Looking Up

Dear Patient,

Sometimes when I’m removing a patient’s needles after a treatment, they’ll tell me they’ve had some sort of epiphany while they’re resting—maybe an idea for a creative project, or a solution to a problem they’ve been grappling with. Acupuncture seems to prompt an expansion of the mind, a shift in perspective.

There are a few reasons for this. One is that you’re relatively distraction-free during an acupuncture session. Your brain gets to wander freely without external demands. Another is that the needles move the stuck energy that so frequently clouds your thinking. And another really, really simple reason is that when you’re at my clinic, you’re in a recliner, which means that during a treatment, you’re looking up.

Research shows that we unconsciously associate a positive mood, new ideas, and expansive thinking with upward movement. In a study done in the 1920s, people identified upward-sloping lines as more cheerful than downward-sloping ones. In a more recent study, people were ask to think about painting a room after walking either up or down a flight of stairs. The participants who had just walked down a flight of stairs thought more about the specific actions, like applying brushstrokes, while participants who had just walked up a flight of stairs thought more about the purpose of the actions, like making the room look brighter. Even as I sit at my desk, trying to turn my thoughts into written words, my eyes instinctually look upward. Looking up reminds us of possibilities.

We spend so much of our days looking down—down at computer keyboards, down at phone screens, down when we’re chopping vegetables or scrubbing the toilet or even doing something leisurely like reading a book. What’s all this looking downward doing to our mood, our energy, our creativity?

Don’t forget to look up every now and then.

Love and gratitude,

Your Acupuncturist