You Don’t Have to Take Drugs for Your Anxiety.
Rising suicide rates in the United States prompted Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, to hold a press conference about the introduction of manifold community programs, including social community networks like Facebook, to counteract the problem.
Tens of thousands of Americans take their own lives each year. Anxiety and depression are widespread, and some people seek the ultimate “way out” to get away from these uncomfortable feelings.
Interestingly, many Americans seek alternative or complementary therapies to cope with these feelings, and they find such therapy just as effective as traditional mental health interventions. Chiropractic was included in a study on alternative and complementary treatments for anxiety and depression reported in the American Journal of Psychiatry.
Chiropractic Offers You an Alternative
Researchers Kessler et al. found that a majority of patients reported that they experienced as much relief from complementary or alternative programs, including chiropractic, or from a combination of traditional and alternative approaches, as they experienced from traditional mental health interventions alone.
Any chiropractor has anecdotal evidence that his or her patients experience less stress, a greater sense of well-being, less pain, and a sense of being attuned better to the world around them. Many chiropractic offices offer general health talks and programs. These kinds of programs, in addition to their adjustments, give patients a lift and encourage them in their efforts to live healthy, energetic, and focused lives. Almost all chiropractors will recommend some kind of exercise for their patients, and exercise has been proven to be an effective anti-anxiety and anti-depression treatment, as noted in the study: a “fairly extensive series of studies has evaluated the effects of various types of exercise in treating depression. Two meta-analyses of these studies concluded that both aerobic and nonaerobic exercise are superior to results obtained from control groups” (Kessler et al., 2001).
Chiropractic Offers The Better Choice!
The scientists also concluded, “Complementary and alternative therapies are used more than conventional therapies by people with self-defined anxiety attacks and severe depression. Most patients visiting conventional mental health providers for these problems also use complementary and alternative therapies.”
Patients know that alternative and complementary treatments, including chiropractic, bring them as much relief from anxiety and depression as traditional mental health treatments or else they work well in combination with traditional therapy. Chiropractic has an important role to play in helping more Americans feel happier.
