Ever feel like your neck just isn’t moving like it used to? There’s no pain there, but you wonder when things got so stiff. You might notice it while sitting at your desk at work, or maybe looking over your shoulder while driving just isn't as smooth of an action as you remember it being before. Did you know that often the cause of neck tightness and stiffness is a misalignment in the spine? Guess who might be able to help?

If you said “my chiropractor,” you guessed right! When the vertebrae in your cervical spine – which is a fancy way of describing the bones in your neck – are out of alignment, the muscles in your neck and shoulders tighten up and make you feel stiff. This is especially true for the atlas, the first bone in your spine, which sits at the top of your neck, under your skull. When this bone tips out of place, the rest of your neck (and body) automatically compensates to straighten your head. Because everything in the spine is connected – your head to your neck to your shoulders to your back – that stiffness can crop up at the base of your neck, along the tops of the shoulders, and often into the upper back or between the shoulder blades.

Adjusting the spine with focused attention on the atlas is often the best way to increase the range of motion in your neck. In fact, one of the most common side effects of seeing a chiropractor is better movement! (Warning: other side effects include increased energy levels, more restful sleep, and better immune function.)

Just because you don’t feel any pain doesn’t mean you’re not out of alignment. If you’re beginning to feel like you’re not able to turn your head very far, or feel like things are tight or stiff in your upper body, get your neck checked. We’ll get your head on straight, and help you move more easily.

The atlas is the top bone in your neck that surrounds a very important part of your nervous system: your brain stem. The brain stem controls several vital functions, many of which keep you alive without you thinking about them. Breathing, blood pressure, and upright posture are just a few things regulated by this area of the brain. Just like Atlas in Greek mythology, who held the world on his shoulders, your atlas holds your head on ITS shoulders – and since the head houses your brain, the control unit of your entire body, you can see why the atlas’s role is so significant. When the atlas is aligned properly, the head is able to sit directly above it, and the neck, or cervical spine, is in line just below the atlas. A technical way to describe this straight position of the head and neck is “orthogonal,” which means “at right angles” …hence the term Atlas Orthogonal Chiropractic.

You might be asking, why is it so important to have your head on straight? When the atlas misaligns, the messages going from the brain to the body and from the body to the brain are interrupted or altered, and pain and disease can result. Remember, the nervous system controls every single tissue and function of your body – from digesting the meal you just ate, to maintaining your immune system, to feeling what your left foot is doing right this moment. We certainly don’t want to have interference in such an important system!

Atlas Orthogonal (AO) doctors use a high-tech, specially designed instrument to very gently and specifically align your atlas into a straight, or orthogonal, position so that 100% of the messages can get from your brain to the rest of your body, and vice versa. AO doctors differ from other doctors of chiropractic because they don’t turn or twist the neck to adjust it: the atlas is adjusted back into proper position while the neck remains in a neutral posture. There is also no cracking or popping during the adjustment.

Getting the atlas in place is the first step in correcting spinal misalignments that are the root cause of back pain. We’ve known for ages that whether your pain is in your head, your low back, your shoulders, or even your leg, that highest spinal bone is the key to bringing your body back into balance.

Atlas Orthogonal chiropractic can help not only with headaches, sciatica, whiplash syndrome, and vertigo, but new studies show that it greatly helps resolve the symptoms from post-concussion syndrome. One reason this is true might be the close proximity of the atlas to the brain stem. Pressure in this area of your nervous system (as from an atlas misalignment) can have far-reaching effects, from dizziness and headaches to balance issues.

So what is the difference between traditional chiropractic techniques and Atlas Orthogonal? In two words: gentle and specific. With our highly detailed x-rays and state-of-the-art adjusting instrument, we’re able to align the atlas with precision so that a very low force is needed for correction of the problem, and the procedure remains comfortable for you. And because the adjustment is specialized for your unique atlas misalignment, the results are powerful and, in many cases, life-changing.