Could Chiropractic Have Saved Elvis and Nixon?
By Sara Butler
Last week the movie Elvis & Nixon was released. It creates an entire story around the one iconic image of the two men shaking hands in the Oval Office in 1970. I’m a fan of Elvis -- not so much of Nixon -- but the intrigue of this movie got me thinking that if Hollywood can reimagine the meeting and create an entire movie about it, I can reimagine the lives of those two men and how they would have been made better by chiropractic care. So – let’s take care of this chiropractic business in a flash – and maybe a few karate moves.
Richard Nixon
Oh, Tricky Dick. Poor Richard Nixon has a terrible reputation. But perhaps Watergate and his subsequent resignation from the White House could have all been avoided if he hadn’t succumbed to the pressure of winning and gotten himself regular chiropractic adjustments instead.
Let’s be honest, being President isn’t an easy job no matter who you are. Notice how many Presidents start the job looking fresh with only a few gray hairs but only a few years in look like they’ve aged 10 years. It’s certainly not a job for the faint-hearted.
When your body is under stress – any kind of stress – it reacts by flooding your body with stress hormones that can have a negative impact on your overall health. Stress can:
- Increase your blood pressure
- Increase your risk of heart disease
- Damage your muscles through constant tension
- Increase your risk of type 2 diabetes
- Increase your risk of obesity
- Decrease the effective of your immune system
That’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to stress and your body. I imagine Richard Nixon was under an enormous amount of stress that eventually led him to make very poor decisions for himself and the country.
It all could have been different with a little chiropractic care!
How Chiropractic Care Helps with Stress
Chiropractic care focuses on the central nervous system, which is the control center for all the responses and function of your body. When your muscles contract under stress they can pull your spine out of alignment, creating joint restrictions (subluxations) that make the stress your body is under even worse. Chiropractic care helps improve joint motion and nerve function thereby easing muscle tension, which helps to keep your spine aligned so your body can balance itself out. It’s what health care providers refer to as “homeostasis” and that, my friends, can help to relieve stress and the impact it has on your body.
I’m also guessing that if Nixon had worked in a few trips to the chiropractor, his posture would have improved, too. No sense in being unnecessarily hunched over. If you want to be the leader of the free world, you should look like the leader of the free world. Stand up straight, for the love of bald eagles everywhere.
Elvis Presley
Ah, Elvis. He of the sequined red, white and blue eagle jumpsuit. I hate to say it because Elvis was one of the greatest entertainers to ever live, but that man could have used some chiropractic care. Most people under a particular age, when they think of Elvis, imagine him in his later days – the bloated, died-on-the-toilet phase of his life that is truly a crime. Poor lifestyle choices led Elvis to an early grave.
Think about it: Elvis ate fried peanut butter and mashed banana sandwiches. He took pills to help him go to sleep and pills to help him stay awake. He didn’t really exercise unless you count those karate moves.The guy was larger than life and lived that way. Don’t get me wrong – I have a hunka hunka burning love for Elvis! But the King really needed some guidance when it came to his lifestyle choices, guidance that a dedicated doctor of chiropractic could have provided -- in a flash.
A Chiropractic Lifestyle
If you go to the chiropractor you’ve no doubt heard them talk about wellness, but what is wellness? Chiropractic wellness simply means that your chiropractor wants to treat you as a whole person, not just a medical problem. Chiropractors seek to discover the root cause of your problems and help you to find a way to address them, not merely treat the symptoms. Elvis had trouble sleeping, he didn’t eat right and he didn’t take care of himself – chiropractic may have helped all of that by optimizing the function of his central nervous system not to mention promoting positive lifestyle changes. This may have helped him with his energy, his sleep and even his penchant for excess that ultimately led him to an early grave. Who knows, with chiropractic care, Elvis might have been so focused he would have followed through with his promise to Nixon to infiltrate the communists and bust them all up before Reagan took all the credit years later.
I’ve been to Graceland, I’ve taken the audio tour that ended with a sad song at Elvis’ grave. I totally shed a tear because he should have lived longer than his 42 years. Chiropractic care may have been able to help him not only live a longer life, but a healthier one as well.
No matter what you think of Nixon or Elvis, there’s no doubt that these two men have left a legacy. So much so that a movie is coming out 46 years after that impromptu visit at the White House. Their stories are captivating, but you have to wonder how much their histories could have been altered if they had just taken care of business with the chiropractor.
If it had happened, they both might have had the same thing to say about chiropractic, and we might be saying it, too, for a much happier ending: Thank you, thankyouverymuch.
Photo: archives.gov