Stressed this Holiday Season? Try Acupuncture!
It’s that time of the year, again... You know the one - where you’re already expecting to feel more stressed out than you may usually feel, when you’re preparing to deal with gastric upset/indigestion or unexpected weight gain, and/or when you feel more overwhelm or negative emotions that may have been suppressed throughout the year. As you’re preparing for the often stressful holiday season, remember that acupuncture & Chinese medicine are effective, natural tools that can help you navigate and prepare for these difficulties!
One of the things acupuncture is most helpful for, among many, many things, is stress and anxiety! Patients usually start coming in for treatments because of an ailment or pain point, and most find a bonus “side effect” of these treatments to be stress relief. I’ve heard countless times that patients look forward to their “acu-nap” they often get to indulge in during acupuncture treatments, or just the “light”, warm and fuzzy feeling they have as they’re leaving their appointment. Acupuncture sessions tend to remove a person from their busy lives and enable patients to have 30-minutes to an hour to connect with themselves, to allow their bodies to naturally heal themselves, both physically and mentally. In doing so, many are able to process the emotions and thoughts that they may have pushed aside in their daily lives while acupuncture is chemically regulating their nervous system - naturally!
There are many ways to describe how acupuncture works, and one of them is that acupuncture activates the parasympathetic nervous system, which is the “rest and digest” function of the body, as opposed to its counterpart, the sympathetic nervous system, which is in charge of “fight, flight, or freeze” functions in the body. The sympathetic nervous system evolved as a necessary tool for primal humans to be able to shut off blood flow and digestive functions in favor of the more immediate need to send blood to extremities and brain so that we could more effectively chase our prey and/or run from our predators. The problem with this in our modern culture is that the sympathetic nervous system is often stuck in “overdrive” due to the needs and stressors of our daily lives, with limited activation of our parasympathetic nervous system that is supposed to balance out the “fight, flight, or freeze” state we often find ourselves in. I often needle points around the ear, which even the Veterans Association agrees with and is the reason behind implementing easier ways for our nation’s veterans to be able to access acupuncture, helps negate negative emotions. Patients often leave our treatments with ear seeds that they can use and press on outside of acupuncture sessions to help activate those same points through the science of acupressure whenever they need it. Another way to look at how acupuncture induces stress relief is the fact that endorphins (your body’s natural pain killers and “happy chemicals”) are released with needle insertions. The release of endorphins helps your body feel better, which helps your mind feel better, too.
Acupuncture can also help prepare your body for any gastrointestinal upset and/or indigestion that may arise as you encounter foods you might not usually have, or are allergic or sensitive to. Much like how we’ve just described how acupuncture regulates your parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems to help with anxiety and stress, this also helps with regulating digestive processes. There is a huge connection between the health of your digestion and your emotions, known as the gut-brain-axis, with a growing body of evidence that stress exacerbates, if not can alone cause, GI upset, but that will have to be another post. Acupuncture also has been shown time and time again to reduce inflammation, which not only helps with pain and musculoskeletal conditions, but also with gastrointestinal upset such as Crohn’s Disease and ulcerative colitis (IBD aka Inflammatory Bowel Disease). The tiny, fine acupuncture needles can also help stimulate normal digestive motility which helps promote the contractions and relaxation of digestive muscles we rely on for optimal digestion to help with issues like IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome). One of my most used (and now requested!) protocols involve inserting four small acupuncture needles around the belly that happen to correspond with the anatomical digestive system. These regular treatments have helped one of my patients who’s been struggling with acid reflux to not have any of those episodes anymore, as well as another patient who has chronic digestive issues to report a significant improvement in not only her gastrointestinal issues, but also massive improvements in her bladder function.
If you have any questions about how acupuncture & Chinese medicine can help you with your specific, individualized issues, make an appointment or a free 15-minute consultation today with one of our experienced acupuncturists!