Some patients come visit the clinic with clinical depression, more often patients come for acupuncture treatment because they are feeling depressed but do not have a diagnosis. The priority of treatment at our clinic is to calm down the mind and slow down the mind racing. Improving sleep quality is also important because it will help maintain a more regular sleep schedule, which in turn helps the mind calm down for a longer period of time.

Patients with depression will often also experience fatigue, we distinguish the fatigue into physical fatigue and mental fatigue. We then decide on a treatment plan which treats the fatigue pattern as well as the depression pattern.

Acupuncture and Herbal Medicine Treatment for Depression:

1. Excess pattern

Patient feels restless, irritated, and has difficulty concentrating. The patient may have feelings of dejection, and hopelessness. Acupuncture treatment first will help calm the patient and slow down the mind racing, next, treatment will aim to improve sleep quality. Any symptoms of headache or neck pain will be along with depression and/or fatigue, and this is because we treat the body as a whole and all symptoms are interconnected.

2. Deficient pattern

Patient typically feels sad, low in spirit, and has a general aversion to normal activities. Additionally, patients may feel fatigued both mentaly and physically. Acupuncture treatment will first help calm down the mind, then treat body energy by improving sleep and digestion. Next step is to help the patient to achieve and maintain a more regular and healthy lifestyle. In the deficient pattern we focus on improvement of general body condition and spirit, because this will help the patient be more efficient in their everyday activities, and therefore easily motivated to achieve more.