“I WANT IT AND I WANT IT NOW!”

This could be the tagline of American culture. We do not seem to possess much patience and this is especially true when we are suffering. Of course, no one wants to hurt, and for some, pain is intolerable. This belief system has led us straight into the opioid crisis, where we have 70,000 deaths a year from opioid overdoses. The majority of these deaths happened after patients were initially prescribed opioids by their medical doctor. So, instant pain relief is not always the best solution. The main rule of all health care is: “First, do no harm.”

We want to help our patients get out of pain as quickly as possible. We also want to get to the cause of the problem, so that we don’t just mask the underlying symptoms. One of the hardest things to communicate is that healing takes time. This is the sixth principle of chiropractic.

And yet, we are accustomed to seeing “miracles” happen in so many of our patients. It is a common, everyday occurrence. These are usually not overnight miracles, but rather the healing that happens over time.

I am the first to say that I do not cure or heal anyone—your body does the healing. I simply remove the interference to the nervous system so that your body can fully achieve what it is designed for: Healing and adaptation to the world you live in. This innate intelligence is always on the job and working for your highest good. You can count on that!

So, when someone gets an adjustment and they experience relief from a migraine, or their body stops hurting, they think more clearly, or their vision is clearer, I am thrilled. Don’t get me wrong, we all love this. And most people get off the table and feel better in some way. It might be a physical sense of well-being, feeling lighter, less pain, or more at peace in their body. This is because the adjustment resets the nervous system so that it is no longer sympathetic dominant (“fight or flight”). Rather, the adjustment can help us switch into parasympathetic dominance (“tend and befriend”). This is a more peaceful, contented state of being.

For me, an adjustment produces an immediate shift in my mental processing and my outlook on life. My key signal that I might be subluxated is when my thinking becomes more negative than Is typical for me. As soon as I receive my adjustment, I feel that all is right with the world. The sky is bluer, the grass is greener, and the people are nicer. I'd bet that I’m nicer, too.

Even though instant gratification is rare in life, the adjustment is one of those rare and amazing events that create instant improvement in how our bodies work and how we feel. It is an amazing gift! That’s why we say “power’s on” after an adjustment. Because that is what it feels like.