Chiropractic care helps the entire family from infants and children to adults and seniors live a pain-free life with a healthy nervous system and optimal body function.
Could you start by discussing how chiropractic care benefits the youngest members of our family by ensuring that their body is prepared for proper growth and development?
Dr. Gregg Rubinstein: Absolutely. One of the most important things when we look at infants and children, and something that everyone needs to understand about the body, is that our bodies are intelligent. They’re highly organized. That’s why we’re called organisms and we have these organ systems. When something is highly organized, I have a difficult time accepting that something can be highly organized without intelligence behind it. So, when I look at the organization of 70 trillion cells all glued together and all 70 trillion of those cells coordinating their function to improve and allow an organism to not only just survive but actually thrive in its environment, we understand the power and the intelligence behind the nerve system.
Now, a nerve system controls the body, because when we eliminate the nerve system’s control over the body, it’s no longer an integrated 70 trillion cells. The body breaks down to its elemental form. So, without that intelligence flowing across our nerve system, which is basically when we stop all that flow, the body is dead, it can no longer reorganize itself and maintain itself in existence. It disintegrates. That’s why if we leave a corpse on the side of the road, a deer perhaps or whatever, and we came back 10 years later, we would just find a pile of dust because there’s no longer this intelligence organizing it.
Well, that intelligence controls every stage of growth and development. It all originates in the brain and then it communicates down through the spinal cord. Then with every nerve, it connects up with every cell in the body. And it’s all about healthy communication, because the better the nerve system communicates what the body wants and needs, the more apt the body’s able to complete and execute those instructions. So, understand that your nerve system is the master system, and it doesn’t matter if you’re young or old. A proper functioning nerve system is going to be a healthier body. And the better that connection is, the better that flow from the brain to the body, the healthier that kid’s going to be and better able to adapt.
When you think about all the things the body does through every stage of growth and development, building proper cells, making sure that they’re the right cells and that they all are connected up to the nerve system is one of the most awesome things. This innate intelligence, this wisdom that creates our body from two half cells each, is incredible, and will go and keep regenerating and healing the body as long as it flows without interference. It’s only when the body subluxates and puts pressure on those delicate spinal nerves, that’s when the body is interfered with and the body doesn’t grow properly and doesn’t develop properly because it’s not getting the right information. Good information means great healthy growth in an infant or a child.
So, it’s so important to make sure that these kids are checked and free from subluxation, young or old, but your question pertained to the youngest and that is the primary reason that we would check infants and children. They’re not in pain. Their neck doesn’t hurt. It’s about optimizing nerve system function and nerve system flow.
For children and teens, could you explain the importance of teaching children and teens how to maintain proper posture and avoid tech neck while using their handheld devices?
Dr. Gregg Rubinstein: Absolutely. One of the most important things is, kids learn what you teach them, and whatever you teach a kid, they’re going to learn. So if a kid grows up with an iPad or a tablet as a babysitter and they watch mommy and daddy on their cell phones with their heads down, and these kids are on computers, they’re watching TV and the iPad’s their babysitter, well, then kids are going to be focused on those devices in their hands and typically going to drop their head forward and it’s going to create that forward head posture. I’m seeing tons of that. I take X-rays on 15, 16-year-olds, and there’s normally supposed to be a C-curve in the neck. And the curve is there for stability, because anytime you build something that you need to be strong, they use these 45-degree arches. And there’s actually a 30 to 45-degree curve in the neck because when you load an arch, it gets stronger.
But these kids are developing with this forward head posture and we’re seeing it much earlier now. The parents need to take responsibility and limit the amount of use and teach the kids proper posture. When they are head-down flexed, raise that phone up or have them hold the tablet up, or have them sitting on a desk and put that iPad on a stand so they’re sitting up vertical, and their neck is in more extension rather than completely flexed forward. It’s something that we’re seeing way more prevalent, and they have a name for it, which you touched upon, tech neck. And because they’re using these devices, the kids are watching you. And if you’re constantly on your phone, they just want to be like you and they’re going to copy you.
So, make sure that you take the time to explain proper posture to your kids, just give them a little nudge when they’re using poor posture. And then most importantly, get your kids checked periodically because that forward head posture is unavoidable in some, and by correcting the alignment, you can minimize its effects, improve neural function and neural communication in the body, and that’s what raises up healthy kids. But again, it’s the example that you set is what those kids are going to follow.
For athletes of all ages in the family, how can regular chiropractic care help improve sports performance, help prevent sports injuries, and then help them recover faster when they are injured?
Dr. Gregg Rubinstein: Wow, that’s a great question. When we talk about athletes, most people immediately have that image pop to mind about professional athletes. And two very famous quarterbacks, Joe Montana and Tom Brady, were very well-known for using chiropractic to enhance performance alone. They weren’t getting adjusted before the game because they were in pain. They were getting adjusted so their nerve system was optimized, they were in the best alignment, and they could function optimally. Just like a race car driver is going to tune up his vehicle before he takes it out on the track so it performs at its best, that’s what these athletes do, and look at the amount of success that they had.
Another group of professional athletes, as a matter of fact, there was one sport that passed relatively recently, the Kentucky Derby. And what’s interesting about that is it has the highest percentage of athletes under chiropractic care. And I’m not talking about the jockeys, I’m talking about the horses. The horses are almost all of them under chiropractic care. And the only reason they do it, it’s not that the horses are saying, “Gee, my neck hurts. Can someone get me a chiropractor?” The owners are doing it to optimize performance, maintain proper alignment, to make sure that these horses perform at their best.
It’s all about performance and injury prevention and faster healing. Because when the spine is in good alignment and the neurology is better connected, they’re going to perform better, they’re going to heal faster, and it’s going to aid in recovery. And most importantly, when things are lined up and mechanics are smooth, it prevents injury. If the front end of my car isn’t lined up and I keep driving it like that, it’s going to start to wear the tires funny. Well, if my pelvic girdle isn’t aligned up and my gait isn’t right, well, then I’m going to start to get pain in the hip and degenerative changes in my hip and the lower muscles and are going to be affected. And then also, the joints of the spine get affected.
Making sure that everything’s moving smoothly and performing it is best and optimizing performance is all about having a proper functioning nerve system at its highest level. And it doesn’t matter if you’re a pro athlete or a kid playing little league, the principles in chiropractic are always the same, and it benefits the young, the old, and the intermediate all the same. By eliminating nerve interference and optimizing performance, that’s what it’s all about.
It isn’t just about back pain or neck pain. Only 10% of your nerve system is dedicated to sensing pain and moving muscles. The other 90% is about performance and running your immune system and running every other system in your body. Your digestive system, your respiratory system, your circulatory system are all controlled by the nerve system, and that’s why chiropractic puts the spine and the nerve system always at number one.
For aging family members, how can chiropractic care help them maintain flexibility and range of motion so they can have more mobility and stability in their spine and joints?
Dr. Gregg Rubinstein: Well, old people and old cars, it’s the same. It’s really about how you take care of your car throughout the course of its lifetime, and the better you maintain the car, the better performance and the longer it’s going to last. Well, your body is no different except for the fact that our bodies have the ability to regenerate. Our bodies heal by regenerating, by replacing damaged old cells with healthy new ones. And that process is always going on, and it’s always going on under the auspice of the nerve system because your nerve system controls when a cell gets eliminated and replaced by a new one, so that’s all neural function.
Our bodies have this innate intelligence, and our body does most of this when we’re sleeping and we’re unconscious. We actually turn off our educated mind, and then our innate brain or the part of the brain that we don’t have to think about takes over and repairs and heals. Our body digests food, it makes hormones, it breaks down the proteins and uses those amino acids to make different hormones in the body. And if we have to think about all that stuff, we’d never get it all done. Thank God our innate intelligence is able to do that.
Again, if you keep your spine and nerve system healthy throughout the course of your lifetime, meaning have chiropractic care, getting your spine checked periodically all the time, rather than waiting for enough problems. Some of these people come in at 60, 70 years old, never had chiropractic care in their life, and their spine’s a bona fide mess. And they’re upset that I can’t fix it in two or three days. It takes a long time to undo a lot of that and some of the damage and the effect is permanent. But I guess the moral of the story and the thing that I always want to share is it doesn’t matter how old or young you are. It’s never too late and you’re never too early to start caring for your spine, because caring for your spine and keeping it aligned will optimize the nerve system and give you better function.
And it’s about stacking the deck in your favor. There’s no guarantee that if you’re under chiropractic care that you’re going to live to a hundred years old and have no pain. There’s no guarantee in that, but it’s about stacking the deck in your favor and optimizing performance and making sure that you have your best day every day. As we get older, the design of the body, it’s designed to last four score and 10 or whatever it is, but most people get somewhere between 70 and a hundred years. But it’s not about getting to a hundred years old, being broke, crippled, and alone. It’s about having a great quality of life, because there’s no fun in being a hundred years old if you can’t do anything. So, it’s about making sure that you can get out and walk and that you can socialize, and you can have multi-generational contact and you have enough energy to pick up your grandkids or to be able to sit down and play with them.
Again, for aging family members, it’s important, but the most important thing is to be getting checked periodically throughout the course of your lifetime. If you use chiropractic as a glorified aspirin or as a way to relieve your pain, you’re getting only 10% of what chiropractic has to offer. So again, the moral of the story is it doesn’t matter how old you are, you should be getting checked periodically, just like you care for your teeth. You don’t wait until you’re 60 and then start brushing like crazy. You brush a little bit, and you see the dentist a couple of times a year to keep your teeth healthy and make sure that they don’t keep degenerating.
You definitely touched on this, but I’m going to ask it anyway, so last question: How can chiropractic care help the entire family manage their stress better and live a more pain-free healthy life?
Dr. Gregg Rubinstein: Well, we always talk about this one a lot and we talk about stress. And stress comes in three forms. There’s physical stress, there’s emotional, and chemical stress, so those three are the kind of stresses that we see. Physical stress, the kid falls off his bicycle, knocks a bone out of alignment. We should get that taken care of. Someone who’s anxious a lot or under a lot of stress, well, they spend a lot of time in sympathetic overdrive. Their sympathetic nerve system is driving the body and it’s out of balance with the parasympathetic. Remember, the sympathetic is about fight or flight and energy and those types of things, and the parasympathetic is more about healing, relaxation, and regeneration. So, when those get out of balance due to emotional stress, having a bad day or worry and things like that, again, our body creates a totally different chemistry and really not optimal for healing.
The body heals better when the sympathetic chemicals are low, when there’s less adrenaline and cortisol through the body. And chiropractic can help your body manage that as well. And so, we have the physical stress, we got the chemical stress, which could be toxins, anything your body takes in, and chiropractic doesn’t get rid of toxins. But again, the more effective your body is about breaking down those chemicals and neutralizing them and turning them into something that the body can eliminate is really what the body does. And again, that’s all under the auspice of the nerve system.
And again, chiropractic focuses on improving nerve system function and balance. And so, when the nerve system is clear from interference, it’s more effective at managing stress, breaking down those bad chemicals, and healing and repairing the body. The nerve system’s got a lot of things that it needs to do, and a lot of what it does we’re not even aware of when it’s doing those things, so we have to keep that pathway clear so the body can heal, run and regulate itself. So, all those different types of stress, whether it be physical, chemical, emotional, are going to improve when the body is in proper alignment and there’s less irritation to the nerve system.
So, it helps every family member manage their stress better, live a more pain-free, active life. And the more active you are, the more fit you are, then, again, the better the body heals and bounces back. So, the moral story is it doesn’t really matter how old you are or how young you are, periodic checkups are going to help you live better, be pain-free, and manage your stress better.
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To speak with Dr. Gregg Rubinstein, visit www.ChiropractorMidtown.com or call (212) 977-7094 to schedule an appointment.
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