How acupuncture can treat emotional disorders

Stress, anxiety and emotional disorders can manifest themselves in your body when it is confronted with more than it can handle, be it physical, emotional or mental. It’s no surprise given today’s daily stressors. Acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine can help you rebalance emotionally and improve your physical health.

Prolonged stress keeps your body and mind running in overdrive, negatively affecting your long-term health. It may, for example, narrow blood vessels causing raised blood pressure, and even cause angina or a heart attack. It can also attribute to food disorders by provoking over or under-eating, resulting in obesity or severe loss of weight. Chronic stress is known to cause migraine, hair loss, asthma, impotence, etc.

Causes of stress and anxiety

In terms of TCM, stress is linked with the function of the liver and kidney systems. One of the main physiological functions of the liver is to regulate mind and mood. When stress affects the liver, it is unable to perform this function well, and the human body will fail to coordinate its mental and moral activities.

This may be evident in dullness and anxiety depression, belching or sighing. In extreme cases, symptoms may occur such as restlessness of the mind, irascibility, dizziness and sensations of distension in the head, headache, insomnia and dream disturbed sleep.

Managing stress through acupuncture

Acupuncture is one of the most effective alternative therapies for stress available. It’s not simply about having needles stuck into your body. It’s the positioning of those needles which is crucial. These fine needles help to stimulate the body’s own healing response and can relieve many stress-related problems almost immediately.

Emotional issues such as anxiety, stress, depression and insomnia affect our ability to function and enjoy our lives. Research shows a combination of acupuncture and herbal medicine can have a positive effect on these problems as it stimulates the body’s natural feel-good hormones and reduces the level of stress hormones like cortisol. Get in touch and let us help you restore balance.

Treatment aftercare for managing anxiety

Acupuncture relies on stimulating specific points in the body, most often with needles, to improve health and well-being. So how do you maintain those feel-good results in between sessions? Here are some suggestions:

1. Pay attention to your diet: What you eat plays a key role in maintaining the effects of acupuncture. Make sure to keep hydrated with warm drinks and have a balanced diet.
   
2. Get moving: Movement is therapy, especially in this day of age of working from home. Techniques like yoga, taichi and qigong can help you maintain balance in your body. You can find relevant videos on YouTube to walk you through a stress-reducing practice. It only takes a few minutes to stretch your whole body between tasks.
   
3. Breathe deeply: Try different breathing exercises which will help to reduce stress. An example would be a four-breath cycle per minute to slow your breathing and reset your nervous system: inhale for seven seconds, pause, and then exhale for seven seconds.

Managing stress through TCM

Chinese herbs can play a fundamental role in any stress management program. When used within the context of a program that addresses a range of factors, herbs can facilitate a dramatic change in the quality of life experienced by anyone under stress. Some herbs can disperse the liver which is suitable for emotional anger and depression. Others can nourish the kidney and calm the liver Yang which is suitable for tiredness and dizziness.

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