Unleash the Fear

Posted by: The Balancing Center

We might not consciously think of it, but beyond the candy and the costumes, Halloween is a holiday that allows us to confront fear. We visit haunted houses and marathon scary movies and feel the primal chill that runs through our guts. It’s uncomfortable but electric and undeniably compelling.

What other time of year do we decide, nationally, to let fear flow through us? (Maybe inadvertently at Christmas time, but that’s another post.) Most of the time we strive to minimize the fear in our lives (even as the culture around us strives to create a fear-based economy, but that too is another post).

Fear does strange things to us. We might run, we might fight, we might freeze. Rational thought stops as our heart races, our blood vessels constrict, our cortisol levels rise, and our stomachs drop to the floor. And because we are so rarely educated in how to deal with fear, we don’t always make healthy choices. We ignore the fear. We distract ourselves from or anesthetize ourselves to the fear, eating out of stress, using drugs (including caffeine and nicotine), watching too much television, spending too much time on the internet.  

After school specials and our moms tell us to face our fears. Why? Because fear, in its primal profundity, can be an opportunity. If we can breathe through the fear, if we can pause before we run or fight or freeze, we might get a chance to figure out why we’re afraid and, even better, find a way to defeat, confront, or embrace what is scaring us.  

Understanding the causes and effects of fear opens up so much of life. We’ll try new things. We’ll want to run and stay anyway; we’ll want to fight and instead we’ll forgive.

At The Balancing Center, we strive to present the facts of your health. Whatever emotions arise out of that--fear or frustration or confusion--we strive to find ways to work with you through those emotions.

When you don’t let the fear move through you, well, it can’t move through you. It will get stuck. Emotions cause physical reactions and the emotion of fear will cause your body to enter its defense physiology, leading to poor sleep, increased stress, constricted digestion and respiration. Just like how fear might paralyze you from growing, fear that is stuck somewhere in your body can prevent that part of your body from healing.

And we want you to heal.

The chiropractors at The Balancing Center also practice N.E.T, or “NeuroEmotional Technique,” a question-based method of discovering the locations of trapped emotions and stress in your system. Practical example: we store fear in our kidneys and in the vertebrae T1, T5, and T8. By using N.E.T., the chiropractors can discover if you’re storing fear and they can help you to release that from your system. 

Your body can relax and rest. And you can use your fear as the spring board into health. Fear will always find a way into your life. And you can always find a way through it.

Allow this Halloween holiday to unleash the fear in you and see what happens. Let the fear move through you and see what it can in turn unleash and even inspire. And then consider making an appointment with us to round out your October.

Fighting Tiger, Fleeing Rabbit

Posted by: The Balancing Center

A rabbit might flee if something startles it. A tiger might fight. Adrenaline is what provides both with the energy to either run or attack; both enter a defense mode where their senses heighten and not-essential-to-survival systems, like digestion and procreation, power down. The rabbit doesn’t have time to eat if it is on the run. The tiger isn’t concerned with sex in the middle of a battle.

While the kinds of threats to humans have changed since we hunted and foraged, our physiological responses to those threats have not. When a driver cuts you off in traffic or when someone verbally assaults you, your body enters the same defensive system as the rabbit or tiger. Your adrenaline increases, your senses heighten, and your body’s not-essential-to-survival systems shut down. You too cannot focus on eating or procreating if you think you are under threat. But once the threat is gone your body can return to its normal state: at rest but ready to spring into action.

What if you suddenly found out that your body has been operating under a low but constant threat for days, weeks, months, or years? That your adrenaline has been pumping at a low but steady rate for all that time? That the systems not necessary for immediate survival--digestion, circulation, elimination, recreation, and procreation--have been operating at reduced efficiency?  

Did you know that when you are out of balance, this is exactly what happens? If your spine is out of alignment, your body cannot get a good grip on the ground and your finely tuned physical sensors think that you are about to fall over at each and every minute. Your body goes into a mild defense mode to protect you from the perceived threat that you are about to trip or topple over.

 

As anyone who has ever been frightened knows, being in defense mode with your adrenaline pumping and your heart racing and your senses on overdrive is incredibly stressful. Mild but prolonged stress can take as large a toll on your body as short but intense bursts of stress. And because your body thinks it is in a mild emergency, your body thinks that this stress and defensive strategy are normal. It’s not looking to correct itself. And while it might seem like nothing is wrong, it also seems undesirable to walk around in a constant state of distress.

No need to fear, however! (No need to stress about it!) The doctors and practitioners at The Balancing Center offer a simple solution: get balanced.

If your body gets balanced, your body can actually, finally, and fully relax. You can breathe, rest easy, and take your time to go about your day. You’ll be able to stop defending and start digesting, stop protecting and start procreating! (If that’s what you want, of course.) Run into the office today to see how you can get out of defense and into health!