Love your Proprioception

Love your Proprioception

2017 is well and truly underway. Can you believe we are already in March?!

With that been said, it’s the time of the year where we are in the swing of things, trying to enjoy the end of the good weather and prepping for winter.

I am always on a journey to learn and expand my knowledge on what makes our bodies work the way it does and how it’s able to accomplish the many complex tasks we ask to perform every second, minute, hour and day.

A colleague and myself were discussing how to take the complex workings of our body and explain it in a way that isn’t overwhelming. We were chatting about how our bodies are forever adapting and changing to the our needs and our environment. It’s mind boggling to think our brains have an estimated 100 billion nerve cells and each of these nerve cells can send up to 1000 impulses a second and signals can travel up to 268mph or 431kmh for us metric system followers.

The brilliant thing is that the brain has awareness of every part of our bodies at every millisecond to make minute changes to help us execute complex tasks like… bending over, walking, digesting food, breathing, pumping blood around our bodies, playing sport. But ever wondered what nerves give the brain these messages? Well they are what’s called sensory nerves. These nerves are constantly collecting information about what’s going on and then sending that information to the brain for processing. But I want to highlight one particular type of nerve.

Let’s talk proprioception. Proprioception is the nerves that communicate where the body is in space. It’s how our bodies gain spatial awareness and execute tasks without us looking at what we are doing. If we didn’t have this type of information, complex movements wouldn’t be able to executed properly. These nerves are actually a very important part of injury prevention and protection that your body has. Studies have shown that when we subluxation in the spine, proprioception becomes dampened and the brain receives altered amounts of it. It’s much like a frayed short circuiting electrical cord. The same thing occurs when we have injury to joints and soft tissues. This can be seen in simple things like an ankle sprain to a more serious injury like a disc bulge or herniation.

So how do we preserve the function of our proprioceptors? One is to ensure proper spinal function with chiropractic adjustments. This optimises the movement of spinal joints and avoids adhesive tissue from building between our joint which alters the natural free movement of these important joints.  Other ways include challenging our bodies with balance challenging exercises. This helps re-inforce the brains ability to connect with these nerves and keeps them engaged through complex movements. This becomes particularly important in injury rehabilitation. Lastly, and most relevant for most of us, is maintaining good postural habits. Poor posture and sedentary lifestyles, imposes biomechanical strain on our joints and muscles which in turn causes a dampening of the body’s proprioceptive input into the brain.

Want to know more? On the 21 March 2017 we will be running our Chiropractic 101 workshop. This workshop is aimed at understanding chiropractic, the science behind it as well as the latest research to support why chiropractic works. If you’re interested, call to save your spot or follow the link below to book your seat. Hurry as seats are limited!

Click Here to Save your Seat

Till next time, look after your body and it’ll after you!

– Dr Andre

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