Stress is a normal reaction to the pressure of everyday life. Worry, fear, anger, and Sadness are all normal emotions until they are not manageable and you can't do the things you like to do. Fortunately, there are many techniques available that can help you manage emotional stress.
Acupuncture is a safe, effective and drug-free way to help you recover from emotional stress. Through recent studies, Acupuncture can induce a relaxation response and stimulate serotonin (feeling good hormones), endorphins (natural pain killer), and reduce the level of cortisol (stress hormones).
Acupuncture can calm the nervous system and switch off the flight and fight response.
According to Traditional Chinese Medicine, energy flows through 12 meridians. When it is blocked, you experience emotional pain. People with difficulty managing the stress often experience stiff neck, tight shoulder and upper back because emotional stress is stored in these muscle groups. Stress can also impact the digestive system. The common symptoms are diarrhea, constipation, loss of appetite and poor concentration.
Acupuncturists insert tiny needles into acupuncture points along the relevant meridians to unblock the obstruction, regulate energy, promote circulation and relieve the pain.
From a Chinese medicine perspective, each organ represents its own emotions. Anger is related to the liver, and Sadness are related to the lung. Excessive thinking is related to the spleen. Fear is connected to the Kidney. Overjoy is associated with the heart.
The Lane Cove rooms are at 2 Austin Street, directly opposite the Lane Cove Library and a few metres from Longueville Road. If you are coming from the village it is a walk of two or three minutes, and the parking behind the library is the easiest option in the middle of the day.
Lane Cove sends a particular mix of problems through the door. There are the desk-and-commute necks and low backs from St Leonards and the city, the shoulders and elbows of a suburb that plays a lot of tennis, and the knees and Achilles tendons that come with living on a hillside — the stairs down to Tambourine Bay and the streets off Burns Bay Road are their own kind of training load. Lane Cove also has a lot of people in their thirties and forties carrying small children, which is its own demand on a back.
A first appointment is mostly questions and movement testing: where the pain is, what makes it worse, what it stops you doing, and how it has behaved over weeks rather than days. From there you should leave knowing what is proposed, roughly how long it is expected to take, and what would mean changing the plan.
Worth bringing: any imaging or specialist letters you already have, a list of medications, and the shoes you actually walk or train in. If the pain is new and severe, follows a significant fall, or comes with numbness, weakness, fever or any change in bladder or bowel control, see a doctor first — that is a medical assessment, not a treatment question.
The nearest alternative if Lane Cove does not suit you is the Freshwater side, about 14 kilometres away across the Spit.
