New Year’s goals are still fresh in the air and your appetite for motivation is at it’s peak! Everyone is looking forward to a fresh start to get ahead on fitness, health, financial and personal resolutions. At the root of each new year’s notion is the hope that we can improve the quality of our own lives. Whether this means maintaining a healthy weight, learning to nourish yourself or even starting a family, you’ll find that each goal becomes more attainable with the reduction of stress.

Achieving any goal relies heavily on energy, stamina, health and a peaceful mind. Stress, specifically chronic stress, can actually impact your nervous system and hormonal system as well as suppress your immune system. Prolonged distress can even raise blood pressure and cause heart disease. For many of our patients, the effects of stress are especially important as reproduction relies so heavily on the immune, nervous and endocrine systems.

Recent research indicates what many in the alternative medicine field have believed for centuries...that acupuncture and Chinese medicine are extremely effective in minimizing stress levels within the body, in turn bringing balance and health.

A study at Georgetown University Medical Center tested the effects of acupuncture on a protein linked to stress. The study was conducted using rats and measured the amount of NPY, a neuropeptide released during the “flight or fight” response to acute stress, in the blood levels of four groups of rats. The results concluded the experimental group that was subjected to stress and received stress-reducing acupuncture had lower levels of NPY in their blood than the group that was subjected to stress but did not receive stress-relieving acupuncture. In addition, the experimental group was subjected to stress for four days after their acupuncture had stopped and the levels of the stress-related protein remained lower.

This study really hits home at TCRA since we want to make sure each of you are able to take home lasting effects from your treatments here. It’s hard to take care of yourself sometimes and even more discouraging when stress prevents you from improving your own quality of life. Acupuncture can help manage your stress levels, improving your overall mental and physical health and boosting your capacity to take on new challenges and manifest the life you want.

If you’d like to more information on the study discussed above, please read here.