A Healthy Brain Resides in a Healthy Body

The brain is metabolically expensive to maintain.  You need to use it or lose it.

This is why making sure you challenge your brain regularly is important.  These types of challenges include learning an instrument or a new language or doing puzzles, for example.

However, a balance of Accurate Sensory Input is also vital for a healthy brain.  Processing sensory information is another way you use your brain.

In the 1950's, experiments at McGill University discovered that sensory depriviation will start to ruin brain function in a matter of days.  Problems with memory and concentration quickly become apparent.  The study was intended to last 6 weeks.  None of the subjects lasted more than 6 days.

More recent studies have shown that improving vision through cataract surgery or improving hearing with the use of hearing aids slowed the rate of cognitive decline.  Their brains worked better through improving sensory input.

Like your vision or hearing, your body position sense is processed by information sent to the brain through nerves.

Unlike your vision or hearing, though, these nerves aren't coming from a localized area like your eyes or ears, but rather are coming from receptors scattered throughout the body in joint capsultes, muscles, tendons, ligaments and skin.

There are 139 joints in your spine alone. Since they all send info to the brain through the nerves, it's like having 139 separate "eyes" in the spine.  If they move properly, the brain "sees" the body accurately.

Much of the information coming from these "eyes" is processed by a part of your brain called the cerebellum.  Even though it's small and compact, it is so important that is has about 6 times the number of nerve cells as the rest of the brain combined.

This is like a behind the scenes computer that works mostly without your awareness. It processes sensory input to coordinate and regulate muscle activity.  The better the input, the better the response.

Because of the information coming from such widespread parts of your body, and because the part of the brain that processes it works mostly unconsciously, you tend not to think about your body position sense much, or notice it much when it starts going bad.

Over time, repeated stress, sedentary lifestyle, poor posture and trauma lead to inflammation, fibrosis and stiffness of various joints throughout your body.  This loss of movement is a form of sensory deprivation to the brain. Body position sense suffers.  Over time this results in brain degeneration and lessened ability to interact with the world around you.

The chiropractic adjustment is like glasses for your spine.  The goal is to improve movement and function to the body from its current state.  This will give your brain more accurate info to work with, which not only helps keep it healthy, but makes it easier to coordinate muscle activity.  Side effects include moving better, feeling better, sleeping better, better posture and improved mood.