Can Stress Kill You?

Treating Stress without Medication

The American Institute of Stress estimates that between 75 and 90 percent of visits to primary care physicians in the United States are motivated simply by stress.  Stress can manifest as headaches, digestive problems, decreased immunity or autoimmune reactions, neck and back pain, high blood pressure, chest pain, insomnia, and anxiety and depression. Sometimes these symptoms represent only the tip of the iceberg of a serious condition which requires all the big guns of high tech medicine; more often, though, they are exactly what they look like, which is stress.  Once the possibility of a danergous underlying pathology has been eliminated, conventional medicine has little to offer in terms of treating stress, other than antidepressants and anti-anxiety medication.  While we are increasingly aware of the connection between stress and  the development of serious health problems which will eventually require expensive, high tech treatment, the prevention of chronic rather than infectious disease remains one of conventional medicine’s greatest weaknesses.

Acupuncture in its pure form is the simplest, low-tech, broadest spectrum remedy for the most common health problems in America.

Adapted from The Remedy, Lisa Rohleder, L.AC