Acupuncture For Anxiety and Stress Relief

Hi, Dr. Todd Sullivan from Nova Chiropractic and Acupuncture. One common condition we're seeing in our office is a lot of people are stressed out, they're very anxious with these uncertain times. So one of the treatments we do in our office that really helps alleviate a lot of the anxiety and stress is acupuncture. In our office, we use acupuncture needles to do the treatment, but obviously at home, you don't have that as an option. So I'm going to show you a couple of different options that you can use at home to help alleviate anxiety, stress, and improve your sleep quality. The nice thing also, these at-home options can also be used for kids. I use these on my kids at home all the time, and it's a great option, especially if kids are afraid of needles. In the office, we use these at home, and also if people are afraid of needles, this is a great alternative option. One product I recommend is an ear seeds kit. You can buy this on Amazon, you can buy it from earseeds.com. And what it is, is you buy, in this case, it's an insomnia kit. And what you get inside that are you get these little ear seeds that you can place in the ear. You can also use them on other areas throughout your body. It's just why you like acupuncture treatment, but you also get a card showing you the ear points that you can treat to help alleviate insomnia or anxiety or depression. The great thing about it is it's really just shows you exactly where it is. It comes with little tweezers. You can put them on it. And again, these do not hurt. It's just a little seed that you place on the skin, and it has like a little bandaid covering over it there and holds it in place. And the great thing about it is it's a very easy to do. It'll last three to four days and give you quite a bit of relief. And again, kids can use this and it works really well. So what we're going to do is I'm going to demonstrate the actual acupuncture treatment in our office using needles, and then I'll demonstrate how you would apply the ear seeds to the different areas to help alleviate your symptoms. The first point we're going to treat, it's a major acupuncture point for stress, anxiety. It's just an overall great wellness point. It's called Shen Men. And so I'm going to demonstrate what a needle is going to look like going into that point. Okay. So that's the acupuncture point. I'm going to show you on the screen, you can see where that point is. And again, at home, what we're going to do is we're going to place that ear seed right on that point there. You can also just digitally put pressure on that point as well if you're really stressed out, but that's a great point. We do this in lots of different protocols and it's very good at relieving stress and anxiety. It has multiple different effects. The next acupuncture point we're going to do for stress and anxiety and insomnia is pericardium six. So what you're going to do to find this, Renee, I want you to take your thumb and I want you to take it right at that wrist crease right there. And we're going to go two thumb whips from that point. So we're going to go one, two, and on the other edge of that is going to be where that, that point is located. So move your hand there for me. And so there is the acupuncture point pericardium six. Very important point for stress, anxiety, depression. So at home, you're going to place the ear seed right there at that point. The next point we're going to treat for anxiety and stress is heart seven. So to find that, it's going to be on this inside portion of your wrist, right at that wrist crease there. We're going to go just a little bit up from that right on the inside there. You can feel there's a tendon here and we want to be just on the side of that tendon and that's the heart seven point there. And again, we're going to apply the ear seed right there as well. And that can help with stress and anxiety and insomnia. The next important point we're going to treat for stress, anxiety, and even insomnia is spleen six. So to find that, what you're going to do is you're going to place your forefingers right above this bony area right here. This is called your malleolus or your inside of your ankle. You're going to put your forefingers flat like that. So Renee, do that for me. Good. And then what we're going to do is just on the other edge of that is going to be spleen six. And we're going to place it right there. You can move your hand. So again, at home, you're going to place the ear seed right at that spleen six location there. The next point we're going to treat specifically for insomnia is called kidney three. To find kidney three, we're going to find that malleolus. It's right there. And what we're going to do is between the distance between your Achilles and the malleolus, we're going to bisect that. And right here is going to be kidney three and that's kidney three and that's for insomnia. And again, what you want to do, you want to put that ear seed right there and that's going to be the treatment for that. Okay. So the next thing we're going to do is we're going to take our ear seeds. I'm going to show you how to actually apply the ear seed. So your kit comes with tweezers. And so what you're going to do, you're just going to use the tweezers to get one of the ear seeds out of the tray. Perfect. And you can also apply it with your fingernails. And what we're going to do is we're just going to apply it right on the point. And then you just want to make sure the adhesive on the tape is holding in place and that's it. And that's all you have to do. Again, there's no pain associated with it. Now, if you're stressed out or you're very anxious, just actually using your finger and putting some more pressure on that can actually help to activate it and help to loosen it up. So that's how you would apply it for the Shenmen point in your ear there. Again, very important point. I'm going to show you also how you can apply it on your wrist as well. So to apply the ear seed to the pericardium six, what we're going to have you do, I'm going to have you find that point again, where you use your thumb and we're going to measure from the wrist crease. We're going to do one and then move it over another thumb width. There you go. And that's the point. So then you're going to remove your thumb and we're just going to place that ear seed right on that point. And again, that's all it looks like. And patient doesn't feel anything. It's just like a little Band-Aid going over that spot. And again, if you are stressed out, just a little bit of digital pressure on that will work. Now, another alternative, instead of using the ear seeds, you can buy a thing like this, which is called the Teixing. And it basically is just like a little spring loaded activation. So what we could do is we could also take this over the acupuncture point and just gently stimulate the point by pressing in like that. I've even seen people use like a pen cap and they can just use that over that point as well. Obviously if you're the ear seeds or the actual acupuncture needles are the best, but this is a great alternative as well. It's called a Teixing and basically you apply it right over the point and just jab it back and forth 10 to 15 times and then go on to the next point. So I hope that illustrates how you would apply the ear seeds to the different points and how you would treat these different acupuncture points. Obviously, if you can receive treatment in the office, that's going to be the best with the acupuncture needles. But if you don't feel comfortable with that, or if you want to just stay home during these times, I would recommend buying an ear seeds kit and go to earseeds.com or find them on Amazon. You can pick the different kits and you can apply those to those points that we just discussed. If you do want to schedule an appointment, give our office call at 703-912-7822 or schedule online at novachirawellness.com.