In this current age, the return of greetings from everyone we meet are no longer “I am doing great” but rather “I am so busy” or “I do not have time”.

We are indeed material rich but time poor.

Time poverty or time famine is a societal phenomenon that has hit us in the last 20 years where people are constantly feeling that they do not have enough time to do what they want and the related stress from the disappearance of spare time on hand. Definitely we all have the same 24 hours a day as our ancestors so time poverty or time famine is a self-perceived phenomenon rather than an actual reduction of time in a day available for each and every one of us. And acupuncture can help us experience the opposite – time abundance.

Human Doings vs Human Beings

As our society progresses and everything is about speed and efficiency, humankind has geared towards just being another economic resource for more money to roll, more high-rise buildings to be constructed, more nature to be destroyed.

We start to confuse productivity with self-worth, resulting in the choice to rest, relax and take care of one’s own well-being burdened with guilt and even shame. We become obsessed with constantly striving for and achieving the next big thing. We mistakenly adopt the idea that the more we do, the more value we have. We delude ourselves into thinking that we love to be busy and that we are even proud to have our schedules filled up to the brim that we cannot and should not accommodate any pockets of recess and time out.

So, we keep doing what appears to make us seem busy. We check our emails and text messages every 2 minutes, we scroll through social media feed whenever we have intermissions for breather, fooling ourselves into thinking we are doing something productive and constructive when we usually end up mindlessly distracted until an unexpected, prolonged amount of time and energy are lost.

Technological devices have made it much easier for time to be mindlessly ‘lost’ when we are constantly connected to the world, and we can be reached anywhere and everywhere and we can similarly reach out to anyone and everyone at anytime. Under this economic efficiency model, everything seems to be urgent and everything needs immediate attention. We put ourselves into a mentality which everything is a crisis that requires us to react and resolve on the spot.

We fill our days with actions, reactions and distractions, making us human doings rather than human beings - a perfect concoction of feeling time poverty that is brewed within ourselves by ourselves.

Time Poverty is a Myth

Although we feel much busier in modern day society, we are definitely not short of the real 24 hours in a day.

Time poverty is not real.

Rather, time poverty is a perception and feeling of always not having enough time that is created in our heads through worshipping extreme busy-ness and acting as if we are always short of time.

As mentioned above, mistaking productivity with self worth, fear of missing out and not fitting into the crowd, lack of boundaries, digital addiction are some of the reasons why we constantly are always on the move both in our body and mind yet not achieving the desired outcome in all aspects of life and at the same time feeling that time is always not on our side. Instead of having accomplishments directly proportionate to the level of busy-ness, we end up feeling stressed and burnt out with nothing much accomplished because we are too busy being busy.

Acupuncture for More Time

Book Appointment

Acupuncture, Balanced Body, Time Perception

As mentioned in my past blog about How TCM works scientifically, the insertion of thin needles into acupoints in the body, which are neurovascular nodes that contain a high concentration of sensory fibers, blood vessels, lymphatic vessels and mast cells restore homeostasis to bodily systems such as the immune, neurological (such as vagus nerve), gastrointestinal and endocrine systems (pineal gland).

The alteration of time perception in our body is through increased sensitivity to our internal world. By being more sensitive and aware of the internal world, we are then able to stay more focused on the present moment. When this happens, time appears to slow down to the person, giving the feeling of time abundance rather than time poverty.

Such increased sensitivity to the internal state of the body is achieved by acupuncture which helps to restore the internal bodily systems to their prime state by unblocking, nourishing, balancing and/or improving the flow of energy depending on how the existing state of the body should be enhanced for optimal balance.

Therefore it is said that

Acupuncture changes the perception of time by sensitizing the body to the present moment, giving rise to the experience of time abundance.

Acupuncture, Happiness, Time Abundance

People who are less stressed and happier are able to experience life and time in a more relaxed manner which gives rise to the perception of time being abundant rather than poor. Read about Acupoint Medicine Dan Zhong in promoting self love here.

Acupuncture stimulates the vagus nerve which activates the rest-and-digest function of the body, resulting in the person being more relaxed and happier at the end of the treatment session. The science of acupuncture helping with stress management has already been published in multiple science papers.

Acupuncture also can stimulate the pineal gland and other endocrine systems to release endorphins or happy hormones which gives rise to a sense of wellbeing.

Acupuncture makes a relaxed and happy person who always feels they have more than enough of everything for their material, physical, mental, emotional and spiritual needs in their life, including time. This then sets off the positive feedback loop in which the experience of time abundance gives rise to an even more relaxed and happy person.

Acupoint for Time Abundance

The actual formula of acupuncture for time abundance will depend on the diagnosis, skills and experience of the Traditional Chinese Medicine doctor that you are consulting.

Here I am sharing one general acupoint that can help for time perception change to abundance.

Baihui GV 20