While it’d be great if people got acupuncture every day, the truth is that it’s basically impossible – both financially and logistically. The good news is that there are several activities that you can take part in that serve as a fantastic compliment to your therapy. In fact, many of them can help you get MORE out of your visits with us or your resident acupuncturist.
Here are the four complementary activities to acupuncture that we think you should consider:
Yoga
Yogis and Acupuncturists share a lot in common largely because our practices are rooted in many of the same ideas. That kind of a shared sensibility lends itself naturally to those who are concerned with more natural ways of physical, emotional and spiritual healing.
Yoga – much like acupuncture – draws energy out of the body and out of your mind and redirects it. You’ll experience a heightened awareness about your body, how it deals with pain, and what you’ll need to do to fix it. It also helps to stretch a lot of the same meridians that acupuncture tries to maintain – so they really go hand- in hand. Think of one as if it were sanding the deck and the other putting on the finish.
Walking
Exciting, right!? More like obvious! Any walk you take helps your body take a breath and reset itself. While the benefits of moving should be obvious, the best part about it is that it’s not particularly vigorous, nor does sap excessive amounts of energy from the body.
We’d never tell you to not run, but walking is a great way to space out your energy through the day and in most cases, can fit into your daily routine. Just getting up from your office desk more, taking a longer route to the copy machine, parking farther away from a building… these are all different ways that you can incorporate walking into what you’re already doing.
Eating healthy
Acupuncture is designed to help eliminate toxins, so whatever you do – make sure you’re not putting them back into your body by eating poorly. Diets differ depending on who you’re talking to, but just be sure that what you’re putting into your body doesn’t include more of what you’re trying to push out of it.
Get warm, stay warm
Not to add to the age-old Heat vs. Ice debate, but you should know that 9 times out of 10, heat is the correct answer.
In so far as acupuncture is concerned, most of the pain caused in your body comes from stagnation. Things don’t move well or slowly from point A to point B and the blockages/slow movement is the chief contributor to the pain. Acupuncture is all about restoring that flow. As such, ice restricts things. When you get cold, you get tight and everything tenses up.
What you should be doing, is always making sure that you’re staying loose. That doesn’t mean you turn into a one-person sweat hog, but keep a cup of tea at your desk, get up and move more or take the chance to sit out in the sun during the summer for a few extra moments. It helps to warm you up and keep the flow moving at optimum levels.