You know that beating heart in your chest? Well… it doesn’t beat all by itself. Your heart is told how to beat by your central nervous system and problems like atrial fibrillation can be a nervous system issue, not just a heart condition. Which is why some people with atrial fibrillation are finding help from upper cervical chiropractors.

What Controls My Heart?

When it comes to your heart… and your lungs, stomach, liver, intestines, muscles, and pretty much all the different parts and pieces of your body it’s helpful to remember that your central nervous system controls and coordinates all of it. Oh, and by “all of it” I mean… All. Of. It. Anything that interferes with your central nervous system has the potential to affect the function of your organs – like your heart for instance. 

Think of the last time you got really upset or stressed out. Now, do you remember how your heart beat felt faster and stronger, or how your palms got sweaty, or how your mouth felt dry? The stress you felt caused your nervous system to react and when your nervous system reacts so does your whole body. Sometimes the stress that disrupts your nervous system comes from inside your body and your upper neck is one of the places that it can happen. 

What’s Love My Neck Got To Do With It?

Your nervous system is a 2-way system. One half of the system involves your brain and brain stem sending nerve messages to your body to tell it what to do. The other half involves your body parts (organs, glands, skin, muscles, eyes, ears, joints, etc) sending nerve messages to your brain to let it know what’s going on. This is happening 24 hrs a day, 365 days a year for your whole life. And that constant two-way communication is how your central nervous system controls your body. Then there’s your neck…

Your upper neck sends more signals to your brain than most of your other body parts combined. So if there’s a problem, even a small problem, in your upper neck then it has the potential to disrupt the entire system – including the part that controls your heart. 

Upper cervical chiropractors use infrared thermography to check the nervous system and if there’s a problem the lines on the graph show up like this… 

Then upper cervical chiropractors will take x-rays to figure out if the nervous system problem is related to a problem in the upper neck. If it is then the doctor will make a very precise adjustment to alignment of the upper neck area and re-scan the patient. When the line looks like the one pictured below it means the nervous system is working normally again. 

And when your nervous system works normally then stuff like this can happen…