Chinese Medicine Archives - Page 5 of 7

Depression, Lack of Motivation, and Chinese Medicine

Last week I was at a networking event of CAM healers in the Minneapolis area, where I met a number of practitioners working with really interesting therapies. During one conversation, I was asked what kinds of conditions I treated most frequently. Hmmm…good question.

Actually, my answer was pretty simple and straight forward: Lately I seem to be seeing a lot of working women (and some men) who are dealing with depression, anxiety, and stress. One of the reasons why so many people are struggling emotionally is our current economy. While things seem to be getting a little better recently , I still see many people who are stuck in jobs they dislike (okay, hate) because they feel like any job is a good one right now. Many are working in positions where their co-workers have been laid off and not replaced. As a result, they are doing more work in the same amount of time for the same amount of pay. Under those conditions, who wouldn’t be depressed?

While depression is associated with a whole host of symptoms, one of the most life-altering is the lack of motivation and fatigue that some people experience. I have worked with a number of patients who experience this kind of sluggish depression in which they struggle to do anything during the course of the day. For some, just getting out of bed each morning or going to work is a challenge.

Why does this happen? In Chinese medicine, there are a number of answers. The simplest is that depression is considered a blockage–clearly something in the emotional realm is not moving smoothly. Over time any kind of blockage wipes you out–it literally depletes your energy–and you feel exhausted. Energetically, depression is like physical pain in that if it isn’t resolved, it takes all of your resources just to deal with it. This tires you out.

On a deeper level, depression is considered constrained Liver energy, or Qi. Your Chinese Liver is the organ system that regulates the smooth flow of all your body’s functions–physical and emotional. When the realities of your life are not what you want, it causes stagnation of your Liver Qi. Furthermore, each organ system in Chinese medicine has an emotional component, and the emotion most closely associated with your Liver is anger. It is frequently said that anger turned inward becomes depression.

So how do you explain the sluggishness sometimes associated with the depression/Liver Qi stagnation? Well, one of the first casualties of Liver constraint is that it heads right on over to your digestive system and shuts things down. Like an emotional upset that causes you to lose your appetite, depression messes with your digestion in slo mo. You will know that this is happening if you have symptoms like crazy cravings for sweets, weight gain around the middle, and absolutely no energy. The problem here is that your energy comes from eating good, healthy food, but also from digesting it well. When your digestive system is closed for business, you have no way of producing more energy, hence the feeling of exhaustion.

And there’s more. Your Chinese Liver is paired with the Gallbladder, which has a number of functions. However, it’s the emotional aspect of the Gallbladder that’s pertinent here. The emotion associated with your Gallbladder is something called courage. What we call courage may be the fearlessness that comes to mind for most. However, in this context, courage is also the ability to make a decision or a plan, move forward decisively, and follow it through to completion. Therefore, the inability to decide, act, or the lack of motivation to act is associated with a weakness of the Gallbladder system.

As an acupuncturist, the path to healing this chronic, sluggish, no-motivation depression is complicated. It involves soothing your Liver, strengthening digestion, rebuilding energy, calming your emotions, and addressing Gallbladder issues. This sounds like a lot, but through acupuncture, the use of Chinese medicinal herbs, diet, and some lifestyle modifications, many patients who are struggling with this kind of depression find relief from their symptoms.

Chinese Medicine and Self Care for Seasonal Allergies

During certain times of the year, I see an increase in patients who are suffering from similar conditions. In the late fall, I tend to see more patients who are struggling with seasonal depression, and around the holidays I see an increase of patients coming to acupuncture to be treated for stress. I also see a bump in patients with seasonal allergies in May and again in late August/early September. However, this year spring has sprung early, and throughout April, I have seen a spike in people suffering from seasonal allergies—a month early!

In Chinese medicine, allergies (along with viruses and bacteria) are considered external pathogens, or invaders from the outside that can make you sick. You have a defense system against these invaders, called Wei Qi, which guards the exterior of your body like a protective bubble or shield. When your Wei Qi is weak, all kinds of pathogens can get past your defenses and cause colds, flu, and allergies.

The solution to dealing with allergies is two-fold. You need to strengthen your Wei Qi and deal with the pathogens (in this case, allergens) that are causing your symptoms. Strengthening your Wei Qi, and your energy in general, is important in relieving your allergies in the long run. This can be done by eating really well: whole foods in their original form, lots of vegetables and fruits, avoiding sugar and sweeteners, and staying clear of saturated fats. In addition, you may need to avoid foods that are hard to digest, such as concentrated juices, rich foods, and in some cases dairy products.

Acupuncture and Chinese medicine can be an effective way to deal with allergies on a fundamental level, too. A good practitioner will combine acupuncture, Chinese herbs, food therapy, and some lifestyle tweaks to help boost Wei Qi and alleviate your current symptoms. The best way to do this is to work with your acupuncturist before your allergies act up, if possible. In doing so, you can face the assault of allergy season with a stronger defense system.

The second part of dealing with seasonal allergies is minimizing your symptoms by dealing with what’s causing them. In this case, it’s pollen, which to susceptible people is like a toxic dust that settles on clothes, hair, carpet, and even pets. A few simple tips for getting the p word out of your life include:

-Shower in the evening to get the day’s pollen off your skin and out of your hair.

-Realize that during allergy season, the wind is not your friend. Close your windows when it’s blowing.

-Wash your hands after handling a pet that’s been outside.

-Change your clothes after you’ve been working or exercising outdoors.

-Get a Neti Pot and use it. It’s a small pot to help you cleanse your nasal passages of all that pollen, and can be found at most drug stores.

-Think about buying a really good vacuum, as pollen is extremely fine and will settle on your floors. Dusting is a good thing, too.

Acupuncture for Hot Flashes and Night Sweats

Not long ago, I sent my sister a care package. It wasn’t packed with brownies and cookies and other goodies to eat. Her care package had only one thing; a Chinese herbal formula to treat the night sweats that are waking her several times every night.

How you experience menopause is different from every other woman. Your family history, physical and psychological makeup and overall health all play a role in whether or not you will have menopause symptoms or sail right through unaffected. Your views of aging and menopause, and those of the people around you, may also shape your experience. Over the past 50 years, with the availability of hormone replacement therapies, women have had the option of treating the discomforts associated with menopause medically. The upshot of this practice is that menopause if viewed by some as a disease or hormone deficiency, with hormone supplementation required to reestablish a healthy balance.

Practitioners of Traditional Chinese Medicine offer another paradigm in which to consider the experience of menopause. They understand that signs and symptoms associated with menopause are indications of some kind of imbalance deep within the body. In general, imbalances are years in the making, and physiological events, such as adolescence, childbirth, or menopause, magnify the imbalance and result in symptoms. With menopause, underlying imbalances can certainly affect your symptoms.

So what’s out of balance if you’re struggling with hot flashes and/or night sweats? Well, it could be a couple of things. First, your Essence could be depleted. Essence is one of the most important substances in your body and provides you with the energy you need to power all the functions of life. As you age, Essence slowly becomes depleted. This depletion causes many of the common signs of aging, such as gray hair, thinning bones, weakness in your back and knees, memory loss, and fatigue.

Depleted Essence can also cause menopause symtoms, too; here’s how: Essence is similar to estrogen, in that Essence is responsible for puberty, fertility, libido, and menopause. During menopause, Essence drops dramatically, and this loss can create an imbalance that is associated with a wide variety of symptoms. A common problem is that when Essence is depleted, it may lose the ability to keep Yang in check. Yang is the active and warming energy in your body, and when it flares unchecked, you may feel that warmth in the form of hot flashes or night sweats.

Another common scenario for women who are struggling with menopausal heat is an imbalance between Yin and Yang. If Yang is hot and active, Yin is the opposite; cooling and rejuvenating. In many ways, Yin is similar to Essence in that it is restorative and nourishing. During menopause, Yin also tends to drop, causing Yang to flare up and make you feel hot. The heat associated with this drop in Yin is frequently felt at night, which is the cool, restorative, and quite time of day–just like Yin. Against the backdrop of night, the active heat of Yang is more pronounced, resulting in night sweats.

It’s important to mention that stress can aggravate your heat symptoms. That’s because strong emotions, especially stress, have the ability to make your energy stagnate. Similar to a car engine seizing up without oil, your stress, anger, or frustration creates heat.

An untreated depletion of Essence or an imbalance between Yin and Yang will ultimately cause symptoms. So what can you do? First, you can protect your Essence through good diet, sleep, and balancing your work with rest. An over-the-top lifestyle, such as working long hours, late nights, and too much sex, drugs, and rock and roll will, in time, deplete your Essence.

You can also address depleted Essence or a Yin/Yang imbalance through acupuncture and Chinese medicine. After a complete evaluation, you acupuncturist will develop a treatment plan to address your specific imbalance(s). She can incorporate the use of acupuncture with herbs, diet, stress relief, and lifestyle changes to balance your body and alleviate your symptoms to help you sail through menopause in a natural and drug-free way.

Choosing Safe Cosmetics

We all want to be as healthy as possible. Most of us try to choose foods that are wholesome, fresh, organic, and when possible, local. We try to move our body, deal with stress, and get enough sleep. There is another area of daily self-care, however, that can also affect your health; and that is your choice of skin care products.

Part of the problem is that the many of the ingredients in cosmetics and skin care products aren’t regulated by any agency. Manufacturers must list their ingredients, but for the most part, anything goes. In addition, many creams and lotions have added ingredients to enhance their absorption deeper into your skin and ultimately into your bloodstream. If you’re thinking that these chemicals are harmless because they’re only going on the surface of your skin, think again.

These are products that you use frequently and in abundance. The average woman uses about twenty products with about 200 ingredients–not just once in awhile, but every day.

If you’re not convinced, think about this: All the chemicals from soaps, shampoos, etc. are being washed down the drain and into our rivers, streams, and drinking water. In a study conducted by the EPA and Baylor University in Texas, researchers found that chemicals used in fragrences and cleaning products are polluting our waterways. They found that the chemicals not only make their way into the water, but also into the tissues of fish living in those rivers and streams.

In Chinese medicine, your Lung organ system protects the exterior of your body, especially your skin. As the guard of your exterior, your Lungs also control your immunity. Immunity is seen as a kind of protective bubble surrounding your body. When you put toxic ingredients on your skin, you’re weakening your protective bubble, negatively impacting your health, and compromising your immune system.

What chemicals exactly are a problem? There are many. Here’s a short list of some of the most common or most toxic:

Parabens, which are used as a preservative, are a concern because they’re considered to be hormone disruptors. That means that they can mimic estrogen or interfere with your body’s natural hormone and reproductive processes. If you check labels, you’ll find they’re in almost everything.

Mineral Oil, paraffin, and petrolatum. These bad boys are basically petroleum products that coat your skin like plastic, clog your pores, and create a toxic buildup. They can slow cellular development, actually creating earlier signs of aging–and who needs that? They are also considered hormone disruptors.

Sodium laurel sulfate (SLS), also known as sodium laureth slufate (SLES). SLS is found in over 90 percent of personal care products! It breaks down your skin’s moisture barrier, dries your skin out, and causes premature aging and skin irritations. SLS is also a prime offender because it easily penetrates your skin’s surface allowing other chemicals easy access, and can combine with other chemicals to become a nitrosamine, which is a known carcinogen.

Fragrence on the label of your moisturizer is seemingly harmless. However, the term “fragrence” is a red flag, because manufacturers aren’t required to label what’s in it. All kinds of chemicals can be hiding behind the fragrence door, one of the most frequent is phthalates, which are endocrine disruptors. Fragrences made from essential oils are okay.

So what can you do to clean up your skin are act? The most obvious answer is to become a label reader. However this can be a problem that’s apparent if you’ve ever looked at the label of your favorite moisturizer. There are alot of ingredients; some are unpronounceable, most are unfamiliar.

One simple solution is to go to the website for the Environmental Working Group and see how your products rate. This is the website sponsored by the Environmental Working Group, which scores thousands of personal care products. A score of a perfect zero means your eye cream is clean; if it rates a 7-10, then the ingredients are considered hazardous and you may want to consider throwing it out.

You can also buy personal care products that have very few ingredients, shop at your local co-op, or other natural foods store. Most have a good selection of effective and chemically clean shampoos, soaps, lotions, moisturizers, etc.

Also, by choosing clean, less toxic skin care products, you’re sending a message to the manufacturers of these items with your wallet. These companies will stop using harmful chemicals in their products if fewer people buy them.

What Your Symptoms Mean to an Acupuncturist

If you visit an acupuncturist for a specific symptom, you might be surprised to be asked all kinds of questions that seem to have absolutely nothing to do with what brought you in. In fact, you may become impatient as your practitioner asks you about your digestion when you’re there to be treated for acne. What’s going on?

For your acupuncturist to arrive at an accurate diagnosis, he or she must have a complete picture of your internal makeup. Your symptom is simply a manifestation of an imbalance, and to treat it correctly, your practitioner will put that symptom into the context of a pattern in order to treat the source of your problem.

It is interesting that a single symptom can be a manifestation of very different patterns in different people. For example, three people may come to Acupuncture in the Park wanting to be treated for insomnia. The first, a busy executive, explains that he has difficulty falling asleep because his mind is racing when he goes to bed. He shares that he frequently feels stressed by his job, and when he gets home, he’s irritable with his family. He says he feels thirsty, and his face appears red. This man would be diagnosed with a pattern called a stagnation of Liver energy, which is causing heat and restlessness and making it hard for him to fall asleep.

The second person to be treated for insomnia is a smallish woman who is about fifty years old. She reports that while she can fall asleep at night, she wakes about 3:00 a.m. with night sweats and has difficulty getting back to sleep. She also complains that she has a chronic dull ache in her lower back and that her knees feel weak. Her face is pale, but her cheeks are red. This woman’s insomnia is due to a pattern of depleted Kidney Yin.

The third person with insomnia is a woman in her thirties who had surgery about six months ago for appendicitis. She complains that her sleep is restless all night long, and she wakes frequently. She also has heart palpitations, occasional dizziness, dry skin and brittle nails. Her face looks pale and drawn. This woman’s sleep problem is caused by a depletion of blood.

All three of these people would be diagnosed with insomnia in Western biomedicine, and would most likely be prescribed a sleep aid. However, in the Chinese medical model, the only thing these three people have in common is that their imbalance is manifesting as insomnia. For each, the underlying cause of their insomnia is different from the others, and each would be treated with acupuncture and herbal prescriptions unique to their particular imbalance.

Why Your Acupuncturist Feels Your Pulse

If you’ve ever been to an acupuncture clinic, chances are your acupuncturist felt the pulse on your wrist as part of their exam. In Western medicine, your doctor or nurse feels your pulse to determine it’s rate. However, in Chinese medicine, pulse diagnosis is far more complicated.

In Chinese medicine, the quality of your pulse can offer your acupuncturist a great deal of information about the strength of your energy. Taking your pulse is complicated because there are almost thirty different kinds of pulses–many of which are really hard to distinguish from one another. In addition, different positions on your wrist, and the difference between left and right indicate the status of specific organs in Chinese medicine.

Despite being really, really complicated, here are a few simple guidelines that can offer some insight as to what your practitioner is looking for when taking your pulse. Among them:

Rate. As mentioned above, when you go to your doctor’s office, they take your pulse to measure the beats per minute, or pulse rate. This is also the case in Chinese medicine, but your pulse rate is usually measured in relation to your rate of breathing. In general, a normal pulse rate is four to five beats per breath (inhalation and exhalation). A pulse that’s markedly faster usually indicates some kind of heat in your body. A pulse that’s slower indicates a cold condition, or an abundance of a cold pathogen, like dampness or phlegm.

Depth. Have you ever tried to feel someone’s pulse and had a hard time finding it? Chances are you were struggling because that person had a deep pulse. The level at which your pulse is felt offers some important clues as to the location and nature of your imbalance and symptoms. A pulse that is felt deeply–meaning that you have to apply pressure to feel it–indicates that the cause of your symptoms are deep in your body, and your organs are probably affected.

When your pulse is easily felt without using much pressure, and it disappears when more pressure is applied, then your pulse is considered to be floating, or right on the surface. This means that any pattern affecting you is very exterior in nature–such as a cold or the flu. The next time someone you know gets the flu, ask to feel his or her pulse; it will likely be floating.

Force. The nature of your energy, or Qi, can be determined by the force of your pulse. A pulse that feels weak or forceless is a common indicator of a Qi or Blood depletion. A soggy pulse is one which is felt easily but feels spread out and soft. It may also indicate a Qi or Blood depletion, or, in many cases, dampness (poor water metabolism). An extremely thin or fine pulse also points to a depletion.

In contrast, a full, lively pulse that’s felt easily indicates a healthy abundance of energy. It’s possible, however, to have too much of a good thing. A pulse that feels wiry or extremely tight, like a guitar string, is common in someone who’s experiencing severe pain or someone who is under a lot of stress or has had an emotional upset.

Greater Than the Sum of Its Parts. With a pulse diagnosis, it’s the combination of factors that reveals the most information. An acupuncturist will take into account the rate, depth, quality, and differences among the various positions in reaching any conclusions from your pulse. Chinese pulse diagnosis is a subtle art; it takes years of experience for a practitioner to become proficient. While there are infinite pulse variations, which can make interpreting the nuances of your pulse very difficult, pulse diagnosis is an important component of an accurate diagnosis.

A Comparison Between Chinese and Western Medicine

One of the first things I learned as I began studying Chinese medicine was that I should not try to think of Chinese medicine in Western terms, and for good reason. Both systems of healing have their benefits and drawbacks, but they are otherwise nothing alike.

Western medicine is based on scientific study, and is a century or two old. It is generally best for the treatment of acute conditions, and uses drugs or surgery as the first line of defense against disease. Western medicine treats symptoms very well, but in many cases does not cure the illness. If the symptoms of an illness go away after a Western treatment, it is often a temporary fix, or other symptoms will arise at some future point.

For example, the use of antidepressant medications has increased dramatically over the past several decades and can be effective in reducing the symptoms of depression. However, the patients I have seen at Acupuncture in the Park who take these drugs generally don’t like the side effects and want to stop taking these medications. Unfortunately, they find that their depression returns when they decrease their dosage or stop taking the medication altogether. For them, it seems to be a tradeoff between being depressed or having unwanted drug side effects. To me, this is not a cure.

Chinese medicine is based on observation, and is three to five thousand years old. It tends to be a better choice in treating some chronic illnesses, using a variety of healing techniques. It treats the underlying cause of an illness, and in doing so also treats the symptoms. In addition, Chinese medicine treats the whole person, taking into account not only the physical aspects of a patient, but also the emotional and spiritual.

Treatments in the Western medical model usually work very quickly, but either tend to have side effects from prescription drugs or problems resulting from surgery. In contrast, Chinese medical treatments tend not to have any side effects and are generally considered to be safe. The downside of Chinese medicine is that because it balances the body to promote self-healing, it can take time to be effective.

One of the most frequent questions we get from patients is when to use acupuncture and Chinese medicine, and when to go the Western route. The bottom line is that there is a time and a place for both Chinese and Western medicine. In addition, the two systems, while completely unlike each other, are not mutually exclusive. They can work as complementary systems of healing, which means that they can work well together, depending on the circumstances. Sometimes Western medicine may be a better choice for care, and at other times Chinese medicine will be more appropriate and effective.

Why You Crave Sweets

You’ve just finished a great meal, and you’re really full. But you push your plate back and your next thought is, “What’s for dessert?” No matter how stuffed you are after a meal, there always seems to be a little room for something sweet. What’s with that?

According to Chinese medicine, there’s a logical explanation for your sweet tooth, and it has to do with the workings of the Spleen organ system. In Chinese theory, each organ has a physical place in the body, but it also has an energetic component, and the functions of an organ can be physical, emotional, or symbolic. Each of the Chinese organs are also related to a specific element (fire, water, etc.), season, color, emotion and taste.

So back to the Chinese Spleen. Your Spleen is considered the organ system that governs digestion. It’s responsible for taking food in, digesting it, and then turning it into energy, blood, and nutrients. The taste related to the Spleen is sweet. This means that a little bit of sweet food is nourishing to your Spleen (i.e. good for your digestion). However, too much sweet food can be damaging.

What does that mean? In ancient China, where these theories originated, foods that were considered sweet included fruits, dates, root vegetables, and some grains. Today, sweet foods include flourless chocolate cake, chocolate chip cookies, and Snickers Bars. Back in the day, the Chinese would have a mildly sweet food after a meal to help with digestion. Today, we crave sweets because we’ve been eating sweets and all kinds of other foods that are processed, modified, injected with hormones, and hard to digest in general.

We crave and eat sweets as a form of self-medication. When our digestion is out of whack, we crave sweets as a way to put things right. However, the sweets we eat are so sweet, it just makes things worse.

This is not to say that anyone with a sweet tooth is unhealthy, and brings us back to the dessert issue. We have a mild craving for something sweet after a meal as a way to aid the digestive process.

But what if you crave sweets 24/7? That’s your body’s way of telling you to get your diet cleaned up and your digestion in order. Start by limiting the amount of sweets you eat (I know, hard–but doable). You can also help things along by limiting processed foods, eating mostly fruits and cooked vegetables, whole grains, and a little protein. Over time your incessant sweet cravings will diminish — and you’ll feel healthier, too.

Eating Disorders and Chinese Medicine

From time to time we’re asked whether acupuncture can help someone with an eating disorder, such as anorexia, bulimia, or obsessive overeating. As with any condition, there is no one size fits all—everyone is different and heals at their own pace and in their own way. That said, at Acupuncture in the Park, we have worked with a number of patients who have suffered with eating disorders and who have been helped—sometimes dramatically so—from acupuncture.

Each person with an eating disorder comes with a unique set of circumstances, and can have one (or more) of a variety of imbalances in Chinese medicine. However, whether the condition is anorexia, bulimia, overeating, pathological food restriction, or night eating, in Chinese medicine the following organs are affected by eating disorders:

Heart. While you tend to think of your Heart as something that primarily pumps blood and is prone to heart attacks as you get older, the Heart organ system in Chinese medicine houses something called the Shen. The Shen is the home to your mind, memory, consciousness, and spirit. While these functions are attributed to the brain in Western medicine, we tend to intuitively know that the Heart is also an organ of feeling. (Think valentines, having a “broken heart” or heartfelt thanks.)

As an organ of emotion and spirituality, there is always some level of Shen imbalance in people who are struggling with an eating disorder. We believe that your approach to eating mirrors your approach to life, and if you’re binging, vomiting, not eating, or unhealthily restricting your food intake, your heart and spirit are as out of balance as your physical body. In Chinese medicine, an eating disorder would be considered a Shen disturbance.

Liver. Your Chinese Liver system is also concerned with emotions. The Liver is responsible for the smooth flow of everything in your body, including your emotions. When what you desire is very different from the reality of your life, it can evoke strong feelings of anger, frustration, and low self-worth. When those feelings are constantly suppressed, Liver energy becomes stuck and can show up as irritability, angry outbursts, and yes, pathological eating. In some people, especially those with eating disorders, strong emotions are turned inward and may also become depression and anxiety. In the patients we’ve treated with eating disorders, there is always some element of Liver stagnation.

Spleen. The organ system most damaged by eating disorders is your Chinese Spleen. Paired with the Stomach, your Spleen is responsible for the process of taking in food, digesting it, and converting it into the energy and nutrients your body needs to function on an everyday basis. Your Spleen is also in charge of holding things in and up in your body.

An eating disorder can damage your Spleen in a couple of ways. First, the digestive process can be impaired, even years after an eating disorder, causing symptoms such as stomachaches, gas, heartburn, constipation or loose stools, and even lack of energy or fatigue.

In addition, we have seen in a couple of women in our clinic who have recovered from their eating disorder, but who have damaged the holding function of their Spleen. This has shown up in an ability to become pregnant, but a tendency towards miscarriages (an inability to “hold” the fetus). Another sign of damage to the Spleen is easy bruising, as the blood isn’t being “held” in the vessels very well, and chronic diarrhea as…well, you get the point.

Kidney. Your Chinese Kidney is the home to all the vital substances in your body—Yin and Yang, Qi and Blood, and Essence, which is kind of like your DNA and body constitution all wrapped into one. Your body constitution is a gauge of how healthy you are, and it’s affected by how you live your life. For example, you may be a big, strong and healthy person who damages your health by partying, eating poorly and skimping on sleep—all things that can deplete your body constitution. In contrast, you may be smaller and not be as strong, but if you guard your health by eating well, sleeping, etc. you may live to reach a ripe old age.

My point is this—eating disorders damage your body constitution, and as a result, the health of your Chinese Kidney.

The good news is that if you are suffering from an eating disorder or have a history of an eating disorder, all is not lost. First, you need help from a mental health professional who is skilled in treating people with eating disorders. Then, when you are ready to get your body back into balance and repair the damage, Chinese medicine, through the use of acupuncture and herbs, can help by calming your Shen, soothing your Liver, strengthening your Spleen, and rebuilding and strengthening your Kidney.

Teenage Mental Health

At Acupuncture in the Park, we have found that treating pre-teens, teens, and young adults to be some of the most satisfying work that we do, primarily because they respond so quickly to the acupuncture, and the results can be life-changing. Not only have we treated our share of young patients with aches, pains, and soccer injuries, but also we have worked with kids who were struggling with depression, anxiety, anger, insomnia, and stress.

Not long ago, this letter to the editor about teen mental health appeared in our local newspaper:

Many parents may relate to the July 5 article “Worried about a moody teen?” An acquaintance told me recently that the severe anger of her middle son had caused problems in the family. She decided to try alternative medicine and took him to an acupuncturist. After one visit, the change in the 11-year-old was amazing. A local acupuncturist told me that acupuncture in pre-adolescents and adolescents can be extremely effective. It could be worth a try. (Minneapolis Star Tribune, Monday, July 12, 2010)

As the letter states, acupuncture can be incredibly effective for adolescents. This is true for a number of reasons. First, for the most part, they are young and healthy. Acupuncture tends to be far more effective for someone who is healthy and able to heal quickly, as opposed to someone in their seventies or eighties who has been ill for a long time.

The second reason that acupuncture works so well for adolescents goes back to Chinese medical theory. The Chinese say that children are considered to be pure Yang. Compared to the nourishing, cooling, substance of Yin, Yang is warm, active, and transformative. And that’s what kids do—they transform. They are growing and changing almost daily, and it seems that as soon as you have one stage figured out, they have moved onto the next. This is a good thing on the healing front. Because kids are growing so quickly, they also heal quickly. This is both good news and bad news, especially when we’re talking about adolescents.

The pure Yang thing can also work against kids, especially during the pre-teen and teen years. Good health, or balance, in Chinese medicine is all about smooth flow, and for the most part, our kids grow and flow smoothly. Unfortunately, as kids go through adolescence, they begin changing even more quickly. On top of the physical growth, kids are faced with increasing stress of school and peer relationships. Then Mother Nature throws in a dark cocktail of hormones to make that transformation even more…uh, interesting. For some kids, this sudden growth, plus hormones, plus stress creates a perfect storm that can block the smooth flow of energy and emotions, causing a wide variety of mental health symptoms.

Finally, acupuncture works for emotional health issues because it affects brain chemistry. Researchers studying the effects of acupuncture have determined that acupuncture causes an increase in production of endorphins and other feel-good chemicals in the brain, causing a calming effect. For this reason, acupuncture can effectively treat emotional conditions including stress, anxiety, depression, and panic attacks.

Many parents don’t know where to turn when their adolescent is struggling with anger or depression. Understandably, they’re hesitant to medicate their teen, but they also know that their child needs help.

The good news is that in these healthy, ever changing adolescents, acupuncture can be a life saver, which is so aptly expressed in the letter above. If your teen is struggling, consider giving acupuncture a try.

Share and Enjoy !

Share and Enjoy !

Share and Enjoy !

Share and Enjoy !

Share and Enjoy !

Share and Enjoy !

Share and Enjoy !

Share and Enjoy !

Share and Enjoy !

Share and Enjoy !