Acupuncture and Chinese Herbal Medicine can be very effective in the treatment of Anxiety and Sleep Disorders. The reason that it is so effective is that acupuncture works with the central nervous system. Some of you might have heard of the sayings, “Rest and Digest” or “Fight or flight”; these two statement are the two responses of the central nervous system and at any given time we are usually in one response or the other.
“Rest and Digest” refers to the parasympathetic nervous system in which the body is able to relax, sleep, restore, digest. We are only in this response when we are calm, peaceful and not stressed out. On the other hand, “Fight or flight” refers to the sympathetic nervous system. The sympathetic nervous system is designed to help us run from danger, deal with stressful circumstances and gives with the adrenaline to do things that we could not “normally” do if we are put in an extremely unfortunate event.
The body can only truly heal in a “rest and digest” or parasympathetic state. Unfortunately, these days, most of us live in the stress response and as a result have more anxiety disorders and sleep disturbances. Fortunately, acupuncture is great at switching the body from that “fight or flight” to “rest and digest” very quickly during a treatment. However, the body usually requires more than one treatment to change the pattern of the body, especially if that body has been living in that state for a while.
Acupuncture helps to calm the body, turn off the stress response and thus initiate the body’s own ability to heal itself. Depending on the severity of your condition will determine how many treatments are recommended. However, most of my patients report that after just one treatment they slept better than they have in a while.