Emotional and mental health

Acupuncture for stress

Stressful situations that last over a long period of time can create an ongoing low-level stress. Over an extended period of time may wear out the body’s reserves. This probably leads to:

• continual pressure on the nervous system; the overproduction of hormones;
• fatigue, depression;
• a weakened immune system;
• a host of serious physical and psychological ailments.

Acupuncture is an excellent treatment for stress and stress-related conditions:

• high blood pressure
• chronic pain: headaches, migraines, back pain
• depression
• insomnia
• irritable bowel syndrome
• menopausal symptoms
• premenstrual syndrome
• urinary incontinence

Acupuncture for anxiety

Anxiety – Acupuncture for anxiety can reduce physical such as:

• tightness in the chest
• increased heart rate and perspiration
• difficulty in breathing
• digestive disturbance
• musculo-skeletal tightness
• headache and insomnia

Acupuncture can also reduce the mental/emotional symptoms and instill a feeling of calm and peace.

Patients using anti-anxiety medications may be able to reduce their dosage while achieving greater effectiveness.

Acupuncture for depression

It is estimated that approximately one in five people will experience clinical depression at least once in their lifetime. Although it is natural to feel sad and down at times, especially after experiencing loss, these slight effects can be managed with gradual lifestyle adjustments.

Clinical depression, however, refers to a long-lasting and intense emotional, physical and cognitive state that greatly affects day-today life. Symptoms include:

• Loss of positive associations and sense of achievement (lack of interest in normally pleasurable activities)
• Negative thoughts (often worrying about the future)
• Irritability, agitation and exhaustion
• Changes in sleeping patterns (too much or too little)
• Hopelessness (feeling trapped or suicidal)

Acupuncture can be used for both acute and chronic depression. It is a powerful treatment for:

• physical pain which can be a cause or manifestation of depression
• poor sleep and reduced appetite
• relieving the emotional sensation of depression possible reduction of dosage or increase of effectiveness of anti-depressant medications

Acupuncture for insomnia

In Chinese medicine there are a number of types of insomnia, including:

• Sleep onset or difficulty going to sleep
• Middle of the night, or waking and unable to go back to sleep right away
• Terminal or late insomnia, or waking in the very early morning and cannot return to sleep again
• Sleep with vivid and disruptive dreaming Inability to sleep, in general.

Each of these particular types of insomnia indicates a unique energy imbalance in Chinese medicine unlike any of the others. No one type of insomnia will ever be treated in exactly the same way during acupuncture, each is related to a particular imbalance.

Your acupuncturist will narrow down the type of insomnia by asking you about whether you have difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep or both; how you feel when awake at night: tossing and turning, obsessively thinking, just lying there with eyes open; behaviours during the day and particularly in the hours before bedtime.