This Week is Mental Health Awareness Week Traditional Acupuncture can help people experiencing Mental Health issues .

Acupuncture Treats your needs

Traditional Five Element Acupuncture aims to harmonise your vital energy or Qi imbalances treating each person holistically in Body, Mind and Spirit. Helping a persons ability to be more robust in themselves, to be more emotionally resilient in order to deal with the challenges they face in their lives.

Treating the whole person, individually, rather than the disease. The causes of depression, anxiety and stress can be complex and varies from person to person. Each person responds to their world in different ways according to their constitution, history, living situation and more. Traditional Five Element Acupuncture objective is maintain a holistic view of each person, to try and establish the exact nature of each individuals needs.

Ling Shu Jing chapter 8, (a foundational text in traditional Chinese medicine) ‘When one applies medical treatment, one must keep in mind first of all, the patient’s spirit’.

Alongside other Treatments

Traditional Five Element Acupuncture can be safely combined with conventional treatments such as medication or psycho-educational therapy, possibly enhancing their beneficial effects and reducing unwanted side-effects.

Understanding Anxiety

Anxiety disorders include generalised anxiety disorder, panic disorder, phobias, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and post traumatic stress disorder

Anxiety can become chronic and cause considerable distress and disability, if left untreated, are costly to both the individual and society.  As well as emotional symptoms such as worry, disturbed sleep, irritability and poor concentration, anxiety can cause physical symptoms such as sweating, nausea, diarrhoea, dry mouth, palpitations, shortness of breath, dizziness, cold hands, muscle tension and aches, trembling and twitching can be present

Often anxiety affects of many physical conditions can become worse with stress, for example, irritable bowel syndrome, migraines and tension headaches, back pain, chronic pain, fibromyalgia and more.

Anxiety may be part of OCD, anorexia, imposter syndrome and a host of other manifestations – are essentially the result of a lack of self-confidence and self-esteem. In Freudian terms, it is the strength of one’s ego that determines how well one resists the harshness of one’s super-ego (the self-critical voices that undermine the person’s self-esteem) – something we all endure to some degree or another.

How Acupuncture Treats

From BAcC Research page – https://acupuncture.org.uk/fact-sheets/anxiety-and-acupuncture-factsheet/

In general, acupuncture is believed to stimulate the nervous system and cause the release of neurochemical messenger molecules. The resulting biochemical changes influence the body’s homeostatic mechanisms, thus promoting physical and emotional well-being.

Research has shown that acupuncture treatment may specifically benefit anxiety disorders and symptoms of anxiety by:

• Acting on areas of the brain known to reduce sensitivity to pain and stress, as well as promoting relaxation and deactivating the ‘analytical’ brain, which is responsible for anxiety and worry (Hui 2010).
• Regulating levels of neurotransmitters (or their modulators) and hormones such as serotonin, noradrenaline, dopamine, GABA, neuropeptide Y and ACTH; hence altering the brain’s mood chemistry to help to combat negative affective states (Lee 2009; Samuels 2008; Zhou 2008; Yuan 2007).
• Stimulating production of endogenous opioids that affect the autonomic nervous system  (Arranz 2007). Stress activates the sympathetic nervous system, while acupuncture can activate the opposing parasympathetic nervous system, which initiates the relaxation response.
• Reversing pathological changes in levels of inflammatory cytokines that are associated with anxiety (Arranz 2007)
• Reversing stress-induced changes in behaviour and biochemistry (Kim 2009).

The British Acupuncture Council

British Acupuncture Council Members are highly qualified Practitioners in Traditional Acupuncture. The British Acupuncture Council (BAcC) – the UK’s largest, member-led, professional body for traditional acupuncturists. Members belong to an accredited register, regulated and approved by the Professional Standards Authority for Health & Social Care (PSA). 

Hannah Charles is a Member of the British Acupuncture Council (MBAcC)

For Treatment Contact Hannah on https://www.southwellacupuncture.co.uk/contact/