As a parent, watching your child struggle with anxiety can be an overwhelming and heartbreaking experience. You may feel helpless, especially when traditional medical approaches often resort to medication as the first line of treatment. However, at our practice, we want you to know that there is another way – a drug-free, holistic approach that focuses on the root cause of your child’s anxiety: the nervous system.

The Prevalence of Childhood Anxiety

4.4 million children face anxiety, which can lead to difficulties in school, social interactions, and family life. These struggles can manifest in various ways. Such as your child feeling nervous or tense, sensing danger when it may not be there, experiencing increased heart rate and rapid breathing, sweating, trembling, having difficulty concentrating, and even dealing with gastrointestinal problems.

It’s important to understand that being nervous and sometimes anxious is a natural human response to perceived threats. It triggers our nervous system’s “fight, flight, or freeze” response. However, when these feelings become stuck and turn into chronic anxiety, it can significantly change the way your child perceives their daily life. Making even the simplest tasks feel overwhelming and unmanageable.

The Nervous System’s Role in Anxiety 

At the core of our approach to managing childhood anxiety is the understanding that the nervous system plays a crucial role in regulating emotions and stress responses. When the nervous system is out of balance, it can lead to a heightened stress response and an inability to access the “rest, digest, and regulate” state. Which is essential for maintaining emotional well-being.

This imbalance is often caused by subluxation, which is the stress and tension that gets stuck within the nervous system. Subluxation buildup can start as early as stress during pregnancy, birth stress, and early childhood experiences, setting the stage for anxiety later in life.

Another key player in the regulation of the nervous system is the vagus nerve, which is responsible for activating the “rest and relaxation” (parasympathetic) side of the nervous system. When the vagus nerve is not functioning properly, your child’s body may struggle to access the “brake pedal” that helps them calm down and regulate their emotions.

Our Approach: Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic Care 

At RCW, we specialize in meurologically-focused chiropractic care, which aims to address the root cause of your child’s anxiety by focusing on the nervous system. Our team of pediatric chiropractors uses INSiGHT scans to detect and measure the presence and severity of subluxation and dysautonomia. This allows us to create personalized care plans tailored to your child’s unique needs.

Through precise chiropractic adjustments, we work to release stuck stress from the sympathetic nervous system, activate the vagus nerve, and restore balance to the nervous system as a whole. Our goal is to help your child’s body know when it is safe, and when to activate the “fight or flight” response. Thus enabling them to access both sides of their nervous system, and preventing them from getting “stuck” in a state of chronic anxiety.

We understand that the decision to explore drug-free options for your child’s anxiety can be daunting, especially when medication is often presented as the only solution. 

However, we want you to know that there is hope and that a drug-free approach can be incredibly effective in helping your child manage their anxiety and reclaim their life.

By addressing the underlying neurological factors contributing to your child’s anxiety, we can help them build a more resilient and balanced nervous system. Equipping them with the tools they need to navigate life’s challenges with confidence and ease.

So, if your child is struggling with anxiety and you feel like you’ve exhausted all options, we would love for you to take the first step toward healing by exploring neurologically-focused chiropractic care. Our team is here to support you every step of the way. If you have questions about our approach or are ready to schedule a consultation, don’t hesitate to reach out to us today! 

Together, we can help your child navigate the challenges of anxiety and emerge stronger, more resilient, and ready to embrace all that life has to offer.

While seasons are changing, as a parent you may find yourself in a frustrating cycle – your kids are constantly battling colds, coughs, congestion, and other illnesses. You try over-the-counter medications, visit pediatricians, and get prescribed stronger antibiotics, but the cycle continues. What you may not realize is that shutting down symptoms with medications often weakens the body’s resilience long-term. 

The key is supporting the body to build up its defenses naturally.

At the core of this “kick the sick” approach is addressing dysfunction in the nervous system. The master communicator that controls all cells, tissues, and organs. Any stress or imbalance in the nervous system can lead to widespread issues such as chronic immune problems, sleep disturbances, digestive troubles, behavioral/cognitive challenges, and more.

The Autonomic Nervous System: The Key to Immune Regulation

Neurologically-Focused Pediatric Chiropractors specialize in locating and correcting sources of stress stuck on the nervous system, what we call subluxation. The autonomic nervous system, which comprises the sympathetic and parasympathetic branches, plays a crucial role in modulating immune function. The sympathetic nervous system, often referred to as the “fight or flight” response, suppresses immune activity during periods of stress or perceived danger. Conversely, the parasympathetic nervous system, known as the “rest and digest” state, promotes immune function and allows the body to heal and repair.

When the body experiences chronic stress or nerve interference, the sympathetic nervous system dominates, leading to a suppressed immune response. This imbalance can leave the body vulnerable to various illnesses and infections as the immune system becomes less effective in identifying and neutralizing potential threats.

Subluxation can disrupt the normal flow of nerve communication, leading to dysfunction in various bodily systems, including the immune system. Stress gets to the neck, shoulders, and upper areas and creates constriction and congestion, which in turn creates inflammation.

Subluxation can result from various factors, such as birth stress, physical stress, emotional stress, and chemical toxins. Subluxation is most commonly initially caused by birth stress and the intense physical/chemical stresses of the modern birth process. If not properly addressed, this subluxation can build up over time, setting the stage for recurring illnesses.

The intense forces and instrumentation used in interventions like:

• C-sections
• Vacuum/forceps deliveries
• Induction/epidural
• Prematurity/NICU
• Cord wrapping

These experiences can significantly injure the vulnerable Vagus Nerve and upper neck region, creating profound subluxation that sets kids up for a host of future problems. Setting the stage for what we call The Perfect Storm.

Additionally, things like severe colic, reflux, constipation, and sleep struggles as a newborn could indicate nerve system imbalances stemming from in-utero constraint or birth stress.

Using our INSiGHT scans, we measure levels of subluxation and associated nerve tension. With analysis and customized care plans, we can work to reduce that neurological interference and restore balance to the nervous system naturally. Without the need for drugs or surgery.

By allowing the body’s master healing system to function optimally, countless conditions can improve, including:

• Stronger immune function
• Better sleep
• Improved digestion/regularity
• Reduced symptoms of ADHD, anxiety, sensory processing issues
• Overcoming developmental delays

Build Up Instead of Shutting Down

Rather than just masking each symptom, chiropractic gets to the root cause. We use the body’s ability to self-heal and adapt to stressors like seasonal changes, growth spurts, poor sleep/diet, and more. These factors can quickly overload a child’s coping ability and trigger illness.

The approach to treat symptoms with medications can ultimately further suppress and dysregulate the immune response. While sometimes necessary for critical situations, overusing antibiotics, steroids, and immune suppressants weakens resilience long-term. Research shows that each course, especially in the first year, increases the risks of chronic allergies, asthma, and more illnesses down the road. We must reserve that direction for last resort and move to drug-free, natural-building, resilience-boosting actions.

So, instead of just shutting it all down at the first sniffle, parents can build their child up through simple steps:

• Prioritize rest and reduce stressors when sick
• Ensure proper nutrition, hydration, and movement
• Integrate natural immune-boosters like vitamin C & D, and zinc
• Use supportive tools like essential oils
• Most importantly, get their nervous system checked!

With a customized chiropractic care plan monitoring and reducing subluxation, many kids avoid the revolving door of sickness. Their bodies can effectively meet seasonal challenges, moving through acute illnesses while building resiliency to prevent bigger problems.

The Benefits Become Far-Reaching

When the nervous system is balanced and functioning without interference, the benefits go far beyond stronger immunity. As we know, the nervous system controls and coordinates every cell, tissue, and organ in the body. By reducing subluxation, chiropractic allows for better-integrated function across all systems.

Parents commonly report improvements in many seemingly unrelated conditions once their child gets on a customized chiropractic care plan. Things like:

• Behavioral Issues: Many children labeled with ADHD, anxiety, or sensory processing disorders show dramatic improvements in focus, calmness, and behavior regulation under chiropractic care. The brain-body connection becomes optimized.
• Digestive Problems: Frequent stomachaches, constipation, diarrhea, and other GI issues often resolve when nerve interference along the spine is reduced. Better communication allows the gut to function properly.
• Bedwetting/Sleep Struggles: The autonomic nervous system controls processes like sleep cycles and bladder function. Restoring nerve tone in these areas can help children overcome bedwetting and achieve higher-quality sleep.
• Asthma/Breathing Issues: With reduced tension on nerves impacting the respiratory diaphragm and airways, many asthmatics can breathe easier and use inhalers/nebulizers less once subluxations are corrected.

The possibilities are endless because neurologically-focused chiropractic care works by unleashing the body’s own innate ability to heal and regulate itself. 

No matter the condition, if nervous system dysfunction is contributing, there’s potential for so much improvement.

Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic Care: Restoring Nervous System Function and Immune Balance

For many families, neurologically-focused chiropractic care ends up being the “missing piece” that accelerates their child’s healing journey. When integrated with other natural therapies and lifestyle factors like nutrition, it provides a comprehensive approach to building up a child’s resilience from the inside out.

Rather than covering up symptoms with a barrage of medications, authentic healing can take place. Rather than repeated rounds of inhalers, antibiotics, and over-the-counter meds that weaken vitality over time, kids develop robust vitality to meet life’s challenges.

With chiropractic support, children can spend less time in the vicious sickness cycle and more time growing, developing, and thriving as they should. 

At RCW, we want to help you and your kiddos thrive! Our docs want to help change your child’s life for the better, to change their trajectory from chronic illness to kicking the sick naturally. 

Parents, this information may leave you a bit frustrated or upset, but we need to address a problem that’s been going on for far too long. Pediatricians have been telling parents that certain conditions are just a part of childhood and that their children will grow out of them. However, this is simply not the case.

If you have been up all night with your child who is experiencing colic, chronic constipation, reflux, or ear infection after ear infection, it’s essential to know that these issues will not simply go away on their own. If your child is struggling with tons of tantrums, meltdowns, developmental delays, and difficulty sleeping, don’t let anyone tell you that it’s just a phase.

We understand that as a parent, you know when something is wrong with your child. You may have been told to wait it out, but we want to assure you that there is more going on. Just as your gut tells you. The science behind these conditions is related to the function and development of the central and autonomic nervous system. An area that pediatricians may not understand very well, but is the absolute specialty of neurologically-focused pediatric chiropractors. 

What Happens When There is Stress Built Up on the Nervous System?

Whether your child is two months old or fifteen years old, we have found that the neurology behind colic, sensory processing issues, autism, ADHD, anxiety, constipation, and chronic autoimmune challenges are virtually the same. 

It all comes down to the nervous system being subluxated, stressed, and stuck in what’s called sympathetic dominance, or imbalance.

Over time stress and tension are placed on the nervous system from early childhood stressors. Stressors like prenatal distress, birth interventions, and trauma, and the exposure to toxins early in life. This leaves the entire nervous system dysregulated and out of balance, leading to a condition called dysautonomia. 

This is why it’s so important to look for the root cause of their challenges. Instead of just labeling it and sending you and your child off to different specialists. We can help address the overactive and overstimulated sympathetic side of the nervous system in children with colic, sensory issues, and anxiety.  Our office is very focused on functional neurology.

If you only chase symptoms, you’re not addressing the root cause. The nervous system controls everything from digestion to immune function, respiratory system, social-emotional regulation, and neurological development. By focusing on the nervous system first, you can get everything else figured out and functioning again much easier. 

Challenges you’ve been told your children will “grow out of” like colic and chronic ear infections, can actually lead to chronic autoimmune challenges, allergies, and a compromised immune system. That makes it easier to catch every cold that comes around. Especially if each time they get sick they’re prescribed more antibiotics and other medications that further suppress gut-immune function. 

Additionally, behavioral issues like tantrums, meltdowns, and hyperactivity are often dismissed as typical childhood behaviors. But these behaviors can be symptoms of larger issues related to neurological development. They can cause anxiety, hyperactivity, and emotional challenges in school and later in life.

The Perfect Storm Pathway

Regardless of where you are in this perfect storm pathway, you deserve to know what’s really going on with your child. Keep learning about their health, and consider using advanced technology like our INSiGHT Scans to measure and locate the stress and subluxation in the nervous system.

We specialize in adjustments that release stress, and lower sympathetic tone. These can help your child get out of the “storm” caused by these challenges. By getting the parasympathetic nervous system and vagus nerve activated and “online” once again, so much natural healing and health restoration can occur.  Even older children can benefit from this kind of care. The nervous system remains plastic and can be changed even after years of stress.

Our office is neurologically-focused and uniquely equipped to address the common themes and threads behind all of these challenges. We provide drug-free action steps that can help your child and your family.

If you or someone you know has been told to simply wait and see, please share this information. Help spread the truth about the impact that neurologically-focused chiropractic care can have on your family’s life. 

We are here to help you restore hope, find answers, and take action for the health and well-being of your child.