How Does Acupuncture Work? Part 3

Acupuncture relieves pain by stimulating the release of natural painkillers

When a person is injured, pain signals travel up the spinal cord to the midbrain, where enkephalins are released. Enkephalins, a type of endorphin, are the body’s natural painkillers and are six times stronger than morphine! When someone is in chronic pain, however, the strength of the pain signals to the brain becomes weakened, and thus enkephalins are no longer released. Acupuncture serves as a stimulus to reboot the proprioceptive nerve pathway.  The sensation that the needles creates helps to jump the neural threshold and stimulate the midbrain to release enkephalins. After a few hours, this signal strength will diminish. Repeated acupuncture will continue to jump the neural threshold until the body is able to remember and reestablish the normal threshold to signal pain.  The result: chronic pain is eliminated!