The Most Important Benefit of Having Good Spinal Alignment

When you look at the spine, there are 33 segments or bones that stack up on top of each other. They’re separated by the discs. The discs help bear the weight and act as a shock absorber. The front of the vertebrae, or the vertebral body, is big, wide and strong and that bears the weight. In the back of the vertebrae, the posterior portion, there’s a long column with a series of rings that the spinal cord sits in. Then exiting off the spinal cord in between two adjacent vertebrae, are these delicate spinal nerves. These nerves convey information from the brain through the brainstem, down the spinal cord, out through those spinal nerves, through those little openings between the bones and then they fan out and go to every cell tissue and organ system in your body.

If those vertebrae are misaligned or what we call subluxated, they get out of alignment. They pinch and irritate the nerves. They get stuck in that position. It causes a pretty consistent irritation to those nerves and that creates static in the communication lines, or interference, where the messages are no longer these clear, concise messages. Just like if a phone connection was staticky and cruddy and I’ve said, “Hey, let’s continue this call at eight,” and you said, “Hey, I’m running late.” We miscommunicate because we didn’t hear each other properly, and then the communication breaks down.

Your nerve system is designed to heal, run and regulate everything. It coordinates the action of your stomach, your digestion. It tells your body where to absorb certain proteins and where to send them, and to get the sugars into the bloodstream. The body does millions of processes every day without us even thinking about it. All that stuff happens innately because of the intelligence of our nerve system, and how our bodies run and regulate.

The most important benefit of having good spinal alignment is making sure that you had good nerve flow because if you stop nerve flow completely, it results in death or game over. If you irritate or limit it, it leads to a limited life. It’s really about making sure that the nerve system is optimized, and you lead a healthy, active, and most important, drug-free life.

The other benefits are yes, less pain and better movement. When the movement of the spine is clean and not in a sign of stress where there’s extra rubbing or poor alignment, that prevents further degeneration of the discs and the spinal bones, which a lot of doctors will call arthritis. They say, “Oh, it’s just the normal wear and tear.” It’s not normal. The better alignment you have, the less wear and tear you’re going to see on those spinal joints.

It’s important to make sure that the nerves are free from interference, so your body can function properly, optimize, and run and regulate itself. It’s important to have good, smooth motion that way the bones don’t degenerate, and we don’t end up with a ton of arthritis. I would say that those are the most important benefits and then obviously, the alleviation of pain and symptoms certainly makes people a lot happier and provides them with a much better quality of life.