Probably the biggest pandemic facing our society is the decrease in attention span. A recent study showed the average person touches their phone 2,617 times per day. That’s crazy!

Humans over the last decade have continued to decrease their attention span. Currently, the human attention span is 8 seconds; 1 second less than gold fish. Most of the time I would say efficiency is a good thing, but in this case I’m not sure this statistic is beneficial. In a world full of information readily at our finger tips, with a super computer in our pockets; we have trained our minds to crave the dopamine rush when we feel the vibration or ding from a notification. Unfortunately, most of our children have a meltdown and appear to be unable to live without technology at hand. The storm we are facing continues to spin out of control.

Our brains are not designed for this amount of information overload. The brain is a memory organ that rewires and reorganizes itself based on our daily lifestyle habits. Our minds have been trained to expect to take in information in the same way that the news distributes it. Queue the meme of a head exploding. The reticular activating system in the brainstem cannot filter appropriately for the amount of information coming in- creating a very overloaded “noisy” brain. No wonder more and more kids are having trouble sleeping, sitting still to focus on something, and are being labeled with conditions such as ADHD or anxiety.

There is a component of the autonomic nervous system that doesn’t get talked about very often. It is the social portion of the parasympathetic nervous system. This is where the ties between the vagus nerve and emotions influence the health state of our bodies. When we decrease or remove the human connection, our brains get antsy for a shot of espresso “feel good” hormones. This constant state of fear and anxiety is driven by the limbic brain. The stress hormones send our body into an inflammatory state of dis-ease.

The more we disconnect ourselves from love and connection, the more we rely on Tik-Tok and Instagram reels to fill the void. We must raise our kids differently, if we want to put an end to this pandemic. We must eliminate the need to hurry.

HOW CAN CHIROPRACTIC HELP?

In the womb, baby’s nervous system is developing itself to survive in the world by learning from the mother. The layers of the autonomic nervous system lay down one at a time in order of importance. Starting with the dorsal vagal system- immobilization in moments of life threatening danger (fainting, freeze, shut down). Next is the sympathetic system laying down before birth to allow the baby to handle the process of birth and get away from any threats. This is often where people get stuck. So, from the beginning, the baby’s brain is wired to be on high alert. The ventral vagal layer, which regulates the entire system, comes in much later and allows the baby the ability to feel safe and calm.

Neurologically-based chiropractic helps the body to adapt and prepare to handle the stressors/challenges of life.

Comer, John Mark. “The Problem”. The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, Chapter 1, 2019