Why is acupuncture more relevant to your life than you think? Most people think that they should use acupuncture for the treatment of pain. However, more and more people are surprised to discover that the benefits of acupuncture also help you to treat stress and keep you relaxed. A lot of people in my Ridgewood, NJ office located in Bergen county, NJ, ask me these questions everyday. So I’d like to share with you why acupuncture is more relevant to your life than you think!
The race to death in the modern world
Our modern day lifestyle is all about achievement, success, event hopping , working hard, and playing hard. Lost is the ability to simply relax, having family time, and time spent with friends or just “do nothing”. The weekends tend to be anything but unwinding from a hectic week. Deadlines, “marathon schedules”, and long work hours seem to be the new “norm” and fashion of life. So a lot about life is about running and doing”ness”. We don’t have enough time in our lives to do the things we need to do to have a happier, healthier life and to rejuvenate our bodies and mind.
As a result , we are seeking the consequence of a lack of rhythm in our lives. Increased stress, hi blood pressure, depression, and anxiety. Our health can’t simply remedied by only a 30-minute session at the gym. We simply expend more energy out than we conserve in our daily life. As our bodies get depleted we suffer the results of different health and emotional problems. This is the proverbial race to death, and the marathon of our lives. We are all engaged in running this lifelong “marathon” whether we want to admit it or not. This marathon or “race to death” is the cosmic conundrum. We need to get things done at a more frantic pace, our lives are jammed pack with to do lists and as we go through our lives it takes us further away from our ideal of feeling rejuvenated and balanced, both physically and emotionally. This death race is constant and occurs to all of us on a daily basis.
Lost upon us is the time for rejuvenation and restoration
We eat right, we exercise, but do we have any quality down time or what I like to call “rejuvenation” time? The answer is “not enough” if at all. We only really slow down when we suffer a physical injury or a cold or flu that really makes us stop and rest so we can truly heal. We certainly don’t do enough flexibility training and we pay the price of chronic stiffness, achiness in the lower back, shoulders and knees. Repetitive workplace activities such as using the computer, the telephone, carrying heavy bags around with us, as well as getting that sport’s injury only makes us feel worse as we have to live with the stiffness in our muscles! We also don’t have anything to really keep us grounded in the world of stimulants. Sugar highs at the local bakery, expresso shots at Starbucks, and derailed diets. The problem is that most people suffer from some sort of anxiety, depression, or just have lost that verve and gusto for life as they age and feel more fatigued and tired. Insomnia, restless sleep and weight gain become the rule rather than the exception . Does this sound too familiar? Lost upon us is the time for rejuvenation and restoration.
How to stay young healthy and stop the race to death?
Chinese medicine tried to grapple with this problem 3,500 years ago. It asked how do we keep this person healthy strong, vital, into the later years of his or her life? In China, at the time, the privileged class, for example, perhaps a land owner, had the disposable means to could go to the herbalist with these same complaints, very similar to the problems we are faced with today. They dealt with lower back pain from working in the rice fields, the fatigue and tiredness from long hours of outdoor labor, problems arising from being exposed to the harsh elements, libido problems so they could keep up with their wives, urinary issues, and hormone issues.
Words like “wellness” were originally concepts championed among Chinese medicine, as well as other traditions, in slowing down this “race to death” and preserving the body’s energies so it could prosper and remain healthy into the later years of their lives. While the concept of wellness has finally caught on in society, we don’t necessary see wellness permeating the society at large as it has done in china over the centuries. In fact, our society has gotten worse in terms of it’s crazy life style and we see it in the rise of cancers, elevated cholesterol, strokes and heart problems. Can incorporating acupuncture into your life help make a difference? The answer is YES!
Healing and Rejuvenation occurs with stillness and enhanced healing:
Laying with acupuncture needles, your body gets signals sent to the brain which releases a whole cascade of effects including enhanced production of endorphins, which help calm the jagged edges of our minds. Anti-inflammatories are released to reduce cortisol levels, soothe our aches, remove lactic acid from the muscles, and stimulate the collagen muscles in the bones. Sitting with the needles for 30 + minutes really cycles the enhanced blood flow throughout all of the organs and muscles of the body helping you to restore. Part of the treatment is letting go of control on a very physical level, laying still so the body can be taken to this healing state.
- Do you want to stay mobile free of chronic stiffness and pain?
- Do you want to stay calm and establish a more balanced emotional life?
- Do you want to sleep better?
- Do you want better energy or digestion?
If you can answer YES to any of these questions then you are certainly a candidate for using acupuncture to keep you feeling better, not just when you have a severe pain, but for the other relaxation
Can you see how this type of work is helpful to your body? Can’t you see that this philosophy is becoming ever more increasing relevant as the older population finds itself living longer? We might have a financial plan, but do you have a long term “wellness plan? Most of us don’t think of health until we’ve lost it. More and more people are seeing that they can avoid a lot of these problems with some maintenance and adopting the practice of acupuncture and Chinese medicine in their life to halt the burnout lifestyle on this race to death. What’s your plan?
Including acupuncture in your life to reduce your stress and enhance your energy and mobility is now becoming more apparent for people seeking the benefits. Chinese medicine works to slow you down, relax you and strengthen the organs that are the weakest by increasing blood flow, nerve flow and regulating the hormones. It also taught certain life style changes that go hand in hand with incorporating a health regimen that can help you “preserve” yourself as you go through the years. So going to the gym is good, but becoming more flexible so you don’t get injury, improving your balance and slowing down the mind and stimulating relaxation in the body so it can repair itself is what this medicine has to offer.
There is a great quote that encapsulates this type of thinking that was pretty awesome when I read it. It goes like this:
“To see how you got to the present time, you only need to look at your actions in the past, to see where you will be in the future, you need to looked at what you are doing now?”
What you choose to incorporate now to preserve your health? Chinese medicine has been a resource for many, for exactly these reasons for over 3,500 years in improving their lives. A lot of people miss a lot of what the medicine has to offer when they the point when they think of acupuncture as solely a pain management therapy. An acupuncture treatment has many life preserving benefits that can help people rejuvenate and restoring their minds and bodies , and slowing down the frantic is race of death”.
I hope this article has brought you one step closer to getting a better perspective on the benefits of acupuncture.
If you’d like more help with a particular health issue or you’d like to learn more how acupuncture can help you stay healthy, call me at 201-444-7150 or email me at integrativeacupuncturecenter@gmail.com. I am never too busy to help you.