Acupuncture, an ancient Chinese practice where needles are inserted into the body to treat disease, offers many benefits to seniors. While American healthcare is designed around Western medicine, alternative medicine — including acupuncture — provides relief without medication.

As the Baby Boomer population reaches retirement in record numbers, chronic health care expenses of this generation are feared to collapse Medicare. Not only that, the preventative medicine concept of Eastern medicine helps seniors get healthy naturally, without prescription side effects. Many believe acupuncture, and other alternative therapies, are the best-kept secret in senior care.

Here’s why:

1. Acupuncture Returns the Body to the State of Health

Chinese medicine and acupuncture are based on the concept of ‘qi’ (pronounced “chi”), which means ‘life force energy.’ This natural energy is continuously generated and flows within the twelve major meridians in the body. The two polarities referred to as ‘yin’ and ‘yang’ help balance the energy flow in each of the meridians to return the body to a good state of health. Pathogens can make these energies unbalanced, which leads to disease. Acupuncture helps treat disease by restoring and normalizing the flow and balance of the ‘qi’ in the meridians to return the body to a state of health.

2. There Are No Prescriptions in Acupuncture

Acupuncture enables relief without dealing with the side effects of medications for many conditions and symptoms. One of the biggest problems in Western Medicine is the use of prescription medication in the elderly. In fact, the CDC estimates that every year 177,000 older adults visit the emergency room due to medical problems. Dr. Leslie Kernisan, Geriatrician and A Place for Mom expert, comments:

“Most older adults will not have their medications regularly reviewed by a geriatrician or geriatric pharmacist, so many oversights and problems can arise. The more medications a senior takes, the greater the chance of side-effects, interactions, and emergencies due to adverse events.”

If natural remedies can be used, such as acupuncture, they are a wonderful alternative to medications.

3. Acupuncture Benefits the Respiratory System

The World Health Organization (WHO) has reported many health benefits from acupuncture.

These upper respiratory tract illnesses have shown to benefit from acupuncture:

  • Acute Rhinitis
  • Acute Sinusitis
  • Acute Tonsillitis
  • Common Cold & Flu

These respiratory illnesses have shown relief from acupuncture treatments.

4. Acupuncture Helps Treat Eye Disorders

The WHO reports relief from the following eye disorders, which are quite common in the elderly:

  • Acute Conjunctivitis
  • Cataracts
  • Central Retinitis Myopia

For benefits 5-7, please click HERE.

 


AUTHOR 
Dana Larsen

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Most have heard about the amazing effects of acupuncture when it comes to chronic pain reduction and the improvement of life quality with various musculoskeletal disorders. This ancient healing method has a vast number of other physical, mental, and emotional benefits that not many individuals are familiar with. Some of these surprising benefits of acupuncture are the following:

  1. Mood Enhancement: Whether chronic stress, real-life worries, or imbalanced hormonal causes are behind your fluctuating mood and possible depression, acupuncture can offer significant relief. During and after the application of acupuncture needles, your central nervous system becomes stimulated and releases endorphins and other chemicals that lift your mood. The process helps you to think more positively and support your body to fight off the damaging effects of the state of prolonged anxiety.
  2. Headache Relief: The careful and exact placement of acupuncture needles near specific nerves have a wonderful pain-reductive effect. The endorphins released also support the feeling of the total loss of discomfort, leading to a breakthrough in your headaches and recurring migraines.
  3. Sleep Quality Improvement: Acupuncture increases your body’s natural ability to produce more melatonin. This hormone — when present in optimal amounts — regulates your sleep-wake cycles. Today, largely thanks to our modern lifestyle and poor sleep habits, it is often underproduced, leading to insomnia, frequent awakenings at night, or being exhausted all the time. If this is ongoing for a prolonged time, it is a breeding ground for other future health problems. Acupuncture will help restore your natural ability to fall — and remain — asleep easily, once again.
  4. Immune System Support: Our 21st century way of living challenges the immune system perhaps more than ever before in history. Since the immune system is our first line of bodily defense, its effective and optimal functioning is crucial. Acupuncture not only strengthens the immune system to fight back infections and other harmful threats to the organism, but it speeds up healing time as well. Another function of acupuncture is to balance the immune function that, when overactive, could lead to the development of various autoimmune diseases.
  5. Energy Boost: Whether you are in need of a physical or mental energy boost to combat fatigue, acupuncture can offer tremendous benefits in fighting off exhaustion or brain fog. By thoroughly balancing the body’s energetic field, an optimal set-point can be reached and all organs can function correctly. As a result, you can experience a state of ease that allows for better quality of rest and becoming pain-free. Stimulating the appropriate neural pathways leads to increased physical stamina and capacity for clear and productive thinking.

To read on benefits 6-10, click HERE.

 


AUTHOR 
Andrew Castellanos, L.Ac.
Licensed acupuncturist with a Masters Degree in Traditional Chinese Medicine from AIMC in Berkeley.

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