What is stress?
Stress is the body’s response to various internal and external stimuli. Stress can be divided into physiological and psychological. While physiological stress (surgery, infection, excessive sound and light, hunger, cold, etc.) affects the brain-adrenal gland axis, the limbic system is also affected in the presence of psychological stress. limbic system ; It is responsible for various functions such as behavioral responses, motivation, long-term memory, and the sense of smell. For this reason, with long-term exposure to psychological stress, symptoms such as behavioral changes, reluctance to daily work, loss of motivation, inability to focus, and weakened memory occur. The person may feel anxious, angry, unhappy and restless. While this situation causes loss of workforce, it also reflects negatively on the family and social life of the individual.
Various organ dysfunctions are also seen as a result of chronic stress. It can be the cause of diseases such as constipation, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), reflux esophagitis, allergy, urticaria, migraine, unexplained head, neck, low back pain, fibromyalgia, sleep disorders, obesity or extreme weakness due to eating disorders, trigeminal neuralgia.
What are the lifestyle changes to be made to cope with stress?
- Keep your expectations reasonable: By accepting from the beginning that some events in daily life may have difficulties, you will increase your resilience by accepting that these difficulties are the natural necessity of that job. For example, it will be less tiring to determine the time you will spend here before going into traffic.
- Avoid being a perfectionist
- Don’t think about work-related problems after leaving work
- Have a hobby that you enjoy doing and devote time to it regularly.
- Think positive. Remember that moods such as pessimism, feeling sad, being anxious will not contribute to you.
- Do a sport you enjoy regularly.
- Make room for humor in your life. Sometimes, by giving humorous reactions to events, comfort both yourself and the other party.
- Take deep and long breaths as you think of them throughout the day. Set a reminder for yourself to come to mind at the beginning.
- Getting an acupuncture session once a month will restore your disturbed energy balance. Gift yourself health!
- And remember, smiling is the best medicine!
How is acupuncture effective in coping with stress?
Acupuncture; By regulating the work of the limbic system, it makes the body resistant to stress. The person becomes more resistant to the stress factors that he overreacted before. The limbic system is the region that manages our organ functions through the autonomic nervous system. With the regulation of the autonomic nervous system and the balanced functioning of the Sympathetic and Parasympathetic Nervous System, these functional problems are also treated.
Scientific studies have shown that acupuncture increases the levels of Serotonin and Endorphins, known as happiness hormones. With the increase in these hormones, the person feels happier, more peaceful, and his anxiety is reduced.
All of us are exposed to stress factors in life. However, whether this turns into stress in our body or not is up to us. The reaction of two people who experience the same negative event (accident, loss, etc.) is not the same. Acupuncture successfully offers us the necessary support in order to react appropriately to events and to protect ourselves against the effects of stress.
