Allostatic load refers to the cumulative burden of various sources of stress (physical, metabolic and psychosocial) on our bodies over time. As we go through our lives, we inevitably add to our load through, for example, poor dietary choices, faulty movement patterns, emotionally stressful relationships, and so on. Above and beyond that, our genetics significantly shape how we interact with our environment, but it is our lifestyle choices that largely dictate how much load we are adding onto our system over time. Ill health and disease (dis-ease) is the result of this load becoming too great for our body to cope with. 

 

Any health condition that affects us will have as its root cause one or more of these three areas - physical, metabolic and psychosocial - if not typically a combination of all three. This is what we refer to as the triad of health and an understanding of health in these terms is key to being able to properly address each patient’s health challenges.

 

In that light, manual therapy works best whenever the foundations of a person’s health are optimal. If a patient’s triad of health is challenged in any of its key dimensions, for example as a result of poor diet, this will inevitably inhibit the body’s capacity to self-heal. The manual treatment you receive may make you feel better temporarily, but the complaint will persist, re-appearing soon after treatment, and will remain unresolved unless and until other relevant aspects of our health are addressed.