The major impacts of acupuncture on the human body, which involve energy informational (EI) processes linked to the EI body network, are commonly adressed by researchers who study mechanisms underlying acupuncture [1—4]. Active points, all type meridians, microsystems, and triplets are an integral part of the EI body system. A pyramidal EI network model is one of the latest research results in qeustion, effectuatad by triplets that make a part of the EI body network [1—4].

Roger E. Beaty et al [5] of Harvard University have discovered three brain areas associated with creative thinking. They have found that innovators have stronger connections between those three areas than those with no creative imagination. Nonetheless, they still fail to find out how connections and synchronization between those three areas form in creative people during, e.g., brainstorming. Acupuncture experts believe that energy information theory is versatile in providing interpretation to neurophysiologic and somatic processes [6], especially when facts are found that baffle any explanation other than by mechanisms behind energy information processes.

Knowledge work, fatigue, and tiredness — a subjective feeling a human being is prone to — also leave a lot of questions unanswered. It is possible to numb tiredness by an emotional upheaval or enthusiasm for work. When in a state of excitation, one tends to overlook fatigue, which is a case in working on digital resources where good health requirements are rigorous [7].

Excessive neural and metnal stress may result in excessive fatigue, which, in turn, trigger excessive stresses on the nervous system, acute exacerbations of cardiovascular conditions, hypertension, ulcers, low immunity, and impaired mental energetic properties of the body [8].

Creating dramas and doing knowledge work often go hand in hand where meeting people is a part of job, which affects the mental and physical state of the body [9], causing burnout that leads to mental energy depletion and déformation professionelle.

In terms of energy information theories, excessive or inadequate loads on the human body cause an unbalance in the EI system, triggering various conditions, including psychoregulator ones — e.g., «burnout» defined as an energy deficit amid the unbalanced EI network. The researchers [10] also use psychofunctional state assessment by a modified Korngold & Beinfield acupuncture questionnaire that includes psychoregulatory and somatic self-assessment.

Alternating work with rest is a prerequesite for fruitful knowledge wrok activities. It is the aim of rest to restore a ratio between the principal nervous processes — excitation and inhibition — to optimal. Passive rest is indispensable for good night sleep, when fatigue accumulated throughout the previous day is cleared up, and the body organs and tissues that received intense loads are given «maintenance».

In occasional extereme cases, when work to a deadline has to be done in spite of fatigue, some people use stimulants to the central nervous system, which include coffee, tea, chocolate, cocoa, as well as certain pharmaceutical preparations, e.g., multivitamins, ginseng root exrtact, etc, in odrder to provide a short-term enhancement of work efficiency. Stimulants work to provide an urgent boost to and tapping into energy reserves of the body, but not their restoration. Relaxation sessions are an efficient means of the psychophysical body state enhancement, e.g., to prevent burnout [11], and to reduce psychofunctional stress [12]. The efficiency of relaxation from stressful events has been proved [13] by clinical findings for neuroses also; as well as by usage prior to surgeries or complex manipulations [14].

Acupuncture application also cause relaxation and improve the psychophysical state in those suffering from psychoemotional stresses, which the researchers attribute to a restoration to energy informational balance causing relaxation on both physical and mental levels [10, 15, 16]; it is common knowledge that relaxation stimulates restorative processes in the body. The mechanism underlying energy information impacts is a part of a continuous communication between the human body and the environment, which is why an adequate connection between the body and the environment is a source of energy for the former. Acupuncture contributes to the restoration of the body resource due to the enhancement of cognitive and energy information processes [17].

Further research is required, including that into chages in psychophysical body function due to the impact of various treatments, to identify the mechanisms that underlie changes in mental energy processes that safeguard proper knowledge work efficiency, and to develop means to enhance those processes.

The aim of this research was to identify the parameters of chages in psychophysical body function before and after relaxation and acupuncture sessions.

We examined univeristy students and postgraduates aged between 18 and 30 (male subjects, average age being 24±3). Group I (the PPRS Group) consisted of 12 subjects who had been practicing psychophysical relaxation sessions (PPRS) on a regular basis for two years; Group II (the Control Group) consisted of 13 subjects who practiced no relaxation. The subjects were to spend 5 minutes a day on relaxation exercises done by concentrating on images of nature or specific body areas with their eyes closed.

NS Test suite was used to assess the functional state of the CNS by psychomotor reaction rate and attention; a tapping rate test to assess maximum numbers of taps on a PC keyboard per each of four 10-second-long periods was included herein [18]. Multichannel EEGs were recorded from eight cup electrodes connected to ear electrodes and positioned in accordance with the 10—20 system. The functional tests done on the subjects were as follows: background record (BR) taken while at rest, while doing relaxation exercises, as well as before and after doing a cognitive test (CT) of solving arithmetical problems where the subjects were to subtract 5 and 2 from 200 in turns [19]. At least ten two-second-long artifact-free EEG record epochs per function test were selected for spectral analysis.

Acupuncture applications were administered to 40 subjects of a broad age range between 14 to 72 (the average age being 43.4) — 32 female and 8 male subjects. All of the subjects received acupuncture sessions as part of rehabilitation for various disorders associated mainly with their locomotor systems and unbalanced energies that manifested themselves at psychoregulatory level — a condition that acupuncture experts refer to as a «pseudocivilization polymorbidity». Acupuncture examination data were analyzed in accordance with the Tactile Solar Test (TST) — a diagnostics of meridians and microsystms founded on the principle that any body disorders, blocked meridians or microsystems have tactile manifestations from which they can be localized and their parameters can be identified. The patients were examined by means of a standard rotary microsystem battery that provides a comprehensive image of a current state of the body EI system. Each examination lasted for 45 minutes and included the analysis of results done in cooperation with the patient. Palpation and a custom-made probe were used for tactile examination. Active involvement of patients is viewed as an advantage of the technique [20].

The research was conducted on voluntary informed consent of the subjects, in compliance with the protocol approved by the Ethical Board of the Russian Academy of Sciences. An informed written consent was obtained from all of the subjects.

The result data was processed by means of Statistica 6.0 suite by StatSoft, the USA, and SPSS suite. The results were tested for compliance with the normal distribution law; it was found the PPRS group largely yielded a uniform distribution. The arithmetic mean (М) of the ordered sample, the standard error of the mean (m), and the Student’s t-distribution were calculated, while accepting the critical importance value for the verification of statistical hypotheses to be 0.05.

The research results suggest that neurodynamical function performance, except for the simple visual motor reaction time, became more or less impaired in the Control Group Subjects, following mental tests, see table 1 below. An overwhelming majority of psychomotor and attention perfromance values were better in the PPRS Group than in the Control Group. In Group I, a shortened psychomotor reaction time and an enhanced attention distribution function were recorded, while simple motor reaction time was somewhat longer, following a cognitive test.

The tapping rate test CNS lability values were somewhat lower in the Control Group, while the fatigue values — higher than those in the PPRS Group, see table 2 below. The tapping rate test results remained practically unchanged in the PPRS Group, following the mental tests. A more pronoucned tendency to a decrease in the lability values (consistently — in Square 3) and to a decrease in the fatigue values was discovered in the Control Group.

Analysis of electroencephalograms revealed differences between subjects of the two Groups while in all functional states. Alpha-wave activity in the Control Group subjects was observed mainly in the occipital areas of predominantly the left hemisphere.

In most of Group I subjects, both while in background record (BR) mode and while doing a relaxation session, two peaks of the dominant alpha-wave frequency were detected — a low-frequency (between 6 and 7 Hz) and a medium-frequency (between 10 and 12 Hz) peak; the frequency ratio being 1.62±0.2. The fact may be indicative of synchronization between various brain structures and a formation of stable functional connections within neural networks.

No increase in alpha-wave activity was found in most of the Control Group subjects while they were doing a simple mental subtraction cognitive test (CT); however, an increase in alpha-activity, accompanied by an increase in its amplitude in the centro-occipital deflections of the right hemisphere, and its predomination in the centro-parietal areas of the left hemisphere, was found in those who were first to succeed in accomplishing the test.

In Group I, a group of subject who practiced regular psychophysical relaxation sessions (PPRS), a consistent increase of alpha-wave activity was found in the fronto-central and temporal deflections of predominantly the right hemisphere. Group I subjects were 12 to 15% more efficient in doing the test than the Control Group subjects, and produced correct results only.

Cyclic (recurrent) patterns of alpha-wave synchronization was found in those practicing relaxation sessions; those patterns varied from subject to subject and were almost independent of a test being done, see table 3 below. It is worth noting that the recurrent patterns found were detected at comparatively equal time intervals throughout a whole EEG recording.

A questionnaire survey revealed reduced anxiety and improved psychoemotional status, confidence, concentration, and work efficiency in all of the subjects.

Acupuncture research suggested that energy unbalance is most commonly found on the splenic and pancreatic meridian. The meridian in question is linked to hydrocarbon metabolism, that is, energy metabolism. As hydrocarbons make an integral part of the DNA structure, they are also associated with informational processes. Psychophysical state of all the subjects improved, following an acupuncture session, which felt like relaxation, reduced anxiety, and normal reactions to stressful events. The ТSТ technique revealed an optimized ratio between the Yang and Yin energy components of most of meridians, see Fig. below.

Changes in time perception were studied by a one-minute-long test in 84 subjects (47 females and 37 males) suffering from mobility impairments, increased anxiety, and fatigue. Time measurements were taken twice, following an acupuncture session, when the subjects were to press the stop button of the stopwatch whenever they felt one minute had elapsed, without using visual control.

The research results suggested that a perceived one-minute-long period of time consistently extended in most of the subjects, except for the female subjects within the first time measurement (at a tendency level), following an acupuncture session, see tabl 4 below.

Towards the end of an acupuncture session, the subjects felt an emotional upheaval, improved health, and reduced anxiety. Their clinical research revealed improvements in their locomotor system function. Thus, the data in question may be evidence of beneficial relaxation impact of acupuncture.

It is fair to assume that the mechanism underlying synchronization between various cerebral cortex areas that form a specific neural network may contribute to formation of specific functional states. In individuals with well-developed cognitive abilities, the synchronization in question is a stable mechanism of forming connections between cortical and subcortical structures, safeguarding urgent tapping into body resources and maintaining high levels of mental energy. Those mechanisms may provide key to theoretical feasibility studies of the facts described in work [5]; they were discovered not only in subjects practicing relaxation sessions, but in athletes also [21].

Latest research into acupuncture suggests that interrelations between meridians within an energy informational network are based on triplets [1, 2, 4, 22]. Individual meridians may also become unbalanced within an energy informational network, depending on their triplet layout.

Moreover, we see the triplet mechanism behind energy informational processes occurring within meridians as an important discovery. The mechanism in question forms a solid basis under an optimal «physiological» state, and is a criterion for comparison between the «control group» and the subjects while in various pshychofunctional states. Naturally, every single subject has individual parameters of their own, which is why the very concept of a homogenous control group is something rather of a theoretical construct than of reality. Nonetheless, the triplet mechanism of comparison with mathematical and statistical standards is a methodologically acceptable and accurate alternative to statistical techniques for research into acupuncture.

An opinion was expressed by [23] that an energy informational network was a system of nodes and microvessels, and tightly connected with the nervous and vascular systems. Work [24] revealed that stimulation of acupuncture cells could trigger a stem cell rush, to which sanogenetic body reactions that involve neuroplasticity triggering could be attributed. Relaxation and painkilling effects of acupuncture are also attributed to increased generation of opiates in the body and their elevated content in the blood plasma and the cerebrospinal fluid [25].

Thus, our research results suggest that acupuncture and relaxation sessions may be used for the improvement of psychophysical state by various age individuals, due to relaxation effects achieved. The problem of the co-use of acupuncture and relaxations sessions, as well as their individual regulatory implications needs further research.

Acknowledgements. The work was supported by Act 211 Government of the Russian Federation, contract No.02.A03.21.0011.

Conflict of interest: none declared.