Staying Healthy in Winter

(see article)

Ask Mary Beth

Q. Does acupuncture hurt?
A. Many patients report that their experiences range from feeling almost nothing at all to a brief ache, or sensations of energetic activity near the needle. Many people who have been fearful of acupuncture also report being amazed and surprised by the pleasant experience of complete relaxation. The needles, being the width of a human hair, are the finest needles and only shallowly inserted into the body.

Stress Reduction

Our goal is to resolve your symptoms and provide you with the tools to observe the signs of stress and what that is for you, and to be able to reduce the reaction and response in your body-mind-spirit. When a person receives acupuncture, one becomes much more aware of all the senses—touch immediately. In experiencing the flow of qi energy, one gains an increasing awareness of one's own body. In this way, a person comes to understand when the body is light, when life flows freely and things are open and relaxed and by contrast when the body is tight and closed, perhaps clenched and constricted. With the needles, this is a unique experience; there is none other like this incomparable experience of acupuncture.

We all understand the numerous sources of stress in our daily life. Although our ancestors were truly physically challenged by actual fight or flight, we may actually experience more constant and frequent stress which has the potential to wear us down to the point of total depletion. Some of the symptoms that may arise and may be dismissed as just random are:

• headaches/migraines
• depression
• heart disease
• high blood pressure
• digestive disorders
• weight gain

In a Georgetown University study concerning HIV and AIDs patients, the researchers were tracking the effects of stress on these patients. What they also found and what they did not anticipate finding was that stress affects the general healthy population in many of the same ways that it affects the HIV/AIDs population.

Once you have received acupuncture and understand the complete ease that you experience in your body, I encourage you to re-create this well-being for yourself in the course of everyday life. In becoming practiced at this, we all can arrive at managing the everyday stresses that we experience.

Every functioning of the human body-mind-spirit has the potential to be affected and compromised by stress. Initially the body makes accommodations; however, left unchecked the self-regulating functions will no longer be able to cope. The endocrine system, in charge of all hormonal regulation, and the nervous system will be compromised. The white blood cells decrease which results in lower immunity. The final stage of unchecked stress is the deterioration of the adrenal glands resulting in depletion and adrenal exhaustion. As you can understand, acupuncture and self-care serve to create ease instead of disease within our bodies in order that we know how to harmonize with our stressors, allowing us to create optimum health.