Before I share with you my thoughts about why people need acupuncture, let me explain what is acupuncture in the first place.
Western medicine acknowledges that acupuncture, a 3,000 year old healing technique of Traditional Chinese Medicine, stimulates the central nervous system, along with chemicals and hormones that stimulate our bodies’ healing abilities. Our bodies’ many systems are interconnected by energetic superhighways that are called meridians. Like all modes of important transportation, these superhighways should be in a healthy state of flow and not stagnation! The natural and balanced flow of vital energy (Qi) is imperative to enjoy a state of harmony and balance in all our bodies, physical, mental, emotional and energetic. Ancestral knowledge and newer science recognize that meridians are energetic structures in their own right, separate and recognizable via state of the art CT imaging and MRI. Thanks to these technologies, we now can see that acupuncture points and meridians are distinct and measurable “anatomical structures”.
Properly administered acupuncture can assist with every single health issue known to us, from joint and muscle pain to depression and anxiety. The Center for Integrative Medicine of UC San Diego School of Medicine explains that:
Case-controlled clinical studies have shown that acupuncture has been an effective treatment for the following diseases, symptoms or conditions:
- Allergic rhinitis (including hay fever)
- Biliary colic
- Depression (including depressive neurosis and depression following stroke)
- Dysentery, acute bacillary
- Dysmenorrhoea, primary
- Epigastralgia, acute (in peptic ulcer, acute and chronic gastritis, and gastrospasm)
- Facial pain (including craniomandibular disorders)
- Headache
- Hypertension, essential
- Hypotension, primary
- Induction of labor
- Knee pain
- Leukopenia
- Low back pain
- Malposition of fetus, correction
- Morning sickness
- Nausea and vomiting
- Neck pain
- Pain in dentistry (including dental pain and temporomandibular dysfunction)
- Periarthritis of shoulder
- Postoperative pain
- Renal colic
- Rheumatoid arthritis
- Sciatica
- Sprain
- Stroke
- Tennis elbow and many other diseases and conditions have probable evidence to support the therapeutic use of acupuncture.
Why Do We Need Acupuncture? We need acupuncture because we deserve to live life in our healthiest and strongest state so we can be allowed to fully engage with the experience of being alive. Also, our Western style of living and just life itself can cause stagnation of Qi, due to “emotional disturbances, stagnation of cold, heat and phlegm, accumulation of fluids or water or caused by food stagnation; it may also occur due to accidents or blood stasis. Symptoms include a sensation of fullness, obstruction, a feeling of distension and, in severe cases, pain.”
Human beings are highly emotional mammals, which causes us to, at times to experience disruption of “qi and blood” which “directly affect the heart, liver, spleen, lung and kidney and other organs”. Due to these affective imbalances “emotions, such as grief, fear, anger, worry are major factors in the cause of endogenous illness”. For example there is strong relationship between rumination (obsessive thinking) and depression! Acupuncture can help you calm your mind and encourage introspection and effective problem solving. So it is helpful for our physical and mental health, to use acupuncture in addition to mental health supports, to navigate stressful and potentially traumatic situations.
We know that to keep balanced and healthy we need supports, exercise, kindness, good food, pleasure all in moderation. Gentle and slow Acupuncture can and should be part of your self-care habits.
If you like to know more about how acupuncture can help you become healthier and find harmony in your physical and mental bodies, you can check the following articles:
Acupuncture Effective in Treatment of Mental Illness
COVID Times and Your Liver: Do You have Liver Qi Stagnation?
Top 10 Benefits of Acupuncture for Workplace Stress and Pain
Sebastian Cobenas, is a Registered Acupuncturist with the College of Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioners and Acupuncturists of Ontario (CTCMPAO). He is a POC, Indigenous-identified person, committed to a queer and trans positive, anti-oppressive framework, offering trauma–informed, gentle, slow acupuncture and other healing services in Toronto.
To book a session with Sebastian, please email at onehearttherapy@gmail.com.
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