Trick or Treat and Everything Sweet

The weather’s getting chilly, and Halloween is right around the corner. That means costumes and candy and all the fun stuff that goes along with one of children’s favorite holidays. And we’re talking lots of candy. And that means lots of sugar.

Everybody that’s ever been to the dentist knows that sugar is an enemy of teeth, and everybody that loves chocolate cake can tell you how sugar can affect the waistline. But many don’t know the toll sugar can take on your brain and nervous system. Nutrition is a big player in the overall health of your nervous system, and sugar can have a negative impact.

This post isn’t meant to be the downer suggesting that you take your child’s sack of trick-or-treating rewards and throw it in the nearest river. But it’s important to exercise some moderation, because it’s easy to overindulge – especially on an excitement-filled night like Halloween. It’s the overindulgence that at can do you in, and it’s due to the addictive nature of sugar.

Eating sweets releases a hormone called dopamine, which sends messages to your brain to feel pleasure. That’s what makes sugar addictive. It feels good, so we want more of that feeling. But the more we chase it, the more we crave it. And that makes it like anything addictive. You literally can have too much of a good thing.

That overindulgence can leave feelings of fatigue and irritation, and has also proven to impair memory retention. And it leads to “sugar crash.” When that crash hits, it’s when those high levels of sugar start to decline – because when they go down, they go down quickly. This sudden dip causes your blood sugar to drop, and that increases stress and anxiety. A diet high in sugar can contribute to feelings of depression and higher levels of anxiety.  

Chiropractic care specializes in optimizing your nervous system, making sure everything is properly aligned to keep the lines of communication throughout the body wide open. Chiropractors deal with more than just keeping your spine straight, they can also help evaluate things in your diet that might be causing inflammation or other things that affect the nervous system. Eating too much sugar can have negative impact on your moods, your health, and your nervous system.

By focusing on the nervous system – essentially your body’s control center – chiropractors can help regulate the negative effects of things like sugar. It’s like making sure the wheels are correctly aligned on your car: Too much sugar can knock those wheels off kilter, making it difficult to stay on the road. Chiropractic care can make it easier to keep your nervous system on track, and staying properly aligned keeps you from fighting to go in the right direction.

Trick-or-treating is fun for the kids, and almost everybody loves candy. As important as it is to watch children enjoy holidays like Halloween, it’s also important to set their growing bodies up for success by moderating how much sugar they’re indulging in. The candy isn’t going to disappear overnight (unless the adults sneak some), so try and set their growing bodies up for success by setting some guidelines on how much they can eat and when. They might not thank you for it, but their nervous systems will.

For more information on how sugar affects the nervous system and how a pediatric chiropractor can help, contact Dr. Morgan Sheridan at Foundation Chiropractic today.