5 Ways Acupuncture Can Change Your Life

Americans are seeking and receiving acupuncture at increasing rates. There is a reason for this: acupuncture works! As a practitioner for more than 10 years, I have seen amazing results in my clinic for a wide variety of patients. Most people receiving acupuncture treatment are doing so for one of these reasons:  

1.  Anti-aging

Acupuncture can literally keep you looking and feeling younger. Most people are looking for a topical or oral path to the frequently sought after “Fountain of Youth”. The elixir of youth can actually only be found in good health. When everything is flowing inside of you and the qi is in harmony, blood is circulating and we are sleeping well, we have energy to do our work and exercise, digestion and elimination are on track and our mood is even and steady, then we are literally living our best life. It seems like an easy enough path to follow, but then, is it? Turmoil, trauma, stress and factors out of our control seem to muddy the waters and ravage the flow. This literally ages us. By worrying and stressing, there is direct effect, weakening the digestive process and undermining our adrenal and kidney functions. These are our batteries and when chronically weakened, they start to “misfire”, malfunction and work improperly. And we lose power.

Getting rid of this emotional baggage literally takes years off our face and bodies. We can talk out a problem, go to counseling, exercise ourselves to death, but acupuncture is one of the only things that helps clear this garbage from our organs by moving the qi and freeing the stagnation. Then the blood is free to flow and moisturize our skin, eyes, hair and muscles. We look younger because we feel good. This is really not a secret, it just takes dedication to a healthy lifestyle to achieve it.

2.  Weight loss

There are numerous reasons individuals gain weight, but what goes in must be less than what is expended. After puberty and into our early 20’s, most of us can eat what we want—within reason—and work it off easily. Just running around with our friends is calorie expending enough. As we grow older, not only do our hormones change, but our stress levels skyrocket and our sleep is fitful and sometimes non-existent. This causes cortisol levels to rise and can be a direct correlation to why we can’t lose that last 10 pounds.

• Cortisol increases muscle breakdown which leads to a slower metabolism.

• Cortisol triggers your appetite to increase and lowers leptin, the hormone that helps you feel full after eating.

• Cortisol decreases your brain’s hippocampus size which leads to stress-related disorders like depression and PTSD.

• Cortisol reduces your brain’s frontal lobe function, so you’re not able to make sound decisions.

• Cortisol also reduces progesterone, your “zen hormone.”

Acupuncture is the best possible treatment for eliminating stress. De-stressing now only makes us feel better, but it can make us look better. Weight loss isn’t just about looking better either, it’s about health. Inflammation isn’t sexy!

3.  Chronic disease

Unfortunately, too many people are diagnosed with auto immune diseases with no explanation as to where they came from, what continues to cause their suffering and not much hope for future relief except for medications. How does one take a medication without knowing where a disease came from? In TCM, there is always an explanation for someone’s physical, mental, or emotional complaint. This isn’t saying they can be fixed with acupuncture or Chinese herbs, but they can be treated by understanding how the illness came to be. The body is way too busy trying to keep us healthy and happy to unnecessarily exert an energy that negatively impacts us. Therefore, we treat the body and the organ systems, not only for the symptomatic complaint, but as an entity whose system is dysfunctional and then we try to get it back on track. Long term care—this can mean weeks, months or even years depending on the length of time the issue has been around and the strength of the individual’s’ body as well as their willingness to make lifestyle changes including diet, reducing stress levels and dealing with past trauma—is what is needed. Not only will the acupuncture physician attempt to heal the auto-immune issue, but also strengthen and boost the entire system to invigorate the healing and harmonize the mood. These are the amazing side effects acupuncture treatments will have on you.

4.  Reduced use of medication

One thing I hear daily in the Acupuncture by Andrea office is that people want to be off the laundry list of medications they have been prescribed or that they are scared the doctors will put them on something they will have to take the rest of their lives. Chinese herbal medicinals are the answer, with amazing outcomes in a shorter time frame than prescription medicines. In some situations, people have been on medications so long that the organ they are affecting has ceased to function in its natural capacity and a lifelong prescription is unfortunately their future. Of course, we hope to see everyone BEFORE this happens. Chinese herbal medicines are sometimes 1000’s of years old and are still relevant for today’s complaints. The genius of their formulation lies in the fact that all their ingredients are found in nature and used in a combined way to mitigate the issue at large; they have an analgesic (pain relief) and/or anti-inflammatory affect; the other ingredients then help to lessen digestive discomfort that might come from taking a foreign substance by soothing the stomach; and if there is an herb or substance that might be slightly toxic there are herbs to help counteract possible negative side effects. Genius perfected over time! There are herbal formulas for every complaint –we will find what’s right for you!

5.  Pain reduction

Statistically speaking, more people see acupuncturists for pain issues than any other complaint. Most individuals who seek acupuncture treatment have either tried all the conventional methods of pain relief—NSAIDS, PT, in-activity, MRI and X-Rays to rule out injury and surgery or other invasive treatments. Sometimes these modalities work and often they do not. When we seek relief from our pain, especially if it’s long term pain, most of us want quick relief, not a long term lifestyle change. We call this the “band aid effect”.  Just getting rid of the symptom is not the answer. That being said, of course we will try our best to immediately relieve your pain, but it generally takes a few visits and some lifestyle changes on the patient’s part including more or less exercise, dietary changes, stress reducing activities or counseling, or combining these approaches to get the most favorable results. Pain can come from a situation (car accident, sports injury) or it can be built up stress or trauma in the body that is manifesting as a physical ailment. Whatever the cause, acupuncture has numerous ways to find the source of the ill and help to reduce it.

The style of acupuncture I tend to favor is called “distal” acupuncture that puts needles not in the place of pain, but in a location that mimics the look of the joint or body part affected, ankle for wrist, knee for elbow, belly button for low back. When an acupuncturist uses non-local needling, we are providing a signal to the body to create beneficial effects in distant regions.  Acupuncturists use the meridian systems as a map to understand how and where non-local changes can be made. The brain knows how to guide the signal the needles provide to the place of pain.

Have you received treatments for any of these five reasons? Share your comments below and let us know about your experience relieving pain and illness through acupuncture.