5 Reasons Acupuncture Helps with Holiday Stress
Acupuncture for Holiday Stress
Acupuncture offers a drug-free way to manage stress associated with the holiday season. For many people that involves increased workload, less exercise, poor diet, more travel, financial stress, and family stress. These things can place increased stress on our nervous system and body which results in physiological changes. Acute and chronic stress can lead to pain, anxiety, sleep issues, and digestive issues.
Acupuncture works by regulating the nervous system which helps to alleviate physical symptoms associated with stress. These symptoms can include things like muscle tightness, headaches, digestive issues, heart palpitations, sleep issues, and fatigue.
Acupuncture also help release muscle tightness and trigger points which can cause pain in predictable referral patterns. Trigger points can be involved in acute and chronic pain, and also cause headaches.
Here’s more on 5 reasons you should get acupuncture to help with holiday stress and a link to our FREE eBook on How to Manage Stress Naturally.
1) Acupuncture reduces pain and muscle tension
In the U.S., pain is the most common chief complaints during and acupuncture visit. The holidays can cause increased stress and changes to our exercise and movement routine, which can lead to muscle tightness and pain.
Acupuncture helps relieve pain by releasing endorphins, loosening tight muscles, reducing inflammation, and improving circulation.
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2) Acupuncture Relieves Stress and Anxiety
Anxiety is one of the main symptoms people feel when they are subjected to increased stress levels, which for many people is the case during the holidays. Acute and chronic stress cause changes to our nervous system that can result in physical symptoms.
Acupuncture helps to activate the parasympathetic nervous system to counterbalance the sympathetic “fight or flight” nervous system.
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3) Acupuncture Improves Digestive Function
The holidays can be a time of disordered eating and heightened stress levels. Increased stress and poor diet can lead to digestive dysfunction.
By regulating the nervous system, acupuncture can improve digestive function. This can help with symptoms like bloating, constipation, diarrhea, acid reflux, and chronic inflammation in the digestive tract.
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4) Acupuncture Improves Sleep and Energy Levels
The holidays can affect our sleep schedules, especially if there is travel involved. Increased exposure to stress can also lead to sleep difficulties. This can include symptoms like having trouble falling asleep or staying asleep, waking up often while sleeping, and not feeling rested in the morning.
Acupuncture can improve these symptoms and provide a more restful night’s sleep by regulating the nervous system and promoting the “rest and digest” parasympathetic nervous system.
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5) Acupuncture Relieves Headaches
Many people report an increase in headaches around the holiday season. Headaches are commonly associated with stress, increased alcohol consumption, and poor diet which can all be increased during the holidays.
While there are many reasons that someone can have headaches, stress and muscle tightness is often involved in many cases. Acupuncture can help calm the nervous system to relieve headaches and migraines, as well as release trigger points and muscle tightness that can contribute to muscle tightness.
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If you know anyone in need of holiday stress relief please forward them this blog post.