The Nerve System is described as being sensitive. What does it mean to be “sensitive”? Why is the Nerve System sensitive?
Sensitive by definition means “quick to detect or respond to slight changes, signals, or influences.” The Nerve System needs to be quick to detect and respond to changes or influences because it directs and controls homeostasis. Homeostasis is the body’s inherent drive to maintain balance. This is a vital expression of health and well-being.
The sensitive nature of the Nerve System allows the body to be adaptive to itself and its environment. This adaptive quality of the Nerve System, and the whole body by extension, is a biological feature that separates living organisms from non-living organisms.
For example, let’s say both you and a rock are out in the sun. You, as a human being, will immediately sweat in order to cool your body. This adaptation allows you to maintain your body temperature, 98 degrees F on average. The rock, on the other hand, can not sweat. It will just get hotter and hotter. It does not have the innate resources to maintain a set temperature.
This ability to adapt is a sign of intelligence. Quoting Dr. Rob Sinnot, DC, adaptability is “the intellectual ability that an organism possesses of responding to all forces that come to it.” What are the “forces that come to” the body?
The forces are physical, chemical, or emotional stressors that create bodily or mental tension. The body must adapt to these stressors in order to maintain structural and functional balance, better known as homeostasis.
When tension is created, it will “tip the scale” away from the body’s set point. The Nerve System monitors and controls this set point and instantly detects any change away from it. The Nerve System then governs and directs how the body will respond in order to “balance the scale.”
Stress and the tension it creates are not inherently bad. It all depends on the quantity and quality of the stress and how we adapt to it. The better equipped the Nerve System is to sense stress and adapt, the better the body can strive for homeostatic balance. Not only that, but the body can learn, grow and thrive better throughout life if it can strive for homeostasis.
For example, lifting weights for exercise is a physical stressor, but over time, the body adapts to that stress and becomes stronger. You can also drop the same weight you were exercising with on your foot and fracture a bone.
The problem is that stress can go beyond what our body can adapt to and can create injuries, weaknesses and compensations. One particular compensation that occurs in the upper cervical spine from unadapted stress is a vertebral subluxation.
A vertebral subluxation emerges when the body can’t adapt to some type of physical, chemical or emotional stressor. The upper cervical spine shifts out of place and locks in this misaligned position. A subluxation imbalances the spine and disrupts nerve function. This interferes with how the Nerve System and spine adapt to subsequent stress it comes in contact with.
How your spine and nerves sense, perceive and behave in their functional duties are negatively effected. Muscle movement, organ regulation and sensations are impaired.
Correcting a vertebral subluxation through a specific adjustment better aligns the spine and takes pressure off of the Nerve System. The spine is better balanced and nerve communication is improved.
Nerve sensitivity is set at an efficient level and can detect or respond to slight changes, signals, or influences at a greater potential. Adaptability normalizes. And the better adaptability a person has, the better expression of health they have as well.
- Jarek Esarco, DC, CACCP
Jarek Esarco, DC, CACCP is a pediatric, family wellness and upper cervical specific Chiropractor. He is an active member of the International Chiropractic Pediatric Association (ICPA). Dr. Jarek has postgraduate certification in Pediatric Chiropractic through the ICPA. Dr. Jarek also has postgraduate certification in the HIO Specific Brain Stem technique through The TIC Institute. Dr. Jarek is happily married to his wife Regina. They live in Youngstown, Ohio with their daughter Ruby.
