This article is a tribute to the brave, sensitive souls who are redefining what it means to live with autism. I’d like to celebrate the very special and essential gifts they have to offer the world and help to cut through another layer of misconception and stigma surrounding this poorly understood way of being. I’ll also offer a selection of acupressure points to try at home when life gets tricky.

What our clients have taught us about Autism

Milder cases of autism often go undiagnosed until much later in life. After years of struggle, many people end up diagnosing themselves as teenagers or adults. In our experience, many people with autism are deeply sensitive, have meet with overwhelming circumstances in their formative years and have developed challenges with coping and managing day to day life as a result. These are the people we meet most often in the clinic, and they commonly seek our help for managing the stress of living as a sensitive soul in a fast-paced, relentless and overwhelming world. They often present with concurrent diagnoses of PTSD, CPTSD, ADHD, anxiety and depression, and are struggling to comprehend which of these diagnoses seem most relevant to their life. They are also asking themselves whether or not they want to identify as autistic. They also frequently deliberate whether it will help them to share their diagnosis socially or within their families, or whether it will create misunderstanding or prevent others from seeing them as a whole, valid person.

Contrary to popular belief people with an autism diagnosis often:

Are highly authentic individuals with charisma
Are extremely creative and have successful careers as artists, musicians or authors
Are intuitive and emotionally intelligent, making them fantastic healers, visionaries or psychics
Foster deep friendships and rich marriages.
Enjoy fulfilling sex lives
Are responsive and loving parents
Have a strong sense of justice and are motivated to do something about imbalances and wrongs manifesting in our society
Have a great (though sometimes taboo-challenging) sense of humour
Are perceptive, and are thus great problem solvers

It’s clear to us that people with autism have a lot to contribute to society, and can live fulfilling lives fuelled by a sense of purpose. The difficulty comes when life gets derailed by extreme sensitivity, overwhelm and intense emotional states, making it difficult for them to blossom into their authentic selves. It can become impossible to earn a living or take care of themselves, create trouble in friendships and relationships, and can sometimes cause a spiral into withdrawal, loneliness, shame and guilt. Finding ways to manage extreme emotional states and sensitivities can be extremely helpful in moving towards a fulfilling life.

A Chinese medicine perspective on overwhelm and extreme emotional states

Just think, in ancient China there was no such thing as ‘autism’, just a society of diverse people bringing a range of challenges to their physician. They would be considered as a unique individual, and the physician would work creativity to find a solution for them. Today, we still aim to do this same - to get to know a person rather than making assumptions based on their medical diagnosis. When someone seeks help with overwhelm, extreme sensitivity or intense emotional states, our go-to method is to work with the luo vessels, so we are sharing a small selection of do-at-home luo vessel points with you today. The luo vessels act as a kind of pressure release valve for emotional buildup and are something we always consider when someone seeks help with autistic burnout.

So, what are the luo vessels?

The luo vessels are visible blood vessels generated by the body over the course of life to manage and store emotions that we are unable to process when they first arise. All humans store or ‘repress’ emotion and we do it for a variety of reasons. For example, the emotion could have been too intense to handle or involved a shock or trauma, it may have involved being in a difficult familial or social situation that we couldn’t change or escape for an extended period of time or we could also have been in situations where expressing emotion would have felt unsafe or inappropriate.

Try acupressure for the lou vessels at home

In the clinic, luo vessels are typically needled, bled or treated with moxa. However, at home you can gently massage the appropriate acupressure point when difficult emotions arise.

Locate your chosen acupressure point using the instructions below. Apply a gentle but firm pressure to the point. You can massage it a little if you like. If you find visualisations helpful, you can imagine the blood circulating under your finger.

Using crystals or essential oils as alternatives to acupressure

If you love crystals, you can place a warm bloodstone on the point instead of massaging it. Leave it there for 5-10 minutes.

If you love essential oils, you can apply a tiny amount to the point using a toothpick instead of massaging it. Each point resonates energetically with a different essential oil (all the essential oils are listed below with the points).

3 useful acupressure points

Here, I’ve given a small selection of useful acupressure points with their location and indications. Choose the point that you relate to the most. If you can relate to all of them, it‘s fine to massage all of them. The indications for the points are all very human responses to stress and are by no means austism-specific.

Pericardium 6 (PC 6)

Location: 3 finger-widths above the inner crease of the wrist, between the two tendons. You may notice visible blood vessels on or nearby the point.

Essential Oil: Melissa or clary sage

Indications:

Anxiety
Skipping or racing heart
Finding it difficult to cope
Trouble maintaining day-to-day relationships
Feeling physical or emotional pain in the chest
Tight chest and neck
Feeling you’ve been betrayed
Feeling hurt by or disliking the ‘social game’, white lies or small talk for example
Unintentionally oversharing due to stress
A tendency to blame others excessively or get defensive when hurt
Turning to self-harm to help alleviate difficult emotional states

Large Intestine 6 (LI 6)

Location: Position the arm with the thumb pointing upwards. Locate the point 6 finger-widths above the wrist crease. You may notice visible blood vessels on or nearby the point.

Essential Oil: Orange for agitation, clove for withdrawal

Indications:

High sensitivity to a variety of stressors leading to either agitation or a withdrawal
Not wanting to engage with others or with the world
Feeling overwhelmed
Becoming agitated in response to loud or repetitive sounds, especially electrical sounds, digital sounds or background noise
Sensitivity to light, especially artificial light and screens
Felling very sensitive to the weather, inparticular heat and wind
High sensitivity to others’ emotional states
Feeling that there is not a protective buffer between you and the world

Stomach 40 (ST 40)

Location: On the outside of the lower leg, halfway between the outer ankle bone and the crease of the knee, and two finger-widths away from the bone. You may notice visible blood vessels on or nearby the point.

Essential Oil: Mimosa or cedarwood

Indications:

Uncontrollable emotional melt-downs
Sudden outbursts or tantrums
A desire or tendency to hit things, others, or yourself
Fist and jaw clenching
Brain fog with difficulty concentrating
Digestive issues, especially if triggered by stress
Difficulty discerning what is right for you. ‘Gut feeling’ is switched off or unclear, for example, frequently realizing in hindsight that your boundaries have been crossed

Where to from here?

These points aren’t a ‘one size fits all’ deal. Maybe they don’t resonate with you at all and that's ok! If you feel you’d benefit from a more tailored approach we’d recommend booking a consult with your Chinese medicine practitioner. They will have many tools in their toolkit and will be very happy to hear about your experience and design a session to support your individual needs.

Acknowledgements

I’d like to acknowledge Ann Cecil Sterman and her teacher and mine, Jeffrey Yuen. Ann’s book Advanced Acupuncture: A Clinical Manual has really helped me gain an understanding of the luo vessels. The essential oil information in this article comes from her book.

Thank you to both Ann and Jeffrey.

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