HEALTH - E - TALK: 9th edition.
Hi!!
Welcome to the ninth edition of "Health - E - Talk".

 QUESTION: HOW DO YOU BREAK THE SICKNESS "HABIT"?
You will remember that last week we were discussing the complex issue of how some sicknesses are a type of "habit", that your nervous system has got into. So, how do we "break" these habits? Until we can understand this area, every time we get run down, stressed, fatigued, overworked; we will find ourselves spiralling back into the same old sickness patterns.

Most of the principles we will discuss now are very similar to the steps needed to overcome any kind of "habit". Eating disorders, drug addictions, behavioural habits etc, are all really examples of the nervous system "facilitation" that we spoke of last week.

1) Try to keep away from the environmental conditions in which the facilitated pattern has occured in the past. Drug rehabilitation rarely works if the "addict" returns to the same environment after detoxing. In terms of our bad health habits we need to try and understand the factors which will reinforce the "facilitation" in our nervous system.

When dieting, we are often taught that the critical time is when you are in the Supermarket: Once you have bought the fatty foods, and put them in the fridge, chances are you will "slip" into eating them, despite your promise to yourself that you would have enough will-power to resist. Don't have the bad foods in the pantry, and in the weaker moments, they won't be there as a choice of food.

So, once you know what area of your body where you seem to "habitually" get sick; the next stage is to think about the life situations that encourage the "bad habit".

e.g. For many of us, we get trapped into the "mega-busy-treadmill". And if you look back through time, you will realise you can sustain this for only so long before you "crash". A smarter tactic would be to recognise this and learn to avoid getting trapped into the "manic" stage, and learn to "say no", pace yourself, and take time to "smell the roses".

2) Give your nervous system something else to do: As a parent I learned quite quickly, that if you want your child to stop doing something, you can tell them to stop till your red in the face. But what works best, is to give them an attractive alternative, to distract them away from the "unsuitable" behaviour.

We can apply this same principle to our "bad health habit". When are you most likely to slip into a bad habit? - When you have nothing else to do. So, it's always a good idea to try to keep your nervous system away from the facilitated pattern by developing a new, more advantageous one.

It has been said that it takes 21 days to develop a new habit: If you can force yourself consciously to carry out a new behaviour for 21 days and avoid the old behaviour in that same time, the new pattern will become dominant over the old.

3) Break the "facilitated" nerve pathways: Hopefully, over the weeks of reading "health - e - talk", you will come to understand that when you have a chiropractic adjustment, you are not only having muscles and joints stretched: There is also a delayed process that occurs in your central nervous system following an adjustment.

Many people find that as they progress through with chiropractic care, they are less likely to suffer from a "relapse". This is because it is almost like the "facilitation" in the nervous system (which leads you back to the same old injury) is gradually being cleared away.

Research in the USA demonstrated this when a group of drug addicts going through rehab were also given chiropractic adjustments. The result was that the retention rates of the addicts through the whole program became 100% and the relapse rate was significantly reduced.

4) Get "deep and meaningful": Unfortunately for some of us, the facilitated patterns that have developed in our lives (that are now having an effect on our health), are the result of past physical and/or emotional injury. The above strategies may help to reduce some of the pain and suffering, but until "healing" occurs at the deeper levels of the nervous system, the same patterns will return.

This may mean we need counselling, "spiritual" healing, some sort of behavioural therapy, etc.

 HERE'S A THOUGHT!!
"How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and the strong - Because some day you will have been all of these."

 OUR PHILOSOPHY:
5) "That one of these results (of overload) is the gradual stiffening and misaligning of your spinal column called SUBLUXATION."

It is this that differentiates chiropractic from all the other healing arts. The spine is almost like the switch-board of the human communication system. Where "subluxations" show up in your spine tells the chiropractor a lot about what is going on throughout your nervous system, and hence your whole body.

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© Dr Nick Hodgson 2008

2005 Victorian Chiropractor of The Year, Australasian TRT Training Provider, Fellow Holder Research Institute.

 Visit Nick's other web site at www.torquerelease.com.au