Acupuncture for Anxiety, Depression & Traumatic Stress

Do you experience anxiety with such frequency and/or intensity that it interferes with your daily well-being? People experience anxiety differently, but common symptoms include:

• Feelings of panic, fear, or general unease

• Difficulty sleeping

• Heart palpitations

• Racing thoughts

• Inability to be still

• Muscle tension

• Nausea

• Dizziness

• Rumination and worry

If you are exhausted by all this and longing for peace, there is hope. Acupuncture can be an effective tool for relieving anxiety and offers a gentle approach without the side effects associated with some medications.

Depression is the thief of joy. It can make formerly happy people feel like nothing is good in their world and they have no energy to do anything about it. I have had patients tell me they are too depressed to cry, that they just feel empty. If you feel this way, you are far from alone.

Whether you have lost your joie de vivre, or joy of life, are filled with angst, despair and overwhelming sadness, or are brooding and stuck in your thinking, acupuncture can address the underlying imbalances contributing to depression and support you on your way to feeling a greater sense of peace and emotional lightness.

As a former social worker who spent over 20 years working in the arena of sexual violence, I am very familiar with the impact of trauma on the body, mind, and spirit.

We hold trauma memories in our body, often unconsciously, and acupuncture can offer a way of supporting healing on a deep level. Regardless of the nature of your traumatic experience and whether it happened recently or long ago, it can impact the quality of your daily life.

Common manifestations of traumatic stress include:

• Feeling unsafe or ill at ease

• Startling easily or being hypersensitive to your environment

• Difficulty concentrating

• Sleep difficulties and nightmares

• Intrusive thoughts, visual images, sounds, or smells

• Feeling numb and disconnected

• Easily irritated or enraged

• Feelings of anxiety, depression, guilt, or shame

Acupuncture helps balance the nervous system and can support you in moving out of stuck flight, fight, or freeze patterns. It supports greater emotional equilibrium and harmony and can be a wonderful adjunctive support for psychotherapy and other trauma interventions.