Help quell your anxiety
Ear seeding is like acupuncture, but without the needles.
My ears look like a country sky come nightfall these days: speckled with stars. Dainty crystals dot their surface in a twinkly formation. I feel fancy. But my new bling isn’t just for show — it’s functional.
I’m trying out something called ear seeding. And although it may look like the latest iteration of the constellation piercing trend, it’s actually an ancient practice.
“Kind of like acupuncture without the needles,” says naturopath Erica Arcuri. (Or piercings without the needles. All around, it’s good news for people who don’t like needles.)
Rooted in traditional Chinese medicine, ear seeding, like acupuncture or acupressure, seeks to resolve blockages in qi or chi (meaning energy flow), which are thought to be responsible for a host of ailments.
The idea is that our ears are a microcosm of our being, with each part corresponding to an area of the body. “It’s similar to reflexology on the feet,” says Arcuri, who offers ear seeding at her Well Bynd wellness clinic in Toronto. Last year, as lockdowns rolled on, she decided to create ear seeding sets so that people could reap the benefits at home.
Each kit comes with two strips of ear seeds and a handy chart to help you place them depending on your needs. There are points for everything from headaches and bloating to anxiety and depression. Arcuri’s favourite is called Shen Men (or spirit gate) and is located in the divot at the top of your ear’s arch.
“Its main action is to calm the parasympathetic nervous system,” she says. “I used to do ear seed pop-ups at events and I would always put (a seed on) Shen Men because that point always gets a response. People are like, ‘Oh my God, I actually feel it!’ ”
Whichever points you choose, Arcuri recommends mirroring them on the other ear to make sure you’re nice and balanced. The only time you’d go asymmetrical, she says, is if you’re experiencing back pain on just one side. In that case, you’d secure a seed on the opposite ear.
The seeds are affixed to highly durable skin tape, which stays put even through showers and nights of restless sleep (although, there are points for insomnia, so hopefully the latter isn’t an issue).
“In the first few hours of putting them on, your body will respond to them on its own,” explains Arcuri. But after about 24 hours, your body will get used to them so you can press on the seeds or massage them throughout the day to reactivate them. Just a little light pressure is all you need. “We have a lot of nerve endings in the ear. That’s what makes it so responsive to such a gentle treatment.”
Traditionally, practitioners used seeds from the vaccaria plant, but these days ear seeds are available in a variety of jewel-like options.
Arcuri offers small gold- or silver-plated studs as well as sparkly Swarovski crystals. Think of them as part Mejuri, part medicinal. She advises keeping the seeds on for about five to seven days. You can pop in new ones two to three days after. (Having the tape on the
same spot could cause skin irritation, so a short break is recommended.)
Although there have been studies showing ear seeds could be beneficial for certain conditions, the quality of these has been called into question, so more research is needed to explore the effects in depth.
I, for one, find myself pressing on my Shen Men seeds several times a day as stress swells up: an onslaught of Slack notifications, finding out how much income tax I owe … Having a small, concrete action I can take when those feelings arise makes me feel more in control somehow.
It sort of interrupts the automated responses — jaw clenching, chest tightening — and reminds me to breathe in deeply and shake it off.
“It’s similar to acupuncture in that with some people, I put in a needle and they’re like, ‘I don’t feel anything,’ and then for others, as soon as I put it in they say, ‘I instantly feel a difference,’ ” says Arcuri.
It could be just a placebo effect from putting your finger on a point and rubbing your skin for a bit, but ear seeding “really does something to that parasympathetic nervous system that just calms the body down,” she says.
And even if you really do feel absolutely nothing, at least your ears will look cute.