What's with chiropractors and this holistic thing?

I had someone come into the office yesterday to propose a business arrangement. He stayed after the meeting for a short time, and asked me this question:

"What is it with you chiropractors and this holistic thing?"

I thought it was a great question. It's a question that I'm certain many of you out there have had, and not necessarily in relation to chiropractic. What is it with this holistic thing? Why is it important to me? Why should I care?

My answer went something like this:

"Well, M___, what you have to understand first off is that our current state of health is a product of every single experience we have ever had in our life. That means that every physical experience, every chemical toxin, every piece of food, and every emotional upset that we have had contributes to our health. When you understand this piece of information it empowers you to look at all aspects of your life and how they are contributing to your health. Holistic health is about taking responsibility for all of those aspects and then doing something about them. That means eating right, avoiding chemical toxins, managing emotions well, and getting adjusted so everything else is connected and works well."

He said, "But what about Linda McCartney? She led a holistic life and she died of cancer! If anyone should not have died of cancer, it should have been her."

"Well, I have two comments about that. One, if you see a contradiction, like she should not have died of cancer and she did, you have to check your premises, because one of them is wrong. Contradictions don't exist. Two, I don't really know much about Linda McCartney, but I have several suppositions that I'd like to suggest that might explain this. It is possible that she did live a very holistic lifestyle in all the ways that most people think would contribute to health, and she still might have missed something. I don't know. It is also possible that because of her lifestyle she lived much longer than she otherwise might have. It is also possible that she was exposed to something early on in her life that she had still not fully accounted for. Perhaps there was an emotional stress that she was unwilling to unable to look at."

"My grandfather," he countered, "lived to 82 and smoked two packs a day!"

"I would ask this question: How long might he have lived if he hadn't smoked? And also, if he knew, deep down in his heart and soul that it was fulfilling some need in him, then it's likely that he wouldn't have had as much damage from those cigarettes as someone else who feels guilty about it because of the media pressure. In France they have lower rates of lung cancer but higher rates of smoking."

"What about genetics?" he said, "haven't they found a gene for cancer?"

"Genetics," I replied, "are not the end all of what determines health. They are environmentally triggered, as the new science of epigenetics is showing us. Twin studies have shown that while one twin might die of a genetic disease that they both have, the other may heal. It has happened. The gene for that disease was gone when they looked for it after the first twin died! Genes provide us with possibilities, and it is up to us to help express what we want to express. We are not limited by our genes."

Holism is not a fad. Holistic health is about taking responsibility for every aspect of your health, from the food you eat, to the exercise you get, or don't, to the toxins in your environment, to the spiritual connection you have with yourself, to getting adjusted. It's about honoring natural laws of life, that say mothers do have the ability to birth a baby, that the body can heal, that emotions are meant to be felt, and that sometimes, the perfect response from your body is to spike a fever.

But it's up to you.

How does chiropractic fit into it? Chiropractic is used to connect you with the power inside that regulates and controls EVERY single function in your body. Your body moves more smoothly, organs function more appropriately, clarity of thought is improved, sleep quality goes up, and people can heal!

How much healthier could you be if you got adjusted?

Ups and Downs of Blood Pressure

The following is from an email written by a fabulous chiropractor who has got the big idea. It's a fabulous look at blood pressure and why lowering our blood pressure isn't always the goal of the body, so why should it be ours?

"There have been several studies over the years (two recently, including one at the University of Chicago Medical School) that talk about the chiropractic adjustment’s ability to lower blood pressure in hypertensive patients. You might think that as a chiropractor these kinds of studies make me very happy. While I am happy that chiropractic is getting some positive press, I am actually quite disturbed by these kinds of studies that show chiropractic to be a treatment (alternative or otherwise) for any kind of dis-ease. The problem I have with these studies is that there is an underlying assumption that the particular symptom being focused upon (i.e., high blood pressure) is something gone WRONG in that person. You may be thinking, “But high blood pressure IS something gone wrong!” This is where we need to talk about the words NORMAL and AVERAGE.

"Is it possible that the reason someone has a blood pressure outside the AVERAGE is that the Innate Intelligence of the body is trying to accomplish something by raising or lowering it? What if, as a person gets older and is less active, his leg muscles lose some of their strength and ability to contract normally, making it harder for his heart to pump blood against gravity and fully oxygenate his brain? Might the Innate Intelligence of his body RAISE his blood pressure above AVERAGE to ensure normal oxygenation of his brain? Might taking medicines to artificially LOWER his blood pressure actually decrease the amount of oxygen to his brain and cause mental problems such as Alzheimer’s disease or something similar? On a related note, might his Innate Intelligence lay down a greater than AVERAGE amount of cholesterol in his arteries in order to more easily and efficiently raise his blood pressure in response to his increased need for oxygen? Decreased blood flow to any specific area of your body may cause an overall increase in your blood pressure in the same way.

"The truth is that there are really only three reasons why you might have a blood pressure that is outside of the AVERAGE range.

1) Your focus and/or lifestyle choices keep your body and mind in a survival state that requires a higher than AVERAGE blood pressure to survive the day. This is a correct response.

2) Your Innate Intelligence is CORRECTLY attempting to compensate for a specific problem somewhere in your body and may need to raise or lower it (this may also be due to a lifestyle choice).

3) Your Innate Intelligence is unable to fully comprehend and/or respond to what your body needs due to a decreased brain-body connection (i.e., subluxation) and has therefore incorrectly altered your blood pressure.

In the cases where people’s blood pressures decrease after their adjustments, they obviously just needed a clearer neurological connection so that their Innate Intelligence could more accurately regulate their blood pressure. The adjustments gave them that clearer connection. An interesting finding in many of these studies was that several subjects actually had an increase in their blood pressure occur after chiropractic care. This baffled the researchers, but if we understand again that a clear neurological connection is required in order for Innate Intelligence to correctly raise your blood pressure if necessary (see #1 and #2 above), then it is very easy to see that once these people were reconnected by an adjustment, the CORRECT response in their blood pressure occurred automatically!

Basically what it all comes down to is this. You have an amazing Inborn Wisdom that knows exactly what your blood pressure needs to be in every moment. This is your NORMAL blood pressure whether it is the AVERAGE for the population or not. But in order for you to maintain YOUR normal blood pressure, you MUST have a healthy lifestyle, a positive mental focus and above all, a clear neurological connection! Seeing your chiropractor regularly allows you to know you are neurologically clear and TRUST that your Innate Intelligence is always doing the right thing in order to keep you functioning, adapting, healing and growing perfectly. Then you can relax and celebrate all that you are and all that you can yet be!"

(Paul again)

The best part about this is how this philosophy of health and life actually explains perfectly how the blood pressure of some of the participants in the studies could go up!