Assessing Your Nervous System: sEMG

sEMG (or surface electromyography) is one of the three neurological assessments to assess function of the nervous system. Specifically, this one looks at the neuromuscular connection or how well the nervous system is communicating with the muscles supporting the spine.

Why is this important? Because these muscles around the spine are the front line of defense for protecting the spine. Often, people who are stressed carry that stress within their muscles. The tension caused by stress causes us to use energy inefficiently.

When the black line spikes to either the left or right, it shows imbalance in the muscles where you are utilizing too much energy. We want the black line to follow along the white line signifying normal range. The other colored lines are as follows: green, blue, and red are mild, moderate, and severe over activity. The yellow line signifies under tone, this means the muscles are being under-utilized. The ideal scan consists of the black line following the white and the left and right black lines being perfectly symmetrical.

Chiropractic care can help achieve this and the closer we get to the ideal scan, the closer we get to functioning optimally. Some side effects of functioning optimally can be having more energy, sleeping better, less aches and pains, less sickness, better posture, and much more!