Our columnist explores the intricate link between physical and emotional health through acupuncture
Chakra connection
When it comes to acupuncture, many think of its use for relief from physical symptoms.
However acupuncture can also help to relieve feelings of stress and anxiety, too.
I have many stories from clinic where emotions can have a detrimental impact on a patient’s wellbeing; interestingly this is a big issue in infertility patients. There is immense suffering in infertility and it is often not met with much understanding or sympathy. Many think, wrongly, that because these patients often are not physically unwell, they do not suffer. Nothing could be further from the truth. Perhaps the answer is in the emotional picture; the internal stress generated by something that came with an expectation of being easy, turning out to be anything but.
Chinese medicine doesn’t divide physical health and emotional health, they are considered one and the same, and one impacts the other. Different emotions, along with pernicious influences such as the wind and extreme heat are categorised as causes of disease in this system of thinking. The main emotions said to cause injury to the bodies qi (energy) and yin and yang (masculine and feminine energies) are: anger, worry, pensiveness, sadness and grief, fear, shock, craving, guilt and shame. Surprisingly even joy is considered a potentially damaging emotion if it is in excess or ungrounded Any intense emotion, if prolonged or intense, will disturb the qi of the body and either lead to a stagnation of qi (rather like a traffic jam), a depletion of energy or a scattering of energy. All these states can potentially be problematic and lead to more serious problems.
Equally with serious illness such as cancer, MS and any illness that creates pain and anguish, acupuncture can be a fantastic treatment to give the patient both the opportunity to discuss how they are feeling emotionally, and to help them physically. In my mind there are two kinds of s
