Could Your Body Be Affecting Your Mind?

Adjustments may improve your creative thinking.

Sometimes, when patients come to a chiropractic office, they focus entirely on the physical. But a research study published last year in the Chiropractic Journal of Australia showed that adjustments can also have a positive impact on non-physical aspects of life, such as creativity and “divergent thinking” (a method of generating creative ideas by exploring many possible solutions). In the study, researchers tested 10 subjects ranging from 10 to 62 years of age. According to Charles Masarsky, and Marion Todres-Masarsky, seven of the subjects were also experiencing some form of musculoskeletal pain at the time of the study. A test that measures divergent thinking was administered before and after the chiropractic adjustment. Each subject was also interviewed two to eight days after the adjustment, to learn their own impressions of any changes they had experienced in the area of creative thinking. Six of the ten subjects experienced a post-adjustment improvement in their performance on the test. Interview responses indicated most of the participants also felt that, after the adjustment, they enjoyed a more creative approach to a real-world creative task, as well as renewed energy concerning a creative project that had already been planned. None of the subjects gave any indication on interview that their creativity had suffered in any way. The researchers’conclusion: there is at least a short-term enhancement of creative thinking following a chiropractic adjustment. 

This information will be of particular interest to patients who think the need for chiropractic is finished once physical symptoms are gone. Anyone interested in living life to the fullest – with attention to improving physical, mental, and emotional components of well-being – definitely has incentive to make regular chiropractic adjustments a part of their wellness routine.