While many of us know the benefits of acupuncture for pain relief and stress, we often overlook coming in for regular sessions in the summer. After all, a lot of us often feel a natural decrease in stress and body aches due to summer vacations and time-off with the family. However, I am going to share 5 reasons why getting regular acupuncture treatments during the summer months can be of great benefit to your health and overall well-being!
1. Catch up on Self-Care
After this past year, a lot of us are finally able to let out a sigh of relief. Life during a pandemic has not been easy for the majority of us, struggling to juggle work, family, and health. It’s a good assumption that the majority of us also didn’t spend much time on self-care, as we have been so preoccupied with taking care of everyo
ne and everything else! However, now that the warmer weather has arrived, it is a really good time to divert some of that time and attention back to ourselves. Kids are out of school for the summer and some of us even have jobs that are on hiatus for the summer; time to “get away” is even more accepted during the summer months as well.
So why is it important to catch up on self-care? So that you can continue to work, look after your family, take care of the house, etc. moving forward! If we do not address our own physical and mental health-needs, we will eventually burn out and have health issues that will need to be addressed. If we continue to disregard self-care long enough, unfortunately, some of these health issues will become so severe that we will be forced to give up taking care of others due to their severity.
Acupuncture is a great way to address both physical, mental and emotional components of one’s well-being. Not only does one have the opportunity to address a variety of symptoms, one also has the opportunity to actually relax during the treatment. Contrary to what it might seem, acupuncture is proven effective at helping to induce sensations of peace and relaxation during and after treatment; some patients even fall asleep during treatment! Acupuncture is truly a great self-care tool to utilize, especially as some of our vacations don't always turn out to be as relaxing or refueling as we hope!
2. Prevent injuries/pain
After being cooped up inside for the past year, many of us are going to use the warmer weather to enjoy the outdoors - which is
great for your overall health and mood! Luckily, acupuncture can help to strengthen the muscles, tendons and sinews of the body so that you will be less likely to suffer an injury when you do start getting outside. This is especially important as a lot of us spent the last year working from home, often in less than ideal conditions with kitchen countertops and barstools becoming our go-to at-home office.
However, this also means that the potential for a physical
injury is also increased! Especially as many of us are not used to moving around as much or in certain ways (such as with cycling or hiking). Fortunately, acupuncture has been shown effective in helping to reduce inflammation, manage pain and increase repair in physical injuries to the muscle and nerves - should one unfortunately have an accident or injury!
3. Allows for happy & healthy traveling
Just as many of us are hoping to spend more time outdoors, the summer is also a season when a lot of us want to take a family vacation or have a get-away! While we are currently learning how to navigate a new normal with traveling, traveling in general can already be stressful in itself. That and some of us tend to notice that when we travel, some parts of our body don’t work as optimally - whether it's trouble falling asleep the first couple of nights that you are away or becoming irregular.
Fortunately, acupuncture not only helps boost our immune system - keeping us healthy as we take well-deserved time off, but it can also help keep our moods good, sleep proper, and bowels regular! I often encourage my patients to receive acupuncture both before and after a trip. This way we really can make sure that while a person is traveling, and during their actual trip, their bodies stay h
ealthy and function properly. It can, again, also help to take the edge off that some people experience leading up to a trip. Receiving acupuncture after traveling can help ensure that the body adapts back its ‘normal routine.’ Wouldn't it be great if you could avoid jet lag and not have to worry about catching a cold while traveling?
Please see my video on tips & tricks with Mike Ball, of Cruise Travel Planners, for staying healthy while traveling on my YouTube Channel.
4. Keeps skin happy
When the sun’s out, so is the sunscreen! Of course, that doesn’t always mean that our skin stays protected. Oftentimes, we don’t manage to apply sunscreen everywhere - often missing a spot - or we simply forget to reapply. This can leave us looking and feeling red! Acupuncture can help heal sunburns as well as cool down the body, accelerate skin turnover and tissue repair as well as undo any itchiness that might come from a bad burn that results in peeling.
Overexposure to the sun can also result in pigmentation, like sun spots, which can lead to premature aging and skin deterioration. Acupuncture can help to accelerate skin cell turnover, much like with a sunburn, helping to rid the skin of any sun spots and keep the skin in good condition.
In addition to the potential overexposure to the sun, summer also brings about bugs and other chronic, skin conditions. Once more, acupuncture can help to eliminate the itchiness often associated with both bug bites and skin conditions like eczema and psoriasis. It also helps any recent bites or flare ups to fade out quicker, with the ability to move blood, lymph and repair cells. So not only can acupuncture help skin feel better, but it can also help it look better!
Sometimes I will have an influx of patients in the fall coming to see me for facial acupuncture due to all of the sun accumulation that is now showing up on their face! However, if you receive acupuncture throughout the summer, we can keep sun spots and other issues from appearing to begin with - like pesky wrinkles that can form from too much sun exposure over time in addition to sun spots!
5. Prepares the body for the upcoming cold & flu season
I already mentioned that acupuncture can help boost the immune system. I want to mention this again, because this is such an important role of acupuncture! It’s also important to take care of one’s health in the summer, because what we do to our bodies in the summer is going to affect how the cold and flu season that is fall affects us!
Unfortunately, we will most likely have an abundance of cold and flu cases this coming fall due to our lowered immune systems from wearing masks over the past year. While we’ve been fortunate enough that masks have kept us healthy during the pandemic, our immune system muscles haven’t been flexed in a while. This means we may be more susceptible to catching a cold or the flu come fall. However, if we receive regular acupuncture treatments in the summer and start of fall, our immune systems should be robust and hearty. Acupuncture has been proven to boost immunity through its increase in white blood cells and natural killer cells; acupuncture can also enhance the strength and functioning of the respiratory system.
The above are only five reasons why receiving acupuncture treatments throughout the summer seasons can be of great benefit to your health. There are many more and, of course, you don't always need a particular reason to come in either! Even just having 'maintenance' sessions can help to keep the body functioning optimally and your overall well-being at it's peak! Who wouldn't want that for their summer?
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