Nowadays when you hear the word tone, you relate it to the musical connotation. In music, tone is a steady sound characterized by its duration, pitch, intensity, and quality.

How does tone relate to chiropractic?

D.D. Palmer, founder of chiropractic and the first school of chiropractic, used the word tone to describe the state of health within the tissue. Nowadays the word homeostasis is used to describe the state of the internal environment within physiology.

Tone is a Chiropractic term used to describe the degree of vitality, tension, activity, strength and excitability of neurological impulses for the supplied tissue in observance of the state of health of the tissue. In other words, the tonicity of the tissue relates to the vital supply of neurological impulses or mental impulses.

To better understand tone as it relates to your physiology, let’s look at the neurological system and how it’s the master communication highway within the body.

During gestation (which is the process of the baby developing and growing inside the womb from conception to birth), the neurological system develops from the ectodermal layer where other important parts of your body are also derived, like your nails, hair and skin. There is an intimate relationship between the skin and neurological system as both are in constant communication with each other for sensory and environmental changes. 

The skin isn’t the only system sending information to the neurological system though, blood vessels, joint capsules, tendons and muscles all communicate directly to the neurological system supply a constant supply of mental impulses for a two way communication between brain and body for proper state of health and well-being within tissue. 

Not to mention the constant communication between the sensory organs, like the eyes, ears, nose and tongue, all supplying a constant flow of afferent or sensory impulses through the nerves to the cortex of the brain.

The amount of communication that takes place between the tissues of the body and the neurological system serve as a highway of structure and function as mental impulses can travel as fast as 268 mph.

These neurological impulses or mental impulses are vital in the power within the body to self-heal or coordinate a state of well-being. 

The body’s innate intelligence utilizes the neurological system to coordinate and direct the trillions of cells working together towards an optimal state of well-being through communication of mental impulses from the brain to the body and the body back to the brain. 

Tone in the context of Chiropractic Philosophy can be a description of the physical expression of the non-physical supply of mental impulses. 

Physiological Tone can be the tissue characterized by its duration, pitch, intensity, and quality of supply of mental or neurological impulses.

The communication process of mental impulses from brain to body tissue and body tissue back to brain expresses a state of tonicity within the supplied tissue. The tone within the body depends upon an adequate supply of neurological or mental impulses.

Homeostasis refers to the tendency toward a relatively stable equilibrium between interdependent elements within the physiology. 

Tone refers to the equilibrium between the mental impulses supplying tissue and tissue coordinating back to neurological system. This process needs to be free of any interference in order for an optimal state of communication and increased well-being to take place.

The development of the chiropractic adjustment was tailored around the philosophy, science and art of locating, analyzing and facilitating the adjustment of vertebral subluxation in the spinal column due to the interference in the mental impulses through the neurological system.