Mental Health
Mental health is our emotional, psychological, and social wellbeing. It is as important as physical health is to our overall wellbeing. Often overlooked, our mental health helps determine how we handle stress, our outlook on life, and how we relate to others. What many aren’t aware of is that mental illnesses like depression, or even chronic stress or insomnia, can increase your risk of health conditions like diabetes and heart disease. If you suffer from issues that are negatively impacting your mental health, it is as important to seek treatment just as you would for your physical health issues.
Acupuncture to support mental health
Traditional Chinese Medicine places an emphasis on the concept of Shen, or spirit, as an important aspect to maintaining our health and wellbeing. Symptoms such as anxiety, insomnia, brain fog, forgetfulness, and chronic restlessness can be attributed to the disharmony of Shen. In more severe cases, disharmony can manifest as mental illnesses such as depression, eating disorders, addictive behavior and other mood disorders.
Acupuncture is one proven method of regulating disharmony to improve your health. While there are no one-size-fits-all treatments for mental health issues, acupuncture’s holistic methodology allows your acupuncturist to develop a much more personalized treatment plan. The treatment can provide relief of mental health symptoms on its own, as well as improve the efficacy of the more conventional therapies employed in western medicine. By restoring the natural flow of energy (Qi) in your body, acupuncture relieves stress and anxiety while improving emotional regulation, overall mood, and boosting feelings of wellbeing.
Common issues
Below, you’ll find some of the most common mental health issues facing Canadians today. If you or a loved one are in crisis, please visit talksuicide.ca or call the hotline (1-833-456-4566).
Stress
Chronic stress has a deep impact on your body. The buildup of cortisol, adrenaline, and epinephrine leads to many negative outcomes. Stress is linked to increased risk of stroke, high blood pressure, inflammation, lower immune system function, poor digestion, poor sleep quality, depression, and anxiety.
Anxiety
While anxiety affects your mental and emotional state, it also takes a toll on your body. Similar to stress, anxiety triggers the release of hormones like cortisol and adrenaline. This can cause changes in respiration, heighten cardiovascular system response, impair immune function, and disrupt digestion.
Mania
Mania is a condition in which you experience a period of abnormally extreme changes in your mood or emotions, energy level, or activity level. These changes will fall noticeably outside of your normal baseline and may persist for a week or more. Common symptoms of mania include feelings of invincibility, lack of sleep, racing thoughts and ideas, rapid thinking, and having false beliefs or perceptions. While mania is a common symptom associated with mental illnesses like bipolar type one, it is also experienced as its own mental health condition.
Agitation
Agitation is the uncomfortable or heightened feeling of aggravation, annoyance, restlessness, or nervousness. While it is perfectly normal to experience agitation from time to time, it can interfere with your quality of life and ability to perform daily activities if you are chronically agitated. Agitation can be caused by chronic stress, burnout, grief, anxiety or mood disorders, chemical dependence or withdrawal, or conditions that cause hormonal imbalances.
Brain fog/ muddled thinking
While brain fog is not a diagnosis on its own, it’s a symptom that can have an outsized effect on your day-to-day. Characterized as a type of cognitive dysfunction, brain fog involves experiencing a lack of mental clarity, poor concentration, memory problems, and an inability to focus.
Poor or impaired memory
Poor or impaired memory can be the result of several things. Stress, depression, anxiety, as well as fatigue, sleep deprivation, concussions or head injuries, pregnancy, and aging are among the common causes that can affect your memory.
Sleep disorders
The quality of sleep you get each night will impact your health and quality of life. For some, no amount of “sleep hygiene” is going to help them get a better night sleep. That’s because they may be experiencing a sleep disorder. Some symptoms of sleep disorders may include excessive daytime sleepiness, irregular sleep and wake cycles, and difficulty falling or staying asleep.
Insomnia
Insomnia is a sleep disorder characterized by difficulty falling or staying asleep. Most people experience insomnia from time to time, but those who suffer from chronic insomnia experience more than occasionally being tired during the day. Chronic insomnia puts you at greater risk for medical conditions like diabetes, high blood pressure, or stroke. In the short-term, it can cause mood changes, gastrointestinal symptoms, or tension headaches.
Somnolence syndrome
Somnolence syndrome is defined by a group of symptoms including extreme drowsiness, lethargy and slow mental processing. Somnolence refers to sleepiness while awake and a virtually permanent desire to sleep.
Nightmares or excessive dreaming
Scientifically, there’s a lot we don’t know about dreaming. We do know that it is important to the healthy functioning of your brain. It’s theorized that dreaming is how we process the information and sensory data that we take in throughout the day. And even though dreaming is a natural part of your sleep cycle, nightmares or exceptionally vivid dreams can disrupt that cycle, leaving you feeling as if you haven’t rested at all.
Sleep apnea
This is a sleep disorder where respiration will stop and start while sleeping. This can be due to the muscles in the throat relaxing and blocking off your airway, or because your brain isn’t sending the proper signals to the muscles that control breathing. People who experience sleep apnea will snore loudly and frequently wake up not feeling rested.
Depression
Depression doesn’t just impact the mind; it has profound impacts on the body. Common symptoms are erratic sleep habits and poor quality of sleep, loss of appetite (or sometimes a big increase in appetite), constant fatigue, muscle aches, headaches, and back pain. It’s also known to weaken the immune system.
Attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD)
Attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) is a long-term chronic brain condition with the primary symptom of executive dysfunction. People with ADHD may struggle to stay organized, manage their behaviour, pay attention, control overactivity, regulate their mood, concentrate, follow directions, or sit still. There are a number of sub-types of ADHD as not everyone will present with all of the associated behaviours.
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder that causes people to interpret reality abnormally. People who have schizophrenia may experience hallucinations and delusions, as well as extremely disordered thinking and behaviour that impairs daily functioning. The exact cause of schizophrenia is still unclear, but with treatment it can be managed.
Bipolar disorder
Bipolar disorder is a mental illness that causes unusual shifts in a person’s mood, behaviour, and energy levels. These shifts can be disruptive to a person’s daily life as they swing from manic to depressive episodes. There are three types of bipolar disorders: bipolar I disorder, bipolar II disorder, and cyclothymia or cyclothymic disorder. Each are classified by the level of severity of symptoms.
Eating disorders
Eating disorders are serious health conditions that lead to dangerous eating behaviours. Most eating disorders involve an intense preoccupation with weight, body shape, or food. The behaviours associated with these conditions can seriously impact your body’s ability to get the nutrition it needs, as well as cause damage to vital organs like your heart and digestive system.
Anorexia
Anorexia is an eating disorder that involves having an extreme fear of gaining weight and an unrealistic view of body weight and shape. People who suffer from anorexia will use extreme tactics to control their weight, like severely limiting calories and cutting out entire food groups. This leads to an unhealthily low body weight that is dangerous to their health and interferes with daily life.
Bulimia
Bulimia is an eating disorder that involves being preoccupied with weight and body shape with severe and harsh self-judgement. This leads to a cycle of binging and purging, where a person eats compulsively and then engages in behaviours like inducing vomiting, over exercising, or taking laxatives to purge the food from their system to avoid weight gain.
Binge eating
Binge eating is a behaviour where a person eats a large quantity of food in a short period of time, often eating well past the point of being uncomfortably full. Unlike bulimia, binge eating doesn’t involve a purging cycle, but those who struggle with binge eating may experience feelings of guilt, shame, or embarrassment.
Whatever your health goals are, acupuncture can help you manage your symptoms and restore balance in your body, and your life. You’ll receive treatments that are tailored to your unique needs. Learn what to expect if it’s your first appointment.
Note: For an official diagnosis of any of the above conditions, you should speak with your healthcare provider.
