You hear a lot about “natural” things these days. Natural home decor, beauty products, and cleaning supplies are touted almost everywhere. Natural healing is quite the big deal too with lots of places claiming to have natural remedies to all your ills. But what really is “natural health”?
Natural Health Is…
To understand natural health, let’s break it down. First, what is “natural”? The word “natural” has many definitions, but one meaning is something that is innate or inborn rather than acquired from the outside or through learning. It is just a part of us. Now what about “health”? The definition of “health” is more than just the absence of disease or symptoms. Health is a state of optimal physical, mental, and social well-being. So, putting those two parts together, “natural health” is a state of optimal physical, mental, and social well-being that is achieved through our bodies’ innate ability to heal itself.
When you really think about it, the body is really the one responsible for all healing. The bandage, medicine, or any other intervention does not do the healing but should be aimed at giving the body the best chance to heal itself. Unfortunately, sometimes interventions can actually inhibit the body’s innate ability to heal. In many ways this is where modern medicine in heading – trying to control the body from the outside and interfere with the body’s self-regulation. Now in some emergency situations it may be necessary to intervene for a time but should this be done for every condition? I would have to say no.
Chiropractic and Natural Health
I believe that the body innately knows much better how to regulate itself from the inside out than any educated guesses from outside in. The body will perfectly regulate itself unless something interferes with this innate ability. This interference happens when the bones of the spine are misaligned and irritate the nerves causing distortion in the signals they carry. In chiropractic, this is called a subluxation. With interference to the messages sent through the nerves, the body’s ability to heal is compromised and may even cause outward symptoms. The solution to this problem is not to take a drug to mask or eliminate the symptoms you are experiencing but to correct the misalignment of the spine and remove the interference. Chiropractic adjustments help the body do just that and help to restore the body’s ability to self-regulate and heal itself. As a chiropractor, I don’t do the healing: the body’s innate ability to heal takes care of that.
Conclusion
Natural health is trusting and allowing the body to regulate and heal itself without trying to control it from the outside. Chiropractic helps to unleash the body’s innate ability to heal by helping remove interference from the nerves. The body doesn’t need help to heal; it just needs to be free of interference.
