What is wrong with our mental health today? I find it distressing to see how many people are on psychotropic drugs, and how easily they are placed on them. We need to ask why this is so. If a person is not coping, why? If they have anxiety, why? If they are obsessive/compulsive or bi-polar, why? If they are depressed, why? The brain doesn’t normally operate in a contra-survival way, so if it is, why?
What is depression anyway? Depression in itself is not a true emotion. It is an amalgamation of many different emotions. When we label something “depression” it takes away the individual’s power. It leaves that person with the effect of, rather than having power to change it. Instead of saying “I’m depressed”, if a person says “I’m sad” or “I’m lonely” or angry or overwhelmed or discouraged, they now have the power to do something about it. Saying you’re depressed takes away the ability to find what’s underlying the emotion. It becomes a statement of fact, rather than something you can do something about.
As you deconstruct the word depression, you may find you’re sad. What are you sad about? Can you do anything about it? Many times, we run into a true emotion and feel there is nothing that can be done about it.
Why are we no longer allowed to feel? Why, when we feel an emotion, are we so quick to take a medication to soften or “eliminate” it? Taking responsibility for it is one reason. It’s much easier to bury the emotion than to have to deal with it. It takes guts to deal with your emotions and to take an honest look at yourself. It takes even more guts to take action to change something you may not like. Burying your emotions, or masking them with drugs only complicates and compounds things. As you become more and more distressed, the pharmaceutical companies come to the rescue! They have newer, better, more “designer drugs” to help you cope with the ever-worsening mental state. Where does it end?
A couple of years ago after a friend of mine died, his wife went to see her medical doctor for a routine check. He asked how she was and when she informed him that her husband had just died and she was grieving, but otherwise okay, he offered her medication. She refused saying she was okay, that grieving was a natural part of a loss and she’d be okay. He again offered her medication saying she didn’t have to feel anything! She again restated her desire to go through the natural process of grieving, at which time he became more forceful, almost angrily, about the drugs. She finally had to get forceful about her desire not to take the drugs to the point of getting in a heated argument about it.
Human emotions are meant to be felt. That’s why we have them. They are a normal, and healthy way of dealing with an imperfect life. Life is not meant to be monotone. It is not meant to be perfect. We will always have a tangle of problems, with their associated emotions, to go through. It’s what strengthens us and defines us. So what is happening when emotions go longer than expected or become extreme?
Our lifestyles have set the stage for out-of-control emotions. We eat foods that are devoid of the nutrients necessary for proper brain chemistry. We eat foods full of chemicals that interfere with proper brain chemistry. Although we don’t know what good brain chemistry looks like, we know what’s missing when certain emotions go out of control. But since the brain normally makes these chemicals, and would prefer that these chemicals stay in balance, we should be asking why would it stop?
What’s interfering?
What’s missing?
Taking a drug to replace the missing chemicals has helped millions of people. But given the choice, if most people knew there were things they could do to encourage the brain or body to produce their own, they would prefer the latter.
This is where you need the help of a natural health care provider who knows how to assist this process. By restoring health to the individual, we restore healthy brain chemistry. The same factors needed to rid the body of disease, help the brain too. These include proper nutrition, exercise, quality sleep and much more.
A word of caution. I know of many, many individuals who take psychotropic drugs but don’t want to. So at some point they decide they can just go off them. When they do so the result is that they end up right back on them again, thinking they need to be on them for life. However, they failed to do something absolutely critical. They failed to handle the underlying cause of the problem in the first place. If you pull the rug out from under yourself without providing another means of support, you will crash. If you don’t take care of the reason – either brain chemistry or the deconstructed reason for your emotion, you will crash because nothing has changed. This is where professional guidance is essential. The people dispensing the drugs have only a small handful of tools at their disposal for this. Try someone with a different approach if you want a better way of handling your emotional distress. Those people truly interested in your wellbeing don’t care how you handle your emotions – they don’t care if you take drugs or take responsibility for handling the problem, as long as you take action and get well. If you want to get well, it’s up to you to take the action.
Acupuncture is an effective treatment for healing depression, anxiety and other emotional disorders. Doctors of Oriental Medicine have long known this, but now research is proving it. In a study done at the University of Arizona in Tucson, it was found that the women tested had significant reduction in their symptoms of depression. They also found that acupuncture treatments were –“at least as”- effective as psychotherapy or drug therapy, indicating, in some cases, even better.
In another study sponsored by the National Institutes of Health Office of Alternative Medicine, the women who received specific acupuncture treatments for their depression were “significantly less” depressed than women who received acupuncture treatments for symptoms not related to depression. Harvard Medical School published a large-scale study in the New England Journal of Medicine regarding depression. They stated that depression was one of the conditions people were most likely to seek alternative medicine for. They found acupuncture was high on the list.
How does it work? “Oriental Medicine”, which is an umbrella term that encompasses acupuncture, herbal medicine, nutrition and other modalities, has a different perspective on the origination of emotional disorders. Ancient Chinese practitioners look at different “patterns of disharmony” in the body, which is unique to each individual.
According to Oriental Medicine philosophy, the body has a flow of energy which is transmitted along specific channels or “meridians” in the body. This energy is called “Qi” (pronounced “chee”). When this vital energy is altered – slowed, stuck or speeded up, disharmony in the organ system influenced by that channel results. We call this disease. Several people may have the same single symptom, but differ in other symptoms. No two people are exactly alike. An imbalance of qi in a particular channel or organ can cause physical, mental and/or emotional disorders.
When emotions due to a particularly stressful or traumatic event are held over long periods of time, they can become the causes of illness. In Oriental Medical philosophy specific emotions have a detrimental effect on specific organs or organ systems. For example, sadness (or lack of joy) affects the heart; grief affects the lungs; overthinking, anxiety, or ruminating affects the stomach; anger, frustration, irritation, impatience or intolerance affects the liver; fear affects the kidneys. Likewise, when a health issue, (usually due to nutritional imbalances or imbalanced flow of qi) affects organ function, the emotion will subsequently go out of balance.
Acupuncture works to restore function to the organs. This in turn normalizes the emotions. Acupuncture is best known for its ability to effectively treat depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder and weepiness.
Many emotional disorders are due to the impact of illness. Someone who deals with chronic pain will tend to be more “depressed”. Many prescription medications tend to contribute to depression, anxiety and panic disorders. Using acupuncture to relieve pain and the health condition will result in a reduction of the emotional turmoil as well. Chronic insomnia is one condition that perpetuates depression due to the extreme fatigue coupled with loss of reasoning skills. Eliminating the cause of the insomnia, not only resolves the condition, but the associated emotional issues as well.
When you or someone you know is suffering from depression, anxiety, panic disorders or any emotional disorder, especially if they want something different than their medications, have them consider having acupuncture treatments. They will be pleasantly surprised!
©2014 Holly A. Carling, O.M.D., L.Ac., Ph.D.
