After countless hours of searching, you’ve finally used the resources available to you to find a chiropractor that fits your location and budget. You go, get your first appointment, get your back sorted out, and feel like a million bucks.
However, if you don’t take the proper steps following the appointment, you risk undoing all the hard work you went through. But how do you know what to do?
Well, we’re glad you asked. It’s time to take a look at our list of the thing to do and the things to avoid after seeing a chiropractor!
But enough talk, right? Let’s dive into this thing!
Fix Your Schedule After Seeing a Chiropractor
One important thing to do after your first chiropractor appointment is to take a look at your schedule and rearrange it to fit your needs. For example, you should get a follow-up appointment ready to go for (at max) 48 hours after your last appointment.
This is because, after one visit, your nervous system lacks the amount of restructuring needed to stay constant and keep providing the benefits. As a result, your body will soon revert to the state it was in before you visited the chiropractor and does so faster if the changes are new (since there’s less to reset). Once you’ve built up a routine with the chiropractor, your body will grow more resistant to changing back to the old form.
It’s also important to try and distance your chiropractor appointments away from other events like massage appointments too. This lets your body focus on integrating one change at a time. Thus, you get more profound effects than if you applied two or more within a short timeframe.
Watch for Side Effects and Changes
Another key thing to do after a chiropractor appointment is to keep an eye on your body for any side effects of the procedure. Fatigue and dehydration often pop up, as when a chiropractor stimulates your muscles, they will exert themselves a lot. Consequently, your body will burn through the water inside it faster and you could also experience tenderness or soreness in the affected muscles.
To counter this, make sure to stay hydrated and keep a bottle of water with you. Besides keeping your body’s water supply high, drinking lots of water will also help flush out any toxins in your body.
This is pertinent because your muscle cells will “kick out” toxins when stimulated by a chiropractor. The toxins will travel to your bloodstream and move on to your kidney to get neutralised. Drinking lots of water helps push more toxins out of your blood and into your kidney, preventing anything bad from sticking around.
As a bonus, water also helps provide some cushioning to your joints. This will help reduce soreness from any joint muscles that aren’t used to the level of exertion they are getting.
It’s also vital to keep an eye out for any changes you feel in how you stand, sit, etc. Taking a moment to examine how you feel in different positions helps give your chiropractor feedback on what areas of your body need work and if any techniques need to get switched up.
Keep Exercising Within Reason
After your muscles go through so much change, it seems natural to kick back and let your muscles chill out. That said, you’ll want to stay active and keep exercising to a smaller degree. After all, if your muscles stay unused, they will start to atrophy and weaken, reversing any progress you made from previous chiropractor sessions.
This doesn’t mean you should go back into full-force workouts, though. Pushing yourself too hard after appointments will result in the overexertion of your muscles.
This can lead to increased pain and fatigue in your muscles. The possibility of permanent damage to the muscle occurring if you push too far also exists.
To find a balance, talk to your chiropractor and ask what they recommend. They can give you special exercises designed around your routine to keep your muscles engaged without working them too hard.
Evaluate Your Movements
It’s also worth taking stock of how you perform certain motions after a chiropractor appointment. For instance, certain actions like sitting slouched in your chair will start to reassert the damage to your spine your chiropractor works to correct. Try to sit and stand up as straight as you can, and work on using your legs rather than your back when lifting heavy objects.
You should also work to keep your movements slow and deliberate. Muscles don’t take kindly to getting jerked around at great speeds, especially after they’ve already gone through exertion.
Know When to Rest
Are you only getting a few hours of sleep every night? You’ll want to change that behaviour pronto, as sleep is the main time your body has to recharge and repair from the stresses of the day. Since muscle grows by tearing itself down and re-growing stronger, you’ll need the downtime for your muscles to show more improvement from your treatment.
Mental Changes
Finally, take stock of the factors of your life that cause you great stress. Does your job make you want to tear your hair out? Is the responsibility of a new baby making it difficult for you to focus on anything?
If these mental stressors exist in your life, you’ll need to find a way to cope with them and help reduce the amount of anxiety they give you. Stress keeps your muscles tight, which prevents them from relaxing and healing properly. As a result, the results you’ll get from going to a chiropractor will diminish without finding a way to relieve your stressors.
The Secret to a Happier Spine
And there you have it! Now that you have the do’s and do-not’s of what to do after seeing a chiropractor, you’re ready to make the trip towards having a happier spine and healthier body! And if you’re looking for more information on chiropractors and how to relax your muscles, make sure to check out the other articles on our blog!
