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A Natural Source of Relief from Tension and Headaches
By Jamie L. Valcourt, D.C.
Women today face a tremendous amount of stress, but the good news is that you may be able to reduce the physical manifestations of that stress without “pill popping”. In my practice I find that the most frequent complaints from women are headaches, tension headaches most commonly, which is usually accompanied by neck and shoulder pain and stiffness.
Any long standing history of muscle tension and tightness, usually the cause of the tension headache, will cause misalignment of the spine. The misalignment of the spine may be why, even when relaxed, you just can’t ever seem to be free of that tension you feel, or no matter how many aspirin you take you just can’t get rid of that headache. It may also be why you may be experiencing a loss of sleep or restlessness and why your neck and shoulders seem to ache when you get in bed, when you should be the most relaxed.
What exactly causes tension headaches in the first place?
Our bodies have a natural fight-or-flight mechanism that is part of how we react to all that we encounter in our lives. Most of us will most commonly equate fight-or flight with physical threat, however, the most common trigger of this reaction is emotional stress (usually anger or irritation in some form).
Our muscles naturally contract during this fight-or-flight response because even emotional stress is perceived by our bodies as a threat to our well-being. Over time this constant trigger of stress, regardless of the source of the stress, has succeeded in leaving us in a constant state of tension. We don’t have the option of fighting with or fleeing from our jobs and families. So the tension just stays where it is. This prolonged state of muscle contraction may then become a chronic problem.
When the spine suffers from chronic contraction, misalignment is the only option. The misalignment may initially help to reduce the tension, as any change to the muscles and spine will do, but over time those tight muscles now further compress the poorly aligned spine. This causes even more uneven contraction and stress in the neck, upper back and shoulders. This chronic contraction and misalignment will eventually manifest itself as pain.
So how does chiropractic fix this problem?
There is no cure for tension or stress. The key is knowing how to remove as many obstacles to being stress-free (dare we say tension or headache free) as we can. Muscle work alone usually doesn’t work. We’ve all rubbed and massaged our necks and shoulders when we’ve had tension headaches. Feels great for a few minutes, but it doesn’t last long. The reason for this is the misalignment of the spine. The misalignment of the spine causes contraction of one side of the neck and stretching on the other.
This state of uneven muscle tension cannot be relieved in any permanent way until the spine is realigned and the muscles are restored to equal states on each side of the spine. Removal of the misalignment and physical imbalance of the muscles is the first step. Chiropractic can easily accomplish this with some other added benefits as well.
What are the added benefits?
The disposing of daily headaches, which for some is life changing in itself, is just the tip if the iceberg. The added benefits are better blood flow to the head and neck (problems here often result in migraine headaches), reduced nerve irritation, and better nervous flow from our spines. Everything in our body is controlled and checked by our nerves including our blood vascular system. All of our signals to and from the brain travel in these nerves. All of these nerves spread out to our body through our spine. Compromising the spine compromises the nerve flow. A compromised nervous system can manifest itself in a variety of ways because it controls absolutely everything in our bodies.
Let’s compare our bodies to our car engine. Consider the gas tank is like our brain, the gas is our nerve flow and the engine is like our bodies. The engine may be perfectly healthy, but if it doesn’t get enough gas, the engine will fail. Our body is the same way. If your body doesn’t get the right nervous flow it may fail to start one of these days. Consider your chiropractor as the maintenance person for your body as your mechanic is for your car.
Jamie L. Valcourt, D.C.
Dr. Jamie Valcourt graduated from Dickinson College in Carlisle Pennsylvania with a bachelor’s degree in Biology and Sociology. She continued on to Palmer College of Chiropractic in Davenport Iowa to earn her Doctor of Chiropractic degree. She has been practicing in her home town of Fall River, MA for three years. She opened up her own office, Valcourt Chiropractic, just over a year ago. She is also trained in the healing art of Reiki.
For more information about chiropractic, or chiropractic while pregnant, please call me at (508) 235-1050 or email me at dr.jamie@ValcourtChiropractic.com
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