October 2026

What a NICU Stay Taught Me About Stress, Self-Care, and Showing Up for Your Nervous System

Sorry for the Silence

If you've been wondering where the blog posts went these past few weeks, I owe you an honest explanation. My family recently spent time in the NICU — the neonatal intensive care unit — and life, as it tends to do, pressed pause on just about everything else.

I'm grateful to say we came through it. But I walked away with a deeper, more personal understanding of something I talk about with patients every single day: how stress reshapes your body, and why caring for your nervous system matters most during the hardest seasons of life.

Let me share what I learned — including the ways I fell short.

When Your Body Lives in "Survival Mode"

Your nervous system has two main gears. One is often called "rest and digest" (the calm, healing mode). The other is "fight or flight" — what we call sympathetic dominance. That's the revved-up state your body enters when it senses danger or stress.

During a NICU stay, your body never fully leaves that second gear. Mine certainly didn't. For days on end I was living in short-term sympathetic dominance, and I could feel the toll it took:

Poor sleep — hospital chairs and couches are not designed for rest, and neither is a mind running on worry.
Terrible ergonomics — hunching over a bedside, craning my neck, sitting frozen for hours.
Physical stress — tight shoulders, a locked-up low back, headaches that crept in by evening.
Emotional stress — the kind that keeps your heart racing even when your body is still.
Zero self-care — I ate when I remembered, moved when I had to, and stretched almost never.

"I kept telling myself I'd deal with my own body later — once things settled down. But 'later' never actually arrived on its own."

Here's the thing about sympathetic dominance: it's supposed to be short-term. Your body is built to handle a burst of stress, then recover. But when the stress doesn't let up, that gear stays engaged. Over time it affects your sleep, your digestion, your immune system, your mood, and yes — the tension stored in your spine.

Subluxation Doesn't Wait for a Convenient Time

A subluxation is simply an area of your spine that isn't moving well — a spot that creates interference in the communication between your brain and your body. Stress, poor posture, bad sleep, and emotional strain are all fast tracks to creating them.

So picture this: a body already stuck in high gear, slumped in a hospital chair, missing sleep, forgetting to move. That is the perfect storm for subluxation. My spine was absorbing every bit of what my mind and schedule couldn't.

And here's my honest confession — even I deprioritized my own care. I'm a chiropractor. I know better. But in the thick of it, I did exactly what so many of my patients do: I put myself dead last.

Why Chiropractic Belongs in Hard Seasons — Not Just Easy Ones

We often treat self-care as something we'll get back to "when life calms down." But your nervous system doesn't need support when things are easy. It needs it most when things are hard.

Chiropractic care during stressful seasons can:

Help shift you out of sympathetic dominance, so your body can actually rest and heal.
Restore spinal movement that stress and poor posture steal away.
Improve sleep quality by calming nervous system tension.
Build resilience so your body handles the next wave of stress better.

When I finally got back under care myself, the difference was immediate — not just in my neck and back, but in how I felt. Calmer. More grounded. More like myself.

The Lesson I'm Carrying Forward

If a chiropractor can forget to care for his own nervous system during a crisis, you can give yourself grace for doing the same. But let this be the reminder we both needed: the hardest seasons are exactly when your body deserves the most support.

Whatever storm you're weathering right now — a new baby, a loss, a job change, a health scare — don't wait for life to settle before you take care of yourself.

Your nervous system carries you through everything. Return the favor.

If you've been putting your own health on the back burner, I'd love to help you get back on track. Reach out to us at Omni Family Chiropractic in Richmond, VA and let's take care of you — especially during the seasons when it matters most.