Acupressure Mat: Essential Tool For Relaxation & Happiness

The power of acupressure mat, also known as acupuncture mat, can’t be overstated. Yes, this is the kind of mat that yogi’s use in India to sit on and meditate, but these mats specifically are designed for everyday people like you and me, to sit, stand, and lie upon, as it also has a profound effect on our overall health, physiology, and overall happiness. 

Personally, I own and use an acupressure mat, and it has been a life saver for me on a multiple occasions. I mean, I consider myself a healthy, active, and with good mental health individual, but by the end of the day, my body tends to accumulate a lot of tension. The acupressure mat helps me to release this tension, which is why I never leave the house without it when I am traveling. Even if I have limited luggage space, I always make sure to include my acupressure mat wherever I go.

Benefits of Acupressure Mat

From a physiological standpoint, the needles in the mat create a continuous pressure over the tensed muscles, relaxing them in the process. This effect is even more profound because the mat is full of needles, meaning that these needles create global relaxation over a large surface. As such, you don’t really need to know which muscles you should aim at relaxing instead, you just trust that it will reach all the right points.

From a health standpoint, an acupressure mat removes many bodily tensions, relaxing not only the body but also the mind, since there is a two-way relationship between a relaxed vs. tense mind and body. Therefore, a whole range of physical and mental activities can be positively affected by using this mat, curing headache, insomnia, and improving overall blood circulation.

Best Time to Use An Acupressure Mat

As such, an acupressure mat is perfect for everyday use since we all experience certain natural everyday tensions on a periodic basis. However, the effectiveness of this mat especially shines after sports or a long and stressful day at work, since this is when we are most in need of relaxation. 

You can use this mat on a regular basis and daily if you are especially in need of relaxation, but personally I use this mat every other day for about 10-30 minutes, as I find this schedule to be most effective for me. More regular mat use will lead to body fatigue and irritation, and after a couple of days, my body naturally craves for more use and exercise. 

Certainly, this periodic use of the mat is more of a guideline than the rule, meaning that different people will naturally prefer to use this mat more or less regularly. 

Which Acupressure Mat Will Work Best For You?

Certainly, we should not jump on the acupressure mat of a professional yogi right away and we can increase the level of intensity of the mat by a degree of necessity / experience we have with this mat. Specifically, there are three types of mat you can try, which I classified as beginners, intermediary, and advanced, which obviously hints at which sort of mat you should try depending on your previous interactions with this product.  

The beginner’s mat can look rather simple and the needles will be less sharp and imposing, which is perfect for untrained and sensitive skin. 

Example of the beginners mat: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00I1QCPCG.

An intermediary mat is still made of plastic, but it feels stronger, sharper, and of a better quality compared to the beginners mat. It certainly applies more pressure over on the body, which can feel like too much to a beginner’s back.

Example of an intermediate mat: https://www.amazon.de/-/en/dp/B07YSKSVKW. 

An advanced mat is actually made of few different sorts of metals. These metals were specially chosen for their energetic properties, meaning that they provide additional healing properties compared to beginners and intermediate mats. However, the needles of this mat are also known to be sharper, closer together, and the mat overall is smaller and heavier, which is why this mat is often used only by people who know what they are doing, aka the advanced people.

Example of an advanced mat: https://www.amazon.de/-/en/dp/B00IQODGNA.

acupressure Mat And Happiness

Personally, as a vivid traveler, I choose to carry around an acupressure mat wherever I go traveling despite its bulky nature inside my already minimalist backpack. I just feel like I can’t live without it. Sure, I can live without it, as I was forced to do on several occasions. However, the overall benefits of my well-being are astonishing whenever I compare life with and without this simple tool. Certainly, I feel happier when I use this product, despite my usual healthy body and low-stress living.