Daith Piercing For Anxiety Which Ear

A daith piercing is located in the innermost fold of your ear. Some people believe that this piercing can help ease anxiety-related migraines and other symptoms.

Read on to learn more about how the piercing is said to work, possible side effects, and what comes next if you’re ready to get pierced.

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These pressure points target the vagus nerve. This is the longest of the 10 nerves extending from the bottom of your brain into the rest of your body.

Ear Piercings With Acupuncture Benefits

Some health conditions, like depression and epilepsy, have been proven to respond to vagus nerve stimulation. Research to see if stimulating this nerve can treat other conditions is ongoing.

So far, any information we have about using a daith piercing to treat anxiety is anecdotal. There haven’t been any clinical trials or exploratory studies on this piercing and its purported effects.

But a clinical case can be made for using acupuncture to treat anxiety and migraines. Several studies have concluded that acupuncture is a “promising” treatment for panic attacks.

Are Those Trendy Ear Piercings Helping You On A Wellness Level?

Although a panic attack is different from an anxiety attack, many of the symptoms are the same. This includes migraines and other headaches, chest pain, and nausea.

There’s also a tentative connection between acupuncture and piercings. Daith piercings sit at roughly the same position as a pressure point that acupuncturists target to treat migraines. This piercing theoretically provides the same benefits.

At least one expert at the Cleveland Clinic weighed in to chalk up piercings that relieve migraines as having a placebo effect. If migraines are the main anxiety symptom you’re looking to address, it’s important to keep this in mind.

Can An Ear Piercing Be Useful For Anxiety?

We don’t know enough about this treatment for anxiety to rule out the placebo effect. But we do know that getting acupuncture to treat

In theory, yes — it does matter what side the piercing is on. Get the piercing on the side of your head where your anxiety-related pain tends to cluster.

If you’re not trying to treat anxiety-related migraines, it doesn’t make a difference which side of your head you get the piercing on. Assuming that the anecdotal evidence holds, the piercing may help easy other anxiety symptoms regardless of which side it’s on.

What's A Daith Piercing?

There’s a lot to consider before getting a daith piercing. The piercing can be painful for some. It takes longer to heal than other ear piercings.

Cartilage piercings are also more likely to get infected than lobe piercings. This may be because cartilage piercings are in closer proximity to your hair and are more likely to get tugged.

There’s also the risk that your piercing won’t work for anxiety. Although anecdotal evidence suggests a daith piercing could relieve your symptoms, there’s no way to know for sure unless you try it yourself.

Do Daith Piercings Alleviate Migraine Symptoms?

It can take anywhere from four months to a year for a piercing to be considered healed. You shouldn’t get this piercing if you take blood thinners or have:

If you decide to move forward, make sure that you choose a reputable piercing shop. Both the shop and your potential piercer should have the appropriate licensing.

You can also talk to your doctor about your current anxiety management plan. They may be able to adjust the dosage of any medications that you’re taking or recommend other treatments.

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Daith Ear Piercing: Hyped Or Helpful

Has strict sourcing guidelines and relies on peer-reviewed studies, academic research institutions, and medical associations. We avoid using tertiary references. You can learn more about how we ensure our content is accurate and current by reading our editorial policy.On social media, people may come across images of this unique piercing on the inner ear, alongside promises that it will ease anxiety and improve quality of life.

A daith piercing is a piercing through the innermost cartilage fold in the ear. For most people, the piercing goes through the thickest part of the ear cartilage.

The daith piercing requires more skill to perform than some other piercings because the unique shape of the inner ear necessitates a curved needle. It can take 4–12 months to heal, and the initial piercing may be painful.

How To Overcome Earring Anxiety

As with other piercings, there is a risk of infection, especially if the piercer uses an unsterile needle or the person does not keep the area clean as it heals.

As many as 35% of ear piercings develop infections or other complications. People considering a daith piercing should choose a professional piercer and weigh the known risks of the piercing against the uncertain benefits.

Proponents of using a daith piercing as an anxiety treatment say that the piercing continuously stimulates an acupuncture pressure point that practitioners have linked to anxiety and mood.

Daith Piercing Jewelry

Acupuncturists call this spot “point zero” and say that it can help the body maintain homeostasis, which means relatively constant internal conditions. Anxiety is a type of disruption in homeostasis.

Research into the general effectiveness of acupuncture for various ailments is relatively new, although acupuncture itself has been around for thousands of years.

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However, no peer reviewed scientific research has directly tested the idea that a daith piercing can improve mental health or help a person manage anxiety.

Daith Piercing: Migraine, Anxiety, Painful, And Health Benefits

Moreover, some acupuncturists are also skeptical of the piercing. Accessing acupuncture points requires incredible precision. By moving a fraction in any direction, the piercer will miss the point entirely.

Due to this, it is very difficult, and perhaps impossible, for a piercer with no acupuncture knowledge to pierce the right point.

There is some anecdotal evidence that a daith piercing can work. Many online message boards and social media posts include positive feedback about the effectiveness of a daith piercing.

Can A Daith Piercing Prevent Migraines?

However, without well-controlled research, it is impossible to know whether this is a placebo effect, a false claim by people selling the piercing, or evidence of a novel anxiety treatment.

Although no scientific research has evaluated how well the daith piercing works for anxiety, a small number of studies have tested the piercing as a solution to migraines.

A 2017 case report details the case of a 54-year-old man who reported significant improvements in his migraine symptoms after getting a daith piercing to relieve them.

The Truths And Myths Of A Daith Piercing

The study’s authors note that a placebo effect might explain the change. However, they also speculate that the piercing could activate vagal afferent fibers. These fibers may alter the functioning of the vagus nerve, which might play a role in anxiety.

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Taken together, these data suggest that if the daith piercing really does stimulate the vagus nerve, it might help improve anxiety symptoms.

That the vagus nerve plays a role in the interaction between the gut and the brain. For people with anxiety that causes physical symptoms, such as stomach cramping, stimulating the vagus nerve could contribute to symptom relief.

Years Of Migraine Relief But The Daith Piercing Stopped Working

There is no scientific evidence that a daith piercing can treat anxiety. The evidence for its role in treating other conditions, such as migraine, is also very scant.

Although this lack of evidence does not necessarily indicate that the piercing does not work, it means that there is currently no reason to recommend it, especially as an alternative to standard treatments.

People considering a daith piercing to relieve anxiety should discuss the risks and benefits with a doctor. If they decide to get the piercing, they should choose a professional piercer with extensive experience and continue pursuing other treatments and remedies for anxiety.

Can Daith Piercings Really Help Relieve Anxiety?

Medical News Today has strict sourcing guidelines and draws only from peer-reviewed studies, academic research institutions, and medical journals and associations. We avoid using tertiary references. We link primary sources — including studies, scientific references, and statistics — within each article and also list them in the resources section at the bottom of our articles. You can learn more about how we ensure our content is accurate and current by reading our editorial policy.There’s lots of conflicting information out there about whether piercings can help with headaches and other bodily pain. I’ve had a lot of piercings done, and I can say there’s definitely something to the idea—but how much and how effective it is, that’s different from person to person. Acupuncture is an ancient medical practice using pressure points to treat various problems across the body. The ear, with over 300 acupressure points, definitely affects the rest of the body when the right pressure is applied. When you pierce the area, it gets stimulated all day with a tiny bit of pressure depending on your earring.

Well, that depends on what you feel you’d like to experiment with. There are those who believe you can relieve many forms of pain, such as menstrual cramps, by piercing the corresponding area on the ear—in this case, the rook. Or there are those who believe insomnia can be helped with piercing the upper ear, such as with a helix piercing. Here is a list of what I’ve learned:

This pressure point is often used to release anxiety. Since the stress of daily life that is a common cause of migraines, there may be a benefit in this pressure point towards lowering how anxious one feels.

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Piercing For Anxiety: Daith Piercing

Acupuncturists say putting pressure on this tiny area can help control sugar cravings. Lowering one’s appetite, especially when stress-eating, can definitely play a role in trying to lose weight.

When getting acupuncture, this area is commonly used for people who are constantly feeling tense. The