At one point she picked up my hands, and toward the end of the session, she held my feet again. She placed her hands on different places on my head and held them there, barely touching me. The information I’d read beforehand said an Access Bars treatment would feel like a gentle head massage, but Jackee’s touch was so light, it didn’t feel like much of a massage. Then she moved up to my head and began to touch those 32 points (although I confess, I lost count after the first three). The first thing Jackee did was to lightly touch the bottoms of my feet – to release energy, she said. Jackee covered me with a blanket, and I prepared to feel amazing. I kicked off my shoes and got settled on a massage table. The only thing to avoid was putting my hands together, because, she said, it would disrupt the flow of energy. In fact, she said many people report getting the best sleep they’ve ever had during an Access Bars session. I could talk, ask questions, meditate, or even go to sleep. She explained that all I had to do was lie back and relax – there was no right or wrong thing to do while she was “running my bars” (in the vernacular used by Access Bars enthusiasts). (Okay, so they never exactly promised to cure my depression and anxiety, but a scientific study published in the Journal of Energy Psychology said the results of one 90-minute Access Bars session showed an 80-plus percent reduction in depression and anxiety – and I’m nothing if not an optimist.)Īt the Floating Lotus spa, I was greeted by Jackee Shu, an acupuncturist and Access Bars facilitator with a warm smile and calm energy that immediately put me at ease. I had no idea, really, what I was in for – I kept picturing Pinhead, that guy from the Hellraiser movies, when I read about the 32 points on my head that would be stimulated in order to release energy and cure my depression and anxiety. By the time I got to the train platform, I was so tense I felt like I might spontaneously combust. As I got out of the shower, my period came ( with a vengeance). On the morning of my scheduled Access Bars session, I woke up from a nightmare, dripping with sweat. Ready for my life to change, I was willing to believe that the Access Bars could do exactly what it claims to, and eagerly looked forward to my appointment. Case in point: I’m a devout believer in both God and astrology. But no one has ever accused me of being a skeptic. The idea that someone touching my head (or any other part of my body) could do all that is, to put it mildly, a little far-fetched. Patients have reported results including increased motivation, greater mental clarity, relief from anxiety, depression, insomnia, migraines, panic attacks, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and a “significant increase in joy and happiness.” It allows you to create change in any way you want in life,” Douglas explains. “Basically, the practice deletes the files on your computer bank and releases the thoughts, feelings, emotions, considerations and attitudes you have stored in your brain. The treatment takes about an hour, and is supposed to release energy and stimulate positive change in the brain. The Access Bars is billed as “a gentle ‘subtle energy’ modality that releases built-up stress in your body and mind.” It was developed 25 years ago by “personal development” guru Gary Douglas, and involves an Access Bars facilitator lightly touching different points on your head while you lie back and relax. This, however, promised to be a much more pleasant experience, given that it was scheduled to take place in a spa in midtown Manhattan on a Tuesday morning. Want to cover me in the blood of a freshly slaughtered ram and tie me up with its intestines? Okay, sure. There’s pretty much no treatment I wouldn’t sign up for at this point, I’m so desperate to feel better. It makes writing feel like a slog, has put a strain on my relationships, and just plain makes life hard. My anxiety has been steamrolling me lately, with its good friend depression riding shotgun. (The World Health Organization estimates that 450 million people worldwide live with mental illness of some sort who wouldn’t jump at the opportunity for relief, right?) When I was offered the chance to try out a new treatment that’s touted to reduce the symptoms of anxiety by 85 percent and the severity of depression symptoms by 83 percent, I couldn’t pull up my calendar fast enough – I booked my spot immediately. I went in not knowing what to expect – and came out not knowing what to think.
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