Understanding Acupuncture starts with Understanding the body as a holistic system.
Eastern medicine, more specifically, Chinese medicine has a long history stretching back over 4000 years, by individuals that have sought and found techniques and tools and therapies to address the specific imbalances the individual experiences, encouraging the body to be re-balanced and soothed by it's own natural mechanisms. Through the ages, these techniques and tools have been so beneficial that they continue to be researched and documented in scores of respected western and eastern scientific and medical journals, and passed down with growing and global instruction, modernized and integrated with western methods of medicine in hospitals, family health care practices, addiction clinics, and even on the battlefield and in natural disaster or other traumatic situations. (Click on the tabs listed under this one to learn more about each specific technique used to support your body in moving toward balance.)
To begin to understand the approach that is used in Chinese medicine and how acupuncture works we can look at an example.
The musculoskeletal system is a beautifully integrated network of muscles, tendons, ligaments, fascia, nerves, blood vessels, lymphatic vessels, bones and cartilage that support us in our everyday life, allowing us to move about our world with relative ease in most cases, resisting the pull of gravity. Every individual has a musculoskeletal system that encounters daily life experiences, normal aging process, wear and tear, environmental stressors and acute trauma injuries, these experiences are combined with their natural inflammatory response, and congenital and degenerative conditions. This system is within the body as a whole, organic, and very much alive whole. The body in turn is within and connected with its environment- the air, the land, the food, the water, daily experiences and stressors, interactions with our family, friends, neighbors, and co-workers. This interplay of our body in its environment gives rise to imbalance we experience as pain and discomfort. The techniques used in a typical acupuncture treatment are acting as catalysts, to stimulate a reaction in the body - the needle is inserted in a point along a channel that stimulates the unblocking of blood, qi, fluids, toxins, and brings fresh replacements to replenish the body. Additionally the use of acupuncture will feel like a release of tension and stress and you will feel a reset of your sympathetic nervous system, this is understood to be caused by the increase in amplitude and power as well as a synchronosity of your alpha waves in the brain.
(link to an example of a study referencing the measured changes by looking at EEG data when acupuncture points are stimulated
www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?PaperID=69400)
Components of Chinese Medicine Theory and Diagnosis:
Yin and Yang (thing of it as a circuit, like the yin and yang symbol, yin feeds into yang and yang feeds into yin)
Qi and Blood
External/ Internal
The Five Elements
The Zang-Fu / Internal Organs
To begin to understand the approach that is used in Chinese medicine and how acupuncture works we can look at an example.
The musculoskeletal system is a beautifully integrated network of muscles, tendons, ligaments, fascia, nerves, blood vessels, lymphatic vessels, bones and cartilage that support us in our everyday life, allowing us to move about our world with relative ease in most cases, resisting the pull of gravity. Every individual has a musculoskeletal system that encounters daily life experiences, normal aging process, wear and tear, environmental stressors and acute trauma injuries, these experiences are combined with their natural inflammatory response, and congenital and degenerative conditions. This system is within the body as a whole, organic, and very much alive whole. The body in turn is within and connected with its environment- the air, the land, the food, the water, daily experiences and stressors, interactions with our family, friends, neighbors, and co-workers. This interplay of our body in its environment gives rise to imbalance we experience as pain and discomfort. The techniques used in a typical acupuncture treatment are acting as catalysts, to stimulate a reaction in the body - the needle is inserted in a point along a channel that stimulates the unblocking of blood, qi, fluids, toxins, and brings fresh replacements to replenish the body. Additionally the use of acupuncture will feel like a release of tension and stress and you will feel a reset of your sympathetic nervous system, this is understood to be caused by the increase in amplitude and power as well as a synchronosity of your alpha waves in the brain.
(link to an example of a study referencing the measured changes by looking at EEG data when acupuncture points are stimulated
www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?PaperID=69400)
Components of Chinese Medicine Theory and Diagnosis:
Yin and Yang (thing of it as a circuit, like the yin and yang symbol, yin feeds into yang and yang feeds into yin)
- cool/warm
- moist/dry
- night/day
- winter/summer
- blood/qi
- front/back
- interior/exterior
Qi and Blood
External/ Internal
The Five Elements
- wood
- Fire
- metal
- water
- earth
- Lung
- Large Intestine
- Stomach
- Spleen
- Heart
- Small Intestine
- Liver
- Gallbladder
- Pericardium
- Triple Heater
- Kidney
- Bladder
The Zang-Fu / Internal Organs
