Stress
Modern life is stressful. The demands of family, career, and the ever-increasing complexities of daily life can cause harmful stress and related conditions. While many seek to cope with these difficulties through the use of prescription medications and/or expensive and time-consuming Western psychological techniques, acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine offer genuine relief for many.
The major complaint by individuals who have arthritis is joint pain. Pain is often a constant and may be localized to the joint affected. The pain from arthritis is due to inflammation that occurs around the joint,damage to the joint from disease, daily wear and tear of joint, muscle strains caused by forceful movements against stiff, painful joints and fatigue.
Acupuncture and TCM techniques often provide immediate relief, helping people through the physical and emotional symptoms of stress. Patients seeking treatment for stress and related conditions frequently enter the office in a state of extreme distress and agitation. after a few minutes of treatment, they are likely to feel a deep sense of calm as their practitioner addresses the qi obstructions and disharmonies causing their worst physical symptoms. As in other cases, but more often for stress than for other conditions, patients frequently fall into a light and pleasant sleep shortly after treatment begins.
Long-term treatment may require more frequent visits, but most people come back only for occasional “tune ups,” or to have their TCM herbal formulas adjusted or modified to better meet their changing needs and conditions.
Chinese herbal formulas are frequently of great help in addressing the underlying physiological conditions believed by TCM to lie at the heart of stress and stress-related disorders, with certain formulas shown to be applicable to the most common manifestations of this condition.
As always, Dr. Ding can assist you in formulating a plan of action most suitable for your circumstances.
Anxiety
One in four of us will experience some kind of mental health problem every year, and the most common type is anxiety combined with depression.
Anxiety is a recurring state of fear that may be associated with certain objects, thoughts or situations. It’s often accompanied by physical symptoms like sweating, rapid heartbeat and breathlessness. It can be difficult for sufferers to maintain a normal life. Clinical depression is a pattern of severely depressed moods which last for 2 weeks or more. There are commonly other symptoms such as changes in appetite, insomnia, difficulty in thinking clearly and relating to others, and feelings of worthlessness and guilt.
In China, acupuncture has a long history of use for mental and emotional disorders, with written references going back to the Han dynasty, around 200 B.C. Modern studies in China have found that acupuncture may be effective in treating depression and even more effective in treating anxiety.
In the West, we are beginning to realise how useful acupuncture can be for mental health problems. A survey carried out by the Mental Health Foundation found that 85% of those asked had found complementary medicine extremely helpful (Faulkner 1997). A pilot study carried out at two mental health centres in the East End of London, provided 8 acupuncture treatments for patients and then asked, ‘What effect has acupuncture had on your overall health?’ Patients reported a ‘marked improvement’ in their condition. (Hougham 1997)
