The one-time effect on your sleep is a lot less mysterious than if had worked more permanently. As a golfer, let me draw your attention to the hole-in-one phenomenon.
This can happen to Joe Schmendrick once.
More than once and you're either Tiger Woods or lying. And even Tiger has not had that many.
Veterinary acupuncture works because animals do not have preconceived ideas about it. They don't know of the placebo effect.
I saw this with my own elderly arthritic dog. Each treatment lasted between 28 to 30 days. During those days she would really slow down, not want to walk very far. Next treatment she was ready to go again.
I am glad you found relief for even one night. To my knowledge there is quite a bit of “scientific evidence”. Only, most of it is not in Western terms. We, in the West, are prone to valuing logic science as we understand it. Acupuncture has been written about for centuries in the east. Yoga was originally developed as a scientific methodology where each Asana or posture was developed to primarily help the parasympathetic system. Healers understand that we have an astral and ethereal body. This may sound woo woo. It is not.
Perhaps you might benefit from visiting cultures that deal with preventative medicine or at least reading about them? In my view, Western medicine and thinking has many benefits for many ills. We are all energy systems. Once we understand that, it’s far easier to understand other systems that also have value. I wish you well on your journey. And hope you get some sleep.
I love the phrase "absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence." I don't know where the proper line lies between believing in hard science and believing in made up BS, but I definitely feel that, especially since covid, "scientism" has become an oppressive force that laypeople who didn't study science use to tell other people that their opinions are dumb, usually just by saying something like, "Because SCIENCE!" I'm not a scientist but I did study psychology and I think it gave me a slightly better sense of the idea that science isn't always a monolithic black and white thing, but a continuum - there are tons of factors that play into whether something has been substantially "proven", including study design, funding, motivation, etc. Practically every discovery ever made started out with anecdotal observations just waiting for someone to figure out the mechanisms.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the former Senator from New York, once took time in a Senate Finance Committee hearing to make your point about health care evidence. He held up the Merck Manual from the turn of the last century (that is circa 1920) and went on to read what it had to say about Cocaine ... all good, BTW.
The whole idea that the mind and body are separate, and that there's some gap to be bridged, is a leftover of Descartes. The detailed mechanisms of accupuncture are not well understood, but they may involve a rebalancing of activity in the generally opposed sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. That would make some sense for sleep.
About 15 years ago I was having lower back problems and I tried something called network chiropractic. Despite the name, there is no cracking involved. It consists of light touches at various pressure points around the spine and neck. I did it for a while and got some relief, but nothing transformative.
But I went to a demonstration where the practitioner had a patient lay down and demonstrate something I think he called the somatic wave. He gave her a few light touches and all of sudden her whole body started vibrating and these high-amplitude waves started going up and down her back. It was the kind of motion you might see from a tiny contortionist at Cirque du Soleil, except this was a middle age, overweight woman -- definitely not a super fit yogi.
your overall tone sounds very condescending
The one-time effect on your sleep is a lot less mysterious than if had worked more permanently. As a golfer, let me draw your attention to the hole-in-one phenomenon.
This can happen to Joe Schmendrick once.
More than once and you're either Tiger Woods or lying. And even Tiger has not had that many.
Agree with everything you said but one more thing to consider.
If it's the placebo effect, why does acupuncture work on dogs with joint issues? Because dogs seem to improve even when owners are skeptical.
Veterinary acupuncture works because animals do not have preconceived ideas about it. They don't know of the placebo effect.
I saw this with my own elderly arthritic dog. Each treatment lasted between 28 to 30 days. During those days she would really slow down, not want to walk very far. Next treatment she was ready to go again.
I am glad you found relief for even one night. To my knowledge there is quite a bit of “scientific evidence”. Only, most of it is not in Western terms. We, in the West, are prone to valuing logic science as we understand it. Acupuncture has been written about for centuries in the east. Yoga was originally developed as a scientific methodology where each Asana or posture was developed to primarily help the parasympathetic system. Healers understand that we have an astral and ethereal body. This may sound woo woo. It is not.
Perhaps you might benefit from visiting cultures that deal with preventative medicine or at least reading about them? In my view, Western medicine and thinking has many benefits for many ills. We are all energy systems. Once we understand that, it’s far easier to understand other systems that also have value. I wish you well on your journey. And hope you get some sleep.
Dr. Dorree Lynn
I love the phrase "absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence." I don't know where the proper line lies between believing in hard science and believing in made up BS, but I definitely feel that, especially since covid, "scientism" has become an oppressive force that laypeople who didn't study science use to tell other people that their opinions are dumb, usually just by saying something like, "Because SCIENCE!" I'm not a scientist but I did study psychology and I think it gave me a slightly better sense of the idea that science isn't always a monolithic black and white thing, but a continuum - there are tons of factors that play into whether something has been substantially "proven", including study design, funding, motivation, etc. Practically every discovery ever made started out with anecdotal observations just waiting for someone to figure out the mechanisms.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the former Senator from New York, once took time in a Senate Finance Committee hearing to make your point about health care evidence. He held up the Merck Manual from the turn of the last century (that is circa 1920) and went on to read what it had to say about Cocaine ... all good, BTW.
It wasn't until I became the father of a daughter until I realized.......
Yea. Someone else has something to say. And it isn't "this is total bullshit until I tried it."
As for the placebo effect, at least part of that appears to be classical conditioning.
http://www.intergalacticmedicineshow.com/cgi-bin/mag.cgi?do=columns&vol=randall_hayes&article=014
The whole idea that the mind and body are separate, and that there's some gap to be bridged, is a leftover of Descartes. The detailed mechanisms of accupuncture are not well understood, but they may involve a rebalancing of activity in the generally opposed sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. That would make some sense for sleep.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3677642/
Except for pain relief, where it's clear that endorphins are involved.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15135942/
About 15 years ago I was having lower back problems and I tried something called network chiropractic. Despite the name, there is no cracking involved. It consists of light touches at various pressure points around the spine and neck. I did it for a while and got some relief, but nothing transformative.
But I went to a demonstration where the practitioner had a patient lay down and demonstrate something I think he called the somatic wave. He gave her a few light touches and all of sudden her whole body started vibrating and these high-amplitude waves started going up and down her back. It was the kind of motion you might see from a tiny contortionist at Cirque du Soleil, except this was a middle age, overweight woman -- definitely not a super fit yogi.
Made me think.