Interestingly, though lots of attention has recently been given to the role that psychedelic medicines employed in therapy could play in healing PTSD and trauma generally, new research has just been published showing acupuncture can also be of significant help in alleviating this widespread disorder, and may act similarly to psychedelics on a particular quality of our brains to heal and remodel themselves: neuroplasticity.

Over the past decade, several systematic reviews have supported the use of acupuncture for reducing generalized anxiety and panic attacks.

Acupuncture in the spring often focuses on Liver patterns, which is associated with the Wood Phase and with the free flow of Qi in the body. The spring in temperate climates, especially here in Colorado, is a time of transition, where we get alternating heat and cold, the desire to relax and get outside mixed with frustration at surprise snow. This uneven energy wants release! It's a great time to reset your nervous system in that particular way that acupuncture excels.

A summary of recent studies.

The question Lee asks is, why aren’t these useful and sophisticated cures used now? “If it worked, why was it given up? Is it that at some point it became redundant, something better came out? Or is it that this was something only known to a few people?” 

Once dry needling practitioners began using the same tools as acupuncture, the debate of what distinguished dry needling from acupuncture began to be more acute (from the Latin acus ‘needle’), so to speak. 

Ben talks skepticism, attention vs. intention, and what it’s like to approach Chinese medicine, acupuncture and even weirder ways of healing with a beginner’s mind.

We know that confirmation bias is a real thing.