Finding Solutions for Stress
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I didn’t realize something was wrong until I was sitting on the table at the doctor’s office. I was there for an annual check-up - on the anniversary of the beginning of the pandemic. My doctor looked me in the eye, asked “How are you?”, and I began to cry.
It felt like one minute I was a strong woman, diligently resisting all the stress the pandemic brought me, solving my problems. The next I was crying in the doctor's office. I realized I was overwhelmed with stress and had a constant knot in my stomach. I had to do something.
I work at CORE El Centro in the office, and I have to admit I don’t have much personal experience with the natural therapies they offer. The Friday after that doctor’s visit, I found myself at the Bruce Street clinic walking past the movement room (now set up for acupuncture) and feeling drawn to the gentle music and cozy chairs. My body said it was time to try it, so I made an appointment for that day.
I reclined in one of the chairs and began taking deep, slow breaths (my usual technique when around needles). The acupuncturist, Rachel, was cool as a cucumber and told me I could stop at any time. She told me a little about each of the 5 points in my ears where she put the needles (she did the NADA protocol on me - more on that later). I won’t lie to you. I felt those needles. The needles didn’t magically not hurt because they went by the name “acupuncture”. Rachel finished putting 5 needles in each ear and left me to relax for about 40 minutes to let them do their job.
I kept doing my deep breathing after Rachel left because, after all, I had needles in my ears. Within a few moments I began to cry soothing, gentle tears. The knots and contracted muscles melted. My body shifted into calm. It worked! But I wasn’t done. I still had about 35 long minutes to sit still in that chair – no small task for me. I used some meditation techniques to pass the time. I did body scans (feeling all the parts of my body one by one), focused on the air entering and leaving my nostrils, visualized a light in my chest – all that stuff yoga teachers tell you to do. I had a couple more little cries. My mind wandered to a loss I experienced in the pandemic and to a very scary event a few years earlier. In each wave of feeling, I thought about the memory, cried gently, and felt my muscles relax again.
I knew nothing about the science behind acupuncture when I sat down. But I didn’t have to know – or believe in it - for it to work. Rachel walked me through it all after the fact, and here’s a little summary of what she shared:
Qi (chi) is energy moving through our bodies. An acupuncturist knows the spots in our body where Qi can get blocked along these channels and uses needles to unblock them so energy can circulate in “free course”. The 5 points targeted with the NADA protocol are:
Shenmen point (stress and pain)
Sympathetic nervous system point (panic on/off switch)
Kidney point (fear)
Liver point (anger and irritability)
Heart/Lung points – these are two points that are very close. The heart point is associated with joy (which can also be mania, insomnia, feeling ungrounded), and the lung point is associated with grief and sadness.
This protocol combines so many important elements of stress! And each point connects to the energy and emotion as well as the actual organ and its health. If you’re curious to try it on your own using your finger (acupressure) instead of needles, Rachel made a wonderful video walking us through the process!
In the weeks following, my body continued to feel calm. I didn’t feel pains in my neck or knots when I thought about things that had previously stressed me out. I lost the ball of anxiety in my belly. I didn’t realize until all of these sensations were gone just how intense they had been. I could think clearly about the sources of my stress. I was also able to reach out to a therapist for emotional support to talk about those things to find some resolution.
While I may not know all of the details of acupuncture, I can certainly make sense of this experience through the lens of the nervous system. This is something I talked about with my therapist.
Our nervous system has two “sides”: The parasympathetic side of our nervous system makes everything run smoothly – it keeps us digesting, breathing, etc. When the parasympathetic side is in charge, we feel safe and calm. The sympathetic side of our nervous system responds to danger (stress). It contracts our muscles and shortens our breath, for example, to get us to run away, fight, or play dead. Our sympathetic nervous system taking control can feel different for different people - suffice it to say it’s not calm, and it feels unsafe.
When something triggers our sympathetic nervous system – a lion chasing us, the realization that there’s not enough in the bank account for rent, a loved one letting us down – the stress response kicks in, triggering the parts of our body associated with running, fighting, or freezing in the face of danger. Muscles contract. Breathing gets fast. It’s uncomfortable. Even when danger passes and we are “safe” again – the lion trips and we get away; we find just the cash we need, our loved one apologizes – the stress response can stay with us unless we do something physical to “complete” the stress response. Over time, that stress hanging around in the body can snowball and feel like illness or overflow and surprise us.
Acupuncture – probably with all of that attentive breathing I did - turned out to be one very quick way for me to calm the sympathetic side of my nervous system. Now, to maintain that, I return to research about the nervous system. I’d like to pass along some resources my therapist shared with me:
The book Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Emily and Amelia Nagoski is a great way to learn about how to manage your nervous system.
If you can only spare an hour, they summarize the book wonderfully in this podcast episode with Brené Brown. The authors talk about 7 simple things that we can do to complete the stress response and return to calm: movement, crying, creative expression, laughing, breathing, affection, and positive social interaction.
And if your interest is peaked, the authors have their own podcast called The Feminist Survival Project 2020 where they apply the science of the nervous system and psychology to their everyday lives.
April is stress awareness month. This theme feels so relevant right now – both personally and on a community level. So I guess I thought I would bare my soul to you all. My stress snuck up on me because I was trying not to complain and bother friends. I ignored it for a long time until someone asked me a simple question that got me to acknowledge and seek solutions for my physical symptoms. Acupuncture, knowledge, and connecting with other people did not change the sources of stress in my life, but I’m not physically suffering from them – and it feels good to have that control back.
This is as good a time as any to call up a friend and ask them how they are.
The author, Jackie, works for CORE El Centro in the Fund Development Department. She’s many things: a teacher, a community worker, a volunteer, an aunt, and a knitter. Since the pandemic began, you can also find her teaching yoga, painting flowers all over her furniture, falling on cross-country skis, and doting over her many, many plants.