FEELING STRESSED?
Overwhelmed?
Burning the candle at both ends?
How to diffuse STRESS?
The answer lies not only in eliminating the causes, but also in learning to manage life's curve balls. But when the curve balls are coming hard and fast and your responsibilities don’t seem to subside, you need something to take the edge off. Something to give you a fresh perspective on life. More than just relaxation, you need something that diffuses the tension right out of your system.
Acupuncture and Chinese botanical medicine do exactly that.
How Does Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine Help?
To understand this, let’s look at what happens when you get stressed. When you are stressed you develop tension. This tension literally causes a tightening of your body’s soft tissue and muscles. Different people hold tension in different parts of their bodies. Sometimes in their necks, backs, shoulders, forearms and even chest or abdomen.
This tightening causes your Qi to get stuck. Qi (pronounced chee) is energy, the energy of life. This energy flows through your body. It’s Qi (energy) that mobilizes our arms and legs to move, our stomach to digest food, our heart to pump and blood to flow. Without Qi, we’re dead, lifeless. Basically Qi could be called the electro-magnetic currents that your nervous system sends its communication through.
When you get tense the Qi flowing through your body and organs gets stuck. The stuck Qi builds up, like a pressure cooker, and eventually needs an escape valve. You might get angry and have an outburst. When Qi in the stomach gets stuck, we have digestive problems, like acid regurgitation, or heartburn. The Qi gets stuck, and can't flow down, so it goes upward and escapes out the mouth. Some people get bowel problems, like IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) because this stuck Qi cannot move food through the intestines properly.
Have you ever gotten angry and felt the Qi rising to your head. Maybe you felt warm or got red in the face? This happens because the stuck Qi building up has to be released. It goes up to the head, and can cause migraines or tension headaches, and even high blood pressure.
Acupuncture can help with all kinds of health problems caused by stress, by unblocking stuck Qi, and allowing it to flow properly throughout the body. When you feel more relaxed then food is digested smoothly and moves through the bowels properly. As your tension is relieved, so your are the headaches. Instead of being so tense and angry, you remain calm and your blood pressure and your temper remains calm.
How does acupuncture treat stress-related health conditions? Your acupuncturist begins by asking questions about your problem (e.g.. headache, heartburn, or high blood pressure) and then asks general questions about all your systems in the body and emotions. Your acupuncturist is determining a constitutional pattern to explain why you’ve developed the condition.
Next, a treatment plan is specifically engineered for you. Including acupuncture, botanical formulas and possible lifestyle modifications to treat your condition. Believe it or not, headaches or high blood pressure might be treated with acupuncture points in the feet or ankles.
A recent medical study published in Anesthesiology (June 2003) used ear acupressure to relieve stress and anxiety in patients being transported to the hospital in ambulances. Some got a real acupuncture points (acupuncture group), and some got a fake (sham) points (control group). At arrival, the stress level in the acupuncture group decreased sixty-six percent. In contrast, the stress level in the control group increased ten percent. Such studies indicate the effectiveness of acupuncture in stress treatment.
Stress is our internal response to outside stimuli. It’s not what is happening or what you are doing. But how you are doing and reacting to it. Modifying the way we respond and react to external triggers and the way we live, we can make a great impact in improving health and in resistance to stress.
7 Secrets to Help you Overcome Stress:
1. Walk away from it. Walking is a great way to move Qi, so it doesn't get stuck. Sometimes while you're walking you'll see a new way to solve the problem. Somehow in the fresh air things don't seem so bad, and you relax.
2. Breathe. When life gets overwhelming, take a deep breath, and then slowly release it. Watch the breath, as it comes in, and as it goes out. Meditation requires you to focus on something other than your problems, like your breath, relaxing music or guided imagery. In doing so, you get your mind off your troubles, and when you come back they just don't seem so bad. People with regular meditation practices consistently report that they are calmer and less reactive to stress triggers.
3. Do one thing at a time. Resist multi-tasking. Trying to do to many things simultaneously inherently causes tension. Prioritize, and then calmly and efficiently work down the list, one by one.
4. Shorten the list. When you're feeling overwhelmed because of too many to-dos, cross some off the list. Reduce the list to your six most important items. Deadlines can be postponed, and some things will just have to wait.
5. Get help. Often we feel there's just too much to do, and not enough hours in the day. Don't try to be superwoman/man. Enlist aid to get the must-dos done. Often people around us are not aware that we need help because we're not telling them.
6. Attend to your financial health. Financial stress can be insidious, affecting our emotions, sleep and physical well being. If your income fluctuates, be sure to save enough during the higher months to cover your expenses during the lean months. Is your nest egg large enough to cover unexpected expenses, or sudden changes in employment? (This is usually eight months expenses kept in cash in the bank.) Having a plan and knowing that you are in control of your finances can go a long way towards relieving this kind of pressure.
7. Have fun. What's life but to be enjoyed? When your troubles are mounting, go do something you love. It's hard to be tense when you're having fun. So whether it's dinner with friends, watching a favorite movie, or a bubble bath, be sure to make joy part of your routine.
Get started today and feel great again.
To book your first acupuncture treatment at our Ottawa location, simply call us at 613-216-2135 or click here to book online NOW !