A lot of people only think about chiropractic care when something already hurts — what Dr. Jonathan Schultz, on this episode of Great Minds of Today with Mark Anthony, described as waiting for "the light to turn on." Schultz, who runs Vital Chiro Wellness in Austin, Texas, spent the conversation making a different case: that the spine and the nervous system are inseparable from the rest of the body, and that chiropractic care works best as a consistent, ongoing practice — not an occasional fix reached for only after pain shows up.
Schultz didn't grow up around chiropractic. His mother was a nurse and his father a pharmacist, and he described his household as squarely in the conventional "treatment paradigm" — fix what's broken, with little emphasis on preventing problems in the first place. By his own account, he arrived at college "fat, weak, inflamed," dealing with a run of health concerns that pushed him to start learning, on his own, what he'd been doing wrong. An earlier career as an actor pulled his attention toward movement, sound, and expression — how the body performs under optimal conditions. A childhood friend who'd become a chiropractor, and encouragement from his then-wife, eventually pointed him toward the field; he went back for the science prerequisites his acting degrees hadn't covered, finished chiropractic school in 2015, and has practiced in Austin ever since.
Key Takeaways
- Dr. Schultz says chiropractors treat one core issue — subluxation, a joint misalignment that restricts movement and places stress on the nervous system — rather than diagnosing and treating specific diseases directly.
- On frequency, he considers once a month a bare minimum, every two weeks a realistic "sweet spot" for most people, and weekly visits appropriate for higher-stress lifestyles (he adjusts himself and his wife weekly).
- "Bird neck" — forward head posture from phone and screen use — can restrict blood flow and airway function and contribute to neck degeneration over time; a mix of adjustments, cervical traction tools, and ergonomic changes can slow or halt it, though full reversal is uncommon.
- New patients go through a history review, physical exam, and X-rays when red flags are present before any adjustment is made, followed by a short-term care plan and then an ongoing maintenance schedule.
- Schultz was careful to note that chiropractic doesn't treat conditions like infertility directly, even while describing patients who reported broader improvements — sleep, allergy symptoms, energy — with consistent care.
What Chiropractors Actually Treat, According to Dr. Schultz
Schultz was direct that chiropractors, in his view, treat one specific thing: subluxation — a misalignment in a joint, most often in the spine, that reduces normal movement in that joint and places stress on the nervous system. Joints send the brain constant information about position, speed, and direction, he explained, and when a joint isn't moving properly, that flow of information — and the signals going back out to muscles, organs, and glands — gets dampened. An adjustment, in his framing, is aimed at restoring adequate motion so the nervous system can do what it's designed to do, rather than treating a specific disease or symptom directly.
On how often that should happen, Schultz said it depends entirely on a patient's goals. Someone who only wants out of pain can get exactly that and nothing more — "I'm here when you need me," he said. But for people interested in optimizing the body more broadly, he generally considers once a month an absolute bare minimum, every two weeks a realistic "sweet spot" for most people given everyday stress and poor posture, and weekly visits appropriate for people under heavier strain. He adjusts himself weekly, he said, and adjusts his wife — who works in technology sales for a large corporation — every week as well, "because she needs it in order to keep functioning."
Mark shared his own experience with the subject: a slipped disc suffered years earlier in a workplace fall left him unable to work for roughly seven months. Conventional treatment didn't resolve it, he said — but a course of chiropractic care did, within about 30 days, and the pain hasn't returned since.
"Health isn't built through intensity. It's built through consistency."
— Dr. Jonathan SchultzForward Head Posture and "Bird Neck": What Screens Are Doing to Your Neck
Much of the conversation centered on what Schultz and Mark both referred to as "bird neck" — the forward head posture that comes from constantly looking down at a phone or screen instead of up. Schultz said the posture change causes a loss of the neck's natural forward curve, which can restrict blood flow and airway function; he pointed to CPR training, where restoring a person's cervical curvature before rescue breathing is what opens the airway, as an illustration of how directly the two are connected. Left unaddressed, he said, the same forward-head pattern can contribute to degenerative changes in the neck, disc bulges, and numbness, tingling, or weakness down into the arms.
Reversing it, Schultz said, generally takes a combination of consistent chiropractic adjustments, mechanical cervical traction, and attention to everyday ergonomics — desk setup, car seat position, and how a patient sleeps. He pointed to a device called the Denny Roll, made by Chiropractic Biomechanics (CBP), as a common traction tool. He was candid that most patients regain some curvature but rarely reach what he'd consider a fully "normal" curve; the more realistic goal, in his experience, is halting further progression rather than fully reversing years of posture. On his own sleep setup, Schultz said he skips pillows altogether in favor of a thin blanket to avoid straining his neck overnight.
What a First Visit at Vital Chiro Wellness Looks Like
Before any adjustment, Schultz said a first visit starts with a conversation: how long a patient has been dealing with an issue, what it's preventing them from doing, and what their actual goals are. That's followed by a physical exam — posture, range of motion, and palpation — and a review of medical history. If a patient has a significant history of trauma, concussions, degenerative spinal changes, disc issues, or neurological symptoms like numbness and tingling, Schultz said he'll order X-rays first to confirm it's structurally safe to proceed. Short-term care tends to involve more frequent visits to help a patient "get over the hump," followed by a conversation about an ongoing maintenance schedule based on the patient's goals.
Schultz described noticing broader changes in patients who stick with care beyond the initial pain-relief phase — improved sleep within three or four weeks being one of the most common, along with reports of fewer allergy symptoms and less brain fog. He was careful to draw a clear line around one example: patients who'd been told they might not conceive later becoming pregnant. "We do not treat infertility," he said plainly. "That is not something that chiropractic does." His explanation was that when the spine and nervous system can regulate the body's function properly, positive changes can follow — not that chiropractic addresses fertility directly.
For people who want a starting point without committing to everything at once, Schultz mentioned a free video series on his website called the Vital Wellness Beginner's Guide — roughly 23 short videos covering nutrition, hydration, sleep, movement, and mindset, plus a video specifically on chiropractic's role, along with separate morning and evening mobility routines he uses himself.
Who This Conversation Is For
If chiropractic has only ever meant an occasional visit when your back seizes up, or you're dealing with the neck and posture strain that comes with hours of phone and screen time, this episode is a plain-language look at how one practicing chiropractor thinks about frequency, posture, and what a genuine wellness practice actually requires — consistency more than intensity, in Schultz's telling.
