Dr. G. from Discovery Channel fame gave an interview recently saying something that rings true for many in the health care profession. She left internal medicine because it troubled her to see people bringing on their chronic conditions by their own behaviors.

A John Hopkins study in 2005 showed 90 percent of heart patients do not change their habits after bypasses and angioplasties, even when told they will die. Back in the 1950s, Harvard published a study that showed 80 percent of the U.S. health care budget was spent on the usual behavioral issues that lead to chronic illness. It's a demoralizing problem when doctors do all they can to help someone yet they aren't making much of an impact.

Dr. Dean Ornish proved a different kind of doctor/ patient interaction was required in order to achieve long term success. Merely telling people to change their habits is inadequate and borders on neglectful treatment. Health coaching is becoming the new way to deliver health care.

Health coaching takes the education process and adds the crucial step of supporting people as they let go of their old ways of functioning. Health coaching treads into the murky territory where stress takes its extreme hold. Health coaches help people reframe every aspect of their lives from their kitchen space to their work environment to show how lifestyle contributes to disease.

Chiropractic has been in the health coaching business for decades. Promoting a natural and drug free lifestyle, chiropractors have relied on simple education to start their patients off on the right foot. Understanding how the nervous system manages stress in the body becomes the missing link that motivates them to want to learn more about the ultimate power they have in their health choices.

People understand the spine has a unique purpose for movement and protection. The next teaching step takes a look at the body's subtle balance between physical and nonphysical effects on health.

The nervous system is best described as an incubator. It holds the neurological patterns of illness or wellness. Like a computer it regurgitates the basic information that has been mentally and physically received into the body. Chiropractors take a long, hard look at the ways their patients have programmed their inner computers.

This understanding becomes the potential for a health breakthrough because people can finally see why their attempts at feeling better do not work. Many pharmaceutical treatments cannot reverse negative patterns. Exercise doesn't work when the body is programmed to feel worse after physical movement. A different nutritional program doesn't provide its expected results until the nerves to the digestive system are reprogrammed to absorb nutrients properly. Relaxation exercises are futile when the nervous system is impeded by the heaviness of a distorted spine.

Patients who want to manage stress are invited to unravel their tangled spines so better results are seen. While it starts with a desire to learn, the chiropractic profession has been providing long-term support so healthier changes are welcomed rather than dreaded.

Lisa Ann Homic, M.Ed. D.C., may be contacted at www.DrHomic.com