Better Than Ever!

I have a friend who gives the above response every time he’s asked “How are you?” Think about it. How many times a day does someone ask you or do you ask someone else, “How are you?” Often times we don’t even listen for the response and sometimes people don’t even answer!! But EVERY time someone asks my friend, he says “I’m better than EVER!!” And he’s been responding this way for years!!! It’s worth noting and even more amazing, that the guy I’m talking about is now in his 80’s!!! Still, every time he responds, “Better than EVER!”

It’s a totally honest response as well. It’s not that things always go his way or that he’s not had his share of hardships. He’s just made up his mind that whatever happens in any given day, whatever comes his way, he’s going to grow from it and use it to be a better person in the future.

It reminds me of our bodies. Our bodies don’t judge the things that happen to them as good or bad. They use whatever the experiences are to adapt and be “better than EVER.” Sometimes things happen to our bodies and we don’t like them so we judge them as bad. Maybe we get a fever and have to stay home from school. Or maybe we get a stomachache and can’t go play with our friends. Nobody likes feeling crummy, but what if we thought of those as opportunities for our bodies to learn, grow, and adapt to become “better than EVER!?!”

It’s what our bodies do. From start to finish we have experiences, we learn, we grow, we adapt. During the first month of life, an infant is learning so many new things that the number of connections between brain cells (called synapses) increases from 50 trillion to 1 quadrillion. To compare, if the rest of the infant's body grew at the same rate, he or she would weigh 170 pounds at only one month old!!!

And it doesn’t stop there or ever as long as we are alive! We keep learning and growing and changing. The thing we seem to forget is that our bodies are SMART!!! AMAZING in fact!! They are meant to change. They take every opportunity to learn and grow and be better than EVER. And it doesn’t just stop after your first month and the year 2020 is no exception!!! This year has been the perfect opportunity to learn a LOT of new things and to adapt and change.

Your body is in constant communication with itself. Your brain uses all of those synapses to send messages to your body parts via nerves and your spinal cord, and then your body sends messages back. This communication system is so important that most of it is protected by bone, the brain by the skull and the spinal cord by the bones of the spine.

This is why it is so important that your spine be in good alignment. Misalignments of the bones of the spine can distort the communication within the nerve system and keep your body from adapting as it should. Your family chiropractor checks for these misalignments, called vertebral subluxations, and makes adjustments when necessary to help you to be able to use your experiences to be better than EVER.

Maybe you’re one of those people in 2020 who wants to “go back to normal.” Understand that is NOT how life works. Not in 2020 and not ever. We are always learning and growing and changing and, when we are mindful, for the better. Make plans to see your family chiropractor in the New Year and rest assured that in 2021 you are going to be BETTER THAN EVER!!!

—By Judy Nutz Campanale, DC, ACP