A study in the British Medical Journal showed that acupuncture is an effective technique for treating tension headaches. What’s more, “minimal” acupuncture techniques -- needles inserted superficially into the skin at nontraditional points -- work almost as well as the full, traditional version used in China.
Eight-Week Trial
Researchers in Germany divided 270 patients with similar symptoms into three groups for a randomized, controlled trial. Over an eight-week period, one group was treated with full traditional acupuncture, one with minimal acupuncture, and one with neither method.
Headache Rates Cut In Half
Headache rates dropped by almost half among those in the “traditional acupuncture” group. On average, they experienced 7 fewer days of headaches in the four weeks following the trial than they did in the four weeks preceding it.
Those in the “minimal acupuncture group” fared almost as well, with an average drop of 6.6 days with headaches. The third group only saw an average drop of 1.5 days -- just a tenth less than what they had experienced prior to the study.
The researchers concluded that acupuncture works as well or better for tension headaches than treatments already accepted.
British Medical Journal, July 29
Science Daily, August 1
Meridian-based energy therapies like acupuncture are quite useful for treating a number of health problems such as pain and addictions. While acupuncture is almost always better than drugs or other more invasive treatments
Headaches are so common, Americans spend more than $1 billion annually on potentially toxic pills to relieve them. There are, of course, far safer methods for treating headaches, one of them being acupuncture. This is not the first study to suggest acupuncture works for headaches
There's no doubt acupuncture is effective for many health problems; for example, in a recent study, electrically stimulated acupuncture lowered blood pressure levels by 50%. If you aren't crazy about needles, however, you do have other alternatives that can be just as helpful.
I have found that Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), a needle-free acupressure energy psychology tool which uses the same energy meridians as acupuncture, is a very effective method. I use it in my practice daily, and it can be a powerful means of headache relief.
Gary Craig’s Comment:
Indeed, Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) has an impressive success rate with headaches (including migraines). Often the relief is both instant and lasting. There is an entire section on the EFT website dedicated to headache relief wherein 15+ cases are described in detail.
But in my experience, most headaches, particularly migraines, seem to be triggered by a food-based reaction to wheat, dairy, sugar, artificial preservatives, or chemicals. Most migraines can therefore be prevented by eliminating these foods from your diet, as well as eating foods better suited to your body's unique metabolic type.
I have found that over 75% of people experience remarkably relief from headache pains once they properly modify their diet. The headache-relief benefits usually come quickly, often within the first couple of days after they begin eating healthily.
Gary Craig is a pioneering developer of EFT, a profoundly effective emotional/mental healing approach. Dr. Mercola attributes much of the incredible and permanent patient successes at his clinic, The Optimal Wellness Center, to the fact that EFT is used with every patient to address all three levels of healing: mind, body and spirit. Of the thousands of natural treatments Dr. Mercola has studied and used in his 20 years of practicing medicine, he feels that EFT is the greatest healing technique that exists.
Read more about Gary Craig's EFT Course.
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