Why one question might help your anxiety
Acupuncture is an ancient practice that has shown over the years that it´s hugely effective as an alternative treatment for anxiety. Now, I´m not a huge fan of the word alternative. I personally believe that the fact that Chinese medicine is called alternative medicine is one of the reasons why so many people are still unaware of the medicine, and the power in it. I´m a strong believer that Chinese medicine shouldn’t be an alternative medicine. It should be complementary medicine, working in a fusion with western medicine.
Anyhow. According to the Swedish public health authority, around 40 percent of the people in Sweden between ages of 16-84 are living with some kind of worry and anxiety, affecting their mental health. The majority of these people being women. That´s a lot of people. Almost half the population. That’s a heart-breaking truth.
One powerful question
When people come to me for acupuncture treatments, it´s more or less always related to emotional stress, which backs up what Chinese medicine says about most illnesses being caused by our emotions. Either the person come to me because that person is feeling stressed, or the person want help with a problem that in turn make the person experience stress. So basically, almost all of my treatments have some relation to stress.
In Chinese medicine, there´s not one way to treat any condition, because stress, as other conditions, have roots from different causes for different people. It can be related to pain, sickness or different kinds of emotions related to past events, or worry about the future. However, what they all have in common is that stress is causing discomfort – physically, emotionally or spiritually. And this is where my job as an acupuncturist can help them sort of out where in the body the anxiety, worry (i.e. stress) is living, by asking the following question:
How do you know it´s anxiety?
It´s a powerful question. How do you know you have anxiety? If the word anxiety wouldn’t exist, how would you explain how you feel? Sadness? Pressure over your chest? Heart palpitations? Stomach ache?
When I ask that question, something happens with the person in front of me. Because it makes you feel where the anxiety lives, and what symptoms it creates. Sometimes the answer is the belly. Mostly it’s centered around the chest area. And it may feel like pressure, or pain, which are signs I can make use of according diagnostic tools of Chinese medicine. Do I need to clear heat? Remove obstruction in some channels (meridians)? Ease and remove headache? It all depends on what the individual in front of me is describing, in relation to what I see in diagnosis of the tongue, pulse, etc.
And all of the sudden, together with the person in front of me, I can start the detective work of nailing down the nature of the anxiety, where in the body the anxiety lives, what it does to the energetic systems in the body, and how it present itself. And that, in a combination with other diagnostic tools of Chinese medicine, help me choose the right treatment plan.
How acupuncture can help
I don’t think it’s necessary for me to present studies on acupuncture and anxiety just to convince someone to give it a try. Just google acupuncture + anxiety and you´ll have reading to do for a long time with extensive case reports from different countries. (Here’s one study made at Sahlgrenska akademin in Göteborg, about acupuncture in a combination with talk therapy.)
What I do want to say is that acupuncture helps in many ways, for example by regulating the nervous system, which improves the body´s ability to cope with stress. And it does so by regulating the qi (energy) of the organs. It also keeps you drug free since it’s a natural way of regulating the imbalances of the body. It’s important to understand though, that the symptoms will gradually get better, so sometimes patience is needed when it comes to Chinese medicine. It´s a slow medicine, that creates changes over time, by regulating the body’s innate ability to self-regulate.
Want to try acupuncture for anxiety? Ask around in your community
If you are curious about how acupuncture can help you, ask around in your community if anyone knows a good acupuncturist trained in Chinese medicine. If you’re in the Stockholm area, or in Maldives, that’s where I practice and see clients, so feel free to contact me for a consultation.