Acupuncture - You Want to Stick Me With What?!
July 29, 2008
Acupuncture is an ancient and innovative Chinese Medicinal procedure, similar and linked to the other ancient techniques of Acupressure. Acupuncture treatment heals while keeping the body healthy and stress free. The procedure involves inserting fine needles within the skin on predetermined points or meridians, considered energy pathways similar to acupressure. The positive energy that is responsible for good health and a state of wellbeing is know as chi or qi and flows through the energy points known as the meridian. When a person experiences sickness or injury the chi gets blocked and positive energy stops flowing. There are totally 14 paths of energy meridians in our body and 365 acupuncture points distributed on the surface of the body along these 14 meridians.
Special needles or acupressure used at precise locations along these meridians release the blockages by stimulating the trapped chi. This can be compared to a river blocked with debris. Removing the blocking debris allows the river to freely flow without obstruction. Chi, depending on the situation, may flow either too slowly or too quickly - in either case, acupuncture is normally used to regulate the energy’s pace.
Within China, this particular form of medicine has been being practiced for a minimum of four thousand years, with all of these needles being found within archaeology digs of the late Shang Dynasty. There are three types and they are; Five Elements, Traditional Yin / Yang Theory and Western (or medical Acupuncture). Although all three have the same system of points and they use similar methods of diagnosis, each takes a dissimilar approach towards treatment of an illness and its cause. Alternative approaches are taken to arrive at the basic cause and treatment of an illness.
Chinese medicine believes that any form of physical illness is the outcome of stress and anxiety. The five element acupuncture also follows the same belief - the physical well being of a person is dependent on his psychological well being. Following along with all of this, the physical symptoms are only able to be alleviated when all of that inner stress has been dealt with. Since the main emphasis within the five elements theory focuses on treating an illness’s underlying cause, one should realize that it can be a very slow process in order to reach a complete recovery even though it is quite possible. The old yin/yang theory of acupuncture mainly concentrates in bringing back the entire balance of the yin and yang in the human body. More than one energy meridian is stimulated at a given time to trigger more than one element simultaneously.
The Western Acupuncture methods are faster and the period of treatment is not very long - this form of treatment is a combination of both western and eastern practices. There are two sub-categories of the medical aspect, the first, anesthetic acupuncture, is used in surgical and dental procedures. Again it is used as a temporary pain reliever or as an analgesic for immediate effect. Well documented, reliable medical research has shown acupuncture to be successful in treating high blood pressure and migraines, allergies, depression, arthritis, asthma and gynecological problems including infertility. Acupuncture has been very successful in treating illnesses that do not go away with normal medication; it has also helped in treating psychological disorders that are related to a person’s wellbeing.
Comments
