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Why Your Self-Esteem is Important to Your Health

Why Your Self-Esteem is Important to Your Health

I often work as a weight loss and health coach with patients in our office. Working with our patients in this way has helped me understand something important about self-esteem. I have never believed that self-esteem comes from outside sources as much as it comes from within.

I believe that self-esteem is an accumulation of choices that we make every day of our lives. Whether we recognize it or not – each choice that we make, in regards to the type of person we choose to be, impacts not only who we are becoming but how we feel about ourselves.

I love the following quote by Stephen R. Covey: “Every human has four endowments- self awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom… The power to choose, to respond, to change.”

What I have been able to observe as I have worked with individuals make positive changes in their lives and in their health is that as they demonstrate to themselves that they can make and keep commitments with their selves – their belief in their worth, their strength, and their potential grows.

I believe that conscience is a major player in self-esteem. I suspect that many people struggle with their self-esteem because their choices, their actions, and their lives in general are not congruent with their beliefs. Self-esteem is developed over time based on the balance of decisions we make, the actions we take, the way we treat others, the standards we set and maintain in regards to our goals and aspirations, and the level of respect, integrity, compassion, and discipline we give and receive throughout life.

I remember one of the women I worked with coming into my office after being on a modified diet for only 3 weeks. Each of those weeks she had lost weight and better yet, each week she had been able to sense how much better she was feeling. There was a light in her eyes and a noticeable difference in how she carried herself. Never before had she believed in her ability to make and keep a commitment – in her words “I have always believed I had no will power”. Three short weeks had taught her differently.
So what influence does self-esteem have on health?

I believe that when we live in harmony with our conscience – we make better choices in regards to the foods we eat, the activities (such as daily exercise) we participate in, and how diligent we are about our overall health.

Some of the Rumors about Chiropractic are True But Most are False

Some of the Rumors about Chiropractic are True But Most are False

I remember going with a friend of mine to a chiropractic appointment she had several years ago. She only went because she was in agony with a back issue and nothing else had given her relief. (Those were the days back before my husband was a chiropractor… before he had even thought about becoming a chiropractor.) One of the first things she said to me as we left the appointment was, “The doctor wanted me to come back in for another adjustment but I never made the appointment – chiropractors do that so they can make more money.”

I have to admit that I bought into the chiropractors only use “additional appointments” as a money making scheme until my husband went off to chiropractic school. You might think that I got “brainwashed” along with my husband once my husband became a chiropractic student but the truth is that if I didn’t know what I know and hadn’t experienced what I’ve experienced, I wouldn’t be writing this blog. (I hate doing anything I believe is a waste of my time and talents!)

One thing that everyone should know is that I love a bargain. I did not have to be a rocket scientist to understand that the free care offered to student family members was a smart thing to take advantage of. As a frequent “guinea pig” of the student clinic of my husband’s school, I got a little education of my own. As the student interns took care of me under the direction of the supervising chiropractic doctors, I learned both from their discussions with each other and the results I experienced from my frequent appointments. Here are a few of the things that I learned:

• A small minority of chiropractors do encourage more appointments than are necessary but most want to see patients come back because they know that one chiropractic adjustment is not going to properly fix the issue being treated. Those conditions we seek treatment for are not created overnight and most cannot be fixed overnight either. (I call that the Law of the Harvest.)
• Chiropractic is safe and is based on preventative (wellness) care of the spine that keeps the nervous system free from interference (subluxations). One statistic I recently came across puts chiropractic safety into perspective: “More people die from complications of drugs and surgery in one single afternoon than in 20 years of cervical adjustments.”
• Chiropractors are real doctors not qwacks. There was a time when members of the American Medical Association (AMA) tried to discredit the chiropractic profession. A lawsuit filed and won by chiropractors showed that the AMA attempted to “destroy a competitor” because of economic concerns. It is unfortunate that any of those lies were ever told. However, studies and the experiences of patients continue to bolster the known effectiveness of chiropractic in treating health related issues!
• Chiropractors believe that the body is a self-healing organism. Because of that mindset, they believe that when a body is free from subluxation, it is free to heal. Chiropractors address health from the root of the issue. Medical Doctors, on the other hand, look to diagnose and then medicate the issue rather than find and eliminate the cause.
• Chiropractors believe in a Universal Creative Force (what I prefer to call God). Although I know that many MD’s personally believe in God, their training excludes use of a “whole body” mindset that chiropractic utilizes and focuses on the body only without recognizing the effect that mental, emotional or spiritual health can have on an individual.
• Chiropractic has been shown to boost immunity by an average of 200% for patients who receive regular care. However, like all forms of health care, it can’t cure everything.

These are just a few of the things that I learned while my husband was in chiropractic school but they are things I am grateful to know and understand. I wasn’t a regular patient of chiropractic until my husband attended Chiropractic College. I am now. Yet, there is one thing that I have found is hard to explain to those that don’t use chiropractic or who only use it as my friend did – you can’t feel the real difference that chiropractic makes unless you have regular treatments. Adjustments to treat pain and aches will help but you won’t feel the “complete difference”. I wish that I could have known and experienced that difference sooner!