John Nieters
Acupuncture Rebalances the Nervous System
Acupuncture is a Chinese system that is at least six thousand years old in which tiny needles are inserted at key points into the body, along energy pathways called meridians. When the body is functioning at full health capacity, energy (chi) flows freely through the meridians. When there is illness, disease, or malfunction of any kind, the energy does not flow freely. Acupuncture can redress this situation by rebalancing the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.
Stress and the Skin
"It's a little different from Western medicine," John states. For example, "In Chinese medicine we would talk about a health situation in many terms-say, 'coursing the liver and rectifying the chi.' That means changing the blood flow, allowing a different level of energetic movement. Physiologically, it lowers your sympathetic nervous system response. It changes your neurotransmitter patterns, your hormone patterns, so that you can actually go into a more profound level of relaxation. Because when you're in a high sympathetic nervous system state, in a high adrenal-function state such as would occur when facing a tiger, healing is a very low priority. And the stress hormones that are released are extremely damaging to the skin. They are catabolic-they destroy tissue-rather than being anabolic, which builds tissue. So whenever you're under stress, it wears out all of your tissues. And one of the places that shows up the most is on the skin.
"When you undergo acupuncture, it will downgrade the sympathetic nervous system and upgrade the parasympathetic so your body can heal. With the skin, this becomes critical, because as we age the turnover rate of tissue becomes much slower. So when we're younger, turnover might be every twenty to thirty days; by the time you're in your fifties, it might be every sixty days. So the skin, physically, is just a lot older. And if it's being broken down by external problems or by a lack of internal nourishment, it just wears out horribly.
"So I work with patients to rebalance that stress reaction. I teach all of my cosmetic acupuncture patients some breathing techniques, or some way of creating relaxation. Because this makes a huge difference in the success of the treatment."
There are three major ways to go when it comes to treatment with acupuncture:
- Increase the chi in the blood: "This works by stimulating-primarily in acupuncture points. We use a lot of very tiny needles on the face, perhaps sixty or seventy. We do what we call an 'apex technique,' where we use three needles in very close proximity. This means we don't have to needle as deeply or use as large a needle, and we still get a great effect. It does what acupuncture is designed to do-increase blood flow and 'chi flow' to the area. People will get very tingly; their faces will feel like they're coming alive again."
- Create a collagen matrix: "We will do 'threading techniques'-using longer needles, and placing needles under the skin, especially in deep furrows and areas where the tissue is really broken down, and where the collagen matrix has been pretty much destroyed. This causes the body to sense that it's been attacked, and it starts to bring more collagen to the site, causing a kind of a micro-scarring underneath the surface, which will plump up or fill out the tissue. It's like getting a collagen injection, except it's your own collagen. That's a really good technique in people with very deep lines on or near the forehead or along the nasal/labial groove below the nose."
- Reactivate the macrophage system: "When you needle into any particular site on the body, whether it's an acupuncture point or not, it draws the body's attention to that area. There's now a Western technique called prolotherapy. It's becoming very popular for treatment of disk and athletic injuries. The therapist puts in a hypodermic needle and injects some substance that will irritate the area. Then the body says, 'Oh, wait a minute, there's an injury here. We better go back and fix it.' So the macrophages-the huge cells that come and eat debris in the body-get reactivated and come back to that injury site. At a certain point in the injury process, the body seems to kind of forget about it, and frequently the injury will not heal completely. But if you then go back and do acupuncture into that site, the body will go back and do more healing."
Finding a Facial Acupuncturist in Your Area
"It's easier to find people now who actually have been trained to do facial acupuncture, specifically. Cosmetic acupuncture sites are now available on the Internet. If you Google it, a couple of major schools will show up, and they recommend practitioners."
Concluding Words
A few last pieces of advice from our experts:
Marianne Damhuis: "The body is always moving toward healing itself. So what you want to do is give it the optimum environment to heal itself."
Shelley Rosenfeld: "Taking care of the skin shouldn't be an obsession. It should just be part of eating well and taking a holistic approach to life."
Elina Fedatova: "When you want to look amazing for a special occasion, you most likely head to your favorite store. Or maybe you will come to the conclusion that the dress that will make you look the best should be designed specifically for you. But how many times will you wear this dress that you went to great lengths for? Probably just once or twice. However, you wear your skin for life."
John Nieters: "I see that people get such good results when they do a nutritional program and see someone like Shelley for facials and then do the chi gung work in facial acupuncture. The feedback is just fabulous."
Karen Burke: "Larry Dossey, M.D., wrote a book called The Body Is the Healer, and I agree. The body regulates itself. We don't necessarily need more of everything all the time."
And My Own Concluding Words
Committing yourself to a beauty regime of reducing stress through the FACE program and following the pathways of natural skin care suggested here will gradually show you a difference in what your life can be. Beauty really is an inside job, and you now have all the tools to do it. Over time, a truly beautiful face will be yours, and you'll know it from the inside out as well as the outside in.
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