One of the first things I do with a new patient is have them rate their level of stress on a scale from 0 – 10, with 0 being no stress and 10 being the worst.
It’s always interesting to hear the responses. I get a lot of 2’s, 3’s, some 7’s, and a lot of numbers in the middle. But here is something interesting:
A study led by Diane Becker of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore monitored peoples’ response to “mental stress”. They found that those people who responded poorly to a controlled mental challenge were six times more likely to have a heart attack or other severe heart event within six years than people who handled the stress more calmly.
The interesting…and frightening…element to this is that the volunteers for the study usually had no idea if they responded well or poorly to the stress.
In Diane Becker’s words, “People’s capacity to tell you that they are stressed is worth about nothing. We would see people with hideous responses who say they are fine.”
In this study, the mental stress reaction was a better indicator of heart risk than factors such as smoking, having high cholesterol or diabetes. Summing up the challenges, she said, “How do you learn to manage something when you don’t know you have it?”
I became a chiropractor because it is the most powerful health profession on the planet. Sadly, most people (and many, many chiropractors) still believe it’s a profession about treating neck and back pain, and peoples SPINES.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
While chiropractic DOES effect the neck and back, it does so much more. However, without the tools showing the state of a patient’s nervous system, and how it responds to stress – and also how it responds to chiropractic – doctors are left to use the absence or presence of pain as the determiner of care.
Today, however, we have the tools to be able to measure a patient’s nervous system under stress and recovery. Opening up doors and windows of opportunity like never before in the history of mankind.
The fact is that what we don’t know CAN hurt us.
And does on a daily basis.
More and more we hear of men and women in their primes passing away suddenly.
Millions of chiropractic patients are adjusted based on pain without regard to how their nervous systems are functioning. I see it everyday in my office. New patients come in saying they see a chiropractor when they have pain. But, once we do their Neuroinfiniti Stress Response Evaluation we find how poorly their nervous systems are functioning.
And who wants a poorly functioning nervous system?
When asked the question, “How important is it to you that your nervous system functions optimally, as often as possible, from this day through the rest of your life?” I have never had a person say, “Not very”.
It’s ALWAYS an affirmative, “Well, it’s VERY important”.
And I agree.
How important is it to you that the captain of the airplane you are on, is in the right state of mind?
IT’S IMPORTANT!
He/she is the director of what is going to happen to that airplane, just like your brain and nervous system is in charge of whether your vehicle (your body) manifests sickness and disease, or life and health.
It can be no other way.
The good news is that with today’s computer technology we can accurately measure what is happening in YOUR nervous system. We don’t have to rely on subjective pain scales, or our perception of feeling stress, which as we found out above is virtually worthless.
Welcome to the future of healthcare.
NOTE: The Neuroinfiniti is a tremendous piece of equipment, but I have sold my unit. My practice has evolved and I have other indicators I use.
Image from www.neatoday.com