San Diego Acupuncture: Can Acupuncture Help With Stress and Insomnia?

Stress is epidemic in modern society. It is the root of a host of disorders from irritable bowl syndrome, insomnia to hypertension and many more. In my San Diego Acupuncture office I see stress playing a major complicating factor in everything from fertility to pain issues. Here are some of the ways acupuncture can help:

• Stress mobilizes the fight or flight response. This response is triggered by our sympathetic nervous system. Think of this as a switch board with too many switches  flipped on. As stress mounts day after day, our switches are staying open, and over-stimulating many areas of our bodies continuously. This mounts toll on many areas of our health, such as our immune system.
• The Types of stress we face in the modern world usually doesn’t involve fighting or running away. Normally, when we are able to run away, our switch can flip closed and we can recover. However, in our modern lives we cant really run away from our jobs, our relatives, our marriages, or our financial problems. Well, we may be able to, but often we stay stuck in these issues for many months, or years until we are forced to change when the toll on our health becomes unbearable.
• Acupuncture can help close down those switches, switching on the parasympathetic nervous system. This serves as the “off switch” turning off many unnecessarily excited nerve signals. It can also promote a detox effect, that can help rid the body off all the chemical residues of the long term over-stimulation.

Insomnia is often the result of an over excited, over stimulated nervous system. The part of our mind responsible for trying to solve our everyday problems refuses to shut off. This is made worse by all the “productive things” we do before bed, that only serve to create more worries and problems for our minds to figure out. Acupuncture does the exact opposite for many patients.

When acupuncture is performed, it creates a deep level of relaxation, that goes beyond what you can achieve when just laying down. By keeping the body still, you help still the mind. I find time and time again, that at least half my patients will fall asleep during acupuncture, or enter a deeply relaxed state where they are not sure if they had slept, or for how long.

Patients who receive acupuncture on a weekly basis, and then stop for a period, often remark to me that they notice how much better they slept when they were getting regular acupuncture. And acupuncture will often produce this effect for free, even when treat unrelated issues.

If your serious about reducing your stress, and curing your insomnia without depending on drugs, then you may want to contact our San Diego office to see if acupuncture can help you.