What the research shows — and what it does not.
We would rather you trust us than be impressed by us. So here is the honest version.
What we do not claim
We do not claim that acupressure cures anything. We do not claim it replaces your doctor, your medication, or your physiotherapy. We do not claim it works for everyone, and we will not show you a chart suggesting it does.
Evidence for acupressure is still developing. Some studies are small. Some are poorly controlled. Anyone who tells you the science is settled is selling you something.
What is reasonable to expect
Many people describe feeling something in the first minute or two — a loosening, a warmth, a drop in tension. That is a real sensation, and it is also the easiest thing in the world to overstate.
Lasting change is slower. If you practise ten to fifteen minutes a day, give it two to four weeks before you judge it. If you have had pain for seven years, no honest person will promise you ninety seconds.
The studies themselves
Three pieces of published work are quoted on our home page. Here they are in full, with who was actually studied, so you can look them up and judge for yourself.
Acupressure, self-rated pain and anxiety. A hospital programme recorded 519 acupressure treatments. Self-rated anxiety fell by about four points and self-rated pain by about two, on nought-to-ten scales. This was one programme in one place, with no control group — it describes what was recorded there, and it is not proof that the same will happen for you.
A randomised sham-controlled trial on sleep. Seventy-two people were given either pressure on real points or pressure on false points, for ten minutes over three nights. The group given the real points reported better sleep and lower anxiety by the fourth day. The people studied were in hospital with burns and were aged 18 to 55 — not people in their sixties and seventies practising at home. That difference matters when you read the result.
Salajegheh Z. et al. BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies, 2024
A systematic review of the whole field. Researchers read the published trials of shiatsu and acupressure together. They found the strongest evidence for pain, and useful evidence on sleep among people living in care homes — while judging much of the research small and difficult to blind, because a person always knows they are being pressed.
Robinson N, Lorenc A, Liao X. BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 2011;11:88
That is the honest picture: a small field, some encouraging signals, and no study that was done on exactly you.
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