Acupuncture Therapy for Stress, Anxiety, Grief, PTSAcupuncture Therapy for Stress, Anxiety, Grief, PTS

Stressors come in many forms in our modern society, how we are impacted by them can greatly affect our health.

Healthy stressors such as physical exercise, learning new things both physically and mentally, when done in a balanced way, keep us alert and motivated, and support our body’s strength and vitality.

Unhealthy stressors such as overexertion, poor eating habits, lack of sleep, negative thinking, pollutants and toxins, all challenge the balances in the body and overtime cause decline in the body’s health and wellbeing.

Fight or Flight

Our fight or flight response causes our nervous system to move into the sympathetic mode instructing the body to

  • Direct blood flow away from digestion and directing towards the muscles,
  • Slows movement of food through the digestive tract, and
  • Releases adrenaline to increase strength and speed and
  • Heightened alertness of the brain

Chronic stress can show in the body in a number of ways; anxiety, depression, headache, stomach troubles, lack of sleep, back and neck pain, difficulty concentrating. The body react to stress with panic attacks, varicose veins, cardiovascular diseases, hemorrhoids and hypertension.

Unfortunately aspects of modern day life such as primetime news, road rage, terrorism talk, long work weeks, the frenzy of getting everything done, the pressure to do it right and meet everyone’s including self’s expectations, and financial concerns, can trigger this fight and flight response. These aspects of modern life are ongoing not short term, so now there is potential for aspects of the fight and flight system to be engaged long term thus depleting and damaging the body.

Acupuncture therapy and Chinese medicine assist the body in disengaging the sympathetic mode and allowing the parasympathetic system to regain command. When the parasympathetic system is in command, normal functioning of the body is restored, food is digested properly and repairs are made helping to control inflammation.

It is in the parasympathetic mode that the brain is able to appropriately manage and lessen the dominating intensity of emotions and responses like anxiety, nervousness, depression, irritability, grief, PTS. These emotions and responses are a natural part of the human experience it is when their level of intensity is dominating one’s well-being that an issue arises.

The beauty of acupuncture therapy is it’s simplicity in moving the brain, our nervous system, and our physical body into a state of relaxation, calmness and a sense of well-being without side effects.

If you are suffering from unmanageable stress visit our acupuncture clinic in either Boulder or Nederland to see if acupuncture can help.