anxiety

How acupuncture helps you to conquer stress and fear

Acupuncture can help anxiety even when medication fails

Researchers discovered that even with the patients with chronic anxiety, who tried medication, cognitive behaviour therapy and it did not work, acupuncture treatment results in significant improvements.

A group of adults with chronic non-responding anxiety symptoms who repeatedly had treatments including medications and psychotherapy through their GP were divided into two groups. One group had 10 weeks of acupuncture and were observed for another 10 weeks. Anxiety reduced significantly with patients who had the acupuncture treatment. The difference with the control group was highly significant at least 10 weeks following the treatment.

This study was conducted in the UK and was published in the British Medical Journal.

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“[Acupuncture] can significantly decrease the levels of anxiety , tension/muscular discomfort and pain.”
Mayo Clinic

How acupuncture reduces anxiety and stress

Researchers at the Georgetown University Medical Center made a major contribution to understanding how acupuncture helps fear and stress at the cellular level. They discovered that this treatment interferes with the very mechanism of stress. It blocks the chronic, stress-induced elevations of the HPA axis hormones and the sympathetic NPY pathway. See this study. This has also been covered in the Time magazine.

Other recent studies on mechanism of acupuncture have shown that it triggers an increase in neurotransmitter adenosine an incredible 24-fold, it normalises the sympathetic nervous system to help PCOS patients and restores ovulation.

“The rats who had acupuncture had levels of cortisol in their blood comparable to the control rats that weren’t stressed—and lower cortisol levels than the other stressed-out rats, including the rats who received sham (fake or placebo) acupuncture. Likewise, the stressed-out rats who didn’t receive the treatment showed more anxiety, depression and hopelessness through the behavioural tests, while the acu-treated rats behaved a lot more like the normal rats that hadn’t been exposed to anything.”
Time magazine

Study: Acupuncture for Women With Concurrent Substance Use and Anxiety/Depression

In this clinical experiment, women receiving acupuncture reported significant improvements compared to those in the control group. Specifically, the women noticed reduced physiological cravings for substances. They felt significantly less depressed and anxious and were better able to reflect on and resolve difficulties.

The researchers found that acupuncture, as an adjunct therapy to a comprehensive psychoeducational treatment program, shows promise in being an effective, more viable treatment alternative to anti-anxiety drugs anxiolytics for women with addictions.

This study was published in Family & Community Health April/June 2007 Volume 30 Number 2 Pages 112 – 120.

Pregnancy and fertility

Pregnancy acupressure reduces stress in labour. A study published in 2015 has found that acupressure reduced mothers anxiety and the length of labour.

Stress and anxiety may have significant implications on fertility. A recent study from University of Nottingham in UK found that chronic stress (longer term systemic cortisol) may influence reproductive outcomes and reduce chance to conceive with IVF. Higher stress hormones accounted for reduction in pregnancy by almost one-third. The researchers concluded that interventions to reduce cortisol prior to commencing IVF could improve treatment outcomes.