Free your mind, see a lumbarjack
Most people associate mental health with happiness, balance, stress, and absence of mental or mood disorders. Some resort to medication to lift moods, others to psychological counselling. Few would think of seeing a chiropractor.
Like many people, I associated chiropractors with solving back pain by bone manipulation. I was surprised, therefore, to learn that chiropractors heal not only on the bone level, but by doing so, strengthen the functioning of our nervous system. Given that the nervous system controls just about everything in our bodies - physical, mental and emotional - it doesn't sound so far-fetched to find a correlation between chiropractic healing and mental health.
The American Chiropractic Association (ACA) explains the practice as 'a health care profession that focuses on disorders of the musculoskeletal system and nervous system, and the effects of these disorders on general health'. There is no medicine involved. Chiropractors focus on the biomechanics, structure and function of the spine through adjusting the bones with their hands or a mallet-like instrument.
Wrought with depression and anxiety amid other physical problems such as severe migraines and vertigo for the past three years, I decided to see a chiropractor in Beijing, where I live, to see if we could come up with any new insight into my sufferings.
The consultation started with some scans. The surface electromyography scan checked the amount of electrical activity in my muscles, and the thermal scan measured skin temperature along the spine. An inclinometer measured the range of motions in my neck and back, and a pulse-wave profiler recorded the rate of my pulse. A roller down my spine tested my tolerance of pain, and tender spots along the spine. A few X-rays of the spine were taken, from the neck down to the sacrum.
I was shocked to learn my spine was S-shaped, and the vertebrae near my lower waist were almost crushed together. Under normal conditions, there should be space between each vertebra and the spine should be more or less straight viewed from the front, with curves in the neck and waist areas when seen from the side. The thermal scan showed red along the spine, meaning there were subluxations.
According to the ACA, a subluxation is 'one or more bones of the spine moving out of position and creating pressure on, or irritating, spinal nerves'. The result is a malfunction and interference with signals travelling from those nerves to other organs and parts of the body. This causes a vacuum of instructions on how to operate, or in some cases, a disruption in daily activities.