 Can acupuncture really help with things that are serious like PTSD and trauma? Yes, and there's actually some interesting preliminary research, but besides the research or the research aside I think acupuncture falls into the really amazing and important category of somatic therapies that can help with trauma and PTSD or even other states like anxiety depression and insomnia Hey, I'm Alex Hine author of the book master the day now the first link in the description is for a free Download it's a PDF on five daily rituals that can possibly help you add ten years to life with traditional Chinese medicine So you can check it out right there the first link in the description So the first thing to think about is how a lot of interesting research now is coming out Especially Bessel Vendor Kulk the book that the body keeps score this really seminal book on trauma and recovering from trauma and one of the most fascinating things was that Talk therapy and really therapies that revolve around thinking and the way you think and the way you speak are really Minor in terms of their effectiveness when it comes to trauma like severe PTSD Severe trauma the reason being when someone goes through a traumatic response. It's the body That shows the traumatic response and yet we tend to focus exclusively on the mind That's that Cartesian split where we tend to think if there's a psychomotional state We just treat the mind if it's a body symptom. We treat the body, but the body and the mind are one They're the body mind I can think and create anxiety or I can deprive myself of sleep and create anxiety so somatic therapies like Bessel Vendor Kulk's research on Yoga dancing theater Acting all of these things are some of the more effective therapies for certain kinds of trauma and certain kinds of PTSD Now one study done was looking at the effectiveness of acupuncture for patients with PTSD It compared them versus a control group, which was no treatment or a CBT a cognitive behavioral therapy group, which is Psychological exercises designed to change the way you think and respond to stressors in your environment and in your life Now here's what the results were the researchers found that acupuncture worked better than the control which was non-treatment and Similar to cognitive behavioral therapy in its effects on PTSD ranked in four different domains Self-reported PTSD symptoms. So whatever your symptoms were on a daily basis It worked better for depression better for anxiety and better for people who rated high in a disability scale Which meant that how often this kind of trauma affected your daily life functioning so acupuncture works better than the control and About the same as cognitive behavioral therapy in this one study Now two other things that are worth considering is that acupuncture can help to relieve and move trauma without having to relive it. I Read this really fascinating paper on a African shaman and he was saying to this foreigner this foreign white person It was interesting because the way we treat depression and anxiety in States of the spirit is very different from how people do in the West When you're dealing with anxiety or trauma you take people alone in a room and you isolate them and you talk about it over and over And over to relive it but what we do is we have them dance We have them be around people we have them be in the sunshine and I thought that was so Mind-blowing at the difference in perception from these traditional cultures that have lived survived for a very very long time and Our modern world and the way we go about treating it And so I think there's a lot to be said for that being able to treat it without needing Needing to necessarily relive it and the last reason for using acupuncture for these states is that acupuncture is amazing at helping someone Be put back into their body when these states show up instead of being stuck in their mind You know obviously the role of CBT and other therapies is to help someone talk themselves off the ledge when they're experiencing a traumatic episode to help them still their breathing pay attention to racing thoughts change the narrative and the story reframe it and so The thing with acupuncture though is that it's one of the best therapies for putting you back into your body Calming the nervous system and being able to send to yourself without having to change your thinking You just come in you get the acupuncture and your state will change You don't have to be changing anything you're thinking and I think that's really really valuable as a therapy in the modern world So I hope that helps. I think acupuncture should absolutely be considered one of the therapies you use for recovering from trauma or PTSD And it's being used quite a lot with military veterans right now who have really high rates of suicidality and depression anxiety So I hope that helps again You can check out the first link in the description is for a free PDF Five daily rituals that can possibly help you add 10 years to your life with traditional change medicine And then come check out my last related videos on this exact topic right there