Some research suggests that there is a connection between headaches and mental health issues. Can a headache treatment help alleviate symptoms? Read on to find out more.
According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, headaches are often a common symptom for some patients with mental health disorders, such as generalized anxiety disorder and depression. While it is difficult to say whether chronic headaches are caused by or otherwise tied to mental illness, or if the coexistence of these issues is coincidental, a treatment that addresses both mental health and physical symptoms could prove useful.
Acupuncture is one such treatment.
Want to learn how acupuncture can help you manage your headaches and mental health? Read on for some essential information about this headache treatment.
Acupuncture and Headaches
Balance is the basis of acupuncture. By stimulating various parts of the body, it seeks to restore balance to the energy that courses through your body, your Qi. Whether you suffer from chronic migraines, cluster headaches, or tension headaches, restoring balance is the key to finding relief.
But does acupuncture really work for headaches?
According to this post on the Harvard Health Blog, a 2012 meta-analysis of 23 high-quality randomized controlled trials with 18,000 participants shows that it does. When compared with sham acupuncture, legitimate acupuncture provided superior pain relief for low back pain, osteoarthritis, and headache.
Acupuncture and Mental Health
Acupuncture is also an effective treatment for various mental health disorders, including anxiety and depression.
I described how acupuncture helps treat anxiety in a previous post, so I will focus on depression for this article. If you have depression symptoms, it is important to talk to a mental health professional. Part of their prescribed treatment may be regular acupuncture sessions in combination with other treatments.
It is critical to approach the treatment of depression from an individualized perspective. The reason? Depression does not have a single cause. Brain chemistry, life experience, hormones, and general health can all contribute to a diagnosis, so treatment must be individualized to allow for effective healing.
Depending on the patient’s symptoms and contributing factors, the acupuncturist will manipulate the body’s energy using needles or pressure. This manipulation is understood to unblock the flow of energy and achieve balance.
In both instances of depression and headache treatment, returning to balance is a key component of healing. Depression often is more than just feelings of sadness—it is also often accompanied by physical symptoms, like aches and pains. Headache is just one form that these physical symptoms take.
The benefit of undergoing acupuncture for depression and other mental health disorders is that this treatment not only helps to address the root cause of the mental illness (when used in conjunction with other therapies), but it also gives the patient relief from these painful physical symptoms.
Schedule an Acupuncture Headache Treatment with Our Specialist
Are you still unsure whether acupuncture is right for you? Talk to the experts at Mind & Soul Therapy today. Our very own Dr. Rafael Padro specializes in acupuncture headache treatment. We are also partnered with Carlos Escasena, MD, who is a neurologist with a specialty in Headache Medicine at The Headache Wellness Center. You can get in touch with him at 305-588-7170.