Discover how chiropractic care goes beyond back pain to improve mental wellness.
Join Shervon Laurice as she welcomes Dr. Terence McAuliffe who comes from a long line of chiropractic healers. They will explore the powerful connection between chiropractic care, the nervous system and mental wellness. Together they will dive into the history chiropractic practice, how adjustments regulate stress response and why this approach can be particularly supportive trauma, anxiety, depression and PTSD. If you're curious about holistic ways to balance body and mind, this conversation offers you some practical insights and inspiration for your healing journey.
McAuliffe Chiropractic
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In this episode of The Expansion Room, host Shervon Laurice discusses the connection between chiropractic care and mental wellness with her longtime chiropractor, Dr. Terrence McAuliffe Jr. Dr. McAuliffe, a fourth-generation chiropractor, explains the origins of chiropractic practice, tracing it back to the late 1800s and its focus on restoring balance to the spine and nervous system. He also describes the field’s evolution from being seen as alternative medicine to gaining mainstream acceptance through research, x-ray use, and insurance coverage. Together, they explore how chiropractic care supports whole-person wellness—improving movement, posture, and nervous system communication—which can enhance both physical and mental health.
In the second segment, Shervon and Dr. Terence McAuliffe Jr. discuss how chiropractic adjustments can positively influence the nervous system and support mental health. Dr. McAuliffe explains that spinal adjustments stimulate the prefrontal cortex, helping calm the body’s stress response and restore balance to the parasympathetic nervous system. They round out the second segment by addressing common fears about chiropractic care and emphasize the importance of communication, trust, and finding the right practitioner.
In this segment of The Expansion Room, Shervon and Dr. Terrence McAuliffe Jr. discuss how chiropractic care supports mental health by relieving physical tension linked to trauma, anxiety, and depression. Dr. McAuliffe explains that adjustments help rebalance the nervous system, improve posture, and stimulate the brain to create healthier patterns of thought and movement. He also emphasizes the importance of daily movement, mindset, and consistency—highlighting how even simple habits like walking can enhance emotional well-being and overall health.
In the final segment of The Expansion Room, Dr. Terence McAuliffe and Shervon Laurice discuss simple daily practices to support nervous system health—like doing activities that bring joy, spending time outdoors, and dancing—to naturally boost mood and brain function. They emphasize finding chiropractors who are trauma-informed, collaborative with mental health providers, and client-centered in their approach. Dr. McAuliffe advises seeking chiropractic care proactively rather than waiting for pain or crisis, as early and consistent care helps maintain long-term wellness. The episode closes with encouragement to share the message and continue exploring holistic ways to support both physical and mental health.
00:00:35.460 --> 00:00:47.409 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Hello, and welcome back to the expansion Room. My name is Siobhan Luis, I'm your host, and today's episode is going to be talking about chiropractic care.
00:00:47.600 --> 00:00:53.059 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: And how it can relate to mental health and mental wellness improvement.
00:00:56.240 --> 00:01:03.969 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Alright, and today we have a special guest, my own personal chiropractor, Dr. Terrence McAuliffe, Jr.
00:01:04.010 --> 00:01:23.129 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: And I have had a long history with chiropractic care. 25 or so years ago, I was in a car accident where I had some neck injury, and the first time I walked into a chiropractic's office was for,
00:01:23.160 --> 00:01:34.760 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: care around pain and pain management just after that accident, and I was actually working with Dr. Terrence McAuliffe Sr. at that time, and…
00:01:34.990 --> 00:01:49.390 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: things got all good and better, and then I moved out of the town that I lived in at the time, and moved back 20 years later, and came back to find that Dr. McAuliffe Jr. had started to take over the practice.
00:01:49.390 --> 00:02:05.249 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: And so I started to go back for my own, maintenance, because I felt like some of those old, creaky pain points were starting to slip back in 20-plus years later, and so now I go…
00:02:05.250 --> 00:02:24.009 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: A couple of times a month for maintenance, and it feels good for my body to have the right kind of, care in this way to keep me balanced. So we'll talk about what that can look like today. So, Dr. McCullough, can you unmute yourself?
00:02:24.020 --> 00:02:35.530 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: And share a little bit about yourself, introduce yourself to the audience, and share with us a little bit of history about your practice and chiropractic care in this country.
00:02:36.130 --> 00:02:46.930 Terence McAuliffe: Yeah, absolutely. So, I'm Dr. Terrence, I go by Dr. Terrence Jr. usually, because I am a fourth-generation chiropractor, so my dad, my grandpa, my great-grandpa.
00:02:46.930 --> 00:02:57.949 Terence McAuliffe: As well as plenty of aunts, uncles, cousins, and everywhere in between the family are chiropractors, so it's been over 100 years, in the family since 1923, so…
00:02:58.100 --> 00:03:05.210 Terence McAuliffe: plenty of McAuliffe Chiropractic offices over this country at this point, so very cool. So I grew up with it, and
00:03:05.370 --> 00:03:24.879 Terence McAuliffe: With that being said, because my family has been doing this for so long, we have a very, historical approach to how chiropractic was designed and how it's developed, while also then updating our, you know, techniques to meet the needs of each new generation and each new problem that the world has unraveled for us over the
00:03:24.880 --> 00:03:33.060 Terence McAuliffe: Yeah, right? So, always constantly evolving, but making sure we hold on to the roots of what chiropractic,
00:03:33.070 --> 00:03:38.369 Terence McAuliffe: Was designed to be, and how it was supposed to work with the spine and the nervous system at its core.
00:03:39.170 --> 00:03:46.329 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Nice. And in those early, early days, say, about 1800s, what was the…
00:03:46.460 --> 00:03:50.430 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: the, I guess, the care philosophy, or how did it work?
00:03:50.430 --> 00:04:15.419 Terence McAuliffe: Chiropractic started out really, you know, the 1800s, 1900s. I was doing a couple things of research to help answer this question a little better. I mean, we were still leeching people as a main source of helping with inflammation, so healthcare in general was a little bit, the wild, wild west. So, the first adjustment happened in 1895, and Dee D. Palmer was a magnetic healer.
00:04:15.420 --> 00:04:24.250 Terence McAuliffe: So, just, like, general, what we would probably talk about now, more like Reiki, bodywork, and things like that. And he noticed on…
00:04:24.490 --> 00:04:37.690 Terence McAuliffe: I would say patient, but I don't know if they knew what their… that he was going to be his first patient at the time. But the guy's name was Harvey Lillard, he had a… he had a bump, they said, on the side of his neck, and he hadn't been able to hear for 17 years, so he wasn't deaf his whole life.
00:04:37.810 --> 00:04:50.109 Terence McAuliffe: But he hadn't been able to heal right, and so it was basically out of place, he pressed on it, and the guy said, oh, I hear the horses on the cobblestone for the first time in 17 years. So it never started as a pain…
00:04:50.110 --> 00:04:58.680 Terence McAuliffe: profession. It started out as a balancing and, muscle work, and finding the nervous system, and it expanded from there.
00:04:58.680 --> 00:05:04.680 Terence McAuliffe: So, as they built their philosophy and treatment protocols.
00:05:04.680 --> 00:05:19.100 Terence McAuliffe: DeeDee's son, BJ, who's really the main propagator of chiropractic to the world. He founded the first school, and he really pushed the science behind what the philosophy started out as, and
00:05:19.490 --> 00:05:28.940 Terence McAuliffe: That's where they came up with the subluxation, which is a term that chiropractic has been founded on, which is a misalignment in the spine that causes nerve pressure.
00:05:29.160 --> 00:05:37.829 Terence McAuliffe: And that's what chiropractors really focus on. And those nerves go so many different places in our body, literally everywhere, and connect…
00:05:37.850 --> 00:05:51.089 Terence McAuliffe: down, and back, so that feedback loop is so important for what we do. And, that's the basis of what chiropractic was founded on, and it's just added things over the years.
00:05:51.090 --> 00:06:02.299 Terence McAuliffe: Just like other healthcare, modalities and professions have, you know, some specialized down and others expand, and ours has done more of the expanding than the specializing down at this point, but…
00:06:02.300 --> 00:06:04.310 Terence McAuliffe: It's an ever-changing landscape.
00:06:04.530 --> 00:06:09.010 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Yeah, pretty much like everything else is, or at least should be.
00:06:09.010 --> 00:06:09.630 Terence McAuliffe: Right.
00:06:09.630 --> 00:06:16.400 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Yeah, wonderful, thank you for that. I didn't realize that some of that… Farther back history.
00:06:16.400 --> 00:06:16.780 Terence McAuliffe: Yeah.
00:06:16.780 --> 00:06:19.710 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Thank you. Perfect. And so…
00:06:19.860 --> 00:06:32.019 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: In the evolution, I remember, I'm old enough to remember when chiropractic care was not covered by insurance, and people thought it was weird or woo-woo.
00:06:32.120 --> 00:06:35.739 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: And some alternative thing that people would do.
00:06:36.090 --> 00:06:37.800 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: What was the shift?
00:06:38.630 --> 00:06:46.480 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: That caused, like, mainstream healthcare to go, oh, we need to take a better look at this, or a second look at this.
00:06:46.810 --> 00:06:57.279 Terence McAuliffe: Yeah, so two big things. So one thing that BJ did early, in the 1900s was he really pushed for chiropractors to be able to use x-ray.
00:06:57.290 --> 00:07:20.029 Terence McAuliffe: And use that for research, not only for what was changing over time, but then to have a better diagnosis or prognosis protocol for, this is what we're correcting, this is where the problem is, and tie some of those more subjective findings, you know, it hurts here, it hurts when I do this, to more objective things, like.
00:07:20.030 --> 00:07:23.819 Terence McAuliffe: and do things like build out the Merrick chart, which is the,
00:07:23.840 --> 00:07:28.620 Terence McAuliffe: This nerve goes to this organ, this nerve goes to this muscle. It's called numeric chart, you know, those.
00:07:28.620 --> 00:07:31.549 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: I love that shot in your office, yes.
00:07:31.550 --> 00:07:48.070 Terence McAuliffe: So those are… those pieces of research information help build the efficacy of chiropractic. And then to, I'm gonna glaze over a dirty part of history. There was a giant lawsuit where the AMA was actively trying to squash chiropractic as a profession.
00:07:48.070 --> 00:07:50.009 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Cool. In the 60s.
00:07:50.010 --> 00:08:01.190 Terence McAuliffe: So, once that was settled, and there was no active coordination from mainstream medicine to keep chiropractic down, it was open season for us to become more mainstream.
00:08:01.650 --> 00:08:06.409 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Okay, so then that was probably… maybe a good thing?
00:08:06.410 --> 00:08:30.609 Terence McAuliffe: So that would be the 60s, so then it took then into the 70s, and then the 80s, where it really opened back up, because it was like, oh, my… basically, our clients want this, so we should cover it. And, obviously, insurance is very different in the 80s and the 90s than it is today, but it was a part of that expansion of benefits that, a lot of different insurance companies experienced, and it was… it was really good for the profession, and then getting
00:08:30.860 --> 00:08:48.629 Terence McAuliffe: the last domino to fall for, you know, real acceptance overall was when Medicare started covering chiropractic for at least acute conditions. You know, they don't cover everything because it's Medicare, but that's essentially a big federal government red stamp of approval if you're covered by Medicare.
00:08:48.890 --> 00:08:52.339 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: That is true. That is very true.
00:08:52.910 --> 00:08:57.360 Terence McAuliffe: There's good and the bad of that, right? But it is a part of the acceptance of it.
00:08:57.360 --> 00:09:00.789 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Yeah, yeah, okay. And…
00:09:01.030 --> 00:09:20.630 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: How does chiropractic, because I've experienced this, but I would love you to share with the audience, how does chiropractic care approach whole person wellness, which is part of the new paradigm, in my mind, of where we're going in mental health, and I believe where we need to go in physical health as well.
00:09:21.060 --> 00:09:25.839 Terence McAuliffe: Yeah, absolutely. So, with chiropractic.
00:09:26.850 --> 00:09:32.969 Terence McAuliffe: You want to always take a full-body approach, because the real question isn't,
00:09:33.330 --> 00:09:38.510 Terence McAuliffe: for us isn't where it hurts, it's why, right? And so…
00:09:38.520 --> 00:09:59.189 Terence McAuliffe: just because someone's foot hurts doesn't mean that it's something going on in the foot. It obviously could be the nerve in the low back, or an entrapment along the way. That's an easy example to kind of picture in our heads. Doesn't mean I'm not going to check the foot and make sure I rule out all those different things that could be causing it, but if you take a wider lens of
00:09:59.510 --> 00:10:15.189 Terence McAuliffe: The patient, their problems, and have the, training both, anatomically, neurologically, physiologically, to build those things out and make sure you're getting to, you know, a little bit of a trendy term, the root cause.
00:10:15.190 --> 00:10:26.530 Terence McAuliffe: But, you know, the deeper you go and the more baseline you go, the easier you can find a true and longer solution, and not just, patchwork, if you will.
00:10:26.850 --> 00:10:41.440 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Absolutely. And a lot of the work that I do in yoga therapy, they've taught us definitely to work with the whole person, and we also look at, like, how people's muscles
00:10:42.750 --> 00:11:00.089 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: and muscle trains affect their body, and one of the things I've heard from people sometimes is, like, a certain set of muscles are pressing on a certain nerve that's causing them pain, and so I imagine that some of the work that you do as well is to also notice how
00:11:00.170 --> 00:11:07.280 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Muscles, posture, and how they carry themselves also affects their nerve function.
00:11:07.680 --> 00:11:18.569 Terence McAuliffe: Yeah, of course. So, like, with, you know, posture is a, you know, a word that gets thrown around in chiropractic a lot, but it can mean so many different things. So, you want to find out, for example, if
00:11:18.730 --> 00:11:35.829 Terence McAuliffe: the old knee injury that has been causing him to walk out of balance one side more than the other for 10 plus years is the original cause of the problem, or if it's the car accident that had them leaning like this for the 20 years prior to that, that led to the imbalance in the hips, right?
00:11:35.830 --> 00:11:36.300 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Right.
00:11:36.300 --> 00:11:56.180 Terence McAuliffe: Using x-rays, using some orthopedic and neurological exams, you kind of peel back the layers of the onion to kind of figure out what started first, and how you can then build back not only how the spine is communicating, you know, brain downwards, but then how everything is communicating body upwards as well.
00:11:56.410 --> 00:12:05.929 Terence McAuliffe: Because our brain needs that stimulation and nutrition through movement, and if you don't…
00:12:06.290 --> 00:12:25.919 Terence McAuliffe: That's where a mental health or, anxiety and things like that, when you stop moving as well, then the cycle propagates and gets worse. And so, you know, when chiropractic helps the movement patterns, then it's helping your feedback loop for all of your other patterns as well.
00:12:26.150 --> 00:12:29.840 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Absolutely. Fix one thing, and it affects everything.
00:12:30.190 --> 00:12:40.339 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Very much. One of the things I talk about in… in… with clients, especially those who have, depression, that keeps them,
00:12:41.390 --> 00:12:49.530 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: less movement-oriented, I'll say, or as we say in medical terms, sedentary, is trying to get them to move.
00:12:49.730 --> 00:12:53.309 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Because… helps to move that energy, right? And…
00:12:53.410 --> 00:13:03.329 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: if they can just go for a walk for 10 minutes around their neighborhood, it shifts everything for people. And I know for me.
00:13:04.190 --> 00:13:08.160 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: when I've had physical pain in my body.
00:13:08.290 --> 00:13:19.760 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: even though I don't want to move in that moment, I find that movement helps, you know, because it helps to move that energy. And when I come to see you, if I've been…
00:13:19.760 --> 00:13:31.290 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: stiff, stuck. My favorite times to come see you is after a long road trip, because we're just folded up in a car for hours, and then I'm just like, I just need to get into the office.
00:13:31.290 --> 00:13:31.910 Terence McAuliffe: Agreed.
00:13:31.910 --> 00:13:42.740 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: And so it feels like the movement that you do through adjustment also gives almost that same relief of getting out and going for a walk.
00:13:43.530 --> 00:13:52.989 Terence McAuliffe: Well, yeah, and it releases very similar, you know, neurotransmitters, and it leads to a similar dopamine response. And…
00:13:53.200 --> 00:14:06.019 Terence McAuliffe: I would never say that the adjustment would replace exercise or movement entirely, but they… they work as simpatico as possible, right? They're… they… they're the one-two punch, if you will, so I 100% agree with that, Trevon.
00:14:06.020 --> 00:14:22.020 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Excellent. All right, well, we're going to take a break, and when we come back, we're going to talk a little bit more about the nervous system in chiropractic care, and move into the mental health side of this. So, come on back.
00:16:07.080 --> 00:16:21.669 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Welcome back to the Expansion Room, where today we are talking about chiropractic care and its effect on mental health. And in this segment, we are going to be talking a little bit more about
00:16:21.950 --> 00:16:30.550 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: The sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system, as well as nerve communication throughout our
00:16:30.600 --> 00:16:47.090 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: body, and how our bodies are really designed to self-regulate. And so my guest today is Dr. Terrence McAuliffe, Jr, and I have a question for you. Can you talk about or break down, in simple terms, how
00:16:47.310 --> 00:16:54.799 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Spinal adjustments can influence our nervous system, and why that matters for mental health.
00:16:55.800 --> 00:17:02.530 Terence McAuliffe: Yeah, so I… I think the first thing with, just general neurology is
00:17:02.560 --> 00:17:06.500 Terence McAuliffe: Everything has to connect back to the brain somehow, someway.
00:17:06.500 --> 00:17:22.760 Terence McAuliffe: So, whatever stimulation or activity you're doing is going to affect your brain. That's our supercomputer. So, when you're adjusting the spine, so the things you see on YouTube, and the clicks, the cracks, the pops, and there's other techniques too, but I know that's very popular right now.
00:17:22.760 --> 00:17:23.210 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Yes.
00:17:23.210 --> 00:17:35.130 Terence McAuliffe: you're stimulating the prefrontal cortex, right? And the prefrontal cortex, is the part of the frontal lobe that inhibits the sympathetic nervous system.
00:17:35.180 --> 00:17:54.090 Terence McAuliffe: So, when you were talking about regulation and self-regulation, our natural state should be a parasympathetic state, which is rest, digest, heal, right? So that when something that needs sympathetic response, fight or flight.
00:17:54.270 --> 00:18:02.620 Terence McAuliffe: it can go boom, and you can respond appropriately. Where we see the big problems, is…
00:18:02.740 --> 00:18:17.950 Terence McAuliffe: lack of inhibition of that sympathetic nervous system, and or being in a chronic state of stress. So that's the number one thing that the chiropractic adjustment does when it comes to your mental health and your stress and things like that, is
00:18:17.950 --> 00:18:27.090 Terence McAuliffe: The adjustment calms down that part of the sympathetic nervous system, and allows your parasympathetic nervous system… it doesn't… you can't activate it.
00:18:27.120 --> 00:18:29.930 Terence McAuliffe: It just comes back to the forefront.
00:18:29.930 --> 00:18:32.340 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Right. As it should.
00:18:32.520 --> 00:18:33.130 Terence McAuliffe: Correct, yes.
00:18:33.130 --> 00:18:48.170 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: I am so glad you said that, because in several episodes already, and in the work that I do with clients, I am always talking about activating the parasympathetic nervous system, and when I teach a yoga class.
00:18:48.170 --> 00:18:55.460 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: I teach a Sunday evening yin yoga class that ends with 25 minutes of yoga nidra.
00:18:55.970 --> 00:19:01.489 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: And basically, it's designed to activate the parasympathetic nervous system.
00:19:01.640 --> 00:19:11.410 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: And I've often said to people, we live in our modern times in sympathetic nervous… it's almost like as soon as you walk out the door.
00:19:12.080 --> 00:19:20.289 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: It turns on, and hopefully your home environment is calm enough that when you walk back in the door.
00:19:20.690 --> 00:19:33.329 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: That turns down, and your parasympathetic turns up. So I'm so glad to hear you put it in those terms, that that is what is designed to happen with adjustments.
00:19:33.860 --> 00:19:36.020 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: And so, yeah, go ahead.
00:19:36.520 --> 00:20:01.410 Terence McAuliffe: With the other thing, too, is with the… when you work with the adjustment, like, so some of the things we do in our office that not everyone does, but I'm sure many chiropractors do, is, you know, we do the adjustment, and then the thing right after we do is the traction table, the IST table, and, you know, it's… most people don't understand that it does help with the spine and things like that, but quite honestly, if I could get every patient after the
00:20:01.410 --> 00:20:19.859 Terence McAuliffe: they got adjusted to just lay down in a dark room for 10-15 minutes and just chill, that would be almost as valuable as anything that machine does, because you just have to let things balance out, and we just don't take the time, like you were saying sometimes. It's hard. We're busy, I get it, but, you know…
00:20:19.860 --> 00:20:27.250 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Absolutely, I agree. That… that 5 minutes that I take on the table is, like.
00:20:27.760 --> 00:20:38.069 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: I put it almost akin to just taking a moment for meditation after my adjustment, and I never get on my phone. I sometimes look over and people are like.
00:20:38.070 --> 00:20:48.069 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: on their phones, and it makes me laugh. I'm like, you are missing out! But at least they're on the table.
00:20:48.070 --> 00:20:58.190 Terence McAuliffe: You know, I hope that what they're dealing with is as important as their health in that moment, and they do something else to balance that out later.
00:20:58.190 --> 00:20:58.740 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: That's a judge.
00:20:58.740 --> 00:21:06.199 Terence McAuliffe: But I think the same things, too. It's like, whatever game you're playing on your phone could have waited 5 minutes, you could have just relaxed, but oh well.
00:21:06.200 --> 00:21:15.449 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Indeed. It reminds me of… so, I've… I've also incorporated, at different points in my life, acupuncture.
00:21:15.570 --> 00:21:26.800 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: And acupuncture has that same idea. Once you have all the pins, and they come and they remove the pins, or even while you're… you've got the pins, they allow for this length of time.
00:21:27.060 --> 00:21:29.780 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: For you to just lie there.
00:21:30.060 --> 00:21:31.470 Terence McAuliffe: And it's such…
00:21:31.780 --> 00:21:44.529 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: a game changer, especially I found, when I would do it in the middle of the day, like, during lunch, it would reset me, and for the rest of the afternoon, I was good. So that time…
00:21:44.690 --> 00:21:45.740 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: that…
00:21:45.990 --> 00:22:03.079 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: you have incorporated in for the traction table is valuable. We say the same thing in a yoga class, like, don't skip out on Shavasana. Shavasana, in most yoga classes, is the last 5 minutes. When I teach, I try to make it the last 10 minutes, so that people
00:22:03.180 --> 00:22:12.630 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Bodies can relax and incorporate the poses and the movements they did, but also to just give them time.
00:22:12.880 --> 00:22:17.040 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Right? Instead of rolling up the mat, running out the door, and doing the next thing.
00:22:17.250 --> 00:22:22.889 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: You know, but people don't always get the value. You have to almost explain it.
00:22:23.670 --> 00:22:41.890 Terence McAuliffe: Yeah, and it's hard, right? It's, you know, we all know to floss, brush and floss, but not all of us do, right? And I'm sure our dentists would have the same conversation with us, or, you know, whatever it may be, right? So, I wish it were a unique problem for, for just me, but it's…
00:22:41.960 --> 00:22:45.050 Terence McAuliffe: Reminding ourselves, and then sometimes it takes…
00:22:45.050 --> 00:23:02.419 Terence McAuliffe: oh, right, that's what worked for me last time. And, you know, it's a constant reminder as a provider to, you know, find people where they're at on their journey and continue to move them along, rather than be like, oh, they're good, they know what they're doing. You gotta stay engaged, because it's a part of the process for all of us.
00:23:02.890 --> 00:23:07.720 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Indeed, indeed. And the reminders do help, because things fall off of our radar.
00:23:08.000 --> 00:23:26.399 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: You know? Something else pops up for importance, and we… we… whatever it was… I always had this, since my 20s, when I started, working with people, I realized that we all take in information, and I had this vision of the long table of our minds, and we
00:23:26.400 --> 00:23:28.609 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Put something on the table in the front.
00:23:29.120 --> 00:23:34.200 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: keep putting things on the table, something is going to fall off in the back.
00:23:34.460 --> 00:23:38.859 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: And that's how I imagine it. It's like, we bring in all of this stuff.
00:23:39.710 --> 00:23:44.910 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: All these things need, you know, our attention. Something is going to fall off.
00:23:44.910 --> 00:23:48.569 Terence McAuliffe: So, we just have to pay attention to our own self-care in that way.
00:23:49.580 --> 00:23:50.830 Terence McAuliffe: Constantly, constantly.
00:23:50.830 --> 00:24:00.030 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Indeed. What… what role does fascia play in…
00:24:00.480 --> 00:24:06.699 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: The, the idea of, number one, adjustments, but also just this kind of,
00:24:08.250 --> 00:24:11.199 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Regulating the parasympathetic nervous system.
00:24:12.150 --> 00:24:14.909 Terence McAuliffe: Yeah, so for, you know.
00:24:15.200 --> 00:24:28.400 Terence McAuliffe: Fascia would fall kind of in the… and treating of fascia and things like that would generally kind of fall in, like… one of the things that chiropractors scooped up a little bit was more, like, the physical therapy side, as well as, like, some of the bodywork things that you've worked with.
00:24:28.400 --> 00:24:53.179 Terence McAuliffe: when… when we're evaluating things from a spine, nervous system, disc spaces, versus muscle movement or fascia, different portions, we're looking for, like, things like how your gait is. So, are you balanced? Do you have a head tilt, which would indicate, you know, a brain dominance, a right brain versus a left brain, which then obviously changes
00:24:53.240 --> 00:25:01.070 Terence McAuliffe: your coordination, or changes the forward head posture. So, we're always going to look at the controlling pattern first with the nerves.
00:25:01.070 --> 00:25:02.130 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: And then.
00:25:02.130 --> 00:25:04.870 Terence McAuliffe: Obviously, rule out anything like a.
00:25:04.980 --> 00:25:16.180 Terence McAuliffe: tear, inflammation, bursitis, rotator cuff, and things like that, and then manage appropriately orthopedically and neurologically to kind of meet in the middle. So.
00:25:16.440 --> 00:25:19.779 Terence McAuliffe: With fascia, specifically.
00:25:20.010 --> 00:25:37.809 Terence McAuliffe: if I were to find an injury, or if I were to see an imbalance, the first thing we would do would be work on the spine in that nervous… nerve control of it, and see how that does in balancing at first. Then, at that point, then I would be like, okay, this is what you need to do with acupuncture.
00:25:37.810 --> 00:25:43.650 Terence McAuliffe: yoga, stretching, specific movements. Here's how we can alter your gait pattern.
00:25:43.650 --> 00:25:50.739 Terence McAuliffe: Those type of things to then activate and bounce back to connect those two things at both ends of the spectrum.
00:25:50.790 --> 00:25:51.610 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Okay.
00:25:51.890 --> 00:26:01.560 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Nice, because I think fascists is one of the things that is… I would say, not talked about enough, but yeah, there is that…
00:26:01.560 --> 00:26:09.609 Terence McAuliffe: Well, in a lot of the fascia, the other part with fascia, too, is that it can be a storage site for toxins and things in our body.
00:26:09.610 --> 00:26:09.960 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Yeah.
00:26:09.960 --> 00:26:24.609 Terence McAuliffe: So, like, particularly with medications and things that have longer half-lives, that's something that, as you start to move it, or strip it, or do these different detoxes and things like that, you'd want to be aware of.
00:26:24.610 --> 00:26:33.760 Terence McAuliffe: And… and then be aware of what you're feeling through that process, because you might think you're almost like, oh, I'm not… I'm not doing anything, why do I feel this way? But…
00:26:33.960 --> 00:26:38.729 Terence McAuliffe: It's kind of like fat tissue, and fascia and things like that can store some of those things long-term as well.
00:26:39.170 --> 00:26:40.350 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Right…
00:26:40.560 --> 00:26:52.880 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Okay, I had forgotten that. And the drinking of water, it's… you're mentioning toxins, right? So if you're moving and things are releasing, drinking water helps to move things along that much faster.
00:26:53.270 --> 00:27:03.259 Terence McAuliffe: Yeah, absolutely. You know, the more hydrated and the better your diet is, and things like that, the easier your body can process all the things that it needs to, right?
00:27:03.670 --> 00:27:12.470 Terence McAuliffe: You know, sometimes we talk about inflammation like it's a dirty word, and chronic inflammation really is. But if you roll your ankle and it doesn't inflame.
00:27:12.630 --> 00:27:13.630 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: It would be very distracted.
00:27:13.630 --> 00:27:14.260 Terence McAuliffe: Concerned.
00:27:14.260 --> 00:27:16.020 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Yes.
00:27:16.020 --> 00:27:28.539 Terence McAuliffe: natural response to an injury. Where it becomes chronic is where it's not an injury anymore, it's now your life, right? Like we were talking about with so many other things. So, you know.
00:27:28.540 --> 00:27:29.130 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Right.
00:27:29.740 --> 00:27:40.329 Terence McAuliffe: if you fall and you're not sore the next day, I would be surprised. That's not necessarily a good thing. If you go to the gym and work out very hard, I would hope you were sore, because…
00:27:40.540 --> 00:27:42.080 Terence McAuliffe: You had a good workout!
00:27:42.080 --> 00:27:42.510 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Right.
00:27:42.510 --> 00:27:52.239 Terence McAuliffe: it shows that you're alive, right? So, it's balancing what is to be expected versus what would be an unexpected result with a lot of these different types of things.
00:27:52.240 --> 00:27:56.630 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Absolutely. Absolutely. Nice. And…
00:27:56.930 --> 00:28:03.760 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: When people think about coming to a chiropractor for the first time, and they have fear.
00:28:03.940 --> 00:28:05.620 Terence McAuliffe: Because they're like, oh, that's…
00:28:05.970 --> 00:28:09.099 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: It looks like it's gonna hurt. What do you tell them?
00:28:10.700 --> 00:28:14.849 Terence McAuliffe: Well, I mean, you know me personally, obviously, but, I am…
00:28:14.950 --> 00:28:23.939 Terence McAuliffe: I'm here for any question, because I… not that I've heard it all, but I'm attempting to hear every question at some point in my career, because I would…
00:28:24.290 --> 00:28:39.439 Terence McAuliffe: if I can't explain what I do well, or I can't understand their fear and explain why that's not something to worry about, both from a, I'm gonna do my job so that I take the best results for you, but also, you know.
00:28:39.440 --> 00:28:50.090 Terence McAuliffe: remembering that this is also my license, my livelihood, you know, and support my family. So, you know, I would never put something that would jeopardize me or my patient
00:28:50.210 --> 00:29:11.849 Terence McAuliffe: You know, so I take x-rays on every patient when they come in, and that way I can rule out everything else that could be a problem for me, and or if I see something that isn't a chiropractic concern, I could refer out, you know, and send them to either their primary first, or orthopedic, or what have you, or just treat that area completely different with
00:29:11.890 --> 00:29:23.729 Terence McAuliffe: you know, the different techniques that I know, or softer techniques, or different things, and some of those things are preference, whether it be because of fear or things like that, and other things are because that's the best technique for that person in that moment.
00:29:24.350 --> 00:29:24.860 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: There you go.
00:29:24.860 --> 00:29:39.470 Terence McAuliffe: So, it kind of depends where their fear is coming from, and you know, sometimes it's not really fear, it's more of, like, they want to make a joke, because it's more of, like, a discomfort, getting to know me thing, and other times they really are scared, and so those are… there's a different tone and different conversation, so…
00:29:39.600 --> 00:29:43.110 Terence McAuliffe: you know, I'm open book, so, you know…
00:29:43.240 --> 00:29:53.369 Terence McAuliffe: whatever comes my way, I'm ready to answer for. And sometimes it's funny, and sometimes it's actually like, oh, I heard this, or this actually happened, and you're like, okay, well, this is why it's not gonna happen here in my office.
00:29:53.370 --> 00:30:00.110 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Right, right. You know, it's funny, years ago, I had a client who… who made a really…
00:30:01.080 --> 00:30:14.780 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: I felt like it was a crass comment about chiropractic, because she was complaining about something, and I said, do you have a chiropractor? She's like, that's witch doctor-y. I was just like, never mind. I did not bring it back up.
00:30:15.250 --> 00:30:17.099 Terence McAuliffe: Maybe not the best referral.
00:30:18.030 --> 00:30:22.189 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: No! She wasn't even open to it. I was like, okay, never mind.
00:30:23.270 --> 00:30:45.620 Terence McAuliffe: Well, and, you know, and the other part, too, is like, you know, just because you have a bad mechanic one time, or it wasn't the right fit for you, doesn't mean you're never going to take your car to a mechanic ever again. So, sometimes it's just making sure that I understand what the experience they had previously, why it didn't work for them, so that I can help meet their expectations both now and moving forward. And, you know.
00:30:45.650 --> 00:30:48.800 Terence McAuliffe: I can't say I do that for everybody, But…
00:30:48.890 --> 00:30:51.040 Terence McAuliffe: You know, it's like therapy, right?
00:30:51.040 --> 00:31:00.820 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: like therapy. Very much so. I've had many a client who's had a bad experience with a therapist in the past, so…
00:31:01.130 --> 00:31:11.139 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: On that note, we'll take our next break, and when we come back, we will talk a little bit more about trauma, anxiety, and depression. So come on back.
00:32:52.960 --> 00:32:59.170 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Welcome back to the Expansion Room, where today we are talking about chiropractic care.
00:32:59.170 --> 00:33:14.480 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: and its effect on mental health and mental wellness. And my guest, Dr. Terrence McAuliffe Jr, has been giving us a bit of history on chiropractic care, and how adjustments help our central nervous system.
00:33:14.480 --> 00:33:26.049 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: And in this segment, we're going to talk a little bit more about trauma, anxiety, and depression. And one of my favorite books is, The Body Keeps the Score.
00:33:26.720 --> 00:33:44.060 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: And in that book, they talked about the research about how our bodies hold on to trauma. And when I read that book years ago, and then took the training, with a whole room of therapists, I was
00:33:44.400 --> 00:33:57.930 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: I was definitely hooked. It made so much sense to me, and by then, I'd already started teaching yoga, and then went back for my trauma-informed certification in teaching yoga. And…
00:33:58.910 --> 00:34:11.759 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: some people even say, and I would probably agree, that some of the traumas that people have lived through, and how they show up in their body, as they age, you can start to see it.
00:34:12.630 --> 00:34:23.060 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: And so, can we talk a little bit about how… stress… Carried physically in the body.
00:34:23.409 --> 00:34:35.979 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: is affected by chiropractic care, so releasing the stored tension, what do you see in your patients who may have been struggling, say, with PTSD?
00:34:36.420 --> 00:34:42.880 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Or anxiety, or depression from some trauma that they may have had in their lives.
00:34:43.469 --> 00:34:46.019 Terence McAuliffe: Yeah, so one of the things that,
00:34:46.389 --> 00:35:03.839 Terence McAuliffe: we know about anxiety, and depression is… so depression is inherently left-range, right? So it is worried about things that have already happened, you're projecting into the future, you know, you sabotage your own, like, belief systems, if you will. That's kind of like…
00:35:03.989 --> 00:35:25.599 Terence McAuliffe: what left-brained depression is, whereas anxiety is more right-brained. You're more worried about what's happening today, what's going on in the future, you're uncertain, and then it's, you know, that's how that's advertised. So, when we think about that from a chiropractic standpoint, we're looking at how, you know, different things like head tilt, different weaknesses with forward head posture, how that informs us about
00:35:25.699 --> 00:35:46.599 Terence McAuliffe: some of the neurological things going on that then their body is displaying, right? So changing that feedback loop into that prefrontal cortex, changing how, things are moving to release some of that stress and tension that's gonna go to the SEM, go to the traps, and go to some of those things you feel
00:35:46.659 --> 00:35:50.249 Terence McAuliffe: But then help that feedback loop neurologically as well with the brain.
00:35:50.970 --> 00:35:51.880 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Nice.
00:35:52.400 --> 00:35:54.310 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Interesting, and so…
00:35:54.480 --> 00:36:03.000 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Hadn't given any thought to left brain, right brain in reference to depression and anxiety in this kind of context, but that does…
00:36:03.630 --> 00:36:14.540 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: stand to reason, because I know when I watch people who are depressed, they often have a posture of, like, the rounded shoulders, the lowered head,
00:36:15.060 --> 00:36:19.160 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: And just this kind of… It's almost forlonged?
00:36:19.390 --> 00:36:20.350 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Look, maybe?
00:36:20.350 --> 00:36:20.970 Terence McAuliffe: when you…
00:36:21.340 --> 00:36:38.180 Terence McAuliffe: Yeah, and so it… I'm sure with everything that you're doing, professionally, it's… it's not a… it's about… you want to say it's breaking a pattern, right? But it's… Right. It's really about building the new pattern as much as it is about stopping the propagation of the old, and so…
00:36:38.180 --> 00:36:38.550 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Yeah.
00:36:38.550 --> 00:37:00.019 Terence McAuliffe: you know, that frontal lobe that does all of our, you know, executive function and how we think and stuff like that is stimulated by the chiropractic adjustment, so if that starts to stimulate and this posture gets better, how is that going to feel? But then how much more likely are you going to be able to go do the things that give you a dopamine release, that increase your serotonin levels, that
00:37:00.100 --> 00:37:10.840 Terence McAuliffe: you know, all those other things. It's the cycle. And so, for me, obviously, as a chiropractor, that's where I'm starting from. How can I expand it? .
00:37:10.970 --> 00:37:11.660 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Yeah.
00:37:11.970 --> 00:37:16.120 Terence McAuliffe: To whatever they're trying to get to, and wherever they are on their journey.
00:37:16.350 --> 00:37:22.090 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Yep, that makes sense, because that's the same reason why we try to get people moving, so that
00:37:22.280 --> 00:37:30.600 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: As they get past some of that stuck energy, they feel like they can do more, have more capacity.
00:37:30.950 --> 00:37:34.570 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: So, yeah. And so, when you've…
00:37:35.040 --> 00:37:43.480 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: worked with people, and I don't know if you've worked with people specifically, like, we sometimes see people who have experienced trauma.
00:37:43.630 --> 00:37:46.700 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Either because they were in the military.
00:37:46.850 --> 00:38:04.290 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: or they work in law enforcement, or just, like, lived in a traumatic, you know, neighborhood somewhere. And that… that comes out somehow, in your work with them, and you see that
00:38:04.520 --> 00:38:18.430 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: displayed in their bodies, what do you share with them that they can do in between sessions, right? So once they're coming to see you regularly, and they get to say that once a week, and they
00:38:19.080 --> 00:38:22.080 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Then need to be doing something on their own.
00:38:22.080 --> 00:38:23.269 Terence McAuliffe: What do you share with them?
00:38:23.890 --> 00:38:31.529 Terence McAuliffe: Yeah, so, obviously, as we go from more of a, corrective intensive schedule to more wellness maintenance.
00:38:31.530 --> 00:38:55.580 Terence McAuliffe: I'm gonna always be trying to give people different exercises and stretches and movements that are gonna help them with their day-to-day. You know, and those might be different for somebody who's sitting at a desk all day versus somebody who's driving all day, versus someone who works at a construction site, or what have you, right? And I'm also going to take into account their x-rays and what they can tolerate and where their baseline is right now.
00:38:55.590 --> 00:39:02.489 Terence McAuliffe: But if I were to give any one major piece of advice to pretty much every patient, I tell them to go outside and walk.
00:39:02.490 --> 00:39:02.980 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Nice.
00:39:02.980 --> 00:39:09.469 Terence McAuliffe: Whatever your baseline is, right, whether that baseline right now is just from your front door to the mailbox.
00:39:09.780 --> 00:39:11.530 Terence McAuliffe: If you're doing that.
00:39:11.960 --> 00:39:23.670 Terence McAuliffe: constantly, every day, once or twice a day, it's gonna turn into the next-door neighbor, which is gonna turn to the end of the block, which is gonna turn into, you know, 30 minutes every day. And, you know, at that point.
00:39:24.180 --> 00:39:25.240 Terence McAuliffe: you know.
00:39:25.240 --> 00:39:48.609 Terence McAuliffe: if you decide to be a runner, go be a runner. If you decide you'd rather go to the gym and do a HIIT workout, then do that. But now you have a baseline, and walking is the human baseline. We're designed to walk and move, and if you have that baseline, you can build anything on top of it. So, you know, keeping people out of pain, helping them balance their nervous system, and then encouraging them to do
00:39:48.660 --> 00:39:51.690 Terence McAuliffe: Those things outside of my office to…
00:39:51.980 --> 00:39:56.190 Terence McAuliffe: Move everything in the right direction is… is, second to none.
00:39:56.540 --> 00:39:58.310 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Yeah, absolutely.
00:39:58.500 --> 00:40:08.240 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: And how much does mindset… we talk a lot about mindset on this show. How much does mindset play a role in your work with people?
00:40:09.110 --> 00:40:11.979 Terence McAuliffe: Well, you know…
00:40:12.470 --> 00:40:19.359 Terence McAuliffe: For me and the staff in my office, you know, we make it an absolute,
00:40:19.740 --> 00:40:34.699 Terence McAuliffe: mandate or way we do business is to be the happy people when you walk in our door. You know, we only have control of our four doors, and we want our space to feel welcoming and happy and things like that, because
00:40:34.700 --> 00:40:44.410 Terence McAuliffe: you know, that's going to make for better care, and you're going to, you know, trust, relax, and have a better experience, which is only going to help your adjustment work better, right? So…
00:40:44.410 --> 00:40:44.889 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: It's both…
00:40:44.890 --> 00:41:01.850 Terence McAuliffe: It's supposed to business, right? It's a strategy to actually be nice to all your clients, but it's… it actually helps with the healing response, so that's one part of the mindset. And then second, right, is… is as you continue to decrease pain.
00:41:01.850 --> 00:41:10.530 Terence McAuliffe: Right? Increase their, ability to think because of some of those prefrontal cortex,
00:41:10.730 --> 00:41:30.109 Terence McAuliffe: stimulants, from the adjustment, they're gonna make better decisions, and so their mindset now can change, right? So, then they are gonna ask things like, hey, you know, and I don't remember what it's gonna be, right? They're gonna be like, hey, well, now that I'm doing this, can you help me with my diet? Hey, now that I'm doing this, can you help me with my exercise? I'm feeling a little bit better, can you show me something?
00:41:30.110 --> 00:41:45.500 Terence McAuliffe: And sometimes it's, hey, I notice now that I'm walking more, my knee blank. It's like… but that's still a sign that things are going, because now they're getting to new and different concerns or problems, which means we're changing our baseline and moving things in the right direction, so…
00:41:46.000 --> 00:41:54.370 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Absolutely, yeah. There was a moment where I think I experienced that with my knee. Like, all of a sudden, my knee was bothering me.
00:41:54.370 --> 00:41:54.930 Terence McAuliffe: Right.
00:41:55.530 --> 00:41:57.080 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Well, we're figuring that out.
00:41:57.510 --> 00:42:12.440 Terence McAuliffe: Correct, yeah. It's a part of… you know, I wish I could tell my patients they're never going to be in pain again, but that would be an unrealistic expectation for a happy life where we're actually doing things interactive, right? And you want, you know.
00:42:12.440 --> 00:42:22.609 Terence McAuliffe: It's a normal response when we drive too much, or we slip and fall, or we push it past our limit, but that's… that's why we're a self-healing organism as well.
00:42:22.870 --> 00:42:28.529 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: That is true. And, you know, part of it, too, is the process of aging, and what I always tell people is.
00:42:28.720 --> 00:42:31.800 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: You know, every time you wake up.
00:42:31.990 --> 00:42:38.409 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: You know, that's just another day longer that you're going to be on the planet. And so, it is likely
00:42:38.530 --> 00:42:45.560 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: you're gonna have some pain. Sometimes you just wake up and you're in pain and you don't know why. It's just, you know, life.
00:42:45.560 --> 00:42:47.570 Terence McAuliffe: Much better than the alternative.
00:42:47.570 --> 00:42:52.970 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Exactly, I agree. Do you find,
00:42:53.360 --> 00:43:07.770 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: that chiropractic care works well also for people who have ADD or ADHD, because that was an… it just popped up, because that's a population that I work with a fair amount, and we're.
00:43:07.770 --> 00:43:26.240 Terence McAuliffe: Yeah, I take care of a lot of, I take care of a lot of kids that have, ADHD, ADD, behavioral disorders, because it brings ease and tension to the nervous system, right? And so, when… the big one for that is it helps to, like I said, stimulate
00:43:26.260 --> 00:43:39.580 Terence McAuliffe: the frontal court, which is our executive decision making, right? So kids with ADHD, they don't have the ability as well as others to make the decision of, don't do that, do this, right?
00:43:40.100 --> 00:43:41.920 Terence McAuliffe: And,
00:43:41.920 --> 00:43:59.080 Terence McAuliffe: if you continue to stimulate the right… the correct part of the brain, not the right part of the brain, then you allow them to make the better decisions and focus, right? And so, between that and generally getting those kids to exercise more, particularly boys, because
00:43:59.080 --> 00:44:17.349 Terence McAuliffe: boys are, you know, I say this with all due kindness to my gender, is that we're like dogs. We're better when we've had a good walk, we're better when we've had good recess, we focus better, you know, we can sit down and do math a lot easier and use our left brain dominant analytical if we've just run around a bunch, and
00:44:17.350 --> 00:44:34.050 Terence McAuliffe: you know, girls are different because their brains develop, you know, left to right, right to left, before they develop front and over, and so that's part of why we see the differences in those, those kids as they're growing up. But yeah, I mean, I see a ton of kids in that age group, and
00:44:34.250 --> 00:44:47.649 Terence McAuliffe: The phones and the technology doesn't help us as much on that one, because they're inundated, and so it's just more effort on the parents and the community to continue to do the right things, which unfortunately are not always the easy things.
00:44:48.250 --> 00:45:06.270 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: That's… this is true. This is true. Alrighty, thank you for that. We're gonna take our final break, and when we come back, we're gonna kind of tie this all together and talk about some practical ways to incorporate chiropractic into one's life. So come on back.
00:46:39.120 --> 00:46:53.920 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Welcome back to the expansion room, and today we've been talking about chiropractic care and how it improves mental well-being. And so, in this final segment, let's tie it all together and talk about
00:46:54.020 --> 00:47:02.909 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: to start, what are some daily practices, Dr. McAuliffe, that people can do to support their nervous system health?
00:47:03.150 --> 00:47:09.939 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: And then we'll talk about how to… Incorporate chiropractic into their lives.
00:47:11.290 --> 00:47:24.430 Terence McAuliffe: you… this is gonna sound like, almost like a bad joke, but it's so important for brain health. Do something that makes you happy every day, right? And the reason why, if you want the neuro behind it.
00:47:24.430 --> 00:47:40.529 Terence McAuliffe: is when you do something that gives you joy, you have a dopamine release, right? Which increases your serotonin uptake, and if you get enough good stimulation, right, you're not going to be depressed. You're not going to be as anxious. And so.
00:47:40.600 --> 00:47:55.069 Terence McAuliffe: everyone has different things that make them happy, right? And I know that the guy who… the guy who taught me about this part of chiropractic and neurology, he gets his dopamine response off of teaching a class.
00:47:55.070 --> 00:48:07.570 Terence McAuliffe: and by the amount of questions and nods along, stuff like that. Now, that would give me terrible, you know, like, I don't like public speaking like that, especially memorizing things, so, like, that would not do it for me, right? But, you know, and then…
00:48:07.570 --> 00:48:19.279 Terence McAuliffe: the real key on what you can do every day, which I think would help everything you do, everything I do, is like… but it has to be something real, right? This doesn't count as the real dopamine response, right? It's…
00:48:19.280 --> 00:48:33.109 Terence McAuliffe: it's a quick, you know, trick of the eyes scrolling up and down. That's why phones are that shape. It's not doing the same thing that reading does left to right, right? It doesn't stimulate the brain. And so, whether that be
00:48:33.430 --> 00:48:48.820 Terence McAuliffe: a walk, or I have a two-year-old, so playing with my daughter, or, you know, my dog, or whatever, it doesn't… it doesn't really matter to a certain extent what it is, but that's so important for everything you do. And then that, and go for a walk, right? Especially if it's nice out, so good for you.
00:48:49.170 --> 00:49:02.149 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Yeah, and in the sunlight. Yes, yes, yes. I discovered last year that we're, you know, well, it's not that I discovered, I was reminded that walking in the sun
00:49:02.320 --> 00:49:09.949 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: was so powerful for setting and resetting our circadian rhythms, and I stopped walking with sunglasses.
00:49:09.960 --> 00:49:27.100 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Because I wanted that experience of getting in, you know, the sun rays that trigger, you know, and so that is one of the things I love, is actually getting out and going for a walk in the mornings. I also tell people to dance in their houses.
00:49:27.790 --> 00:49:30.319 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: That's my favorite thing. I put on music.
00:49:30.470 --> 00:49:38.210 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: And there's a… there's a dance party that happens in my house several weeks, but I'm by myself, and I like it that way.
00:49:38.210 --> 00:49:42.700 Terence McAuliffe: That's good, right? And like I said, like you said, everybody's gonna have something different, and
00:49:43.160 --> 00:49:59.399 Terence McAuliffe: You know, it's… you know, you can't be afraid to sing in your car, because someone's gonna see you driving down the highway. Exactly. You gotta make… you gotta do it for yourself, and maybe… maybe you doing that will trigger the other person, like, hey, that person's having a great day, I'm gonna turn on whatever, right? You never know how far-reaching it can be.
00:49:59.400 --> 00:50:18.169 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Yeah, I… I usually tell people to make a… make a playlist. You gotta have at least one mood-elevating playlist that when your mood is feeling a little sketchy, or you're feeling a little off, that's your go-to playlist. And I have… I have at least two hype playlists.
00:50:18.170 --> 00:50:20.440 Terence McAuliffe: There you go.
00:50:20.440 --> 00:50:38.250 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: For that reason. Wonderful. And so, what's the easiest way for someone, to incorporate chiropractic care, right? So, you know, my base is here in Maryland, I come see you, but this is…
00:50:38.350 --> 00:50:43.279 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: A broader show, and so how would they do this in their area?
00:50:43.950 --> 00:50:46.700 Terence McAuliffe: Yeah, I mean, you know,
00:50:46.780 --> 00:51:04.739 Terence McAuliffe: I always try to help anyone that I know, friends, family members, and or, you know, family members of practice members. If they don't live in our area, I'll look for chiropractors for them that I think will do a good job, and and, you know, you know, and obviously I'm biased. I'm gonna look for people who practice more similar to myself.
00:51:04.740 --> 00:51:06.870 Terence McAuliffe: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. We do the same thing.
00:51:06.870 --> 00:51:08.689 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: He's therapist.
00:51:08.690 --> 00:51:25.610 Terence McAuliffe: I would assume that other people might take me off their list if that's not how they practice, too. But, you know, I would always be looking for, personally, what I do for friends and family, is look for a doc that says they do x-rays, because I think there's a lot of clinical value in knowing what's going on underneath.
00:51:25.740 --> 00:51:34.699 Terence McAuliffe: As much from a risk management standpoint, because that's not really why we take films, but more of a more complete understanding of the neurology, biomechanics going on underneath.
00:51:36.200 --> 00:51:48.920 Terence McAuliffe: Two, I would look for, somebody who has… I would make sure their hours work for you, right? I would look at their office hours and see… because if you can't get in, then it's not a good fit, even if they're the best doc around, right? And then,
00:51:49.470 --> 00:51:50.180 Terence McAuliffe: Hmm.
00:51:50.180 --> 00:52:12.390 Terence McAuliffe: Yeah, those two things, and then looking for, and even just calling the office and asking, do you work with this condition regularly, right? You know, because maybe you're a car… you know, we're in a car accident, maybe you, you know, kids, maybe it's, you know, people who are older, 65 plus, things like that, maybe that's just not their specialty, so, you know.
00:52:12.390 --> 00:52:28.959 Terence McAuliffe: calling and just asking, the front desk is usually well trained, and if not, you can always ask, just talk to the doc briefly and see if you'd be a good fit, because I would expect the average doc would rather spend 5 minutes on the phone with a case that isn't good for them, than have them come in as a new patient and have to
00:52:28.990 --> 00:52:29.819 Terence McAuliffe: Do all that.
00:52:30.420 --> 00:52:44.799 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: That's a good point. And I've noticed in your office, you work with families. Like, sometimes whole families trot in to get their adjustments together. It's almost like the family that gets adjusted together stays together, or something.
00:52:44.800 --> 00:52:46.040 Terence McAuliffe: Right, yeah, and one of.
00:52:46.040 --> 00:52:51.460 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: I imagine some spaces are not able to accommodate that, right?
00:52:51.770 --> 00:53:13.799 Terence McAuliffe: Correct, yeah, and so, you know, our… our hallmark is we call ourselves the family chiropractors, and you know, so our family taking care of your family, those types of things. So that's, like, a big core of our group, but, you know, a family can be a couple, it can be, you know, whether they're 85, or 25, or, you know, no kids, two kids, now their kids are at college, and it's just the parents now, what, you know, so…
00:53:13.800 --> 00:53:14.420 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Yay!
00:53:14.420 --> 00:53:30.810 Terence McAuliffe: you know, there's so many different, things along… phasing things along the way, but yeah, making sure that that's… that's what they do, or if you have a specific thing, like, oh, I had a spinal surgery here, making sure it's somebody who's competent and comfortable with that, because, you know, not everybody
00:53:31.180 --> 00:53:41.229 Terence McAuliffe: not everybody does everything, right? And not everybody wants to focus on everything, and our profession is just as susceptible to the over-specialization as anybody else.
00:53:41.870 --> 00:53:45.579 Terence McAuliffe: I actively try not to do that, but that's not what everybody wants to do.
00:53:45.700 --> 00:53:48.670 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: That's fair.
00:53:48.800 --> 00:53:51.749 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: I think I would also add, like.
00:53:51.870 --> 00:54:08.149 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: if you're looking for a chiropractor in your area, and you've experienced trauma in your life, look for someone who has a trauma-informed philosophy, and ask those specific questions. For some people, they don't like
00:54:08.150 --> 00:54:12.749 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: to be touched in certain ways, right? And so…
00:54:12.810 --> 00:54:26.570 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: having that conversation with your chiropractor and seeing if it's well received, and if it is, then that's the person you move forward with. And if it seems like it's, like, not, then maybe you keep shopping, right?
00:54:26.570 --> 00:54:38.440 Terence McAuliffe: Oh, absolutely, yeah. My front desk had a… had a… something like that the, this week with me. They're like, this patient called in for this, and it was, you know, 13-year-old with some sort of,
00:54:38.760 --> 00:54:55.019 Terence McAuliffe: I can't… you know, I don't get the full story, because I didn't talk to them, and it was like, you know, all these other things, and I was like, okay, well, you know, they're on my desk, we're gonna go in this afternoon to follow up with, but it's like, no, well, I'll call them, and I'll review it with them to make sure this is gonna be a good space for them, and .
00:54:55.020 --> 00:54:55.390 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Yeah.
00:54:55.390 --> 00:55:01.230 Terence McAuliffe: you know, with that demo, I'm talking both to the mother and the daughter, right? So I've got to thread two needles, but…
00:55:01.970 --> 00:55:16.570 Terence McAuliffe: Being open to that conversation, like you said, and receptive to it, you know, if, you know, in a, you know, attempting to find a common ground and a way through to get the treatment and things that you need, but there's so many techniques with chiropractic, it shouldn't be that difficult.
00:55:16.920 --> 00:55:23.100 Terence McAuliffe: Right. I say that, but I'm flexible, and I want to be flexible to help people, so maybe that's…
00:55:23.360 --> 00:55:26.390 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: And that's the attitude we're looking for.
00:55:27.120 --> 00:55:45.230 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: I think that another thing that's helpful in looking for a chiropractor is, do they collaborate with other mental health providers? I know that I have referred people to you, and you have referred people to me, and I think that it makes sense
00:55:45.340 --> 00:55:53.809 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: In this mental health landscape, as we're shifting this paradigm to look for a chiropractor or any other kind of
00:55:53.810 --> 00:56:09.960 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: care outside of the traditional medical system who is willing to collaborate, right? Collaborate with your doctors, collaborate with your mental health providers, and so I think that's key as well. And you're very client-centered.
00:56:09.960 --> 00:56:12.370 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: And that's… that's a hope for…
00:56:12.390 --> 00:56:25.790 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: for me to anyone who's looking for a chiropractor anywhere else, look for someone who's client-centered, right? They're willing to invite you in to the process of your own care.
00:56:25.920 --> 00:56:31.210 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: So it's not just… Come in, get on the table, get adjusted, get out.
00:56:31.810 --> 00:56:32.390 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Right.
00:56:32.390 --> 00:56:34.289 Terence McAuliffe: Yeah, and it's,
00:56:34.520 --> 00:56:53.200 Terence McAuliffe: You know, it's not always easy to build the rapport with somebody in, you know, the first visit or the second visit, but if you're constantly building on that moving forward, they're going to be more open with you with how you're going to take care of them chiropractically, but then also how you can take care of the other things with that, whether it be
00:56:53.250 --> 00:56:55.779 Terence McAuliffe: Good advice, or a good referral, or…
00:56:55.780 --> 00:56:56.330 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: here's.
00:56:56.330 --> 00:57:12.510 Terence McAuliffe: here's what we can do new, or whatever along the way. You can, you know, that rapport and being able to listen, and not listen to speak necessarily, but listen to find solutions together is so important in our profession, probably even bigger with what you guys do.
00:57:12.510 --> 00:57:25.630 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Yes, yes, yes, yes. All right, well, thank you. So, are there any other tidbits or pieces that we didn't talk about that you would like to add in here at the end?
00:57:28.460 --> 00:57:32.320 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Everyone go see a chiropractor come to my office. No, I'm just kidding.
00:57:32.710 --> 00:57:35.480 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: I highly recommend Dr. McAuliffe.
00:57:35.480 --> 00:57:50.399 Terence McAuliffe: No, I would say that, you know, if I were to give any true and real feedback is, you know, just like with your mental health, with your exercise, with your dentistry, but also with your chiropractic, right?
00:57:50.400 --> 00:58:07.269 Terence McAuliffe: the earlier you start things as a… before things are an emergency, or before things become a problem, the easier things are to manage. So, when you feel something coming on, don't wait, right? And be proactive. And sometimes proactive means
00:58:07.270 --> 00:58:14.590 Terence McAuliffe: You know, seeing somebody, you know, for your spine, or seeing someone for your mental health less frequently for a longer time.
00:58:14.590 --> 00:58:35.279 Terence McAuliffe: So you don't get to the point where you have to come in and see me every day for 2 weeks to get back to being able to walk again, right? But the same thing goes true for your mental health, same thing goes true for your exercise, your diet, and, you know, it's just… it's another pillar of your health, and so, you know, us chiropractors like seeing wellness patients almost as much as we like seeing, you know, really helping with those miracle cases.
00:58:36.310 --> 00:58:44.919 Terence McAuliffe: And keeping, you know, keeping people well for years is, trust me, just as much fun as getting somebody out of pain for the first time in years.
00:58:45.250 --> 00:58:50.529 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Beautiful. What is the longest-running client that you've had so far in years?
00:58:50.530 --> 00:59:01.660 Terence McAuliffe: So I've been in… so I've been in the office for 12 years in April, so 11 and a half or so. The longest continuous patient has been coming in to the office since 1990.
00:59:04.010 --> 00:59:08.950 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Nice. Okay, that's perfect. I love it.
00:59:09.260 --> 00:59:12.889 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Alright, well, thank you so, so, so much for making the time.
00:59:12.890 --> 00:59:13.820 Terence McAuliffe: Thank you for having me.
00:59:13.820 --> 00:59:23.930 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: Coming and sharing all of the valuable information. It was such a pleasure, thank you. And to my audience, if you've
00:59:23.940 --> 00:59:39.210 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: heard anything that resonated with you, and you think that this could be a benefit to someone in your life, please share this video, with them, as well as like and subscribe on any platform that you're hearing or seeing this.
00:59:39.210 --> 00:59:45.760 Shervon Laurice | The Expansion Room: And join us next week here at the Expansion Room, and until then, take good care.
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