Stress and Anxiety Relief in Asheville

Getting Beyond Stress and Anxiety to Living an Optimized Life!

Common scenarios for seeking care:

1. You’ve been stressed for a while and have seen other doctors to try and find a solution. You did some digging and found what wellness care research has confirmed for a long time.
2. You might be experiencing anxiety for the first time and it’s alarming, so you’re seeking expert advice from a natural and holistic source.
3. You might had anxiety and it resolved itself for a while and it has now returned. You’re seeking more sustainable solutions.
4. You may have heard from a family member, a friend, or a colleague about our unique approach to helping people find ease in times of stress.

Our Holistic Approach Looks Deeper Than Your Symptom Might Appear!

1. In understanding the causes of stress from a neurological perspective, it has been found through extensive research that the stress response is due to an unregulated signal from the brain as a protective mechanism. This means that the brain is interpreting stress in its environment (inside or out) and reacting to protect itself from triggers that appear as threats.
2. The stress patterns that can take hold in the spinal cord’s attachment sites to the vertebral column can create global stress on the entire physiology. This can lead to various symptoms for different people.
3. Stress is usually accompanied by areas of subluxation or misalignments. These constricted regions in the body-mind can occur between adjacent vertebra, cranial bones, ribs, or joints in the upper or lower extremities. When we’re constricted, we’re not the best versions of ourselves. We’re both easily distracted and easy to push over the edge.
4. Stress is usually accompanied by emotional/mental triggers. By helping calm the nervous system, more sustainable ease ensues despite the stressful circumstance.

 How We Pave the Way Towards Ease and Relaxation:

1. Check your posture and neurological tension and stress patterns. We’ll free up the midline stress through gentle and advanced tonal chiropractic. This will relax the body-mind considerably and allow us to dive in deeper.
2. Evaluate and balance key joints throughout the skeletal system through Zero Balancing. This will integrate the relaxation response further, freeing up areas that are tight, bunched up and restricting natural energy currents.
3. Rule out stress in the organ system that can send alarming signals to muscles and joints through the visceral-muscular reflexes. A common example is most people that experience a heart episode, feel pain shooting down the left arm. Anxiety can occur as a hidden signal to a part of the body that we might have lost a connection to.

 Let’s dive into some of the physical aspects that can cause stress and anxiety.

 Physical Keystone Areas We Check – where you might be subluxated or constricted:

1. The Vagus Nerve – The “10^th cranial nerve” exits the brain under the skull on both sides, close to the ears. It is the longest cranial nerve in the body and responsible for controlling most unconscious bodily functions, such as blood flow, breathing, heart rate, digestion, and immune responses. Through gentle touch and expertise, this important landmark can be regulated and brought back to its proper tone. Think of this nerve as the gas and brake in your car. It can accelerate the system through the sympathetic, fight or flight response. It can also slow the system down through the parasympathetic, or housekeeping mode. The Vagus Nerve is part of the Social Branch of the Nervous System, the most evolved branch, which oversees the lower branches discussed above.
2. The Occiput (lower skull bone) – This important landmark is one of the main anchoring sites for the entire spinal cord, just as a guitar string is anchored to the neck of the guitar. The tensions that are held at the occiput, commonly by being overly flexed (very common in our smartphone culture) or by being rotated, can create direct tension on the brain stem, which helps to regulate the body’s automatic mechanisms.
3. The 1^st Vertebra “The Atlas” – This bone is one of the most important to clear out due to its proximity to the brainstem. When it is constricted, it can cause many symptoms, such as fogginess, anxiety, loss of trust, headaches, migraines, and neck pain. Other symptoms can include loss of balance, dizziness, ringing in the ears decreased breathing, and uncoordinated heartbeats. Being overly concerned about the future can lead to a posturing at the Atlas, generally a pattern below our awareness, like the posture we hold when “we’re waiting for the shoe to drop”.
4. The 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th Vertebrae – In response to stress and anxiety, it’s very common for a person to feel very heady, cerebral and out of touch with their body when these segments are restricted. Over time, this can create a stress response in the nervous system because of a lack of self-regulation. Think of it as so much energy is swirling in your head that it pops a fuse in your fuse box (the vertebrae) below it.
5. The 5^th, 6^th and 7^th vertebrae – These lower neck bones are areas that tend to show up when we’re overly stressed, frustrated or angry. There’s a certain posturing that accompanies this distortion pattern and is sometimes associated with tension in the tailbone. An exaggerated example is someone posturing as they are preparing for a fight. This defensive posturing naturally causes stress and anxiety because of the system’s preparation for conflict or protection. While this is a normal evolutionary response, it’s not a sustainable way to run our lives properly.
6. The Rib Case –The rib case attaches directly to the spinal column in the back and to the breastplate and collar bone in the front of the body. There are a lot of joints that comprise this intricate network. The movement of all the joints that include these connections are vital for uninhibited respiration. If you’re not breathing properly at rest – which we do about 22,000 times a day – you’re not receiving enough oxygen to the brain’s structures. This in turn will trigger the fight or flight response, which in turn can cause anxiety, and feelings and sensations of stress and anxiety.
7. The Coccyx or Tailbone – Falling on the tailbone happens to most people at least once. As one of the main anchoring sites for the entire spinal cord – along with the upper neck and skull – it presents in a “tucked” position when out of alignment. This distortion pattern is intense on the entire spinal cord. The posturing of a tucked tailbone is one we’re familiar with by witnessing our furry friends. When under stress or anxiety, our pets tuck their tails. We do the same thing. Imagine feeling the tension in the rope in the middle of a tug-of-war contest. That is the metaphor of the tension that occurs on the spinal cord due to a flexed tailbone.
8. Nutritional Deficiencies and Organ Dysfunction – If stress and anxiety persist after receiving chiropractic adjustments and bodywork, it’s important to check the health and vitality of the organ system throughout the body. Through muscle testing, we’ll rule out hidden sources that can trigger these responses. A common example is the depletion of minerals that are used to create neurotransmitters for certain brain functions. You can find out more about muscle testing here.

Let’s consider the emotional-mental aspects of high levels of stress and anxiety. Have you ever found that it’s not necessarily the circumstance that is causing the stress but rather how it’s being handled? Stress builds up in the body-mind and not having a proper outlet of release can create a lack of adaptation. Chiropractic research has been shown to help mitigate stress. By self-regulating the nervous system, its capacity to take on life is a natural outcome. Check out this article here!

The key to your success

By helping you shift your focus from only achieving your desired outcome (make this stress and anxiety go away!), to learning new skills and behaviors to grow and adapt to stress, you will find your goals met and even exceeded. As a culture, we are so focused on our symptom that it distracts us from what else might be lurking underneath it.

We are committed to guiding you along a path to find freedom and ease!