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How Long Does Natural Health Care Take - The Cycles of Repair
Wouldn’t it be splendid if in natural healthcare you could skip the healing process? Imagine if you could go from where you are right now - feeling the way that you do - to instantaneously feeling fantastic with 100% of your healing all done?
As much as I would love to tell you that this fairytale is possible, it isn’t how your body works. Although it is possible to experience a dramatic change in just a few moments, healing is a process that requires time. There will be ups and downs, much like the rising of a tide or the swinging of a pendulum.
You will have days when you feel brilliant, ready to take on the world like never before! And you will have other days when you feel like you’re in a ditch, sliding backward and never to-be-well again. For more of the more common FAQS, please see the attached article
There are two important things to know about these cycles. First, healing cycles are normal. You can’t skip the process, expecting to feel perfect 100% of the time, and still reach your desired destination. Second, healing cycles are predictable. In other words, you can monitor a person’s progress based on where they are in the healing cycle! There are patterns in the way that the human body works, and understanding these patterns will give you 4 valuable things:
- A better appreciation of the entire healing process;
- A better understanding of why you feel the way that you do (and that you are actually going in the right direction!);
- A better expectation of know how the process will take; and finally
- A clearer sense of where you are in the overall process.
In complete truth, healing cycles have not been studied with statistics. The patterns were first identified by the BJ Palmer Chiropractic Research Center (the 1930s-50s) in Davenport, Iowa based on their management of thousands of Upper Cervical patients.
However, there have been no formal investigations to validate their findings. Although their application is anecdotal, nevertheless, I have found them to be of significant clinical value. In other words, the better I adhere to the natural healthcare principles of this work, the better decisions I make that ultimately help my patients to get the best possible results with the least amount of intervention in the shortest possible time.
Natural Healthcare Principle #1 - Rest & Repair
During any natural healthcare process, your body alternates between repair phases and rest phases. Think of any time you’ve experienced a home renovation or construction project. If it was a DIY job, you can appreciate that you can only work for so long until you get so utterly fatigued (or frustrated!) that you just have to stop.
Especially if it was a bigger project, you may also have had to spread the job over a few stages. You had an initial surge getting lots of things accomplished, but then you had to take a break for a few days (or weeks or months) to regather your energy, resources and sanity before you were ready for the next push. …
And depending on your skill and patience for the project, the total job may have taken you weeks, months or even years to see through to the end. You work sometimes, it also means that you have to spread the job into Your body is no different. Healing requires an immense amount of time, energy, and physical resources, which means that your body can only do so much repair before it has to rest.
Natural Healthcare Principle #2 - Length of Repair & Rest
When it comes to repair and rest phases, there are major cycles and minor cycles. A minor cycle includes is a single repair-and-rest phase, which lasts for a total of 3 months. A major cycle is three minor cycles, which lasts for a total of 9 months.
In natural healthcare, your body heals in predictable cycles. Image by Dr. Michael Lenarz of TCW Consulting. If the vertebrae in your upper neck are misaligned, they have the potential to disrupt the normal function of your nervous system.
This means that your body is not able to fully correct certain problems. It is when that misalignment is corrected and stable (“holding”) that your nervous system is able to begin the repair process. Therefore, under Upper Cervical care, the first repair-rest phase begins with your first adjustment. The first repair phase lasts for 6 weeks followed by a rest phase of 6 weeks.
If your injury is brand new if your adjustment holds close to 100% of the time, and if you don’t have any complications during the healing process, your body may need only the one cycle to complete the job! And you are good to go! However, if you are like the huge majority of people with 10, 20, and 30 years worth of damage, it's going to take more than one cycle to get the job done.
Remember the rule: one month for every year that the problem has been there, even if it wasn’t causing you any symptoms. Therefore, what happens at the conclusion of the first rest phase is that your nervous system simply shifts tone and gets back to work into the next repair phase.
The second repair phase lasts for 3 weeks followed by a rest phase of 2 1/2 months. And then repeat. The third repair phase lasts for 3 weeks followed by a rest phase of 2 1/2 months. That concludes one major cycle: i.e., 3 minor cycles.
If the job is still not done, like turning your calendar from 31st December to January 1st, your nervous system starts the whole cycle again: A first repair phase that lasts for 6 weeks followed by a rest phase of 6 weeks. A second repair phase that lasts for 3 weeks followed by a rest phase of 2 1/2 months. A third repair phase that lasts for 3 weeks followed by a rest phase of 2 1/2 months. And these cycles continue for however long it takes for your body to maximally heal.
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