As we live in a fast-paced era, more and more people are experiencing or has experienced anxiety. Statistic shows the percentage of the suffering population is as high as 18%.
Anxiety is an emotion disorder that people have excessive worry, fear, sometimes involves physical symptoms such as increased heart beating, difficult breathing, excess sweating, shaking, insomnia etc.
Chronic anxiety can greatly affect our mental health and physical health, such as hard to concentrate, low energy, weak immune system, internal inflammation. We should pay attention to it.
However, due to side effect of anti-anxiety medication and high cost of psychology therapy. Recurrence rate of anxiety is high. On the other hand, acupuncture give long lasting result to reduce the anxiety without side-effect.
Chinese traditional medicine think emotion disorder is also the result of imbalance of internal organs function. Main pathologies are Heart and spleen energy deficiency, Yin deficiency and internal heat, phlegm heat disturb spirit, depression of liver Qi. All these imbalances affect energy movement, disturb the calm of the spirit. Acupuncture can balance organ function and regulate the energy movement and clam the spirit to reduce the anxiety from the root.
Research has been done to explain the mechanism of acupuncture treatment as below:
- Acupuncture reduces the stress hormones such as: cortisol and adrenaline and increase the secretion of serotonin levels which is the hormone associated with happiness and feelings of wellbeing. So, people can feel handle stress easier.
- Acupuncture down regulating the hypothalamus to reduce the body’s response to stress and acting on the somatosensory cortex which is the area in the middle of the brain which is known to reduce sensitivity to stress and pain.
- Acupuncture stimulate the parasympathetic system to initiate the relaxation response. Our two sets of autonomic nerve systems. When we get stressed, our sympathetic nervous system gets switched on. Our heart beats faster, we are more alert. Our emotion changed which including anxiety. On the other hand, parasympathetic nervous system acts like break to calm your nervous system down to help you relax.
- Acupuncture can reduce the inflammation to reverse the chain reaction caused by anxiety. Anxiety can weaken immune system function and increased inflammation in the body. Acupuncture detox body and reduce the inflammation, therefore break the vicious cycle.
We can also adding meditation, breathing exercises and some exercise to our life routine to reduce our anxiety.
