In the past symptoms were seen to result from the body malfunctioning and upon seeking medical care, a patient was often medicated with the objective being to eliminate or mask the symptom.  However, a recent editorial in the American Journal of Medicine states that, ‘Physicians have adopted their understanding of symptoms automatically and uncritically as the foundation of diagnosis and medical care.’  In fact conventional medicine by attempting to treat diseases focuses on eliminating symptoms.   It turns out that your body has within it an incredible intelligence which has evolved across millions of years.  From moment to moment, it coordinates your bodily systems with the information it is receiving about your external environment.  When you are confronted with what at first appears to be an annoying symptom, you will be best served by considering it your body’s appropriate response to an environmental or lifestyle stress.  Alternatively, it may be a signal telling you what not to do in order to help the body restore, and then optimize, health.    Chiropractic is based on a philosophy which recognizes that within each of us resides a self-healing, self-regulating intelligence that, without interference, is all you need is order to achieve a state of optimal health and well-being. The interference-free expression of symptoms is, in most cases, an important part of healing and being healthy.  The masking of symptoms with medication, or any other therapy, may not be in the best interest of your body’s attempts to adapt to challenges.   Either way we need to respect what we feel and hear from our innate intelligence and not simply mask those signals with drugs.  Masking symptoms makes us more disconnected from our bodies and potentially interferes with the body’s inborn healing mechanisms.   Your chiropractor’s objective is not simply to alleviate back and neck pain, although that is often one of the beneficial side-effects of chiropractic care.  Instead, your chiropractor, out of respect for your inborn intelligence, focuses on removing interference between the brain and the body so that your symptoms and health can be better understood and optimally expressed.   The findings from four recent studies suggest that those who receive ongoing chiropractic care: Experience better physical, mental and social well-being Are better able to cope with life stress Are more likely to exercise with vigor Are more likely to report a better health status Are less likely to use prescription drugs