Carmel Valley Acupuncturist Eases Stress While Helping Local Kids
by Leslie Carter
While you are gifting everyone you love with the joy of the holidays, give yourself a gift before you end up a frazzled wreck.
At the same time you can provide some joy for local kids who need it. Sarah Knaup, L.A.C. at Galena Center Carmel Valley is offering to contribute 10% of any fees from new acupuncture clients to Toys For Tots during the holiday season.
Deep Relaxation is Part of the Acupuncture Experience
An oasis (or even a life-raft) awaits when you briefly step away from your festive duties.
Shopping, cleaning, planning, and decorating on a deadline can bring on dangerous stress. Colds and flu seep in with the chill of winter. Putting up lights and hauling out the boxes or ornaments might end in muscle strain and injury.
More and more of us know about the benefits of acupuncture. We know that it can relieve muscular and skeletal aches and pains and make us feel better without consuming something listed in the Physicians Desk Reference. It is one of the best ways of blending Western medicine and Eastern traditional treatments. It’s an experience that takes advantage of the body-mind-sprit connection and often treats for issues you didn’t know you had.
What you may not know about acupuncture is that once the tiny needles are in—she could get 13-15 of her tiny needles into the same space that your flu shot needle takes up (but, of course, that’s not the way it works, the needles go in individually), you are left alone with soft music playing and you experience the kind of deep relaxation that you feel as you are about to drop off to sleep.
Acupuncture influences blood flow, so part of what you are experiencing is blood nourishing the inner organs. Normal awake-time blood flow supports the fight or flight response. When that impulse is relieved deep relaxation takes place.
“You could compare this feeling with sitting down with a glass of wine,” said Knaup.
Fertility a Specialty at Galena Center
Much of the work done at Acuspa and Chiropractic Center at 11515 El Camino Real, is in the specialty of fertility, and often is done at the same time as the patient is receiving the invitro-fertilization procedures.
Knaup explains that “our work in fertility, especially, takes into account how emotions affect the body. We can support women through that, and help with the side effects of the medications.”
Knaup is from Jackson Missouri and got her degree in Biology at Cornell College
She took a year to decide on a career. When she had positive results with acupuncture as a patient, she decided to study the practice at Pacific College of Oriental Medicine in San Diego
During her four years of study and clinic work, she spent several months studying in China. She does continuing classes in gynecology and fertility, and also specializes in emotional work and stress. She feels that she has made a great career choice. “It has all made sense to me since I started studying. If Western science could do it all, everyone who wanted to would get pregnant.”
The Galena Center can be reached at 858-792-7611. Visit the web site at www.galenaspa.com