Chiropractors have long known that a well-functioning nervous system supports more than just a pain-free body, it supports a healthy mind. But now, that message is starting to resonate beyond chiropractic offices. A recent article published on Psychology Today and featured in Dynamic Chiropractic delivers a surprising and powerful endorsement of chiropractic care. That endorsement is not from a chiropractor, but from a psychiatrist.
Dr. Mitchell Liester, a medical doctor and assistant clinical professor in psychiatry at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, just published a post that could shift the way the medical community views chiropractic. Titled “The Gut-Brain-Spine Connection: How Chiropractic Care May Improve Mental Health,” the post outlines how spinal health influences the gut and brain in ways that directly impact mood, cognition, stress regulation, and anxiety.
This is more than professional curiosity. It’s a medical endorsement of the neurological power of chiropractic care.
Why This Is a Big Deal
Let’s start with the most obvious point: psychiatrists prescribe medications. It’s what their licenses allow, and often what they’re trained to do. So when a psychiatrist openly states that chiropractic care can positively impact mental health—specifically through improving the gut-brain-spine connection—people pay attention.
Dr. Liester isn’t just suggesting chiropractic as a general wellness tool. He’s pointing to evidence-based mechanisms that support its clinical use for mental health challenges.
These mechanisms include:
Improved vagal tone, which enhances emotional regulation and resilience to stress
Modulation of the HPA axis, which is deeply involved in how the body responds to chronic stress and cortisol release
Enhanced neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to rewire itself and recover from trauma or anxiety
Improvement in gut microbiome health, a key factor in mood and cognitive performance
Each of these areas is not only well-documented in medical literature but has also been linked to the effectiveness of chiropractic adjustments through nervous system regulation.
The Gut-Brain-Spine Axis: What It Means and Why It Matters
Most people are familiar with the idea of a gut-brain connection. The concept that the gut and brain communicate through chemical, neural, and hormonal signals. This is why gut issues can make anxiety worse, and vice versa.
Dr. Liester adds the spine as a critical third player in this axis. The spine is the communication highway between brain and body, housing the spinal cord and influencing autonomic nervous system tone. If the spine is misaligned, that communication becomes disrupted. Over time, this can lead to nervous system imbalances that show up as not only physical discomfort, but also brain fog, poor stress tolerance, and emotional volatility.
Chiropractic care directly addresses this problem by restoring proper spinal motion and reducing interference in the nervous system. According to Dr. Liester, this has downstream effects on the gut, immune function, hormone levels, and mental performance.
Clinical Applications: How Chiropractors Can Support Mental Health
Dr. Liester and his co-author (Jai Liester, a chiropractic student at Palmer College) didn’t stop at theory. They outlined practical ways chiropractic care can integrate into mental health support plans. Here are some of the strategies they recommend and that we see working every day in practice:
1. An Integrated Approach
Chiropractic care can be a valuable complement to traditional mental health treatment. That includes therapy, psychiatry, medication, and lifestyle coaching. Many patients benefit from this “both-and” model—where chiropractic enhances nervous system regulation while counseling supports emotional processing.
2. A Stress Reduction Tool
Stress is a major driver of mental health symptoms. Regular chiropractic adjustments may help the nervous system recover faster from stress by shifting the body out of fight-or-flight mode and into parasympathetic (rest-and-repair) balance.
3. Support for Gut Health
It’s not uncommon for people with anxiety or depression to also experience digestive issues like bloating, constipation, or IBS. Chiropractic doesn’t replace a GI specialist, but it can help normalize the nerve signals that regulate digestion especially via the vagus nerve, which influences both the gut and the brain.
4. Improved Body Awareness
Chiropractic adjustments can heighten interoceptive awareness, your ability to tune into internal signals like heart rate, breathing, and gut sensation. Developing this awareness is a core tool in many trauma and anxiety recovery programs.
When patients learn to feel and respond to what their body is telling them, they gain better control over emotional reactions. Chiropractic provides a hands-on experience of that awareness in a safe, non-invasive way.
Research Backs It Up: Why This Isn’t Just Opinion
This post isn’t just a personal theory. It builds on a growing body of literature that shows how interconnected the spine, brain, and gut truly are.
Another important source cited in the Psychology Today piece is a study published in Psychiatric Services in 2023 by Dr. Pamela Hughes and colleagues. Their research reviewed psychotropic medication prescribing across medical providers and found that patients often receive these medications from non-psychiatrists, with minimal oversight and poor outcomes.
The implication? Our current system is over-reliant on medication as a one-size-fits-all solution. Integrating non-pharmaceutical approaches like chiropractic may reduce that over-dependence and give patients more holistic options for managing their health.
What This Means for Patients
If you or someone you love is struggling with anxiety, burnout, chronic stress, or depression and you're looking for something beyond medication, this might be the missing piece.
You don’t need to “believe” in chiropractic for it to work. It’s not magic. It’s anatomy and physiology. Your brain and body are connected through your spine. When the spine moves properly, your nervous system works better. When your nervous system works better, your brain and gut can communicate more clearly. And when your body is in sync, your mental health has a stronger foundation.
That doesn’t mean chiropractic is a cure-all. But it does mean it may be a useful and evidence-supported piece of the larger puzzle.
What This Means for the Future of Mental Health Care
This article marks a cultural shift. When a psychiatrist co-authors a post highlighting chiropractic’s impact on mood, anxiety, and the gut-brain axis, it tells us something important: The walls between disciplines are starting to come down.
The mental health field is moving toward a more integrated model—one where nervous system regulation, physical health, and emotional resilience are treated together. Chiropractic belongs in that conversation.
It’s time more doctors, therapists, and patients knew that.
Let’s Keep the Conversation Going
If you’re currently under chiropractic care in saginaw or elsewhere and have noticed that you sleep better, feel calmer, or digest food more easily, this isn’t a coincidence. Your nervous system is changing. And science is beginning to catch up with what so many patients already know—chiropractic helps.
We encourage you to share this blog with friends, therapists, or even your primary care provider. Sometimes all it takes to change someone’s perspective is knowing that a psychiatrist has already said it first.
Want to learn more about how a saginaw chiropractor supports your whole-body wellness—including mental health?
Schedule an appointment or follow us on social media for educational updates and real patient stories.
Sources Referenced:
Liester MD. “The Gut-Brain-Spine Connection: How Chiropractic Care May Improve Mental Health.” Psychology Today, March 4, 2025.
Hughes PM, et al. “Psychotropic Medication Prescribing Across Medical Providers, 2016–2019.” Psychiatric Services, November 2023.
Editorial Staff. “Mental Health & Chiropractic: Word Spreads.” Dynamic Chiropractic, June 2025.
