Acupuncture for Depression
Depression can be a particularly distressing emotional state. I have treated a significant number of people struggling with depression over the years and I’ve noticed that it is very common for people to feel that they should be able to just ‘snap out of it’ or just to be able to change how they feel through their own mental discipline. If you are feeling like this then I hope reading this will help you to take some pressure off yourself, when you are feeling depressed it is often because there are hormonal or other imbalances in your system, these are the things that determine how we feel so it is a big ask to expect yourself to just change how you are feeling through willpower alone. It is absolutely possible, and often very important, to engage in helpful practises that can help stimulate and balance the body and mind like Tai chi, Yoga or Meditation, exercise or changing diet and lifestyle, but it is uncommon for these to work like some kind of magic bullet, they tend to help gradually.
Acupuncture is excellent at helping us deal with all sorts of emotional states and can often help get you out of the vicious circle of depression and help your feel at peace and alive once again.
How Can It Help?
The quick answer is that good Acupuncture treats you the person aswell as any symptoms you have and when treatment supports you in this way, you feel better at both deep and surface levels. The way we experience our emotional and mental life is just is as much related to the conditions in our physical body as it is to what is happening in our mind and Acupuncture helps to balance things at all levels. Research has shown that Acupuncture affects our hormonal and nervous systems aswell as the more physical aspects of our body, all of these things influence our emotional state. Treatment encourages the body’s natural tendency to operate at optimum health, it brings you back into a better balance; emotional wellbeing is a product of this. People start describing feeling ‘more myself’, ‘more resilient’, ‘more content’ etc. This is the real meaning of wellbeing and one of the things that is amazing, and to some, surprising, about Traditional Chinese Acupuncture, is that it can help you feel this way.
It is this aspect of Acupuncture more than any other that inspired me to commit to studying for 4 years to be an Acupuncturist. Experiencing what it felt like to feel so better in myself inspired me to want to be able to share that with others.
Who Can Benefit?
My experience is that the majority of people who seek help from Acupuncture for Depression experience benefit. Since I qualified in 2012, I can only think of a handful of people who have come to me with emotional issues like anxiety or depression who haven’t felt much much better after a course of treatment.
What Do I Need to Do?
If you have something that is getting in the way of you feeling like the real you then you can either book an appointment or get in touch and we can chat about what is giving you difficulty and whether Acupuncture might be able to help. The majority of people find it leaves them feeling much better, whether they ‘believe’ in Acupuncture or not.
