The 21st Century’s Most Contagious Disease

Who can solve this riddle?

I can start the day enthusiastic without caffeine.

I am always cheerful.

I resist boring people with my aches, pains, and sorrows.

I can eat the same food every day and still be grateful.

I love unconditionally.

I can relax without alcohol and I can sleep without drugs.

What am I?

The answer is…the family dog!

Be honest. Have you ever wished you could just live the life of your family pet? Most people have at least thought about how nice it would be to just eat, sleep, and play all day long, every day. We envy our pets because they live a life free of stress and as a result they seem to just always have a good time no matter the situation.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, most people need caffeine to get the day started. They need even more caffeine to make it through the day and then they need alcohol to relax and drugs to sleep. Don’t dare think about speaking to them because they are always irritable and seem to always have a cold or headache. They wake up with stress and go to bed with much of the same, if not more, stress. Weekends are spent trying to catch up on rest and dreading what the coming week holds. Before they realize it twenty years have flown by, relationships are in shambles, and what do they have to show for it? Sound familiar?

Americans are more stressed now than ever and the scenario above is all too common. Stress has been linked to high blood pressure, irregular heartbeat, digestive issues, irritability, sleep disorders, among many more. One of the more significant effects of long-term stress is immune suppression. We begin to catch every cold that goes around and can’t ever seem to feel well. This makes us less productive at work or unable to go to work at all. Once this cycle begins, it is hard to break. All the while we transfer our workload to our coworkers and/or bosses which begins to stress them out. This right here is exactly why they call stress a contagious disease.

There are several ways to combat the stress that we face on a daily basis:

1. Exercise – getting regular, rigorous exercise releases endorphins (the feel-good hormone) and helps regulate the amount of stress hormones in the body.

2. Belly breathing – this underrated exercise does wonders for moments when you are feeling the full force of stress. Simply breath in and out of your nose and focus on expanding your abdomen. Try to minimize chest expansion during this exercise. This works by stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system (restful part of the nervous system) via the vagus nerve.

3. Neurologically-based chiropractic care – Chiropractic adjustments can also powerfully stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system which helps put you in a less tense state. The nervous system controls your response to stress so ensuring you have a healthy nervous system is key in stress management.

If you or someone you know is tired of dealing with the physical and mental effects of stress, then give us a call at 205-523-4651 to schedule a complimentary assessment. During this assessment we use our state of the art technology to determine the cause of stress and explain how we can correct it.