Chiropractic is in the process of getting regulated in Portugal. It is one of the largest, natural healing professions in the world, which emphasises the inherent recuperative power of the body to heal itself.
We do not even have to think for our amazing bodies to regulate our heart beat, digest our food, fight an infection or heal a cut. It is all done for us automatically. Our nervous system is the one that controls all the systems of the body and allows us to feel. It is through our senses that we can appreciate a good meal, taste a good wine or enjoy a beautiful sunset.
As long as there is normal flow of vital energy from your brain down the spinal cord and through the nerves to the rest of your body, you are functioning as you were designed to and you are healthy. It is like an electric system where electrical impulses are generated in the brain and propelled along a complex system of nerves that connect the brain to the organs, tissues, glands, and cells of the body.
However, bones of the spine (the vertebras) can be a source of nerve interference when they do not move properly and end up out of alignment. This interferes with your ability to adapt to your environment and leaves the body in an unhealthy state. The result is similar to putting a kink in a water hose; the water still flows through the hose, but not at full strength. That is when chiropractic can help with its specific art of adjusting the spine. Chiropractic care doesn’t add chemicals or foreign substances to your body. Instead, through manual spinal adjustments, chiropractic care seeks to restore proper control and regulation of your body so health can return naturally. The fact that your headache, back pain or allergic reaction may improve in the process is wonderful and likely be an expression of a better functioning nervous system.
Research has identified the actual changes that occur in the body, nervous system and brain during chiropractic spinal adjustments. The study was conducted by an award-winning Auckland researcher named Dr Heidi Haavik-Taylor. She demonstrated that muscle control can be changed by stimulating the nervous system through chiropractic adjustments. (*)
“The process of a spinal adjustment is like rebooting a computer. The signals that these adjustments send to the brain, via the nervous system, reset muscle behavior patterns,” as quoted by Dr Haavik-Taylor. “By stimulating the nervous system we can improve the function of the whole body. This is something that chiropractors and their patients have known for years and now we have some scientific evidence to prove it.”
Chiropractors are concerned with the patients’ overall well-being and recognise that many factors affect health, including stress, exercise, diet, rest, environment and heredity.
This is why chiropractic also stresses the importance of prevention and primarily utilises a pro-active approach in wellness care.
Like millions of people around the world, you too can enjoy better health by choosing the chiropractic approach to help release your body’s inborn healing abilities. That is chiropractic’s philosophy.
* Haavik Taylor H and Murphy B. (2007). World Federation of Chiropractic’s Ninth Biennial Congress Award Winning Paper (3rd Prize): Altered sensorimotor integration with cervical spine manipulation. Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics, in press.
By Sandra Genest-Boudreau | Christophe O. Alves
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Sandra Genest-Boudreau is French-Canadian, who graduated from the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College in 1990 before coming to the Algarve in 2002. She is passionate about adjusting all her patients, particularly children. Christophe Alves graduated from the Anglo-European College of Chiropractic (AECC) UK, and has a special interest in Sport Chiropractic. Algarve Quiroprática clinic: EN125 in Pêra | 282 312 853 | 969 397 375
