Substitutes and complements ~ The Beacon for April 26, 2012

It’s summer time again and campfires await.  Although I don’t eat many hot dogs (perhaps one or two in a year) they are such a nostalgic treat.  The whole experience is a lot of fun to me.  The camp fire, the wiener stick and cooking them just right (enough to heat them without singeing them).  Followed by the chance to doctor them up with my choice of condiments.  For me I am a traditional guy, ketchup and mustard do just fine.  The sweetness of the ketchup along the tartness of mustard with the smokiness of a fire cooked wiener, it doesn’t get any better than that.   I have tried wieners with only ketchup – “No, not quite right.”  Wieners with mustard, again “Close but not it either.”  After my years of camp fires I am clear that ketchup and mustard aren’t a substitute for one another but they sure are the perfect complement. 

Sometimes clients ask – “Dr. Norm, is it okay if I do yoga after my adjustment, or how about running?”  “Yes, yes…” I respond, “… moving your body, stretching, and exercising are all great things to do as they help to compliment the adjustment.” 

Many clients will report afterwards, “Dr. Norm, receiving these adjustments seems to be the perfect complement to my yoga class.  I seem to be able to stretch so much farther than I could before.”  Just as eating healthy food a great complement to exercising, so too is yoga and running a great support to getting adjusted.  You will get far more from your adjustments and more from your workouts too.

Sometimes people really like one activity, event or modality over another.  And they think that it can be a substitute.  Can going for a run substitute eating a healthy lunch?  Or can doing yoga substitute for an adjustment?  No they can’t.  Remember they are complements to one another not substitutes.   Let me explain.

Imagine that you nourished yourself with a very expensive nutritional supplements and yet due to a spinal imbalance that happened years ago the nerves from your brain to your digestive system were blocked and as a result they were only working at 25%.   Absorbing only 25%, the supplements are still a good thing, but you would also have the most expensive urine on the block!   Alternatively, I have seen numerous yoga practitioners who on their first visit had a very subluxated spine.  Why would that be?   With all the repetitive movement if there is a pattern present in your nerve system there is a chance that pattern gets reinforced over and over again. 

Please hear me correctly, I am not saying that yoga is a bad thing, it is a great thing.  I think everyone on the planet should be doing it, it just doesn’t accomplish what chiropractic care does.  Yoga cannot replace chiropractic.  Yoga is a perfect complement to chiropractic care but it isn’t a substitute. On the flip side there are others who attend regular chiropractic care and yet put the same causative stressor in the bodies week in and week out.   Chiropractic does not substitute a healthy lifestyle it is a complement to it!   

Remember health is a result of a combination of factors, a subluxation free spine and nerve system is one of those factors, and with care and time you will realize how it is a perfect complement to your other healthy practices.

Have a beautiful weekend.

Dr. Norm