Acupuncture for relief of stress, anxiety and depression

Do you suffer from any of the following?

• Have you had headaches in the last 30 days?
• Do you have periods during the day when you lack the energy that you would like to have or do you frequently feel fatigued?
• Are you often tired in the afternoon?
• Do you suffer from neck, shoulder, or lower back tightness and tension?
• Do you have trouble getting to sleep, fail to sleep the whole night through, or wake up early and feeling exhausted?
• Do you experience symptoms of irritability or mood swing beyond your control on a regular or periodic basis throughout the month?
• Do you experience digestive trouble – bloating after eating, indigestion, and constipation?
• Do you get allergies or do your sinuses bother you?

Most headaches and neck pain are stress related – stress irritates the nervous system which results in a build up of tension in the muscles of the neck and back. Fatigue can often come from nervous exhaustion due to lack of exercise, poor nutrition, emotional stress and over work. When stress and tension build up in the muscles this often affects the quality of sleep. Lack of sleep or restless sleep denies the body the full recuperating power of sleep and often leads to moodiness and irritability during the day.

Many of these problems can also be related to depression. Research suggests that 1 in four people will experience some kind of mental health problem in the course of a year. Anxiety often occurs with depression. Anxiety is defined as a persisting state of fear that may or may not be associated with a specific object or situation, often accompanied by physiological changes such as a fast heart beat and rapid breathing. Acupuncture has long been used in the treatment of psychiatric disorders in China. Documentation goes back 2,000 years to the "Yellow Emperor’s Classic"... Depression itself is on of the ten most frequent indications for the use of complementary or alternative medicine.

The results of a research study, conducted at the University of Arizona and sponsored by the National Institutes of Health Office of Alternative Medicine, focused on the use of acupuncture for the treatment of women with depression. The Arizona research team managed to study the treatment of major depression using traditional, individually tailored acupuncture treatment, with the structure of a double-blind, randomized controlled trial. The group was divided into three groups the first group received acupuncture at points specifically used in Traditional Chinese Medicine for depression.