More Complementary & Integrative Healthcare Articles
Are You Being Chased By Tigers?
Stress occurs in every living thing, from plants to humans. In fact, stress is actually necessary for life and growth. The issue is that an overabundance of stress produces difficulties rather than growth. Reaction to stress, rather than stress itself, creates health issues.
The body has mechanisms to deal with various stressors. For example, if a tiger is chasing you the fight or flight reaction takes over our brain and body. Other stressors include such things as germs, injuries, interpersonal relationships, jobs, families and many others. How the body reacts to any given stress is unique to each individual. Even with the fight or flight reaction one person may run while another may become almost frozen in place.
Acupuncture and Chinese herbs work with the individual person. The reasons behind the stress reaction and the person’s response to that stressor are all factors in how the treatment is crafted. One person may find themselves extremely fatigued in response to a particular stressor while another person may find they have flares of anger. Both of these are due to stress and the way they would be treated are very different. Chinese medicine has had several thousand years of working with stress. After all, being chased by a tiger or having your rice crop destroyed by a hurricane are stressors that could happen today as well as 2,000 years ago.
Stress reactions take a toll on the body over time and can manifest as physical symptoms, anxiety, depression, or other mental and emotional states. During a visit to your Chinese medical practitioner, an acupuncturist may talk to the person to find out what is happening from their point of view including the stressors involved. Then the practitioner will conduct a physical exam that includes taking the pulse and looking at the tongue. Using these diagnostic tools the acupuncturist designs a treatment for that person on that day. Even though the stressors may be the same over time, the way the person shows up on any given day is factored into the treatment. Therefore, the person would not necessarily receive the exact same treatment at two different appointments.
Some people find immediate reduction in their stress reaction symptoms during an acupuncture treatment. Others take more time. In either case, your acupuncturist can support physical, mental and emotional changes needed to deal with the stressors of life and their accompanying reactions.
