Acupuncture Gets Right to the Point for Stress Relief

By Melissa Murtha

Acupuncturist at Spa Harmony

We all live with stress. It’s how well we manage it that matters most. To help you cope, maybe you’ve tried exercise, yoga, meditation or changing your diet. But have you ever considered acupuncture?

A type of traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture is based on the premise that health and well-being depend on the strength, vitality and free-flowing of qi, or vital energy, throughout the body. The qi flows along well-documented paths or meridians. Health concerns and pain arise when blockages or imbalances occur. The body’s organs play a critical role in ensuring the proper distribution of qi, and stress has an immediate effect on them.

How does it help?
Acupuncture helps your body handle stress better by correcting imbalances and enabling qi to flow smoothly. Treatments can provide numerous physical and emotional benefits, including lower blood pressure, improved ability to sleep, a more efficient immune system and a better sense of well-being.

Acupuncture provides a strong calming effect throughout your body, making any stressors you experience more manageable as well as helping to relieve painful symptoms such as headaches, digestive problems and back, shoulder and neck tension.

A host of studies conducted in the past two decades have repeatedly validated the safety and efficacy of acupuncture, and the World Health Organization currently recognizes at least 40 conditions, which
acupuncture may help. Some recent study results recently published in London and Seoul have suggested that acupuncture has a therapeutic effect on chronic stress in particular.

Depending on your level of stress or anxiety, treatments once a week or every two weeks initially are a good idea. After a couple of months, consider treatments every four weeks, and then stretch those to every other month, as long as needed.

What to expect
At your first appointment, your acupuncturist will discuss your family health history in depth to get a full understanding of the issues you may be confronting. He or she will also educate you about acupuncture
and answer any questions you may have.

Depending on your individual needs, a treatment involves inserting anywhere from 12 to 40 hair-thin needles into specific points on your body. You may feel a pinprick, or a warm, traveling sensation as channels open, but treatments are not painful.

Every person’s reaction to treatment is different—some people feel energized, others feel relaxed. Following an acupuncture session, which typically lasts 20 to 45 minutes, you should be sure to drink additional water to help flush your body of toxins released during treatment.

Try an age-old stress-buster
Acupuncture is not a miracle cure for stress, but it can certainly be an effective part of an overall stress management strategy. Try it in conjunction with other healthy, stress-reducing practices, such as exercise, proper diet, and building a good support system. Chances are, you’ll feel the difference.

Melissa Murtha earned a Master of Science degree from the Pacific College of Oriental Medicine in Chicago and is licensed by the Pennsylvania Medical Board as well as certified by the National
Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine. She is an acupuncturist at Spa Harmony in the Wilfred R. Cameron Wellness Center at the Washington Hospital. For more information,
visit www.spaharmony.org.