Acupuncture for Anxiety
It’s probably safe to say many of us have dealt with feelings of anxiety over the past couple of months. Acupuncture is always helpful in treating anxiety and its underlying conditions, and it’s especially important to focus on what’s causing those feelings in high-anxiety times like these.
Take a moment to pause and consider your recent stress levels, irregular diet, sadness or grief, fear, worry, tension and even overwork—especially if you’re working from home, when many people lose track of the line between home and office hours. All of those are directly connected to common acupuncture points that treat anxiety! And they’re all emotions and factors that are running high in our lives these days.
Where your anxiety originates determines where and how your acupuncturist will treat it. Here are some of the most common acupuncture points for anxiety and the symptoms and underlying causes they’re connected to.
Common points: Du 20 (top of the head), Yin Tang (forehead), Emotion 1 (wrists, feet and near your solar plexus)
Causes: Trauma, irregular diet, stress, constitution, blood loss, overwork
In Traditional Chinese Medicine, five organs are directly connected to anxiety, and each one is related to different symptoms. So those symptoms determine how we treat your anxiety during your appointment.
Palpitations and insomnia, feelings of restlessness or fidgeting, and appearing flustered or “haunted” are related to the heart.
Sadness and grief, being prone to crying, sighing, a weak voice and paleness are related to the lungs. Anxiety involving the lungs often is related to spiritual matters.
Fear, pessimism, guilt and panic, including worrying about the worst in any situation, are related to your kidneys.
Pensiveness and worry, as well as racing or obsessive thoughts (“going around in circles”), are related to the spleen. These are often connected to nurturing issues, like being overprotective of your children or ignoring your own needs to put others first.
Finally, tension is related to your liver. This is where anxiety often lives for perfectionists, and it comes from a feeling of not meeting your own high standards.
Wherever your anxiety originates, talking with your acupuncturist before your appointment will help identify its root causes to get you the best treatment possible.
In health and wellness,
Julie
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