Acupuncture for Your Emotional Health
You might be wondering why I have separated emotional and mental health into separate categories. While they are very similar and often go along together, I personally seperate Acupuncture and mental health to be concerning the mind, and Acupuncture and emotional health to concern how the emotions affect us physically, throughout our whole bodies.
As an Acupuncturist who studied Psychology and has a personal interest in the effect of strong emotions, stress and trauma on the body – I would say this is my area of special interest within Acupuncture. These treatments are far more long term and complex for us practitioners, but the results are that much more profound and incredible to witness. As someone who has experienced my own difficulties, it is empowering to provide relief to people who feel they may have been stuck and defined by certain experiences forever.
How can the emotions affect us physically?
When I explain the effect of our emotions on our physical bodies, my favourite examples are: if you think of something stressful, we tense and lift our shoulders. When we feel emotional and don’t want to let it out, we feel a lump in our throat. When we are frustrated about something and can’t speak out about it, or we keep going over it repetitively in our minds, we may clench our jaw and grind our teeth. These are some simple examples about how our emotions affect us physically that almost everyone has experienced and can relate to.
When we get onto more complex and deep-rooted emotions, especially emotions that have plagued us over long periods of time, the gradual effect on the body may be more difficult to define, see, or even notice yourself.
The beauty of Chinese medicine is its ability to understand and link everything that is happening in the body. Symptoms you may never have realised and linked together may be a result of some emotion locked inside. In Chinese Medicine, emotions and our bodies are one in the same! For example, many times I have had a patient come to me with chronic constipation which we later discovered and successfully treated as unresolved grief.
To explain this, in western medicine the colon is responsible of literally ‘letting go’ of the waste products we do not need. In Chinese medicine, the colon (or the energetic understanding of the colon, not just the physical organ) is responsible for not only the physical ‘letting go’, but also the emotional ‘letting go’ of experiences and emotions that does not serve us. And both affect each other – if you cannot let go of a past experience, you may struggle to physically let go. If you are constipated for physical reasons (diet, medication etc) this may affect your emotional ability to let go.
Emotions are powerful, and so many of us lock them down inside us instead of letting them out. How many of us have literally pushed an emotion that was bubbling up back down. Unfortunately, that is the nature of our society and as a self-defence mechanism. But in Chinese medicine when you push an emotion down you literally push that emotion into your body and lock it away. The emotion is stored, sometimes rearing its ugly head, and otherwise wreaking havoc within your body over time - often without you knowing.
In Acupuncture we work with deep energetic pathways where our bodies store these emotions. We slowly work towards freeing the emotions and releasing them physically. It can be a complex and long-term treatment, there is no quick fix, but the results can be incredibly profound.
Talking Therapy
Don’t get me wrong, I am all for talking things through. When we are talking about deep trauma and emotions, of course it is important to note that Acupuncture is only one part of the healing process. If you are releasing pent up emotions, it is essential to have a support system alongside the physical release to help deal with the emotions you may experience as a result of the treatment. Having said that, the choice is completely yours.
I have a network of therapists I work alongside to help work through these complex emotional cases. I also really recommend to any therapists out there the power of utilising acupuncture to help assist the mental work! As much as talking is effective and can work towards releasing emotions, I have seen first-hand how combining the emotional and physical treatments can be exponential to the releasing and healing process!
It is difficult to put a label and define a lot of these emotions so I will just say you may find relief with:
o Trauma
o Shock
o Grief
o PTSD
o Depression
o Anxiety
o Frustration and Anger
o Stress
o Burnout
o Ability to cope
If there is anything you are struggling with and are unsure if Acupuncture is the right treatment for you, please do not hesitate to email us or bring it up in your appointment. We will be happy to help, treat, or advise you on what might be best for what you are dealing with. If you feel it is right for you, you can book your appointment now.
The information in this website is for informational purposes only. No material on this site is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition or treatment, and before undertaking a new health care regimen, and never disregard professional advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on this website.