7 Ways to Maximize the Effects of Acupuncture

To make the most of acupuncture and reap the benefits of treatment it is best if you keep the following 7 points in mind:

Make sure you have something to eat beforehand.

Acupuncture works by directing the body’s energies (known as Qi) in specific ways. Qi is produced from the food you eat so if you haven’t been eating well, or skipping meals, you will have less Qi or energy to begin with. Having food in your stomach means that there’s more Qi or energy to use which helps the acupuncture treatment to be more effective.

Avoid any stimulants such as caffeine or alcohol.

Having caffeine or alcohol beforehand means that your body has been stimulated when it should be relaxing and enabling the Qi to flow. Acupuncture works by increasing the production of a neurotransmitter in the brain called Adenosine. This neurotransmitter helps you to relax, feel calm and rested during acupuncture treatment which is when the healing takes place. Caffeine blocks the production of this neurotransmitter so that’s why it’s not a good idea to have that skinny latte beforehand.

Arrive on time for treatment.

There’s nothing worse than arriving for a treatment late and stressed. Arriving for treatment on time means you get the most out of the acupuncture session, the needles have time to ‘do their work’ and your body has had the chance to relax and release the chemicals needed to improve your health and wellbeing. Do yourself a favour and leave yourself enough time to arrive!

Turn off your mobile phone.

Imagine that you are lying on the treatment table or sitting comfortably in a chair, letting the acupuncture needles do their work, feeling all relaxed and calm almost in a dream like state and your phone goes off! Yes, the day to day demands of life will still be there after treatment but whilst you are in treatment show yourself some consideration and care and turn the phone off. This is your time to focus on yourself without pressure or demands and when was the last time you actually got a chance to do that?

Plan your day so you don’t carry out strenuous activity after treatment.

This doesn’t mean you can’t do anything physical after acupuncture, but it does mean that it is better to do something less strenuous if possible, because during acupuncture treatment you have had your body’s energies directed to specific parts of your body to heal and rebalance. Strenuous activity almost distracts the energies that have been directed elsewhere and so they will not be as effective.

Follow any lifestyle advice given to you by your acupuncturist.

In everyday language I call this ‘lifestyle advice’ but in Chinese Medicine we call this ‘the three free therapies’. What this means is that your acupuncturist will also give you the support and knowledge to make changes in your life. The three therapies are nutrition, exercise and relaxation. Your acupuncturist makes these recommendations from an understanding of the importance of nourishing food, appropriate exercise and personalised relaxation methods, so take their advice, it’s the free bit!

Consider strategic scheduling of acupuncture treatment.

This is simply thinking of acupuncture treatment as a process rather than as individual treatments. As an acupuncturist I always talk about strategic scheduling or a course of sessions over a period of time. Whenever I see someone new I use acupuncture more often, over a shorter period of time, so it can trigger the changes needed in the body to rebalance and heal. As acupuncture continues and the compound effect impacts on the body, I increase the time between treatments and reduce the number of sessions, so as to wean the body off as it improves.

This article was written by Ali Balquees.

Why Do Muscles Feel Tight?

When someone says they feel tight in a particular area, they might be referring to several different complaints. So I try to find out:

•Are they talking about poor range of motion?
•Or maybe range of motion is fine, but movement to the end range feels uncomfortable or takes excess effort.
•Or maybe the problem isn’t really with movement, but just that the area never reels feels relaxed.
•Or maybe the area feels basically relaxed, but has some vague sense of discomfort - a feeling that is unpleasant but too mild to be called pain.

This ambiguity means that the feeling of tightness is just that - a feeling - which is not the same thing as the physical or mechanical property of excess tension, or stiffness, or shortness. You can have one without the other.

For example, I have many clients tell me their hamstrings feel tight, but they can easily put their palms to the floor in a forward bend. I also have clients whose hamstrings don't feel tight at all, and they can barely get their hands past their knees. So the feeling of tightness is not an accurate measurement of range of motion.

Nor is it an accurate reflection of the actual tension or hardness of a muscle, or the existence of "knots." When I palpate an area that feels tight to a client (let’s say the upper traps), they often ask - can you feel how tight that is?!

I often say something like:

Ummmmmm ...... no. It feels just like the surrounding tissues.

But I completely understand that it FEELS tight in this area and you don't like it.

I don't like the feeling of tightness either so I want to help you get rid of it. But the feeling of being tight isn’t the same thing as that area actually being physically tight. Make sense?

This actually does make sense to most people, and they find it mildly interesting. I want people to understand this because it might help them reconsider a misconceived plan they may have already developed for curing their tightness - such as aggressive stretching, fascia smashing, or adhesion breaking. So now they are willing to consider an approach that is a bit more subtle than driving a lacrosse ball halfway through their ribcage.

Why do muscles feel tight if they are not actually tight?

So why would a muscle feel tight even if it physically loose?

I think we can use pain as an analogy. Pain can exist even in the absence of tissue damage, because pain results from perception of threat, and perception does not always match reality. Pain is essentially an alarm, and alarms sometimes go off even when there is no real danger.

Perhaps a similar logic is involved in the feeling of tightness. The feeling happens when we unconsciously perceive (rightly or wrongly) that there is threatening condition in the muscles that needs a movement correction.

So what is the threatening condition that a feeling of tightness is trying to warn us about? Surely it is not just the presence of tension - muscles are made to create tension and we often feel tightness in muscles even when they are almost completely relaxed.

So tension is not a threat, but the absence of adequate rest or blood flow is a threat, which could cause metabolic stress and activate chemical nociceptors. So the problem that a feeling of tightness is trying to warn us about is not the existence of tension, but the frequency of tension or the lack of blood flow (especially to nerves, which are very blood thirsty.)

With this in mind, I think of the feeling of tightness as a variety of pain, perhaps a pain too mild to deserve being called pain. But it is definitely bothersome. And it has a certain flavor or character that motivates an interest in changing resting posture, or moving around or stretching. Which is different from certain pains, which often make you want to keep still. Maybe we could say that pain is warning us to not move a certain area, while tightness is warning us to get moving.

How Can You Cure Muscle Tightness?

I think we can probably treat the feeling of tightness in the same way we treat pain - by changing one of the many "inputs" that cause the nervous system to perceive threat in the body, such as nociception, thoughts, emotions, memories, etc.

Some pains are very obviously related to movement or postural habits. We can know this if someone says something like: "It hurts when I do this, and it hurts even more when I do more of this, and it hurts less when I do less of this." In this case, changing movement or posture is likely to help because it will reduce the main driver of the pain – mechanical nociception caused by movement.

On the other hand, there are many other cases of pain, particularly chronic pain, that are more complex – the pain doesn't correlate very much with certain movements or postures, but instead with other variables like time of day, sleep duration, emotional state, stress level, diet, general exercise, or some random unknown factors. In this event, it is unlikely that mechanical nociception caused by movement is the main driver of the pain, and more likely that peripheral or central sensitization are playing more of a role.

I think we can look at the feeling of tightness in the same way.

In most simple cases of feeling tight, the cause is obvious – we have been stuck in the same posture or movement pattern for too long, and our muscles need a rest or change of position to reduce the ischemia or metabolic stress that is causing nociception in certain areas. For example, if we spend hours in a car, or an airplane, or behind a computer, we will instinctively feel compelled to stretch and move, and this will usually alleviate any feelings of stiffness or yuckiness.

Of course, most clients who complain of chronic tightness have already tried and failed at this simple strategy. The feeling of stiffness remains for hours and days at a time, comes and goes as it pleases, and is less related to posture and movement.

In these cases, the driver of the discomfort may have more to do with the nervous system becoming either peripherally or centrally sensitized to the need for more blood flow in certain areas. This could happen through local inflammation, adrenosenstivity, increased sensitivity at the dorsal horn, or maybe even learned associations between certain environments (say computers) and certain sensations (e.g feeling like crap).

So how do we reduce this sensitivity?

There isn't an easy answer to this question, because if there was, it would solve the problem of chronic pain, and no one is figured out how to do that yet. But if I'm right that the feeling of tightness is a mild form of pain, then it should at least be easier to deal with.

Below is a list of several methods people often use to address a chronic feeling of tightness, along with some thoughts about each strategy from the above perspective. You'll notice that some of the recommendations run exactly opposite to what people often do.

Stretching

We instinctively stretch muscles that have remained in a short position for a while, and this usually makes us feel immediately better.

But, as noted above, most people who suffer from chronic tightness have already tried and failed at this strategy, which suggests the issue is less about bad mechanics and more about increased sensitivity.

The problem is that many people, and indeed many therapists, will think that the failure of a few simple stretches indicates the need for a far more aggressive program. This would of course make sense if the root of the problem was short or adhered tissues. But if the root problem is in fact increased sensitivity, then aggressive stretching might just make the problem worse. On the other hand, stretching can often have an analgesic and relaxing effect.

So is stretching a good way to cure tightness? Like with most things, I say if it feels good do it. If it doesn't ... don't.

Soft tissue work for Tightness

There are various soft tissue treatments (deep tissue massage, foam rolling, Graston, ART, IASTM) intended to lengthen short tissues, break adhesions, or melt fascia, etc. This is very likely impossible, as I and many others have pointed out.

But could these treatments decrease sensitivity and make someone feel less tight? For sure, by activating descending inhibition of nocicieption, which is a well-known effect of painful stimulation that is expected to bring health benefits.

But of course these treatments also create nociception, which tends to increase sensitivity. It's a fine balance that depends on the individual and many other variables. Again, if it feels good do it, but it's an option not a necessity, it's only temporary, and you should keep in mind the reason for doing it.

Motor control for Muscle Tightness

Many forms of movement therapy are essentially motor control approaches – they seek to change movement, postural and breathing habits so they are more efficient, eliminate parasitic tension, develop the skill of relaxation, etc.

Habits are hard to break, but this strategy is worth a shot, especially in cases where tightness seems related to certain postures or movements. Of course, where the situation is more complex, motor control shouldn't be expected to fix the problem on its own.

Exercise and resistance training

People tend to associate strength training with becoming tighter. During exercise, muscles of course become very tense, and they may feel stiff the next day because of delayed onset muscle soreness. There is also the (false) idea that strength training makes muscles shorter and less flexible.

These concerns are unfounded. In fact, full range of motion strength training can increase flexibility, perhaps more than stretching. It creates local adaptations in muscle that may improve endurance and make them less likely to suffer metabolic distress. And exercise also has an analgesic effect and can lower levels of inflammation that cause nervous system sensitivity.

Here's a personal anecdote. Back in the days when I did yoga I had much more flexibility, but my hamstrings always felt tight. Then I quit yoga and started doing a lot of kettlebell swings. My forward bend decreased a bit, but the feeling of hamstring tightness was GONE, even though I was working the hamstrings HARD. In its place was a feeling of functional strength and capacity, which I imagine decreased any perception of threat related to lengthening my hamstrings.

Of course if you overwork your muscles from strength training and don't let them recover, they will get sensitive, stiff and sore. But if you work them the right amount - enough to create an adaptation and not too much to cause injury or prevent full recovery - then you will make them healthier, stronger, and yes - less stiff.

Conclusion

When you feel stiff, remember it is a feeling, and not necessarily a physical condition of shortness that needs an aggressive structural solution. Like other feelings, you feel it more when you are sensitive. And like other forms of sensitivity, it will go down if you improve your overall fitness, strength, awareness, motor control and health.

This article originally appeared on Better Movement & was written by Todd Hargrove.

Do Acupuncture Needles Hurt?

Many patients ask if acupuncture needles hurt when inserted into the body. This inquiry is relevant and common to almost everybody interested in getting an acupuncture treatment. We felt it was important to take some time to provide information about acupuncture needles and how they feel when used by a licensed acupuncturist.

What are acupuncture needles made out of?

Modern acupuncture needles are made out of stainless steel and come in various lengths and gauges of width. Acupuncture needles have a stainless steel shaft, with a handle made out of copper, steel or plastic.

How thick are acupuncture needles?

Needle thickness is a something many patients are curious about; there is a belief that the thicker the needle the more potential for pain. The thickness of the needle used for treatment depends on a variety of conditions ranging from the acupuncturist’s preference to the specific ailment being treated.

Acupuncture needles are solid with a fine point, unlike hypodermic needles that are hollow and primarily used for intramuscular injections or for drawing blood. Hypodermic needles have a sharp cutting-edge point, something that acupuncture needles do not have. A helpful comparison is that most acupuncture needles are so thin that you can fit about 10 of them inside the shaft of a hypodermic needle.

Who is allowed to use acupuncture needles?

While it is true that acupuncture needles can be purchased by people other than acupuncturists, it is strongly advised that you only allow a licensed acupuncturist to needle you. Please note that chiropractors, naturopaths and physical therapists are not licensed acupuncturists. They may perform acupuncture (or “dry needling”) but in reality acupuncture is part of Traditional Chinese Medicine that is performed by licensed acupuncturists who have extensive and thorough training.

A licensed acupuncturist has attended acupuncture school, has a master’s degree, a professional license and is required to have thousands of hours of training. In a previous blog post titled “The Importance Of Receiving Acupuncture From A Licensed Acupuncturist” we provide information about why you should only get acupuncture from a licensed acupuncturist. If you are considering getting acupuncture we strongly urge you to read through this post.

Do acupuncture needles hurt?

When patients receive an acupuncture treatment for the first time they often report having a variety of sensations. Some people describe feeling a dull ache, a tingling or pulsating sensation or experience nothing at all. There are other people who state that they feel a small pinch when the needle is inserted but the sensation dissipates quickly.

Very rarely will a patient report feeling any pain after a needle is inserted; if so, it will quickly be removed. Pain isn’t something that should be felt or elicited, in fact a common reason acupuncture needles are used in the body is to alleviate pain. What is more common is that patients will state that they will feel some discomfort after being needled but after they settle in and relax the sensation soon passes.

If you’ve been thinking about getting acupuncture but have been worried about whether or not it hurts, we hope that this article helped to alleviate some of those fears.

This article originally appeared on Above & Beyond Acupuncture, and was written by Paul Kerzner.

What To Do For Muscle and Joint Stiffness

Q: I went to see a chiropractor today to get orthopaedic lifts for my shoes, and he gave me a bit of an examination at the same time.

He told me that I was very stiff and I was likely feeling a lot of back pain. Actually I have no back pain but I am very stiff. I have always struggled with flexibility.

These days my upper shoulders and back of my neck are often sore and tight. I have been slowly working on some of the stretches on your website, but this guy wanted me to go see him and he would help me with adjustments, etc., etc.

I'm wondering if I can just rely on stretching (seriously 30 minutes a day) to regain flexibility and deal with these problems instead of actually seeing this guy.

A: Generally, my feeling is that it's best to see what you can accomplish with a regular stretching routine.

In the absence of chronic inflammation or pain from an acute injury, stiffness in the back, shoulder, and neck regions is typically caused by one or both of the following:

• Stiffness within the joints in the area

• Tight muscles

Joint stiffness can cause surrounding muscles to become tight from lack of use, and tight muscles can cause underlying joints to become stiff, also from lack of use. So for practical purposes, in addressing stiffness, it doesn't really matter which one is causing the other; the vast majority of stretches promote joint flexibility and healthy muscle length.

Chiropractic adjustments aim to prevent joint stiffness, typically by delivering a "short amplitude, high velocity" thrust through one of the planes through which the involved joints are designed to move.

Though chiropractic adjustments can be immensely helpful in promoting optimal joint motion, my experience has been that without regular stretching and awareness of daily activities and postures that are at the root of chronic stiffness, adjustments can become a short term fix.

In my opinion, it's better to adopt a lifelong program of stretching to establish and maintain healthy length and blood flow in all major muscle groups, which should help your joints and surrounding ligaments to stay healthy as well.

I would add foam rolling to your stretching routine, as I find it to be an invaluable tool for keeping muscles, ligaments, and the joints they service healthy.

Also keep in mind that beyond stretching and foam rolling, you can likely benefit from some resistance training that promotes a strong core and good body balance. For example, instead of doing conventional push-ups, by doing push-ups with one hand on the ground and one on a medicine ball, you force muscles, ligaments, and proprioceptors (joint receptors that register joint position sense) throughout your body to develop a high level of functional strength. By functional strength, I mean strength that your body can consciously and subconsciously use to stay balanced and be less prone to injury as you go about your daily activities.

Another example of an exercise that promotes good body balance is one-leg squats, where you keep your core strong, balance your weight on one leg, and do slow, controlled squats - even just a few degrees will yield big dividends to your functional core strength and balance.

But not to move too far away from your question, a regular program of stretching and foam rolling is where I would begin - this really needs to be the foundation of your self care program. If you try to do too much with strength and balance-related exercises without ensuring that your muscles are healthy and your joints are moving properly, you might just reinforce faulty patterns of being and moving.

Archive of Stretching and Foam Rolling Posts

After spending a few months taking care of your body, if you feel that you haven't experienced significant improvement and can use some help, that's when I might visit a chiropractor, physiotherapist, kinesiologist, or any other practitioner that specializes in functional movement work. If your stiffness is severe enough that you can't stretch and exercise effectively, then it makes sense to seek treatment from day one.

Find more info at: http://drbenkim.com/what-do-muscle-stiffness