Women's Fitness
Wellness expert Andi Lew reveals how biohacking your brain and nervous system, particularly through chiropractic care, can optimise performance and reverse aging.
I get asked all the time why I look younger than my age. This year, I’m 52 (mic drop, I know! I hope my picture inspires you) and couldn’t be more organic about sharing my secrets and crusade as a Wellness professional. ‘Bio hacking your brain’ is allowing yourself to have optimal brain function and education around optimizing this system is my area of expertise!
It’s not just your brain that you should be concerned about, but the entire nervous system itself! The brain is connected to the spinal cord and that branches off to nerves. It’s this entire nervous system which controls every single cell, tissue and organ in your body.
The nervous system, which includes the brain, is responsible for how you perceive the world, adapt to stress and coordinate every single bodily function.
It’s the most important part of your body to look after. Whoever designed us, knew that it needed to be protected by bone. The rib cage protects a lot of different organs, but this is the only system in the body that is completely protected by its own casing; the skull and the bones of the spine.
Our master grand designer, let’s call it G.O.D, an acronym for ‘grand organized designer’, knew well that the universal intelligence would run this innate intelligence.
One of the best ways to biohack and reverse aging, is through, not just the brain, but the entire nervous system.
They are all connected to each other and the entire nervous system is our ‘master controller’. It is the conductor of the Orchestra.
Looking after the health of our nervous system is crucial because it is through our nervous system that we perceive the world, adapt to stress and coordinate all bodily functions.
Muscles are a reactive tissue, not an active tissue meaning, they don’t have a mind of their own. They get told what to do by the signals from the nerves.
I discovered Chiropractic a couple decades ago and have since been taking advantage of the natural, gentle and yet extremely powerful force for healing it can be. No matter where I have travelled, I have made sure I have gotten off the plane and found a chiropractor to get checked before I went on to holiday or to work. I can say emphatically that it is the one thing that might be missing from your “healthy habits” that makes the difference to my tone, my age and my overall wellness.
Chiropractic is the second largest primary healthcare profession in the United States, and the fastest-growing primary healthcare profession in the world that doesn’t use drugs or surgery or anything that needs to be ingested!
Some have misunderstood this profession, but the art of chiropractic is actually thousands of years old, and some of its techniques are described in the earliest writings of the Chinese. Over time, it was forgotten and became a long-lost art, and then re-emerged in the west over a century ago.
In 1895, Dr D.D. Palmer became dissatisfied with merely reacting to and treating his patients’ symptoms. He wanted to find the cause of disease itself, and constantly explored many different healing disciplines.
One day, his janitor, who had been deaf for many years, allowed Palmer to examine him. The doctor noticed a lump in the man’s neck, and inquired about how and when it first appeared. He then asked him when his deafness began, and learned that they were simultaneous events. Surprised that no one had ever made the connection before, and intrigued by the implications, he began to experiment. Examining the lump, Palmer believed he could feel a spinal bone out of alignment with the others, and convinced the janitor to let him attempt to adjust the shifted bone back into its normal position with his hands. To the astonishment of both men the bone moved, the janitor’s hearing was restored, and chiropractic as we know it was born. It has grown rapidly, widely, and ever more deeply since that humble beginning, and is now a double science degree obtained at university level.
Being a primary healthcare practitioner means you don’t need a referral and they’re trained in diagnostics too. In fact, chiropractors spend more hours in diagnostics than general practice medical doctors.
Strangely enough, the healing art and science of chiropractic is actually not a cure or treatment for anything. Put as simply as possible, chiropractic works by relieving interference to your nerve system, which allows your body to regain the natural healthy functioning it was designed to have. But if it’s so beneficial, why are there so many myths and misconceptions about chiropractic? And don’t forget that it is the medical model that has taught us to treat and cure, but chiropractic is rather about restoring function and allowing your body to do the healing, in whatever way that might be. You can see where the misconceptions lie about claims that it cures anything.
The old rivalry is being superseded by a new spirit of cooperation as general practitioners find their patients asking them to work together with their chiropractor to experience the value and unique contribution to their clients’ recovery.
The Nervous System
Your spinal bones surround and protect the spinal cord and nerves, just as the skull protects the brain. When the bones of the spine shift out of alignment, they no longer protect the nerve system, they are actually interfering with and damaging it. This causes distorted messages to be sent to the brain, reducing the self-healing and self-regulating capacity. This distortion is much more than mere misalignment, it’s actually an interference to your nerve system.
Your nerve system is what runs you.
There are 11 major systems in your body, such as the cardiovascular, skeletal, reproductive, digestive, muscular and immune, and so on, and they are all controlled by the nerve system.
In foetal development, the first complex structure to appear is the nerve system, and it begins in the seventh hour of life. The eyes don’t begin until the 24th day, and the heart on the 36th day, so your nerve system is supreme. It’s like the conductor of the orchestra, and without it nothing else works – there’s no music, so to speak. Without a smoothly functioning nervous system you would not be, and when it is impaired, so are you.
If the spine were to instead interfere with the transmission of messages along the nervous system, then three types of messages would be impeded:
- Sensory nerves
- Motor/muscle nerves
- Autonomic/organ nerves.
This results in the following effects for each: - Either pain or numbness (hypersensitivity or hyposensitivity)
- Either cramps and spasticity, or weakness and flaccidity
- Over or under function – which you may not even know about or feel.
Contrary to popular belief, the main job of the nerve system is not merely to register pain, but to run bodily functions. New research indicates that only 2-10% of your nerve system is dedicated to sensory or feeling nerves, so by the time you are aware of a pain or symptom you have probably been unwell for a very long time.
“To successfully treat a symptom is to allow the cause of the symptom to continue.”
Steven Shochat, DC
Real wellness is all about addressing the cause, not just the symptom. By treating a symptom only and never addressing the cause of why it was there in the first place, you may later wonder why something comes back. Or perhaps it resurfaces in another area.
So what exactly is interference to your nerve system? An alteration of the bones, muscles and nerves of the spine causing compression, tension, irritation and damage to the central nerve system. It causes the organs and muscles of the body to malfunction and to heal poorly.
Chiropractic doctors have a term for the distortions and misalignments that cause this interference – subluxation.
The derivation of the word hints at the profound philosophy of chiropractic; sub is Latin for “under” or “less than”, while lux is “light” or “life”. So ‘subluxation’ means a condition of the body devoid of life force. Light, love, and life forces and what runs us.
You know this from when people talk about a great awakening and they “see the light”. It can also be referred to as “truth”.
Nonetheless, it is a pure energy force that is running us all.
If you imagine a part of your spinal cord being choked and your body’s electrical messages being blocked, it’s easy to see how an area of the body can have less “life” in it.
While the medical community is just beginning to explore the relationship between the nerve system and the immune system, chiropractic as a profession has long been mastering this vital connection by caring for the spine and nerve system of children and adults.
As the master controller, normal nervous system function is essential to all body systems.
Chiropractic Care May Help You Reverse the Ageing Process
How Do We Age?
Each of us is made up of about 100 trillion cells, and these cells are constantly replacing themselves with new ones. The process works like making a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy, and just as with photocopies, each subsequent copy loses resolution – the DNA in the new cells isn’t quite as good as the original. Our body works tirelessly to fix that, but eventually the quality of the new cells being produced starts to decrease – we know this process as ageing.
What is DNA?
It is the building block containing the genetic instructions for the development and function of living things.
All known cellular life and some viruses contain DNA. The main role of DNA is long-term storage of information. It is often compared to a blueprint, since it contains the instructions to construct other components of the cell, such as proteins and RNA molecules. The DNA segments that carry genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in regulating the expression of genetic information.
How Does Chiropractic Fit In?
New research shows that chiropractic care boosts important chemicals in the DNA repair process to levels higher than those in non-chiropractic people. The research also shows that no matter how old or young the person is, whether male or female, whether they take vitamin supplements or not, after two or more years of chiropractic care their DNA repair improved.
What Does This Mean for You?
Many diseases have a genetic component. Cancer, for example, occurs when cell division goes wrong. By more effectively reducing and repairing the mistakes that happen in cell division, chiropractic might help reduce the likelihood of you and your family developing genetically influenced diseases.
While other professions are concerned with changing the environment to suit the weakened body, chiropractic is concerned with strengthening the body to suit the environment.
B.J. Palmer, DC, PhC
Dr Bruce Lipton, PhD., trained in the philosophy and practice of allopathic medicine, is a teacher and researcher at a number of acclaimed academic institutions, including The University of Virginia, The University of Wisconsin School of Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, The University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine, and Penn State University.
He believes it differs from the conventional medical/allopathic model:
“While / wholeheartedly endorse allopathic medicine in dealing with trauma or the exchanging of bodily parts, I have come to realise that preventative medicine, in the form of good healthcare, is not forthcoming from a health modality that perceives us as frail biochemical robots programmed by genes. In contrast, the philosophy of chiropractic honours the“driver”, the spirit that controls the physiology. By recognising the role of the nervous system over the operation of the body, as well as the impact of our education in the unfoldment of health, chiropractic offers us profound, non-pharmacological insight into how to live a healthy and happy life.”
Chiropractic is More than Complementary or Alternative
As you understand more of what chiropractic really is, you will realise that it is not a substitute for anything. What would we se substituting it for? Nothing – right? One of the principles it’ based upon is that “the power that made the body can heal the body”, and chiropractic is unique in its ability to help people tap into that power.
Other professions have tried to reproduce its results by emulating the technique, but it’s the exact knowledge and extraordinary intent that makes chiropractic supreme.
Recent studies show that even minor positive changes in diet and exercise can have a profound impact on health, but those effects are insignificant compared to what can occur when the directing nervous system is enabled to operate as it was designed to do.
The true power of chiropractic lies in the life-changing, cell-transforming and rejuvenating benefits only available when the practitioner and patient are focused on genuine healing.
DNA research done over a 3-to 5-year period shows that the longer the chiropractic care, the more profound the changes.
This is by far, my best secret for slowing the ageing process. I have been getting weekly chiropractic check-ups for over 25 years now.
Chiropractic addresses causes, not just symptoms, because health is about function, not feeling.
There are over 100 different techniques used to achieve these results, but the main difference between a manipulation by an untrained practitioner and a chiropractic adjustment performed by a doctor of chiropractic is the intent. Some techniques use no manipulation at all, but an adjustment that affects the joint within its normal range of motion. Other professions move the joint forcefully just beyond the normal range of the joint. There is a philosophy – or intent – behind the practice to remove nerve interference and allow innate healing to occur. Traditional chiropractors treat no disease but remove spinal interferences to healing.
The purpose and intent of the chiropractic adjustment is to release nerve interference, stimulate brain function, and re-set old neurological patterns, allowing the body to return to what should be its normal state of neuro-psychosocial wellness.
Chiropractic addresses causes, not just symptoms, because health is about function, not feeling.
Muscles are a reactive, not an active tissue, which means they don’t have a mind of their own – nerves tell them what to do.
There are over 100 different techniques used to achieve these results, but the main difference between a manipulation by an untrained practitioner and a chiropractic adjustment performed by a doctor of chiropractic is the intent. Some techniques use no manipulation at all, but an adjustment that affects the joint within its normal range of motion. Other professions move the joint forcefully just beyond the normal range of the joint. There is a philosophy – or intent – behind the practice to remove nerve interference and allow innate healing to occur. Traditional chiropractors treat no disease but remove spinal interferences to healing.
The purpose and intent of the chiropractic adjustment is to release nerve interference, stimulate brain function, and re-set old neurological patterns, allowing the body to return to what should be its normal state of neuro-psychosocial wellness.
Chiropractic shouldn’t be compared to other professions because it isn’t a treatment or cure for anything.
Even the healing of illnesses is viewed merely as a beneficial side effect.
Chiropractic is not an alternative to anything, it is a comprehensive, fundamental health and wellness care.
So tap into more of this chiropractic philosophy and remember that your body is designed to make all the drugs it needs for repair. Working with the entire nervous system with the understanding of how the body is designed to heal and function will give you the grounds for working with regeneration as you age instead of constant degeneration.
Andi Lew is a qualified chiropractor’s assistant and in 2009 won an award from the Chiropractor’s Association of Australia for her dedication to the profession in public education. Andi has written 10 books, & featured in the documentary, Biohack Yourself, as a result of the work in her 10th book, Treasured Chest, exposing Explants & empowering you! The author is a certified food, lifestyle and wellness coach, TV presenter and has appeared on American and Australian live television show shows as an expert with the content of her books. She’s an Australian transplant living in America on an extraordinary talent visa. This article is an excerpt from her 8th book, Connected, a paradigm shift in how we view health. Connect with Andi on instagram – @andi.lew or andilew.com
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