The Benefits of Acupuncture As You Age

You don’t have to suffer through aging.

Researched, written by Amber & The Team
Updated on December 16, 2022

Found in Aging & elderly care • Physical Health

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Acupuncture is the practice of utilizing needles in the body to help treat multiple health issues, problems, and pain. This ancient Chinese method can be very beneficial for people as they age since as you get older, your bones and muscles start to weaken, and you feel more aches and pains.

Getting older is inevitable and can take a toll on your mental and physical health. But, you don’t have to suffer through aging; there is help that you can get for yourself to combat your declining health. Besides working with your doctor, staying active, and eating healthily, seniors can find help with acupuncture to treat numerous ailments due to aging.

This Chinese medicine practice has been used to promote overall health and wellness for thousands of years. It offers those getting older a way to treat their pains and illness without needing medication or invasive surgery. It’s one of the oldest forms of energy healing, manipulating it to create balance and relief within the body.

Let’s explore all of the benefits that acupuncture can offer people over the age of 50.

Acupuncture Improves Heart Problems

Acupuncture techniques have been utilized to treat heart problems, including high blood pressure and heart disease. In addition, some studies demonstrated the use of acupuncture significantly improved heart function and lowered stress in sick patients with heart failure, not just heart disease.

Since it lowers your adrenaline levels, acupuncture helps to improve your quality of life. The heart isn’t being forced to work harder to pump blood throughout the body or thicken ventricles, which contribute to heart attacks and can be fatal.

Acupuncture May Help You Eliminate Use of Medications

As you get older and suffer from more aches, pains, and chronic illnesses, many doctors will prescribe various medications to help numb or block those ailments. One of the most considerable problems with medications is the number of side effects that come with using them, especially if you overuse them to help with your health problems.

Acupuncture is a method that doesn’t use medicine or prescription medications and can offer the same type of relief from your pain. It can be just as effective to undergo an acupuncture treatment as using medicines for angina or hypertension.

Acupuncture Treats Mouth Problems

Many people tend to neglect their teeth and gums as they get older. As a result, mouth problems like toothaches, joint pain in the jaw, and gingivitis become more common. Treatments with acupuncture focus primarily on unblocking the flow of Qi, an energy that needs to be in balance for good health in your body.

Gum diseases or jaw pain is indicated as poor health and has been proven to manage various chronic mouth disorders. Acupuncture is also utilized for post-op pain from dental procedures and surgeries to aid in pain management and recovery.

Acupuncture May Benefit Your Cognitive Function and Mood

Another part of aging is the effect on your brain’s cognitive abilities. Many older seniors start to experience lapses in memory, an early sign of Alzheimer’s disease or dementia, and have difficulty concentrating. Acupuncture is yet another source that may help to improve brain functionality, having a beneficial effect on learning.

It has been recognized that acupuncture is a preferred alternative for patients with dementia instead of pharmacotherapy, which treats behavior changes that stem from dementia. The therapeutic effects of acupuncture allow people to feel more relaxed, giving their brains the benefit of being more cognizant. There are still ongoing studies to help prove the effects of acupuncture on dementia treatment.

When you get older, you sometimes feel sad, lonely, or down, even isolated or depressed. When you are more relaxed and feel at ease, your mood improves. The NYC acupuncture clinic, WTHN, recognized that with older patients at least fifty years of age, acupuncture has provided them with a sense of well-being and balancing their emotions, like a mood booster.

Your mental health is just as crucial to your overall physical condition, so taking care of early signs of depression and social anxiety can be helped by acupuncture, too. Combatting those feelings of sadness and creating balance within your nervous system give acupuncture the advantage of supplying you with positive energy, so you feel more secure and confident.

Acupuncture Improves Digestion

Digestion can be tricky, and as you get older, you may find that foods that generally didn’t bother you are suddenly causing more bloating, constipation, or diarrhea. In addition, digestive issues may start to occur, such as heartburn or indigestion, foods getting stuck in your esophagus, or causing you pain in your intestines.

Acupuncture can help tip improve your digestion by reducing inflammation in the digestive system and nourishing the stomach and other digestive organs. As a result, you can process foods more quickly and experience fewer digestive problems.

Acupuncture Relieves Chronic Pain

Since muscles and joints get weaker as you age, chronic pain such as arthritis or other knee and shoulder joint issues can happen. Instead of popping NSAIDs every day, you might want to try acupuncture. Most chronic pains such as these respond very well since it relieves swelling and discomfort in the muscles. In addition, it can help if you pair your acupuncture with other treatments like physical therapy or a visit to the chiropractor.

Considering Acupuncture As You Get Older

Please do some research to decide whether acupuncture would work for you; there’s no denying that it can be beneficial as you get older. Acupuncture provides relief for aging issues that deal with mental and physical health problems, but it can be helpful for anyone at any age. Its overall aim is to help your body find balance within itself and align correctly so that your body’s functionality is at its best.