Understanding Wellness

Many have attributed the term wellness to Dr. Halbert Dumn, who wrote a booklet in 1961 titled High-Level Wellness, in which he basically defined it as a lifestyle approach for pursuing elevated states of physical and psychological well-being.

While the reality is that the term wellnesswas actually coined in the year 1654 by a Scottish physician, the true meaning has evolved beyond what they both intended.

Defining Wellness

Chiropractors are the originators of the wellness movement, being the only health care professionals who recognize the body's natural ability to heal itself. This is why they have spent more than 50 years educating their patients on the benefits of a wellness lifestyle. Proper nutrition, exercise and routine chiropractic care help the body to perform at maximum efficiency, resulting in improved function.

Wellness: Improving Function

The term improved function has been used by chiropractors for years to help patients understand the benefits of chiropractic care and the role it plays in true wellness. The body is made up of muscles, organs and glands that are controlled by the nervous system, and the nervous system consists of the brain, spinal cord and nerves.

The brain sends signals down the spine and to the nerves, which tell the heart to beat, the lungs to breathe, the stomach to digest, the glands to produce necessary hormones, and so on. It's when the signals don't get from the spinal cord to the nerves and then from the nerves to the muscles, organs and glands that the body begins to lose proper function and symptoms begin to occur.

Mainstream medicine doesn't recognize these symptoms as simple alerts from the body that there's something amiss, but instead as something that must be eliminated through chemicals or pharmaceuticals. They don't seek wellness, but rather a lack of symptoms.

Medical vs. Wellness Care

The biggest difference between mainstream medicine and wellness care is just that: medicine. Today's medical professionals are still treating symptoms instead of the cause of the problem. The bigger problem lies with the fact that the medicines usually begin to create their own list of symptoms that must be treated with more medicines. It's a domino effect leading not to health and wellness, but to illness and dependence.

By focusing on symptoms instead of body function, they avoid having to look at the root cause and can ignore the lifestyle habits or outside influences that are the underlying problem. A drug-induced lack of symptoms leads to a false sense of security and avoids the lifestyle changes truly necessary for wellness.

On the other hand, the wellness chiropractic practitioner recognizes that the symptoms are there for a reason, an alert from your body that something isn't right, and begins to seek thecause of the problem.

What Wellness Is (and Isn't)

What is wellness? Many people think the absence of symptomatic disease means they are "well," but true wellness is actually quite different. If you're sick, and you take medication to mask the symptoms, it doesn't mean you get well; it just means the symptoms go away (at least temporarily). The root cause of the problem hasn't been addressed, and you may be no better off than when you started.

For example, do you have high cholesterol or know someone who does? If you're taking medication to regulate your cholesterol, it may work, but it won't address why you have high cholesterol in the first place. In many cases, it may be poor diet or lack of exercise. I think we can all agree that a person with high cholesterol, poor diet and a sedentary lifestyle who has to take medication is definitely not achieving a state of wellness.

Top Five Truths About Wellness Care

5. Symptoms are not the problem, but an alert to an underlying cause and should be heeded, not silenced with chemicals.

4. The body has an inborn ability to restore itself and will adapt to outside stressors, whether they are physical, emotional or chemical. When these stressors become too much, the body will eventually wear itself down trying to maintain balance; this results in an absence of health and wellness.

3. Wellness practitioners do not diagnose or treat conditions and diseases, but instead identify and remove outside stressors.

2. Wellness care focuses on improving function rather than hiding symptoms.

1. Doctors of chiropractic recognize the value of preventative care compared to symptom-based care. With regular adjustments, spinal health is maintained, encouraging proper nervous system function and allowing for the body to perform at its best.

To read more, please follow this link: To Your Health

For more information from Dr. Swanson, please visit our website: www.SwansonChiro.com

Yours in health,

Dr. Swanson & Staff