Athletes Discover Acupuncture Treats Injuries & Boosts Performance

Athletes of many stripes are turning to acupuncture for an effective method of injury treatment and prevention. Professional football players from the ranks of the New York Jets, Minnesota Vikings, San Diego Chargers and more have embraced acupuncture to manage pain, speed injury recovery, and achieve peak physical performance in their sport. A review of research studies on the use of acupuncture in sports confirms its efficacy at increasing muscle strength and power in athletes.1

Sports acupuncture is used for injury treatment, prevention and (in combination with Chinese herbs) to improve athletic performance.2 Acupuncture taps into the body’s natural ability to heal itself. It can work in conjunction with Western medical treatment, and in cases where rest is prescribed for an injury, acupuncture reduces pain and accelerates the healing process without side effects.

Matt Callison, a licensed acupuncturist and instructor at Pacific College of Oriental Medicine in San Diego, has been using sports acupuncture to treat athletes for 11 years and counting. Callison says, “traditional Chinese medicine [including acupuncture, herbs and exercises] has been an extremely helpful and growing trend in athletics for quite a while. Steve Young and Jerry Rice [of the San Francisco 49ers] have been treated with sports acupuncture, and Canadian speed skater Kevin Overland received sports acupuncture to help him earn a bronze medal in the 1998 Olympics.”3

Baltimore Ravens safety Will Demps credits acupuncture with boosting his performance on the field. “In my extensive off-season workouts, I have noticed a difference in my balance and agility since receiving [acupuncture] treatments…I feel my muscles have been ‘turned on’ and are firing on all cylinders.”3

In Major League Baseball, the Seattle Mariners were the first team to utilize acupuncture, primarily due to the influence of Japanese players such as Ichiro Suzuki and Kazuhiro Sasaki. Players opt for acupuncture to help their muscles rebound more quickly after intense training, or to support rehabilitation and speed recovery from injuries.4

Proprioception, the body’s sense of where it is in space, is a process of the muscles communicating with the nervous system. Injury interferes with the body’s proprioceptive signals and creates imbalance. Acupuncture serves to relieve stress on the musculoskeletal system5 and “is one of the quickest ways to restore muscle balance,” says Callison. “When acupuncture is used at specific sites, the muscle spindles are reset, and then that balance is reawakened.”

The practice of acupuncture views pain as an imbalance or interruption of one’s qi (life force energy). The insertion of acupuncture needles triggers the release of pain- and inflammation-fighting chemicals in the body, and restores the cyclical flow of qi, allowing the body to function at more optimal levels. A qualified acupuncturist will first conduct a thorough intake and evaluation of symptoms, then create a targeted course of treatment for maximum results.

This is an original article from Dreamclinic, Inc. Dreamclinic is a Health and Wellness company committed to sharing information about commonly experienced health conditions and how they may be impacted through the use of bodywork and other natural approaches.

References:
1. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20386479
2. https://www.acufinder.com/Acupuncture+Information/Detail/Acupuncture+for...
3. https://www.pacificcollege.edu/acupuncture-massage-news/articles/593-.html
4. http://www.bastyr.edu/news/general-news-home-page/2013/05/acupuncture-st...
5. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/book/9781437709278

How Acupuncture Helps You To Control Blood Pressure

People have known for centuries that acupuncture helps with a number of conditions, including high blood pressure and pain, and now advances in modern science can help explain exactly why this ancient Chinese treatment is so effective.

According to research carried out by the University of California Irvine's Susan Samueli Center for Integrative Medicine, regular electroacupuncture treatment boosts the release of an opioid in the brain stem. This particular opioid controls blood pressure, which explains why the treatment is so helpful in reducing hypertension.

Electroacupuncture entails sending pulsating electrical currents through acupuncture needles to stimulate acupoints. It does not require the super-precise needle placement that is so crucial to traditional acupuncture, because the electrical current can reach a wider area. While it offers a lot of the same benefits as traditional acupuncture, it seems to work particularly well on pain.

Rats that underwent electroacupuncture noted a drop in blood pressure that persisted for three days after the treatment. This came about as the result of a boost in the gene expression of one of the body's major opioid peptides known as enkephalins.

This is the first time that research has proven the molecular activity responsible for the hypertension-reducing effects of electroacupuncture. The landmark study was published in Scientific Reports.
 

Hypertension affects a third of the world's adults

In the U.S., more than $30 billion is spent each year unnecessarily to treat hypertension, which equates to more than 1 percent of the nation's annual healthcare costs. Many patients are being prescribed strong blood pressure medications despite only having mild hypertension, putting them at risk for a number of side effects, including digestive disorders, anxiety, kidney damage and cholesterol problems.

Untreated hypertension can cause serious problems, including heart and kidney damage, stroke, the buildup of fluid in the lungs, and vision loss, so alternative treatments could help make significant inroads in this major health problem. Lifestyle changes such as improving one's diet and getting more exercise should always be the first line of defense, and for many people, acupuncture could also make a big difference.

With hypertension affecting around a third of the world's adult population, this could lead to much better treatment than the current medication, which has a host of unpleasant side effects. The UCI team found that acupuncture at particular places on the wrist brings about the drop in blood pressure, illustrating its promise as a simple treatment for clinical hypertension.
 

Electroacupuncture also helps relieve stress, pain

The benefits of electroacupuncture don't stop at hypertension. Georgetown University Medical Center researchers have found that the treatment can block the release of the body's stress hormones, helping to protect people from the impact of stress.

It has also been shown to reduce pain and the need for painkillers following operations like Cesarean sections. In a study published in the Chinese Medical Journal, researchers found that women who had been administered acupuncture or electroacupuncture for pain relief had significantly lower levels of pain than the placebo group in the two hours after surgery. They also asked for morphine 10 minutes later on average, and used about a third less of it in the first 24 hours following the surgery. As such, they also noted fewer opioid-related side effects.

Another study out of Duke University, meanwhile, found that acupuncture resulted in significantly lower levels of pain and painkiller use in patients post-surgery, regardless of whether it had been administered before the operation or afterward.

While some people claim that acupuncture's benefits come from a placebo effect, the research shows that changes do occur in the brain during electroacupuncture. This treatment, along with other ancient Chinese remedies like cupping therapy, is growing in popularity as people increasingly seek alternative treatments that do not have harmful side effects.

This article originally appeared on naturalnews.com