Chiropractic is about helping people live healthier, fuller lives. Chiropractors focus on the nervous system and painlessly, manually adjust the vertebral column to affect the nervous system. According to Gray's Anatomy, the nervous system is the master system in the body which controls and coordinates all other systems such as respiratory, digestive, muscular, and immune.
The nervous system includes the brain, spinal cord, the spinal nerves that exit the vertebral column through openings on the side of each vertebra, and all the peripheral nerves that branch off to serve organs, tissues, blood vessels and muscles. Information from the environment, both external and internal, goes through the spine to get to the brain. In the same manner, information and decisions made in the brain go through the spine to affect certain outcomes. It is a two-way flow of information.
The chiropractic adjustment is intended to remove any disruptions or distortions of this energy flow that may be caused by slight vertebral misalignments called subluxations. Chiropractors are trained to locate these subluxations and then to remove them to restore the normal flow of nerve energy, in terms of both quality and quantity.
The idea is that if the master system (the nervous system) is healthy and functioning well, then other systems under its control will also function in a more optimal fashion. Chiropractic is based on the belief that the same innate intelligence that can grow a single cell into a complex human being, made of billions of cells, can also heal the body if it is free of disturbances to the nervous system.
For example, if the spinal area that supplies nerve flow to the stomach is subluxated, then information going to the brain regarding that organ and its function, digestion, will be distorted and the brain will not receive accurate data on its condition. Likewise, decisions made in the brain and conveyed along the nervous pathways will be disrupted and the correct responses cannot be made. It is essentially the same scenario for all other organs, muscles and blood vessels. When a chiropractor removes this interference, then the nervous system functions more optimally and the body is able to heal itself via the two-way communication system.
The philosophy of chiropractic is that health, not merely the absence of symptoms, comes from within the body, not from the outside. It is the innate, or inborn, intelligence of our bodies that does the healing.