Living a Healthy, Stress-Free Life With Acupuncture
All these things can cause stress: driving in the city, the economy, US foreign policy, job-layoffs, divorce, public speaking, and being chased by a hungry lion, among many others. When you are under severe stress, you can’t sleep or eat, your palm sweats, and your heart races. All in all, these are experiences one would rather avoid. However, our response to stress is our body’s normal response to help preserve our lives and was developed over time by our ancient descendants to boost our chances of survival.
These days, there is a very low probability that we will be devoured by a predator. However, the stress most of us now have to cope are due to the consequences of modern day living. Most of us suffer from severe and long term stress. But should stress be really avoided? How much stress is too much? Is stress really a bad thing?
Our Response to Acute Stress
No one should fear stress. Our response to it is only natural as it helps us cope with change. If we are faced with a threat or a challenge, our body sets off a number of chemical reactions causing in us a “flight-or-flight” response. This reaction is triggered by our autonomic nervous system. The “flight-or-flight” response is meant to be a limited response involving the adrenal glands, pituitary gland, and the hypothalamus. These three belong to a group known as the HPA-axis. It is responsible for the excess secretion of two hormones: cortisol (glucocorticoids) and adrenaline (epinephrine).
Cortisol
Cortisol gives us extra energy by helping increase the amount of sugar (glucose) in our bloodstream. The muscles and the brain use glucose as their main source of energy. Cortisol triggers a breakdown of fat and muscle instead of acquiring this sugar from carbohydrates. This hormone redirects temporarily certain processes and immune cells from the blood and into surface tissue to help a person prepare for an impending threat or attack. This type of bodily response leads to a lowering of inflammation and immune functions in the joints and blood.
Adrenaline
When adrenaline enters ours bloodstream, the following physiological reactions occur:
– Heart is increased
– We become less sensitive to pain
– Blood flow is boosted to our musculoskeletal system
– Blood flow to our digestive system and skin is reduced
– Clarity of thinking and alertness is heightened
– Breathing volume is increased
– Our pupils dilate
Like cortisol, adrenaline is meant to increase our chance of survival during an immediate threat.
When the threat goes away, our bodies normally go back to their “untensed” state. The levels of cortisol and adrenaline decrease and revert back to normal levels. Hyper-alertness dissipates allowing us to easily sleep, our inflammation and immune response go back to normal, we can feel hunger once more, and our blood pressure deflates.
With modern day living, most of us, sadly, have lifestyles and jobs that everyday expose us to severe levels of stress. And because, we are unwilling or unable to change these situations, our body has to cope with the stress every day. How can we cope with daily or chronic stress? Humans were not designed to cope with prolonged high amounts of stress. We can suffer from serious and various health problems when we’re plagued with unrelenting and high levels of stress.
The following can arise from prolonged release of adrenaline:
– High blood pressure
– Heart palpitations
– Excess perspiration resulting in neuro-endocrine disorders and dehydration
– Digestive problems
– Insomnia
– Tremors
These health risks, though, usually aren’t long-term since adrenaline rapidly breaks down after about four minutes.
It is the prolonged release of excessive amounts of cortisol from one suffering from chronic stress that one should worry about. Increased amounts of cortisol leads to health consequences such as these:
– Negative effect on the digestive function
– Vasodilation is prevented
– Inflammation is inhibited
– Bone and cartilage formation is suppressed
High levels of cortisol in the body is associated with an increased likelihood of miscarriage, secondary infections due to a compromised immune system, hippocampus damage (this part of the brain controls short-term memory), weight gain, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease.
Over time, our bodies can reach a point where their supply of stress hormones is exhausted or they can become insensitive to these elevated levels. Their response to stress, by this time, is now entirely confused and unregulated. Some researchers believe that this condition is a major contributor to fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome and other modern auto-immune diseases.
Lowering Stress
A lot of people are unable to cope with stress that some of them have resorted to drugs, both the prescription and the recreational kinds, as well as anti-anxiety medication medications and antidepressants. Of course, these are dangerous drugs that cost high and have nasty side-effects prompting many to look for safe solutions elsewhere.
If you are one of those who are seeking an effective and safer way to resolve your stress problem, good news, there is indeed a better alternative to drugs.
In lowering the effects of stress, there are several inexpensive and safe ways to achieve this. The simplest ones are through exercise and diet. Exercise is a very effective way to help lower both blood sugar and cortisol levels. Listening to music, yoga, interacting with your pet, or meditation can all help lower stress. Regulating your intake of sugar and other simple carbohydrates, consuming more vegetables and fruits, eating several small meals rather than two or three big meals, avoiding or limiting your intake of alcohol and caffeine can all help lower your high blood sugar levels which is the main consequence of high cortisol levels.
When simple solutions are not enough, however, acupuncture can be an incredibly powerful tool to regulate the stress response.
Traditional Chinese Medicine for Anxiety and Stress
In Traditional Chinese Medicine or TCM, for short, there exists a strong relationship between the internal organs and the emotions. Worry, anger, joy, fear and other emotions all each have an association with certain organs in the body. Bitterness, resentment, irritation, or anger for example, can cause issues in the liver. While this emotion-organ relationship may seem bizarre to some, TCM practitioners have always known that physical health is very much connected to emotional health.
Acute stress, according to TCM, is seen as fear and as such directly impacts the kidneys. One should be aware that directly on top of the kidneys the adrenal glands are located. Fear, according to TCM, leads to symptoms such as dry mouth, insomnia, and palpitations. If you remember, these are also the symptoms resulting in the release of excessive amounts of adrenaline in the blood.
In TCM, the secretion of excess cortisol and chronic stress is linked with both pensiveness and worry. This would likewise include too much nostalgic thoughts, obsession, brooding, and over-thinking. Practitioners see these emotions as affecting directly the spleen and possibly the heart and lungs, as well causing symptoms such as weight gain, possible heart palpitations, poor appetite, and fatigue.
Besides these main symptoms, sufferers may also be unable to sleep, have panic attacks, or feel burned out or stressed.
For the Relief of Stress, Acupuncture Treatment Is One Of The Best
Most acupuncturists tell their new patients they can never remove stress entirely out of their lives. However, they can modify the way their bodies respond to it. Simply put, these practitioners work on convincing the patient that their life stressors aren’t really the threat they deem it to be. They need to convince the body to stop its worrying and be happy instead.
For the reduction of stress, acupuncture is one of the most ideal treatments you can turn to. During a treatment, most patients will fall asleep on the table and come out of the clinic feeling profoundly relaxed and utterly relieved. How is acupuncture able to do this? This treatment has been well documented to activate the release of hormones that are responsible for the relief of pain. These hormones are known as endorphins and help lower high levels of cortisol associated with stress. Acupuncturists believe that these endorphins alter the autonomic nervous system that lessens the release of cortisol hormone in chronic stress. The higher levels of mood modifying neuropeptides including dopamine, serotonin, and melatonin increase a person’s overall well-being. From the viewpoint of Chinese Medicine, acupuncture can accomplish two things: treat the underlying affected organ system(s) and calm the mind. This leads to a couple of things: an increase in the patient’s resilience to future episodes and an immediate feeling of calm and/or relaxation.
Studies interestingly demonstrate that acupuncture is able to elevate the levels of cortisol as well. How can it do two opposite things? Recent studies indicate that the outcome largely depends on the underlying condition of the patient and what acupuncture points are used during treatment. All in all, it seems that acupuncture produces a “self-regulatory” effect that can increase the levels of nor-epinephrine and cortisol during times of exhaustion and reduce excess cortisol levels during moments of high stress.
Emotional Disorders and Acupuncture
In this article, we have seen in Traditional Chinese Medicine that there exists a link between emotional and physical health. This implies that acupuncture can be a very effective treatment for more serious emotional problems such as addiction, panic disorders, anxiety, and depression and not simply a means to alleviate stress. A lot of these conditions are the result of imbalances of serotonin, melatonin, dopamine, and other neurotransmitters. Emotions and neuropeptides have an interrelationship that is quite complex. For example, excessive amounts of dopamine can cause psychosis while a lack of dopamine can lead to Parkinson’s disease. No positive change will occur by simply modifying these amounts to “normal” levels. Western conventional medicine has only a basic knowledge of these processes. This is why a large list of side-effects is carried by selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and other current drugs for the treatment of depression. The Harvard Mental Health Letter in its 2005 issue listed SSRI side-effects that may occur from its use: clotting problems, excessive hemorrhage, low sex drive, digestive problems, joint pain, rashes, insomnia, and a higher risk of suicidal behavior among teens.
Acupuncture has a “regulatory” effect on these substances as demonstrated with its effect on cortisol. This is shown in the successful use of the treatment for both psychosis and Parkinson’s disease. The treatment regulates the levels of dopamine in the blood.
Acupuncture’s real beauty in treating a lot of mental disorders is its normalizing effect. It is devoid of the toxic side-effects and the risks commonly associated Western conventional medications since the aim of the treatment anyway is to restore balance in the body.
The link between these neurotransmitters and acupuncture is an efficient way to understand how acupuncture works. Nevertheless, no one should fall into the assumption that the success of acupuncture is only because of this reason. Internally, vital energy known as chi or qi is circulating throughout the body, according to TCM. Acupuncturists use filamentous acupuncture needles to normalize this circulation and help the body heal itself. We do understand the effect qi has on our health even if we don’t necessarily have to quantify or see it. Because of this, we are able to correct its flow or manipulate it in a desired manner to maximize the health of our patients.
If You Want A Powerful Weapon to Overcome Stress, Then You Need To Try Acupuncture
These are very interesting times we are living in. Our government has managed to destroy our economy leaving tens of millions of Americans unemployed and it is waging wars on peaceful countries left and right for the sake of one insignificant and belligerent entity in the Mideast. We hope to get our jobs back and send our troops back home where they can be used for constructive purposes instead of killing innocent brown-skinned people. We struggle with so many potential health risks related with chronic stress. To survive, we need to be proactive in finding ways to rise above the chaos. We can begin this process with acupuncture as it’s a great way to do so.
Zuobiao (Roy) Yuan is a licensed acupuncturist and doctor of chinese medicine in Edina, MN.