Acupuncture, Anxiety and Depression: Hope in Challenging Times
By Mark Larsen, Licensed Acupuncturist, Natural Health Center
Can acupuncture help treat anxiety and depression? It’s a common question from patients. During their initial appointment, most patients lead with details of physical symptoms. It’s not until later, sometimes much later, in the conversation that many acknowledge the effects that their emotional state and stress have on their health.
A shared awareness of all three components of our health – body, mind and spirit – helps a person receiving Five Element acupuncture experience quicker and longer-lasting resolution of all symptoms.
Below I will share some personal insights, cover how anxiety and depression may contribute to physical symptoms, and offer ways that acupuncture can contribute to peoples’ health.
Anxious or Depressed? You’re Not Alone
If you are someone who has felt anxious and/or depressed lately, it seems that you are in the vast majority. My morning routine of reading the newspaper illustrates how I relate to anxiety and depression. The feel of paper and the soft crackle of the turning page have been my morning ritual for years. It’s a habit formed growing up in a family with parents actively engaged in the world, and it’s a routine I’ve continued.
This routine has grown more challenging lately. I can sometimes feel alternately anxious and depressed reading one article. While reading the Nation & World section the other day, my chest grew constricted as I read articles on the topics of warfare in Ukraine, food scarcity, climate change and, of course, COVID.
I interpret the constriction in my chest as a sign that my body and mind are gearing up to take action. I interpret depression, on the other hand, as the urge to retreat from action; with the retreat can be a sinking feeling attached to feelings of hopelessness.
Acupuncture: A Medication-Free Approach to Anxiety and Depression?
The last article on the page was about a proposal to add screenings for anxiety to peoples’ checkups. With a mental health system struggling to meet the overwhelming demand from people facing mental health challenges, Five Element acupuncture offers a possible solution involving a medication-free approach to treating anxiety and depression.
While Five Element acupuncture is not therapy in the traditional sense, people who receive treatments often note that their emotions are more in balance, in control and accessible in a healthy way.
During a Five Element treatment, each organ system is seen as being a potential player in a person’s emotional health. We look to restore functioning in peoples’ organs to help not only with physical symptoms, but for restoring emotional harmony. When treating a someone experiencing grief, for example, we might look to the lungs, as they play a big role in storing and processing grief.
Anxiety and Depression Looks Different to Each of Us
There are as many pathways to feeling anxious and depressed as there are people. Five Element acupuncture provides an effective framework for recognizing how someone becomes anxious and/or depressed, and how it can be alleviated.
In the view of Five Element acupuncture, people fall into one of five different types:
· Fire
· Earth
· Metal
· Water
· Wood
If you have done some reading on the Five Elements, it can be confusing to sort through the array of signs and resonances of the particular elements. For simplicity, I will generalize and focus on the Earth element and how an Earth-type person might experience anxiety.
The emotional resonance of Earth is sympathy, and the spirit, Yi, is thoughtful intention. Being around an Earth-type person in balance can feel like being embraced by a caring community. They listen carefully, with genuine concern, wanting to understand and in turn be understood. When out of balance, an Earth-type person’s mental processing might be described as muddled and can take on a circular thinking pattern resembling a washing machine stuck in the agitation or spin cycle. An Earth-type’s expression of anxiety in this case might have the appearance of being scattered, over-committed, exhausted or resentful.
The emotional tendencies of the other four elements may also create their own unique pathways to seeds of anxiety. Anxiety and/or depression for the other four elements might be rooted in:
· An obstacle interfering with accomplishing a goal
· Relationship disharmony
· Perceived judgement and feelings of inadequacy
· Fear over a scarcity of resources
Our Emotional State Impacts Our Physical Symptoms
While it is outside the scope of this writing to define the difference between transient feelings of anxiousness or depression, and situations where intervention is recommended, my intent is in building an awareness of how our mental/emotional health affects all aspects of our health. Whether this resonates with you or not, I think it is safe to say that all of us have been impacted by the unrest and isolation the world has experienced in the last few years.
Here are some other examples regarding our emotional state and physical symptoms:
· Sometimes that stomachache could just be something you ate, or it might be an over-active mind interfering with the harmony of the gut/brain connection.
· Tight tendons could be that long hike you did last weekend, or may be a sign that you’re pushing too hard toward accomplishing goals.
· That aching back might be from stooping over your garden, or it could be a sign that you have over-extended your energetic reserves and need to rest.
Maybe it’s time to come in and find out! Contact us to schedule your acupuncture appointment.
About Mark Larsen, Anchorage Acupuncturist
Mark Larsen is a licensed and national board-certified Anchorage acupuncturist working to help patients of all ages optimize their health and access vitality through acupuncture. When treating patients, Mark draws upon the wisdom of Five Element tradition combined with principles of East Asian Medicine. Learn more about Mark or schedule your acupuncture appointment.