Principle No. 6: The principle of time- There is no process that doesn't require time.
That's it...verbatim. It hurts to read doesn't it? If you are remotely concerned with grammar, your eyes are probably bleeding a little from an official statement from a profession...an ENTIRE profession... with a double negative tucked in. It hurt me. I had to do a project on the principles my first quarter of my doctorate program and I complained IN the project about the grammar. Let's consider that a speed bump and keep on trucking. If it's more of a road block, go pace for a few minutes in the sun and come back and start below:
Time.
In the previous post we discussed weight loss as a measurement of health. Weight loss is an easy representation of our culture's inability to perceive "time in" versus "time out". Most people do not wake up 40 pounds heavier than the day before. If this happens to you I would suggest seeking medical attention because that implies a serious issue. Plenty of people are on "ask yahoo" or random weight loss forums asking, "How can I lose 30 pounds in 2 weeks?" They probably didn't gain 30 pounds in 2 weeks, yet they expect to lose it.
However, I would argue this isn't the most alarming form of disregard for time. The worst is when a person makes poor decisions for, let's say 10 years, and after some time their body begins to show signs of neglect: inflammation, pain, dysfunction. These consequences usually surprise people, and the instant reaction is to take a pain killer. And WOW! Those pain killers really work! I should know, I took them in bulk store proportions for about 10 years. Often times we want to cut corners. We want "insta-health".
Insta-health sounds great doesn't it? Do none of the work, none of the input and boom! You wake up one day with a 65 BPM heart rate, 110/70 blood pressure, ideal body fat percentages, and did I mention you'll look great naked! (And make a 6 digit income, and drive a drool worthy car...I mean if I'm dreaming here, let's go big!) And imagine if all of the bad habits we accumulate could be undone over night with the use of a pill. This sounds like heaven.
The reality is that we are a culmination of chemical compounds that have been assembled and disassembled trillions of times in their existence; but right here and now, you are you. Our parents made a decision to DTD (do the deed, for my non-NFP folks) and sperm meets egg, morula, zygote, fetus, infant, toddler, kidlet, tween, teen, young adult, adult, senior, and then you will one day die. So will I. But the point is that you did not begin your existence today. Maybe you did...maybe today is a new you and a new way of life. Or maybe the life you lead to day was determined by the diet your great great great grandfather ate 250 years ago. The point is that every aspect of our existence, our observations, our interactions, and our world is dependent on time. Time creates and destroys mountains.
Often times when people start Chiropractic Care, they are surprised or upset when they find that they will need to come in for 3-6 months. The brilliant thing about Chiropractic is that if you ARE in pain (you do not have to be in pain to see a Chiropractor), you most likely won't be in pain for those 3-6 months. Most often pain resolves fairly quickly. However, much like weight gain (consider this a clumping with the pain/inflammation/dysfunction), typically you don't just wake up one day in pain. Aside from acute macro-trauma (car accident, falling, etc), most of us spend decades with poor habits that lead to that sudden onset of pain. So, if we use the idea of "Time", it makes sense that putting a decade of, let's say looking down at your lap to read a text or the morning paper, into your spine may take more than 2 weeks to rectify. You may not experience pain, but as more and more research shows, pain is sort of the last stop on the Body's "Hey Something's Wrong!" Train. So if we take into consideration that pain is NOT a marker of function, and the objective is to be healthy and functional, the goal is for you to NOT need constant Chiropractic care. The goal is for your body to properly function and adapt to it's environment. In this sense the chiropractic adjustment is re-teaching the body where it belongs in space. So while the pain goes away, the body is still accustomed to it's previous position. The care plan that a patient receives should be an estimate of how long it will take the body to re-learn proper proprioception.
Now, this discussion opens itself to a number of critiques. Because I am in the process of opening this can of worms, let's list out a few:
1. If time causes subluxation, why does a baby need to be adjusted?
2. Why would I need to see a chiropractor if I am not in pain?
3. What can a chiropractor do for proprioceptive issues?
These are totally future blog questions. Next up though, I'm going to give you a little background on Marquette Method and NFP in general...quirky title name to come. :)
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