Holiday Stress and Depression with Acupuncture

Posted by :admin On : January 3, 2011
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Category: Acupuncture and Its Theories

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How to Treat ‘Emotional and Mental Issues’ with Acupuncture and Herbs

According to Oriental medicine, the cold months of winter are the perfect time to recharge your battery and generate vital energy, or Qi, in order to live, look, and feel your best.

herbal-teaThe ancient Chinese believed that human beings should live in harmony with the natural cycles of their environment. The cold and darkness of winter urges us to slow down. This is the time of year to reflect on health, replenish energy and conserve strength.

Ruled by the water element, winter is associated with the kidneys, bladder and adrenal glands. The kidneys are considered the source of all energy or “Qi” within the body. They store all of the reserve Qi in the body so that it can be used in times of stress and change, or to heal, prevent illness and age gracefully.

Winter is the season where all living things slow down, conserve their energy and prepare for the outburst of new life and energy in the spring.

Eat warm hearty soups, whole grains, and roasted nuts to help warm the body’s core and to keep nourished. Sleep early, rest well, stay warm, and expend a minimum quantity of energy.

While optimal health and well-being in the winter season calls for rest, energy conservation and the revitalization of body and spirit, your holiday activities may have a different agenda.

The holidays can be filled with a dizzying array of demands, visitors, travel and frantic shopping trips. For many people, it is also a time filled with sadness, self-reflection, loneliness and anxiety. Compound the usual seasonal pressures with the constant barrage of bad economic news and you may find this to be one of the most emotionally trying times of the year.

Stress, anxiety and depression can cause a disruption in the flow of vital energy, or Qi, through the body. These energetic imbalances can throw off the immune system or cause symptoms of pain, sleep disturbances, abnormal digestion, headaches, and menstrual irregularities, and, over time, more serious illnesses can develop.

Acupuncture treatments can correct these imbalances and directly affect the way your body manages stress and your mental health.

Seasonal acupuncture treatments in winter serve to nurture and nourish kidney Qi which can greatly enhance the body’s ability to thrive in times of stress, aid in healing, prevent illness and increase vitality.

Studies Show Acupuncture Effective for Stress and Depression

Since the early seventies, studies around the globe have suggested that treating mental health disorders with acupuncture has a positive and holistic effect on depressed patients, particularly when used in combination with psychotherapy and herbal treatments.

Psychologist John Allen, from the University of Arizona in Tucson, and Acupuncturist Rosa Schnyer, conducted the very first pilot controlled study on treating depression symptoms with acupuncture in the Western scientific world. In a double blind randomized study, 34 depressed female patients who met the DSM-IV diagnostic criteria were assigned to one of three treatment groups for eight weeks.

The first group received acupuncture treatment specifically tailored to their depression symptoms. The second group received a general acupuncture treatment not specific to depression, and the third group was placed on a waiting list for acupuncture treatment, but received no treatment. Those in the tailored acupuncture treatment group experienced a significant reduction in symptoms, compared to those in the non-specific treatment group. Moreover, over 50% of the participants no longer met the DSM-IV diagnostic criteria for depression after the study.

Study findings suggest that using acupuncture alone could be as effective as other types of treatments for relieving depression symptoms typically used in Western medicine, such as psychotherapy and drugs.

Numerous studies have demonstrated the substantial benefits of acupuncture specifically in the treatment of stress.

In 2008 Anesthesia & Analgesia published a study finding that an acupuncture point alleviated preoperative anxiety in children while a 2003 study conducted at Yale University showed that ear acupuncture significantly lowered the stress level of the mothers of children that were scheduled for surgery.

A German study published in Circulation found acupuncture significantly lowers both systolic and diastolic blood pressure. The extent of the blood pressure reductions by acupuncture treatments was comparable to those seen with anti-hypertensive medication or aggressive lifestyle changes, including radical salt restrictions.

The University of New Mexico measured the affects of acupuncture on 73 men and women with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The researchers found the acupuncture treatments to be as helpful as the standard treatment of cognitive behavioral therapy.

If the stress or depression in your life is throwing you off balance, consider acupuncture therapy to regain peace of mind, regulate your immune system and stay healthy.

Three Super-Stress Busting Foods

The foods that you eat play a crucial role in your overall well-being as well as your ability to handle stress.

Over 1400 chemical changes occur as stress hormones, such as cortisone, deplete important nutrients such as B vitamins, vitamin C and magnesium from the body.

Here are three foods that can replenish your supply of these nutrients and enhance your ability to manage stress:

Cauliflower – Cauliflower and other cruciferous vegetables, such as broccoli, cabbage, and kale are chock full of stress-relieving B vitamins. Cauliflower is also one of the very best sources of vitamin B5 or pantothenic acid.

Pantothenic acid helps turn carbohydrates and fats into usable energy and improves your ability to respond to stress by supporting your adrenal glands. Fatigue, listlessness, numbness and tingling or burning pain in the feet are all indications that you may need more vitamin B5 in your diet.

Salmon – Salmon is a healthy and delicious way to get your dose of B vitamins and omega-3 fatty acids. Vitamin B12 supports production of red blood cells, allows nerve cells to develop properly and is essential to the synthesis of the “happy” brain chemical serotonin.

Among the many benefits of omega-3 fatty acids, a 2003 study published in Diabetes & Metabolism found that a diet rich in omega-3 fatty acids significantly reduced the stress response and kept the stress hormones cortisol and epinephrine in check.

blackberriesBlackberries – Blackberries are jam packed with Vitamin C, calcium and magnesium. Vitamin C has shown to be a powerful stress reducer that can lower blood pressure and return cortisol levels to normal faster when taken during periods of stress.

Blackberries have more than double the amounts of vitamin C, calcium and magnesium than their popular cousin, the blueberry.

Remove your stress with breathing

Posted by :admin On : May 28, 2009
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Category: Mind-Body Medicine

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The Importance of Breathing;

No matter how much I emphasize the importance of breathing, it won’t be enough.

Breathing is the base of our bodily engine system and enables us to live on.

Therefore most people think they know how to breathe and it’s easily neglected, but here I want you to know of the right way of breathing and the benefit of it.

 

In Chinese, the air is called kong qi – spatial energy or energy from the space.

Ancient Chinese must have known the importance of breathing; breathing is absorbing the vital energy from the universe.

 

zhuang zi, the chapter of ke yi(4TH Century B.C during the warring states period) said of the principles of breathing,

 

“Exhale the old qi and inhale the new qi.”

; the old qi can be such as negative energy, co2, the toxicity and so on and the new qi such as positive energy, o2 and so on.

 

ge hong’s bao pu zi(A.D.283-343) said,

 

“The more should be inhaled and the less exhaled.”

; ge hong’s idea is how to keep the qi inside more and not leaking or less.

 

And we could find more books and articles of lower chakra or dan tian breathing in Indian yogic practice and qigong, both put a enormous emphasis on abdominal breathing, deep breathing like a baby.

 

Look at a baby or your lovely dogs. How do they breathe?

They breathe deep and comfortable with stomach region, and it seems so natural and easy.

 

Then why most of people forget this baby breathing, once we all did?

As we grow old with stresses – anger, frustration, fear or anxiety, we became shallow chest breather because of fight-or-flight response, which depends on chest breathing for quick, short bursts of oxygen. Eventually body gets used to shallow breathing.

 

 

What is the stress?

Stress is animal instinct of fight or flight response or self-defense system in other words.

 

Under the stress, your body will need more energy so that heart beats will become faster and your breathing also will become faster and shorter to supply more blood to the muscles of Limbs, not the brain and digestive system. Therefore it can cause you to have headache, stomachache, muscle pain, sleep disorder and fatigue and so on.

 

So now imagine you have a body that perceives itself to be in stress all the time, your body will need that chest short breathing and some time later, your body keep that breathing patterns, and this activates the body’s stress response system unnecessarily, emitting stress related hormones.

 

 

Evaluate your stress level

  1. Head feels heavy and cloudy, and you get tired frequently.
  2. You get dizzy frequently.
  3. You have stiffness and pain in the neck.
  4. Your tongue has more white coating on it than usual.
  5. You have indigestion such as bloating, gas, belching and so on.
  6. Shoulder feels heavy and tension with upper back and knee pain.
  7. When you get up in the morning, you still feel tired and heavy so your day starts sluggish.
  8. It is hard to focus on the work
  9. It is hard to fall asleep and during sleep, you have lots of dream.
  10. You have heart palpitation and cold extremities.
  11. You tend to avoid social meetings and a crowd of people.

 

Normal: 0-3, moderate: 4-6, serious: 7-: change your life style and seek out the professional advice.

Frequent dizziness

Head feels heavy and cloudy, and frequently tired Head feels heavy and cloudy, and frequently tiredFind out how to remove the stress by changing your breathing pattern.

 

Abdominal breathing- Relax the diaphragm.

First take two-three deep breaths, exhaling fully through the mouth. Then slowly breathe in while expanding your lower abdomen to the count of four. Then slowly breathe out while contracting your lower abdomen to the count of 4. Focus on breathing rhythmically and try not to move your chest.

Inhale through your nose to a count of 4 and exhale either through your mouth or the nose to a count of 4 and then pause for a count of 2.

 

As you become more comfortable with this breathing, you can increase the length of time of inhalation, exhalation and the pauses between them.

: 4:16:8:4(inhalation:pause:exhalation:pause), 4:7:8(inhalation:pause:exhalation)

 

Practice this breathing for 10-15 minutes twice a day in the morning after you wake up and in the evening before you go to bed and also at any time during the day(except immediately after meals). Though simple, if practiced regularly, this exercise can greatly benefit the health of your mind and body

 

 

If you find yourself often hold your breath under the stress, which tightens your muscle in the jaw, neck and shoulder region.

Exhalation is more emphasized because if you do it deep, natural inhalation just will follow it.

 

Four easy steps to break the stress cycle – Bernadette Johnson, director of the integrative medicine program at Greenwich hospital, Connecticut.

  1. Stop what you’re doing.
  2. Breathe using your stomach (abdominal breathing) with a few deep breaths, allowing gut to expand with air. Do not breathe using the chest, which most of us do normally. Count 1 to 4 while inhaling, then count down from 4 to 1.- inhale through the nose and exhale from the mouth, but you can do whatever is comfortable.
  3. Think about the cause of your stress, deliberating its importance n the scheme of things. For example, a computer crashes and you get angry. Clearly, seething won’t change or resolve the situation.
  4. Rectify the problem with a viable solution.

 

 

Alternate nostril breathing – qigong empowerment by Liang, shou yu.

Movement and Visualization:

Preparation: relax your arms, and bend your body forward, three times. Each time, exhale all the impurities from you mouth while making the ‘ha’ sound.

 

Step 1.With your mouth closed, press your left fourth finger on your left nostril, and use your right nostril to inhale. When you inhale, turn your head and torso towards your left.

 Visualize the light or universal energy enters your body through your right nostril.

 

Step 2.After filling your body with white light, press your right fourth finger on top of your right nostril, Hold your breath and turn to face forward.

 

While holding your breath, visualize white light flowing from your right channel down to the sea bottom chakra (hui yin region-perineum), and into your left channel. Then flow up your left channel to the left nostril. All the blockages, diseases, aches and pains, and poisons in your body are transformed into the negative qi.

 

Step 3.Release your left nostril and exhale the negative qi. Repeat steps 1 to 3, three times.

 

Step 4.Next repeat 1 to 3, on the opposite side. That is, inhale with your left nostril and exhale with your right nostril, etc. also, repeat three times.

 

Step 5.Relax your hands on your knees. Inhale with both nostrils. White light from your left and right channels meets together at hui yin. Hold your breath and visualize white light flowing up the middle channel to the crown chakra (bai hui), then back down to the hui yin. Then Divide into two, up your left and right channels. Exhale all the negative qi out of the nostrils. Repeat three times.

 

There are a total of 9 inhalation and exhalations from step 1-5. Practice 3 sets, a total of 27 inhalations and exhalations. The first 9 times, breathe very lightly and finely. The second 9 times, start making sounds with your breathing. The last 9 times, make even louder sounds with your breathing and rotate your body further as you turn, when doing steps 1 to 4.

 

Today many doctors and scientists found that stress can cause so many disease even cancer when it has not been resolved and continues,

So change the way of your breathing and deal with your stressful times and keep you healthy and prevent any illnesses.

 

For the consultation, Call us : 310-481-2266, we will help you release your stress and feel balanced at tao of medicine 

Enjoy your breathing and Release your physical and mental tension!