Habits, Health, and Life

Watching Netflix instead of taking a walk after dinner...

Hitting snooze five times instead of getting up to exercise...

Relying on quick meals instead of planning and meal prepping for the week...

Letting negative thought patterns fester...

What are the habits you have that you want to change?  Why is changing a habit so hard?  AND, how we can help!

One of the most rewarding parts of practice is watching patients heal, reclaim their energy for life, as well as incorporating healthy changes into their lives. Healing is a journey and people typically start their healing process in a fairly broken state.  Joints aren’t moving properly, misalignments exist throughout the spine, and the entire body is often in a state of stressed physiology (they have often been in this state for years).  When we are existing in a state of stressed physiology, we mainly utilize the lower thinking centers of our brain to engage automatic, unconscious behavior patterns.  Our habits exist here, especially the automatic patterns that we use to de-stress.

Realize that our brains are always trying to find ways to solve a problem. 

A common problem our brains are trying to solve is to change our “state of being” from one of discomfort to one that is more desirable (i.e. feeling drowsy and wanting to feel more alert or feeling wired and wanting to relax).  When we find solutions to our problems (whether healthy or unhealthy), our brains form a new pathway so we can remember that solution.  This is the beginning of a new habit.  When our brains utilize solutions repeatedly that may change our state, but are not health-promoting (maybe they are even health-demoting), now we have a habit that is what we may consider a problem or undesirable.  Because the brain has found this habit to be a solution to our problem and it has been used repeatedly, it now has been deeply ingrained as a pathway in the brain.  

How do we change this situation?  The bad news: We can never erase these neural pathways.  They will always be a feedback loop that is a part of us, so what do we do?  What do we do when we are stuck in a pattern that we know doesn’t serve our health or support our wellbeing?  

I have a solution for you...

This is where NSA comes into play.  When we are under NSA care, each adjustment reduces stress physiology and increases blood flow to the frontal cortex of the brain.  This suspends automatic conscious behavior—meaning all of those habits that rely on our lower brain centers to just “happen” are now made conscious.  Carl Jung (the famous psychologist) said, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”  As the healing process is happening, we now have greater awareness.  Some studies on NSA even discuss the connection of NSA and the development of higher levels of consciousness.  When you have increased consciousness and awareness, you develop a much greater awareness of the body’s needs as well as a willingness to engage in the processes that honor those needs.  When you combine this with a deepening mind-body awareness that is a natural side-effect of NSA care, as well as a sense of peace within the body (which calms the mind as well), you have tools that are becoming ingrained in the nervous system with NSA that result in the ability to make healthier decisions (especially pertaining to lifestyle).

The research shows it!  Research from the University of Southern California, Irvine Medical School and Department of Neurobiology demonstrates that when someone is under NSA care, they are much more likely to adopt healthy changes and integrate them as lifestyle.  When we heal, we make better decisions to honor our bodies, our minds, and our sense of wellbeing. Most people think the healthier diet or the new exercise program is what we need to create healing… in reality, most people need to heal to create a greater level of awareness or consciousness to make these changes work in their lives.  If you are ready to learn how NSA care can change your life and facilitate healing changes, call us!  We want to help!  Call us at 303-215-0390 and set up new patient consultation.

There are SO many strategies you can use to make habit change an easier process in your life.  A Duke University study showed that more than 40% of the actions people perform each day aren't actual decisions, they are habits!  Once our brains have formed a feedback loop for a habit, it will always be a part of us, but we can create NEW activity in our brain to provide us with new behavior patterns!