Acupuncture Remedies Anxiety!

Look at how tiny those needles are. Nothing to fear!

I think I need to do more of it. Dude, it treats anxiety! Who knew?!

Who isn’t anxious time to time or all the time or much of the time or that time of the month or when you’re not on time? I mean, I am a tish anxious just thinking about how I’m going to get through all the books teetering on my nightstand. I tend to focus on inane things like that so I don’t worry about big issues like the election and women’s health or looming issues like my student loans. I have a few hamster wheels on overdrive in my head most of the time. I find it difficult to relax and chill because all I can think about is how I’m going to pay for the luxury of putting my feet up to read those books stacked on my nightstand. Then I hear Mitt Romney’s voice on the news, and go all atwitter with stress pangs again. All this before noon.

Being a natural worry wart, germaphobe, control monger, neat freak, and overall anal nutcase, I find myself struck with anxiety a lot.

Jim, over at Raleigh Pain and Stress Center, is going to be my hero. He’s not even paying me to say that. Jim is going to rid me of those hamster wheels, for which Mac Daddy will be eternally grateful. As Jim tells it, there is a hole in how anxiety, panic attacks, depression, and other emotional issues are treated. The mainstream medical world first course of treatment for any hint of anxiety is medication. While this may be a great band-aid it really never addresses the underlying issues that allow this anxiety (or whatever emotional issues) to manifest. Did I mention that I hate to take medicine? Now don’t get me wrong, there is a time for medicine, of course. I’m simply saying that I am happily unmedicated and need some stress management tools and outlets, not a full blown work up to treat acute anxiety. What I learned from my chats with Jim is that acupuncture looks at the body and mind as inseparable. From the most gross aspect of the body you have the muscles, bones, tendons…. to the most refined aspect of the body which is the emotional level, it’s all one thing and it is all related. This totally makes sense. Of course mind and body are inextricably linked. Those Spartans were on to something.

“Look at the leaves moving in the spring. You do not see the wind. The leaf is matter, the physical aspect. The wind is energy, the immaterial aspect. It is energy that makes the leaves move. To understand why the leaves move, you must understand the energy. There is only one medicine, but it has 2 aspects: material and immaterial. The difference between Eastern and Western medicine is that the West looks at the leaf and the East looks at the wind.”
– Dr. Tran Viet Dzung

That’s poetic, isn’t it? I love it.

Acupuncture can successfully treat anxiety, depression, and other emotional issues by building up the body, balancing the body all the way from the physical aspect to the mental-emotional aspect. Apparently acupuncture has some wizardly effects. Jim says that he has had people come in for treatments for anxiety who also have migraines, and they are amazed that both go away, even though his treatment is aimed at anxiety only. All without all the side effects of medication! Most of the people he treats for anxiety turn to acupuncture because they could not endure the side effects of antidepressants or they did not like the way the medication made them feel. I can understand that. I don’t even like how Nyquil makes me feel.

I think I need an appointment to settle down my nerves. Maybe if I’m less tense I’ll stop needling my family.

What do you say? Would you give acupuncture a shot?

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