, it may be time to say no to some activities this holiday season. Sometimes people deliberately decide to stay disorganized to shield themselves from dealing with reality. You may be trying to do too much.
Try to organize a to-do-list and then prioritize the most important activities. If you feel that some events are not all that important, take them off the list. You don’t have to agree to host all the family and friend gatherings, and you don’t have to buy everyone you know a gift. Making some of these changes could help you enjoy what matters most over the holidays.
Try to Relax
Relaxing can be one of the hardest things to do, especially during the holidays. Most people tend to think that the best thing to do is to do something. Well, this is true, but not everything you do will be healthy. It’s essential to give your body and mind time to rest. You can do a couple of simple, inexpensive things to relax, like:
- Listen to music;
- Watch a movie;
- Take a short walk just for fun; and
- Practice yoga and meditation.
These activities are known to help relieve stress and anxiety. In case you have any physical symptoms of stress like headaches and pain in your shoulders, neck, and upper back, perhaps you should also consider seeking chiropractic care in the New Year. This can help when it comes to adjusting to a New Year, especially after all the strenuous activities you have been engaging in over the holidays. Chiropractic care such as spinal adjustment and spinal manipulation can help relieve many of the physical symptoms of stress.
Bond with the People Who Matter in Your Life
Simply having someone who loves you and cares about you can help to prevent stress and anxiety. According to a recent study, it was established that having a best friend around during a stressful situation helps to prevent a rise in cortisol, the hormone released when you are stressed. Chatting with someone close to you can help to clear the mind of uncertainty so that you can focus on problem-solving. Try to spend some more quality time with close friends and loved ones by hanging out and talking more during this festive season, and you will feel less stressed.
Try Chiropractic Care
Did you know that receiving regular chiropractic adjustments has the potential to reduce stress levels significantly? A 2018 study published in the Journal of Neurology Psychiatry and Brain Research found that receiving regular chiropractic adjustments helped to reduce stress levels and improve overall well-being. At this point, you may be asking how it works.
Whenever you experience stressful situations, whether physical, emotional, or situational, the body activates the sympathetic nervous system. This is a response known as “fight or flight” mode. This causes an extended stimulus to further stress the body, which then triggers a release of adrenaline. When adrenaline is released, it produces specific body functions like:
- Increased sweating;
- Pupil dilation;
- Increased heart rate and sweating;
- Increased blood pressure; and
- Muscle tension.
With extended exposure to stressful situations, these effects become long-lasting and cause the body to overwork. Chiropractic care helps to restore the optimal functioning of the nervous system, which consists of the brain and spinal cord. The spine is the backbone of the neurological system, while the brain is responsible for controlling every other function in the body.
Spinal adjustments offered by chiropractors are essential in restoring balance and loosening the muscle tension usually associated with stress. So when you’re out shopping for the holidays in Cumming, why not add chiropractic care in the New Year to your shopping list. It could do you some good if you want to manage stress over the holidays and help to ensure you always have a healthy spine.
Treat the Physical Symptoms of Stress
Some of the common physical signs of stress on our bodies include:
- Headaches;
- Jaw pain;
- Neck and upper back pain; and
- Shoulder pain.
The discomfort that these symptoms can bring can cause cortisol levels to rise and throw you into an agonizing stress-pain-stress cycle. While some of the holiday stress management tips mentioned earlier can help, the most effective remedy for such symptoms is chiropractic care.
Corrective chiropractic care like spinal adjustments and spinal manipulations can help to relieve most of the painful issues and make the body stress-resilient. This will help you to enjoy each holiday as well as every other day. If you are thinking of making New Year’s resolutions for the new you, then you should consider chiropractic care in the New Year. Book an appointment with one of our Cumming chiropractic professionals today so you can manage stress during the holidays and on regular days.