Snorkelling in Murky Water: Why Your Body Gets Stuck in Fight-or-Flight
Picture yourself snorkelling on a perfect South Coast morning. The water is crystal clear. You can see the sandy bottom, the kelp swaying, a school of fish drifting past. Your breathing slows. Your shoulders drop. You float.
Now picture the same spot after a big swell has stirred everything up. The water is murky and brown. You can barely see your own hand. Nothing has actually changed down there. There's no shark, no danger. But your body doesn't feel that way. Your breathing quickens, your muscles tighten, your eyes strain. You can't relax, because you can't see what's around you.
That's exactly what happens inside your body when your brain can't clearly read what's going on.
Your brain is always asking one question: am I safe?
Every second of every day, your brain is scanning for safety. It does this mostly below conscious awareness, gathering a constant stream of information from your body: the position of your joints, the tension in your muscles, your heart rate, your breathing, your gut.
When that information is clear, your brain can make an accurate call. All good. We can rest, digest, repair.
When that information is unclear or incomplete, your brain does what any good protector would. It assumes there might be a threat and gets ready for it. Just like in murky water.
Fight-or-flight vs rest-and-digest
Your nervous system has two main modes:
Fight-or-flight is your survival setting. Heart rate rises, breathing gets shallow, muscles brace, digestion and repair are put on hold. Brilliant for escaping danger, and never designed to be switched on all day.
Rest-and-digest is your healing and growth setting. Breathing slows, digestion works properly, sleep deepens, and the body can repair, restore and connect.
A healthy nervous system moves easily between the two. It rises to meet a challenge, then settles back down once it's passed. The problem comes when the body gets stuck in fight-or-flight, even when there's no real danger.
What is a subluxation?
In chiropractic, a subluxation describes an area where the communication between the brain and body isn't flowing as clearly as it should. Think of it as interference on the line: a disconnect between what's happening in the body and what the brain is able to perceive.
Subluxations can build up through the three T's of life: physical trauma (falls, injuries, long hours at a desk, even the birth process), chemical toxins, and emotional stress or thoughts.
When there's interference, the brain is getting a less clear picture of the body. It's swimming in murky water. And just like you in that murky ocean, it can't fully relax. It stays on guard, keeping the body tilted towards fight-or-flight.
Over time, this might show up as:
Feeling tense, wired or "on edge" without knowing why
Trouble switching off or getting deep, restful sleep
Digestion that isn't working as well as it could
Shallow breathing or tight shoulders and jaw
Feeling tired but unable to rest
How the chiropractic adjustment fits in
The goal of a chiropractic adjustment is to address subluxation and help restore clearer communication between the brain and body.
In our analogy, it's like letting the sediment settle and the water clear. When the brain can read the body more accurately, it has less reason to stay on high alert. That creates the conditions for the body to shift out of fight-or-flight and into rest-and-digest, where healing, digestion and recovery happen.
We're not "fixing" anything from the outside. We're aiming to remove interference so your body can do what it's already designed to do: adapt, regulate and heal from within.
Seeing it on the scan
At Lume Chiropractic, we use the INSiGHT Scanner to look at how your nervous system is functioning. One of the measurements, heart rate variability (HRV), gives us a window into the balance between fight-or-flight and rest-and-digest. It helps us understand where your body is spending most of its time, and track how your nervous system adapts over the course of care.
The bottom line
Your body isn't broken when it's stuck in stress mode. It's protecting you, based on the information it has. When that information is murky, it plays it safe.
Clear the water, and your body can finally float.
If you've been feeling stuck in fight-or-flight, we'd love to help you find out what your nervous system is telling us. Book an assessment at our Batemans Bay or Moruya practice.