According to traditional Chinese medicine they can.
In the West, we think of acupuncture as something that’s used for strained muscles, but for centuries, the technique of inserting needles into specific locations on the body has been used to treat a variety of conditions, including anxiety. How does it work? That’ll require a little explanation.
First off, traditional Chinese medical diagnoses can sound strange or even silly to our ears when they’re translated into English, so let’s start with some examples from our own culture: In English, when we say that someone has “a cold,” “a broken heart,” “a lot of gall” or “butterflies in their stomach” only the most pedantic listener bothers to point out that their heart isn’t actually broken or that there’s nothing they have that’s actually cold. In Chinese medicine, instead of saying “a cold” they might say “a wind.” Similarly in traditional Chinese medicine, anxiety can be talked about as being caused by too little “Heart Blood” among other things. Whatever the cause for anxiety in traditional Chinese medicine, there are acupuncture points that are used to treat it.
Here are some examples:
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Shen Men “Mind Gate” (Ht-7)
A popular Chinese medicine text notes that Shen Men “…is the foremost acupuncture point to calm and regulate the spirit.” It is thought to do this, in part, by nourishing Heart Blood.
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Yintang “Hall of Seal”
Yintang is tranditionally used as a powerful point to calm the spirit. It’s around where some refer to as the “Third Eye”
- Anmian “Gentle Sleep”
The name says it all here. If anxiety is related to difficulty sleeping, this point is sometimes used.
Of course, practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine will tailor an acupuncture treatment plan to your needs. They might not use all of these points and would almost certainly include others.
If you suffer with anxiety, have you tried acupuncture yet? If not, it may be worth bringing up with your naturopathic doctor or consulting a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner.
