Reduce Stress, Improve Sleep with Acupuncture

I'm joined by DeeDee Fry and Daniel Yun, both acupuncturists with Modern Acupuncture. Anita, before you break out the needle, DeeDee, let's talk about this ancient form of Chinese medicine. What acupuncture is really all about? Acupuncture is an ancient form of healing, like you said, 4,000 years old, and it is really meant for everything under the sun. We use needles on certain parts of the body, and that stimulates blood flow, helps you feel balanced, recover quickly. And how do you know if you're a good candidate for acupuncture? Well, almost everyone is a good candidate for acupuncture. It treats so many different things, from sports injuries to allergies, digestion, sleep, anxiety. I'm going to recline, and how exactly does that work? If I come in and I say, I want to improve my sleep, what exactly would you guys do? Well, I'm going to pick out a point to help with your anxiety and insomnia, and first of all, I'm going to use a cotton swab. So distal needling will be mostly from the knees down, the elbows down, and those points still represent the whole body healing. Knees down, that's interesting, because I think most people would assume if you're talking about sleep, maybe your head, they would assume that the needles would be going in that area, but that's actually not the case. Well, for sure, we have points on the head, points on the hand, points on the ears, but again, the great thing is just that you don't have to remove any clothing, and the acupuncturist can pick the points that are specific to what you're going for. Very interesting. So even though we're talking about sleep here, he's going to be, Daniel's going to be focusing on my legs, too. So what about stress? What points would you be targeting there to sort of handle that? So stress management, again, it's based on your body type. So you do a pretty thorough intake. We take the pulse, we take blood pressure, we take temperature, just like you would at a physician's office, see what is going on with your body, and specifically personalize the treatment. So typically, how long does a session last? A session of modern acupuncture is about 30 minutes. You want to come in, the first time that you have acupuncture, you're going to feel something. You will? You will feel something. Right away? First time. You will feel a little more relaxed, a little more balanced. If you have pain, we'd hope to knock the pain down a bit, but the more often that you use the modality, the better you're going to feel. So if you're trying to tackle insomnia, anxiety, you want to come in once or twice a month. If you're working on something like a sports injury that you're trying to recover from, you might come in once a week. Okay, so let's take a look at this needle here. This is very tiny, and you know, it's interesting, I thought I'd be flinching in pain while Daniel's putting these needles in, but I barely feel a thing. Yeah, that's most people's response. The needles are solid, they're about the size of a hair, so they are painless. Occasionally people will feel it on the insertion, but that goes away within about a minute. And how long am I supposed to be staying in this position? Normally you would be in a recliner that's more of like a lounge style. We'd have music, we'd have nice images, so you'd feel more relaxed. To encourage that soothing atmosphere. Right, but you have the needles in for about 15 to 20 minutes. The whole session is about 30 minutes. And physiologically, when these needles are in, what exactly is happening? So blood flow is increased to the whole body. The points target the blood flow to the organs or the systems of the body that we're trying to work on. Anytime that you increase blood flow, you're going to increase healing, because of course inside the blood are all of the hormones, the enkephalins, the painkillers, the anti-inflammatories. All of that is in your blood. We're just putting it where it needs to go for your body to get the best healing. So I'll be honest with you, I'm feeling a little bit more zen now. I'm not sure if it's because I have all these needles and I don't want to move, or if I'm actually feeling it happening, but how much does this cost? Does insurance tend to cover these sessions? We are going to be a membership-based franchise. So the neat thing about that is that it's going to be available to everybody. And it's going to be super affordable. DeeDee and Daniel, I'm going to take a little nap here. I'm just going to try not to move too much. Thank you so much for joining us this afternoon. Yeah. We changed quick. I did that, didn't I? Eight needles, Jason. Eight needles, and most of them down in here for sleep. I didn't expect that at all. The ones in the ears were a little sore. You don't want to move when you have them, and my ears hurt for maybe a couple of hours after. Just a little bit, though. It was mild. But I really slept great for the past two nights. Digestion was pretty much fine. I had a pretty good dinner. But I really started feeling just chill right after they put the needles in. But your sleep has actually gotten better. Yeah. I slept very well. Like a baby. I know.