From a survival standpoint, there are few capabilities more important than the ability to adapt to our environment. However, from a long-term health standpoint there are serious costs to long term adaptation.

When injured, our body will both heal and adapt. Broken bones, torn soft tissues and skin will heal (provided the damaged ends are close to each other), but the function and mechanics of our body will have to adapt as we go through the healing process.

Imagine you’ve twisted your ankle; as it hurts and you begin to limp or use crutches for a while. During this time your body has to compensate by tightening certain muscles to reduce the injured leg’s work load, and tighten other muscles to protect the injured area. All the while your spine is leaning, twisting, compensating, and adapting as you unconsciously lean away from the injured side.

These adaptations are there to allow complete healing of the damaged tissue. However, over time, abnormal nervous system habits develop (muscle memory) which result in uneven changes to muscular development, bone mass, and joint function. Because our spine is so central, it is a part of all these adaptive activities.

Although these effects are reversible, most changes in muscle memory do not go away on their own. We have to consciously focus on going back to our normal habits and nervous system patterns. We also have to fix the imbalances that happened while we were adapting.

Only after we have restored all of our proper habits and nervous system patterns are we fully healed. Fully healing takes effort from us.

Strangely, most people will feel the same when they are deep into adapting as they will after fully healing. If healing is what we want, but adapting feels the same, how can we tell the difference?

The answer is so simple it might fool you. Don’t use symptoms to judge healing, or your health.

We will dive deeper into how you can understand the status of your health without using symptoms and how you can encourage complete healing in Part 2.