Stress Archives - Acupuncture in the Park

Acupuncture for Stress?

Stress is a fact of life. It’s a survival skill that your body is hard-wired to use whenever you feel threatened. The problem with stress is that it’s meant to be a short-term thing–a way to deal with a quick threat, and then life as you know it is supposed to get back to normal.

At least that’s how stress was meant to be thousands of years ago. Our caveman ancestors used stress to outrun or fight a predator, confront an enemy, and survive on a daily basis. Unfortunately, the stresses we face in today’s world tend to stick around longer than a run-in with a threatening animal–in some cases much, much longer. Today our stress takes the form of an annoying co-worker, an aging parent, a sick kid, or whether or not we can pay our monthly bills–things that just don’t seem to go away quickly. And the unrelenting nature of our stress takes it toll on your body. Let me explain.

When a threat arises, your body goes through a number of physiological reactions to enable you to deal with it then and there. Your body mobilizes the systems you need for dealing with the threat: breathing is enhanced, more energy goes to your muscles, and your thinking is quick and clear. However, those systems that you don’t need right in the moment slow down, so things like your digestion and immunity are put on the back burner for the time being. The hormones responsible for this stress response are adrenaline, cortisol, and insulin.

Once the threat is over, all of your body systems calm down and go back to normal. However, with chronic stress, your body isn’t able to get back to normal, and as a result, those stress hormones stay in a “red light” mode all the time. What this means is that many of your body systems are disrupted and stay that way, causing a host of symptoms such as poor digestion, food cravings, insulin resistance, increased weight and belly fat, poor energy, and decreased immunity.

In Chinese medicine, chronically high levels of stress are usually considered to be a Liver and Spleen disharmony pattern. This simply means that the stress, frustration, and overwhelmed feelings of daily life begin to affect not only your emotions, but also your digestion. This pattern is characterized by funky digestion, poor energy, irritability, insomnia, a racing mind, and even a sensation of heat.

While acupuncture and Chinese medicine can’t replace your cranky boss or pay your bills, there are some very real benefits from a few sessions on the acupuncture table. Among them:

-Research shows that acupuncture increases production of endorphins and other neurotransmitters in your brain to help you relax and calm down.

-Acupuncture regulates your hormones.

-Your practitioner is able to use acupuncture to clear heat and cool you off, which means it helps to decrease irritability, a racing mind, restless sleep, night sweats, and an overall sensation of feeling hot.

-Acupuncture is extremely effective in calming digestive symptoms, and as a result, less fatigue and better energy.

-Research also shows that acupuncture blocks the circulation of the chemical that transmits pain signals to your brain. The upshot is that muscle tension and aches and pains can be decreased from a few acupuncture sessions.

Acupuncture is much more than a relaxing stint in a quiet room. Research has shown it to be an effective, safe, and drug-free way to deal with stress and its accompanying symptoms. If you haven’t tried it, give us a call today to see if acupuncture can help soothe the stress beast that’s affecting your health.

Feeling Irritable?

It is so interesting to me what causes people to finally decide it’s time to try acupuncture. You would think that things like back pain, headaches, and maybe some digestive issues would top the list of reasons, and for the most part they do. However, there is a fair percentage of people who finally succumb to the needles because it’s messing with their golf game or ruining their tennis serve. There is also a number of people who seek out acupuncture because they’re stressed and irritable and it’s impacting their personal relationships.

Certainly there is an air of desperation with many people who come to acupuncture for the first time. However, those irritable folks are interesting because their symptoms are affecting not only them, but also their loved ones. The typical scenario is that their life is stressful; they may be in a crappy job, their kids are sick, co-workers are annoying, they’re caring for aging parents, or a similar situation. They’ve tried to cope as best they can, but somewhere along the line, the stress takes its toll, and coping becomes harder and harder to do. They’re short with their partners, snap at their kids, and are impatient even standing in line at the bank.

What’s happening here? Well, in Chinese medicine, stress ties you up in knots. You feel like you have no control over the situation, your digestion begins to suffer, good sleep gets harder to come by, and you feel…overwhelmed and on edge. A frequent by-product of stress in Chinese medicine is heat. Sometimes you actually feel hot and even thirsty, but sometimes that heat just speeds things up. You may become restless, your mind races, and you feel impatient because the world isn’t moving as fast as you are. That heat and impatience translates into irritability–the voice inside you that bites your kid’s head off and snaps at your co-workers.

And yes, acupuncture can help slow things down, clear the heat, and relive your irritability. While it may seem odd that a session on the acupuncture table could do all that, there is actually an explanation from the Western scientific world. Acupuncture changes the chemistry in your brain–in a good way. It increases the circulation of endorphins and other neurotransmitters that actually calm you down. In addition, acupuncture slows down your sympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for the fight or flight response that kicks in when you are stressed or feel threatened.

So, if your life is stressful to the point of making you irritable, you have some choices. You can keep it up and try to cope, you can try to change the situation, or you can do something about how you feel. The people I see in my acupuncture clinic have decided that their loved ones trump everything else, and they do something about it. What about you?

Your Emotions, Digestion, and Acupuncture

Have you ever heard people talk about having butterflies in their stomach, a gut feeling, a nervous stomach, or a visceral reaction? Of course you have. We use these terms because we intuitively know that our emotions are very closely tied to our digestion.

One of the most common conditions that we see in the clinic is something called a Liver and Spleen disharmony. This just means that strong emotions are interfering with the digestive process. If you’ve ever had a huge emotional upset that has ruined your appetite or given you an upset stomach, you know what I’m talking about. A Liver and Spleen disharmony is similar, but it usually works in slow motion.

Your Chinese Liver is an organ system that oversees the smooth flow of everything in your body, including digestion, bowels, circulation, menses, and emotions. Stress, anger, or an emotional upheaval can cause the Liver system to stagnate. When this happens, one of the first things it affects is your Chinese Spleen, which is your organ of digestion.

In the clinic this pattern is a player in many, if not most, conditions affecting our patients. It can manifest in conditions such as Irritable bowel syndrome, colitis, depression, insomnia, PMS, fatigue, and even obesity, to name just a few.

So what exactly is happening when you are stressed out, upset or worried? Your stomach is a muscle, and when you’re in the emotional wringer, that stomach muscle contracts, making it difficult for you to digest much of anything.

Why you have this reaction goes back to the fight or flight response you experience when you’re stressed or feel threatened. Your body responds by shutting down those functions that aren’t necessary to run or fight, including digestion. The idea is that in ancient times, feeling threatened was a short-lived affair—only as long as it took to chase off or kill the wild animal lingering in front of your cave.

Today, however, many of us are in a constant state of fight or flight due to the unrelenting stress of our daily lives—whether it’s a cranky boss, a sick kid, a late mortgage payment, or having too much to do. Constant emotional upheaval doesn’t give your body time to recover its equilibrium, and your digestion stays on the back burner, unable to do its job effectively.

What can you do to get your digestion back on track and working efficiently? The most important thing to know is that it’s a two-step process: getting your stress and emotions under control, while you pamper your digestive tract. Acupuncture can be extremely effective for this kind of imbalance. In fact, many of our patients who have recovered from this kind of pattern never dreamt that they could ever feel good again. Two things you can do for yourself:

-Calm down and chill out. This may seem to be the most obvious, but is often the hardest thing to do. Find time during your day to relax; whether you take a yoga class, meditate, go fishing, or take a stroll in the woods. Without decompressing, your emotions and digestion will not have an opportunity to recover.

-Pamper your digestion. This means sitting down and actually eating a meal—not something on the run in between meetings or kids’ sporting events. This also means eating good food, fresh vegetables and fruits, whole grains and a little protein. Cooking most of your food makes it easier to digest—raw foods take more digestive effort to break down. The same goes for very cold foods; when you drink or eat something frozen, it uses up a lot of your digestive energy. Chewing your food and enjoying the dining process will help you digest your meal more effectively.

Is Stress Causing Your Weight Gain?

There was an article in my local paper last week about the relationship between stress and weight gain. The gist of the article was that during the current economic crisis many people who are stressed about their financial situation turn to food as a way to cope.

Medical experts know that stress and other strong negative emotions have an impact on your body’s hormonal balance, specifically the balance of adrenaline, cortisol, and insulin. In addition, it’s known that hormonal changes caused by stress can be responsible for weight gain around your middle, and can increase your risk for certain cardiovascular health problems. Your doctor may describe this phenomenon as the difference between being pear shaped (good) versus apple shaped (not so good).

In Chinese medicine, this same phenomenon would be described as a Liver/Spleen disharmony, or a case of your emotions upsetting your digestion. Your Chinese Liver is the organ system that regulates the smooth movement of everything in your body, including your emotions, circulation, menstrual cycles, and digestion. The function of the Spleen system is to efficiently turn food into nutrients, energy, and blood—in other words, all aspects of digestion. You know your Spleen isn’t up to par when you have signs or symptoms related to your digestion, including food cravings or a loss of appetite, constipation or loose stools, stomachaches, nausea, and weight gain. You might think that if you’re gaining weight your digestion is just fine, thank you very much, but in reality, weight gain is a signal that your digestion is impaired in some way.

How can acupuncture or Chinese medicine help? There are a couple of answers. First, acupuncture is an excellent way to soothe your emotions. It can effectively help people who are feeling stressed, anxious or depressed. It seems odd that the insertion of a couple of needles can affect your emotions or mood, but research has in fact documented that acupuncture alters brain chemistry in a good way.

Secondly, using a combination of acupuncture, herbs, and food therapy, a practitioner of Chinese medicine can help you get your weight under control. Not only can it help you with food cravings, but Chinese medicine is an incredibly effective treatment for digestive problems.

If stress is impacting your health or causing weight gain, think about acupuncture. It’s safe, effective, and organic.

Share and Enjoy !

Share and Enjoy !

Share and Enjoy !

Share and Enjoy !