Chiropractic and Mental Health: helping you rest, recover, and show up more fully in your life.

We tend to think of mental health and physical health as two separate lanes. You see a counsellor for anxiety; you see a chiropractor for a sore back. But what if that division is keeping people from healing more fully?

Dr. Nareeta Stephenson is a well-known local chiropractor who sees each person as a whole being, comprised of physical, emotional, mental, spiritual parts. She thinks of the nervous system as it relates to how we feel, how we cope, and how we recover from stress and trauma. We sat down with her to explore what chiropractic care does to the brain, where it fits alongside counselling, and what both practitioners and clients might be surprised to learn.

It’s Not Just About Your Back

One of the most common misconceptions Dr. Nareeta hears is that chiropractic care is only for pain management. But at its core, chiropractic is about the function of the nervous system — and that has everything to do with how we experience stress, trauma, and emotional regulation.

Sometimes, the wear and tear of everyday life can impact the spine and cause spinal segments to move in a way that is different to normal – in a dysfunctional way. That wear and tear can happen gradually, such as from bad posture, or it can happen suddenly, such as a sports injury.

Due to this close relationship between the spine and the nervous system, everyday strains can impact the flow of information and communication between the brain and the body. Messages may not be delivered to the brain, or they may be inaccurate. When we respond to stress in the body, the small muscles around the spine and skull can contract to protect those areas. The brain senses danger and sets up a safety loop causing those muscles not to relax. Over time, the vertebrae in those areas stop moving properly. The brain can’t tell where the rest of the body is in space because the proprioceptive system is offline and reads this as a signal that the body is still in danger — and tells the muscles to stay contracted. “It's a feedback loop," Dr. Nareeta explains. "A chiropractic adjustment breaks that loop. We put small, fast movements into the muscles around the spine and skull which lets the muscles relax and resets the feedback loop — sending a message to the brain that the body is now safe."

That reset matters more than most people realize. Our automatic nervous system has two key branches: the sympathetic system (responsible for fight, flight, freeze, or fawn responses) and the parasympathetic system (responsible for rest, recovery, and clear thinking). When the body is stuck in sympathetic overdrive — which happens after trauma, chronic stress, or even ongoing physical tension — the logical, rational brain essentially goes offline. Chiropractic adjustments help remove that interference, supporting the body's ability to shift back toward calm and clarity.

The Brain Changes

Over the past two decades, researchers have been investigating how chiropractic care affects the brain — and the findings are striking. Studies have shown that chiropractic adjustments influence the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for emotional control, decision-making, and dampening the limbic system's alarm responses.

People living with depression, anxiety, or other mental health challenges often show an imbalance in their autonomic nervous system: the stress response is overactive, and the calming parasympathetic system is underperforming. This means elevated adrenaline and cortisol circulating constantly through their bodies and brains.

A 2016 study out of Spain added more texture to this picture. Researchers divided 84 people with tension-type headaches into two groups: one received soft tissue massage at the base of the skull, and the other received spinal manipulation of the upper neck. After four weeks, the group receiving neck adjustments showed significantly greater improvement in both anxiety and depression symptoms — pointing to a real, measurable neurological effect.

Trauma Lives in the Body Too

Dr. Nareeta mentions how recent advances in counselling and neuroscience have brought renewed attention to the vagus nerve and its role in regulating the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems — a domain that chiropractic care has engaged with for centuries. We’re seeing a meaningful convergence of two disciplines, as emerging neuroscientific research begins to validate and substantiate what chiropractic practitioners have long understood about the body's innate capacity for healing.

The vagus nerve is the longest nerve in the body and acts as an information highway between your body and brain and is a key component of the parasympathetic nervous system. As mentioned before, after a trauma, this system can get stuck in the “fight/flight/freeze/fawn” mode. When the vagus nerve is activated, it lets that the parasympathetic system know that you are safe and you can relax.

For clients who have experienced trauma — whether a car accident, childhood adversity, or chronic stress — the body often holds onto the experience long after the mind has tried to move on. Dr. Nareeta sees this regularly in her practice. For example, "When you're in a motor vehicle accident, the physical trauma activates the sympathetic system," she notes. "That can bring up big, intense feelings related to anger or a loss of control that people weren't expecting."

Three Things Counsellors Can Recommend to Clients

When clients are dealing with stress, burnout, or nervous system dysregulation, Dr. Nareeta suggests three evidence-informed strategies that complement counselling work beautifully:

1. Regular chiropractic adjustments. The frequency varies — someone in a high-stress job or with a demanding family life may need more frequent care than someone in a lower-pressure season. The goal is consistent nervous system support, not crisis response.

2. Vagus nerve activation. Deep belly breathing and humming are two accessible, research-supported ways to stimulate the vagus nerve and support the parasympathetic nervous system. These are tools clients can use on their own, any time.

3. Deep pressure and stretching. These activities activate the proprioceptive system — the body's sense of where it is in space — which has a grounding, regulating effect on the nervous system. Weighted blankets, massage, yoga, and resistance training all tap into this.

Collaboration is Essential

Dr. Nareeta is a firm believer in collaborative care. She regularly encourages clients to talk, cry, and feel their emotions — and when someone is struggling to process what's coming up, she doesn't hesitate to point them toward a counsellor.

She sees particular value in integrated care for neurodivergent children and their families. Kids with ADHD, sensory processing differences, or sleep difficulties — nightmares, trouble falling asleep, restless nights — often benefit from a whole-team approach that might include chiropractic care, play therapy, individual counselling, and family or parenting support.

Dr. Nareeta uses the example of her own son when he was a child. When he was 11 or 12, if he started waking up on the middle of the night, or having nightmares, or having difficulties at school, this was her cue to see if he was anxious about something and find out what was going on with him. She would start asking “Did you eat today? Did you get any protein? How much screen time have you had? Have you moved your body today? When did you last talk to your counsellor?" Counselling, chiropractic, movement, and nutrition were all parts of the big picture for his overall health.

Trauma is part of being human. What doesn't have to be permanent is the way your nervous system responds to it. Adding chiropractic care to your self-care toolkit — alongside counselling, movement, and mindfulness — gives your brain's alarm system permission to finally stand down. When that happens, your parasympathetic nervous system can do what it was designed to do: help you rest, recover, and show up more fully in your life.

If you would like to learn more about chiropractic care or Dr. Nareeta Stephenson’s practice, please visit Strawberries and Sunshine Healing Centre.

This blog was written with the invaluable help of the talented Joanna Brown.

You can find Jo here: She Support Virtual Assistant