‘Tis the season to be jolly, eh? Yah sure, you betcha, as my Norwegian relatives might say! The Christmas Holiday Season in Sacramento CA is ideally a time of joy, celebration, fellowship, and love.

It can also be a time of stress, anxiety, disharmony and craziness. The Rev. Billy Graham once quoted a tremendously stressed-out secretary as saying, "When this rush is over, I'm going to have a nervous breakdown, I earned it, I deserve it, and nobody's going to take it from me."

Chiropractic Care During December in Sacramento CA

As a Christian Doctor of Chiropractic, I see the result of too much stress all year long in my clinic. December however, is always our busiest month. With the Holidays come stress, worries and busyness. This stress often causes the muscles along one's back and neck to tighten-up and misalign the spinal bones. This restricts normal movement and can ultimately put pressure on the delicate spinal nerves. We call this condition vertebral subluxation. Uncorrected, subluxation can lead to degeneration, arthritis, organ damage, dysfunction, disability and early death.

One of the challenges I have as a doctor is communication. Finding just the right stories, analogies, metaphors and examples to share so that patients can fully understand things, like subluxation, make good decisions, and then get and stay well.

Don't Be a Dim Light Bulb During the Holiday Season!

One of the best metaphors I have found for describing subluxation is that a subluxation is like a dimmer switch or rheostat that controls a light bulb. The bulb has the potential for perhaps 100 watts of light energy, but with the interference of the rheostat, goes dim. One of the most devastating parts of the spine to have a subluxation is at the top vertebra in the neck called the "atlas." Its two kidney bean-shaped joints balance the skull, and is named after the Greek Titan character "Atlas" who was obliged to hold the earth upon his head and hands. Subluxation of the atlas interferes with the flow of nerve energy that controls the body. It can often contribute to fatigue, mental dullness, poor balance and many other problems.

A subluxation of the atlas is like having a turned-down dimmer switch, reducing the flow of nerve energy, resulting in a human dim light bulb. With less than full power, you're less capable of all the things you need and want to do and less fun to be around.

Technically, the term subluxation means a partial dislocation of a joint. It is also interesting to note that the term "lux" is right in the middle of the word. Physics buffs will remember that "lux" is a unit of direct illumination or light. The more the lux, the more the light! The term "sub" means less-than. The term "-ation," means an action or process. One could say then, that a sub-lux-ation is a process that results in dim light!

It is also interesting to note how important light and energy are to our lives. According to Genesis, the first thing God made was light, which he immediately separated from the darkness. To tie it back into Christmas, we are reminded of the bright eastern star's light, leading the way to Bethlehem. Then in Matthew 5, Jesus tells his followers, "Let your light so shine..."

The stress of the Holidays can certainly get to us. It's important to handle it with two approaches, so we don't end up as less than shiny, dim light bulbs! The first is to respond to stressors with love and not fear. The stressors will always be there in the form of traffic jams, long lines at the stores, work and family problems, etc. Yet we always have the choice for how we handle things. The second is to focus on the here and now. Let go and let God! I've often said that most stress occurs in two places: the past and the future. We fret about our mistakes in the past, which we cannot change, and worry about tomorrow which hasn't happened yet! Today's trouble is enough for today. We really can only handle one thing at a time.

If you would like to explore chiropractic care, and be a brighter light bulb, get on the phone and call your friendly neighborhood chiropractor. I hope you have a wonderful December this year and that your light will shine bright all season!

Gregg C. Anderson, D.C.

Sacramento Chiropractor - Christian Message -
Copyright 2012 Anderson Chiropractic, Inc.