英国《每日电讯》报 焦虑症、抑郁症和失眠症有了更有效的治疗方法。来自美国的Alpha-Stim SCS（中文名：安思定物理治疗仪，下简称安思定），针对焦虑、抑郁、失眠等问题可以起到有效的治疗作用。
安思定治疗仪，利用的是目前世界上最先进的经颅微电流刺激原理，作用于大脑边缘系统，调节与情绪和睡眠相关的神经递质的分泌，从而达到治疗的作用。它是美国EPI公司历时30年的时间所研发的。
安思定采用的经颅微电流刺疗法在最开始 5年服务于美国的军队的退伍士兵。一些老兵曾经表示：“这种治疗方法不仅可以让我的不良情绪得到舒缓，使用的同时，睡眠也变好了。”根据这些老兵的使用情况，科学家和精神科医生经过反复的临床实践，针对于焦虑、抑郁、失眠的个人用户的使用进行的专项研究和完善，并且将这种新的疗法成功的运用在个人用户的焦虑、抑郁和失眠的治疗上。
一名有多年焦虑症困扰的患者表示：“我患有焦虑症，以前都是通过药物治疗去控制症状。但是一些突然的事情仍然会使得我的症状复发。我试了好多药物治疗的方法，但是都没有很稳定的效果。使用安思定治疗了一个疗程，我发现它能够很好地改善我的状况。我的急躁易怒的现象减少了，心情比以前平稳了，情绪也不像以前那样控制不住了。”
I am sitting at home with two electrodes attached to my earlobes. Electric currents are passing into my brain and down my spinal column. I feel like Frankenstein's monster.
To the casual observer, it might appear that I am being subjected to torture. In fact, I am attempting to quell my predisposition to anxiety, which I have managed to elevate beyond the realms of mere psychological symptom into a complete lifestyle. Electricity, it seems, could be the answer - the new Valium, if you will.
The machine is called Alpha-Stim SCS. It is a small device with two wires that clip on to your ears. It uses “cranial electrotherapy stimulation” - 50-100 microamps of electricity (a microamp is a millionth of an amp) - to increase alpha brain waves. These waves occur at the frequency of about 8-12 cycles per second, or hertz, compared with the “normal”, or beta, state of 13-25 hertz, which is the state in which most of us spend our working days. Alpha waves induce relaxed, yet alert, states that, it is claimed, calm the central nervous system.
Twelve million people around the world have used Alpha-Stim over the past 20 years. The American military have used it for five years. Its applications are astonishingly wide. It has been found to be effective in the treatment of anxiety, stress and depression, addictions, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and insomnia.
“Money,” says Dr Daniel Kirsch, its American inventor, on the phone from Texas. “I started the company in 1981 with $25,000. I don't have the capacity of huge pharmaceuticals to market this product to every doctor in the world. But we have more research papers on Alpha-Stim than any therapeutic device in the world. This is what happens when a scientist rather than a businessman starts a company.”
What happens when you switch the machine on, however, is much less predictable. The accompanying leaflet warns that you may feel “heavy, groggy, lightheaded or nauseous”. This can last, it says, from five minutes to the entire duration of the 20- or 60-minute session.
I switch it on. Immediately, there is a prickly sensation in my earlobes, as if, every second or so, a teasel is brushed against them. Moments later, giddiness takes over at a level precisely equivalent to three cocktails on an empty stomach. The dizziness persists for the full 20 minutes. Afterwards, I don't feel relaxed, yet alert. I feel drowsy.
