Ki Acupuncture

17/12/2025

Christmas Stress & How Acupuncture Can Help 🎄

Christmas is meant to be joyful, but for many people it can also bring extra stress busy schedules, family pressures, disrupted routines, poor sleep, and feeling emotionally overwhelmed.

At Ki Acupuncture, we often see stress build up at this time of year, showing up as:
• Tension in the neck and shoulders
• Poor sleep or broken sleep
• Anxiety or low mood
• Headaches
• Digestive issues
• Feeling run down or burnt out

✨ Acupuncture can help support your body through the festive season by:
• Calming the nervous system
• Reducing stress and anxiety
• Improving sleep quality
• Easing muscle tension
• Helping you feel more balanced and grounded
Rather than just pushing through Christmas, acupuncture gives your body space to reset helping you enjoy the season feeling calmer, lighter, and more at ease.
If the festive period feels more stressful than sparkly this year, support is available 💛

Contact Richard Ashton
📞 01274 003 008 (Mon–Sat, 9am–5pm)
📧 richard@ki-acupuncture.co.uk
🔗 ki-acupuncture.co.uk

✨ Tower Clinic
📌 8 Tinshill Lane, Cookridge, Leeds, LS16 7AP
📞 0113 2672067

14/12/2025

🗺️ Mapping Chinese Medicine: A Visual Journey Through the Six Divisions and Beyond

☯️ A new resource is now available on our blog for those interested in a deeper, structural look at Chinese medicine. This article uses the Six Divisions as a framework to integrate key concepts, ranging from the Five Spirits and Extraordinary Vessels to Zang-Fu patterns, Eight Principles, Five Phases, and channel theory.

🧐 It’s intended as an overview of both theory and practice, covering the movement of Qi, rela-tionships between diagnostic models, point selection, and more. If you’re looking for a com-prehensive guide that brings these elements together in one place, you might find it useful.

😊 Feel free to take a look: https://ki-acupuncture.co.uk/six-divisions-tcm-pathology/

📞 01274 003 008 (call or WhatsApp)
📧 richard@ki-acupuncture.co.uk
🔗 https://ki-acupuncture.co.uk
💬 Ki Acupuncture () on Facebook/Instagram
🦋&🧵

📍Clinics located at:
• The Tower Clinic, Cookridge (Leeds)
• Rooms@1900, Calverley (Pudsey)
• Holding Space, Shipley (Bradford)

⏰ Opening hours:
• Monday–Friday 9am–8pm
• Saturday 9am–5pm

Richard Ashton LicAc MBAcC BSc(Hons) Acupuncture

British Acupuncture Council member: https://acupuncture.org.uk

11/12/2025

⛄️ Winter: Chinese medicine views this season as a period of deep support, when the body naturally turns inward and focuses on its foundations, helping us gather and conserve strength for the new year ahead.

Look closely at nature around you and you’ll see spring is underway… the mallards are already pairing up for the next generation… 🦆

Winter Qi: Returning to the roots ❄️

In Chinese medicine winter is the season of inward movement. Nature draws its energy down to the roots. Seeds rest in the warm soil, held and protected while they gather strength for the growth that will rise in spring.

Winter Qi reflects this. It is a time for conserving warmth, supporting reserves, and allowing the body to replenish at a deeper level. Stillness here has purpose. It clears space for renewal.

Within the depth of winter there is always a small spark of spring. Yin contains a kernel of Yang at its centre, just as each seed carries the shape of future growth inside it. This is the natural cycle of rest supporting new life.

Contact Richard Ashton
📞 01274 003 008 (Mon–Sat, 9am–5pm)
📧 richard@ki-acupuncture.co.uk
🔗 ki-acupuncture.co.uk

✨ Tower Clinic
📍 8 Tinshill Lane, Cookridge, Leeds, LS16 7AP
📞 0113 267 2067

☯️🌱

07/12/2025

🌿 “Helping the Body Remember How to Heal” … What’s Really Going On? 🧐

You’ll often hear phrases like “acupuncture helps the body remember how to heal itself”, or “acupuncture prompts the body’s innate healing intelligence”. They sound poetic, but they’re also rather vague, and can make acupuncture sound unscientific if left unexplained.

The body doesn’t forget how to heal. Nor does it have some mystical, conscious “healer within”. Processes like tissue repair, immune defence, and nerve regeneration are always running in the background. But sometimes those systems get stuck in maladaptive patterns: loops of pain, tension, or inflammation that keep the body from returning to balance.

☯️ Acupuncture works by modulating the body’s signalling systems – nervous, endocrine, immune, and vascular – and by influencing feedback loops so that homeostasis can be restored. In other words, it helps recalibrate how these systems communicate and self-regulate.

For example:
• When pain pathways are chronically active, the nervous system can stay “on alert,” maintaining a loop of tension and sensitivity.
• When the stress response dominates, circulation to the digestive and reproductive organs may decrease, slowing repair and function.
• When inflammation or immune activity is poorly regulated, tissue recovery may stall.

So, while “helping the body remember how to heal” is a poetic metaphor for reconnection, what’s really happening is a form of neurophysiological recalibration – restoring communication between systems that have lost coherence under stress. It’s less about reminding the body how to heal, and more about removing the static so its innate self-regulating capacity can function as it should.

The way our bodies maintain homeostasis across so many interlinked systems is extraordinary. It’s tempting to imagine a guiding intelligence behind it all, but that impulse can actually obscure the real marvel: nature’s awesome capacity for self-organisation through countless, intricate and spontaneous interactions. 😯✨

📞 01274 003 008 (call or WhatsApp)
📧 richard@ki-acupuncture.co.uk
🔗 https://ki-acupuncture.co.uk
💬

05/12/2025

🎄 Christmas Calm Starts Here ✨

December can be magical… and exhausting.
Between last-minute shopping, family plans, cold weather, and the general “full-on” Christmas energy, your body can feel tense, overwhelmed, and burnt out before the big day even arrives.

Acupuncture is a powerful way to bring you back into balance at this time of year.
Here’s how it helps during the festive season:

✨ Reduces festive stress & anxiety – calming the nervous system and helping you feel grounded rather than frazzled.
✨ Boosts energy levels – perfect if you’re running on caffeine and Christmas chaos.
✨ Supports immunity – winter bugs love December… acupuncture helps strengthen your natural defences.
✨ Eases aches & tension – from the cold weather, long days on your feet, or too much “elfing around.”
✨ Promotes better sleep – so you wake up refreshed instead of drained.

If you’re craving a moment of peace in the middle of all the festive noise, a session could be exactly what your mind and body need.

Give yourself the gift of calm, balance and wellbeing this Christmas. 🎁💆‍♂️💆‍♀️

Contact Richard Ashton
📞 01274 003 008 (Mon–Sat, 9am–5pm)
📧 richard@ki-acupuncture.co.uk
🔗 ki-acupuncture.co.uk

✨ Tower Clinic
📌 8 Tinshill Lane, Cookridge, Leeds, LS16 7AP
📞 0113 2672067.

30/11/2025

🤔 How many needles are enough?

Many of us were taught that a good acupuncture treatment should be “elegant” and minimal. But does fewer needles really mean better results?

✨ This new article explores what the evidence says about acupuncture dose, how styles differ across cultures, and why effectiveness often depends on the strength and frequency of stimulation rather than needle count.

💡 Let’s not be dogmatic about dose!

🔗 https://ki-acupuncture.co.uk/acupuncture-dose-and-cultural-styles/

📞 01274 003 008 (call or WhatsApp)
📧 richard@ki-acupuncture.co.uk
🔗 https://ki-acupuncture.co.uk
💬 Ki Acupuncture () on Facebook/Instagram
🦋&🧵

📍Clinics located at:
• The Tower Clinic, Cookridge (Leeds)
• Rooms@1900, Calverley (Pudsey)
• Holding Space, Shipley (Bradford)

⏰ Opening hours:
• Monday–Friday 9am–8pm
• Saturday 9am–5pm

Richard Ashton LicAc MBAcC BSc(Hons) Acupuncture

British Acupuncture Council member: https://acupuncture.org.uk

28/11/2025

Chronic pain isn’t always about damaged tissue. Sometimes the problem is a nervous system that has learned to keep sending the alarm long after the injury has settled.

Acupuncture works as a kind of pattern interrupt: precise sensory input that helps the system recalibrate how it processes those signals. When the alarm gets dialled down, the whole picture starts to shift and people often rediscover movement that felt off-limits for months.

🌿 Struggling with chronic pain that just won’t shift?

Acupuncture offers a natural, holistic way to calm inflammation, relax tight muscles, and restore balance within the body helping you move through daily life with more ease and comfort.

Many people find relief from conditions like:
✔️ Back and neck pain
✔️ Arthritis
✔️ Migraines & tension headaches
✔️ Fibromyalgia
✔️ Joint and muscle pain

By targeting the body’s energy pathways and encouraging the release of endorphins, acupuncture supports your body’s own healing response not just masking symptoms, but helping you feel better from the inside out.
✨ If chronic pain is holding you back, acupuncture may be the gentle, effective support you’ve been looking for.

Contact Richard Ashton
📞 01274 003 008 (Mon–Sat, 9am–5pm)
📧 richard@ki-acupuncture.co.uk
🔗 ki-acupuncture.co.uk

✨ Tower Clinic
📌 8 Tinshill Lane, Cookridge, Leeds, LS16 7AP
📞 0113 2672067

25/11/2025

Acupuncture is receiving increasing attention in mainstream health research. Diabetes UK has highlighted new findings on how it may support metabolic health when used alongside conventional treatment for type 2 diabetes.

It reflects a wider move toward integrating safe complementary therapies with long-term medical care. If you’re interested in evidence-based updates, this one is worth a look.

A 2025 update from Diabetes UK highlights a promising development in complementary care for type 2 diabetes. A review of 21 randomised controlled trials, involving more than 2,000 participants, found that acupuncture used alongside standard medical treatment helped improve several key health markers. These included fasting blood glucose, HbA1c and wider metabolic measures.

While it is not a replacement for prescribed care with diabetes, the findings suggest that acupuncture may support better overall management when used as part of a broader treatment plan. It is encouraging to see growing evidence in this area and increasing interest in safe, complementary approaches to long-term conditions.

Source: https://www.diabetes.co.uk/news/2025/jul/acupuncture-shows-promise-in-improving-type-2-diabetes-outcomes.html

23/11/2025

🤔 Do you ever wonder why a diagnosis doesn’t quite explain how you feel?

🏷️ A diagnosis can name the problem. Chinese medicine asks why it took root… and how to help the system move again.

🔑 This blog explores how Chinese medicine sees the body differently, and why that’s often the key to real change.

🧐 We ask:
How does your biomedical diagnosis translate into TCM?
What does a Chinese medicine diagnosis look like?
What gets lost in translation?
How can we reframe diagnostic labels?
And how can modern and traditional medicine bridge the gap to create something stronger together?

🔗 https://ki-acupuncture.co.uk/chinese-medicine-diagnosis-differences/

📞 01274 003 008 (call or WhatsApp)
📧 richard@ki-acupuncture.co.uk
🔗 https://ki-acupuncture.co.uk
💬 Ki Acupuncture () on Facebook/Instagram
🦋&🧵

📍Clinics located at:
• The Tower Clinic, Cookridge (Leeds)
• Rooms@1900, Calverley (Pudsey)
• Holding Space, Shipley (Bradford)

⏰ Opening hours:
• Monday–Friday 9am–8pm
• Saturday 9am–5pm

Richard Ashton LicAc MBAcC BSc(Hons) Acupuncture

British Acupuncture Council member: https://acupuncture.org.uk

21/11/2025

When things get stuck… Vedic storm gods, angels of judgement, and the end times of Ragnarok ⛈️🐺

https://open.spotify.com/episode/3pojXpeBepHwKadorp6I6j?si=FXnH3VkUQoSRSHuF3LDHgg

The Emerald · Episode

21/11/2025

😌 People are often surprised by how acupuncture feels: calm, steady, and quietly restorative. You might come in with tension, stress, disrupted sleep, hormonal shifts, or that sense of being “stuck,” and notice that as the body shifts and settles, something inside settles too.

That’s because emotions aren’t floating somewhere separate. They’re built into our physiology. Stress patterns, tightness, worry, low energy, irritability, poor sleep… these are all different expressions of the same system struggling to regulate itself.

☯️ Acupuncture works by helping that whole system rebalance. As the body’s pathways ease, pain eases, and circulation improves, the emotional load often shifts with it. One gentle intervention, one integrated response: clearer, calmer, more spacious from the inside out.

🌿 Find Balance. Feel Better.
Struggling with tension, stress, or pain that just won’t go away?
Acupuncture is a gentle, natural therapy that works with your body’s energy pathways to restore balance and promote healing.

✨ Benefits of acupuncture may include:
• Reduced stress + anxiety
• Relief from back, neck + joint pain
• Better sleep + deeper relaxation
• Support for women’s health + hormones
• Boosted overall wellbeing and energy ✨

Whether you’re new to acupuncture or looking to continue your wellness journey, I’m here to help you feel your best from the inside out. 🌱

📲 Send a message to book a consultation
🧘‍♂️ Your calm starts here

Contact Richard Ashton
📞 01274 003 008 (Mon–Sat, 9am–5pm)
📧 richard@ki-acupuncture.co.uk
🔗 ki-acupuncture.co.uk

✨ Tower Clinic
📌 8 Tinshill Lane, Cookridge, Leeds, LS16 7AP
📞 0113 2672067.

16/11/2025

☯️ Ki Acupuncture & Massage

💆‍♀️ Not just acupuncture – but a wide range of therapeutic massage approaches… 😌

• Remedial Massage – targets muscular pain, tension, and restricted movement through focused Chinese tuina soft-tissue techniques and joint mobilisations that restore balance and mobility.

• Holistic Energy-Balancing Massage – works with the body as an integrated whole. Combines mindful therapeutic touch and rhythmic Swedish massage to harmonise body and mind, calm the nervous system, and support overall balance.

• Channel Brushing (Shùn Jīng) – uses flowing strokes along the channels to clear stagnation and stimulate healthy circulation. This technique releases tension, awakens sensitivity, and restores smooth circulation throughout the meridians.

• Acupressure and Neuromuscular Release (NMR) – uses steady, focused pressure on key points along the channels and within the muscles to release tension, ease trigger points, and restore healthy tone. These techniques calm the nervous system, relieve pain, and help re-establish natural patterns of movement and relaxation.

• Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation (PNF) – combines gentle stretching with active muscle engagement to enhance flexibility, improve joint range, and retrain neuromuscular coordination.

• Myofascial Release – uses slow, sustained pressure to free restrictions within the connective tissues, improving flexibility, posture, and fluid movement.

• Abdominal Massage – supports digestion, circulation, and emotional regulation by gently working around the navel and lower abdomen.

• Lymphatic Support & Circulatory Massage – applies gentle, rhythmic strokes to stimulate circulation, reduce swelling, and encourage natural detoxification.

• Facial Massage – relieves jaw tension, sinus congestion, and headaches while promoting relaxation and healthy circulation; complements acupressure and channel brushing for facial rejuvenation and emotional calm.

• Indian Head Massage – focuses on the head, neck, shoulders, and upper back to release tension, ease headaches, and improve circulation to the scalp. Its gentle techniques soothe the nerves, promote mental clarity, and leave a deep sense of relaxation and balance.

• Tendon Release Techniques – employ rhythmic, oscillating, or shaking movements to relax the sinews, ease stiffness, and restore smooth joint mobility. These methods soften tension along the tendino-muscular channels and encourage freer movement throughout the body.

• Reflexology – applies gentle pressure to specific points on the feet that correspond to internal organs and body systems. Helps restore circulation, unwind tension, and support overall balance by encouraging the body’s natural self-regulating processes.

😊🌿

📞 01274 003 008 (call or WhatsApp)
📧 richard@ki-acupuncture.co.uk
🔗 https://ki-acupuncture.co.uk
💬 Ki Acupuncture () on Facebook/Instagram
🦋&🧵

📍Clinics located at:
• The Tower Clinic, Cookridge (Leeds)
• Rooms@1900, Calverley (Pudsey)
• Holding Space, Shipley (Bradford)

⏰ Opening hours:
• Monday–Friday 9am–8pm
• Saturday 9am–5pm

Richard Ashton LicAc MBAcC BSc(Hons) Acupuncture

British Acupuncture Council member: https://acupuncture.org.uk