Acupuncture and massage therapy have been shown to provide effective forms of stress relief. This can help improve emotional and mental well-being and ease symptoms associated with specific mental health disorders, such as anxiety and depression.
One promising study from 2015, for example, found that acupuncture improved symptoms in people with anxiety that didn’t respond to other treatments, including psychotherapy and medication. Participants received ten 30-minute sessions of acupuncture over the course of 12 weeks. In a more recent 2016 study on rats, acupuncture was found to be effective for reducing anxiety. The researchers suggested that it impacts how the body triggers the fight-or-flight response.