Acupuncture
Acupuncture and moxabustion are important component procedures in Traditional Chinese Medicine, which prevent and treat disease by puncturing certain points of the body with needles or applying heat with ignited moxa wool. Of marked efficiency and requiring simple equipment, they've been widely used for thousands of years. As early as the Stone Age, people used needles fashioned of stone for curative purposes. These are known as ‘bian’. When we entered the bronze and Iron Age needles were made of metals. With the development of social technology, needling instruments were constantly improved, providing conditions for further refinement of Acupuncture.
Moxabustion originated after the introduction of fire into human life.
It is assumed that while warming themselves by the fire, people in ancient times accidentally found relief and disappearance of certain pain or illness when definite areas of the skin were subjected to burning. Moxa leaves were later chosen as the material for use as they were easily lit and the heat produced is mild and effective in removing obstruction of channels and collaterals. And so moxabustion was established.
How the Acupuncture works
Why it is more effective than massage
One of the most common questions I get asked is ‘How does Acupuncture work’? The answer is very simple really. Well, sort of .
The other thing that most people have a hard time grasping is it is really the acupuncture giving them their results, not the warm up massage before hand. The massage is such a superficial treatment compared to the complexity of Acupuncture.
Firstly, I need to explain how Acupuncture works and why it is so effective.
In the body, there are 14 acupuncture channels or ‘Meridians’ as they are known. Twelve of those meridians are directly related to organs. Each organ has its own pathway. The Spleen, Stomach, Liver, Gallbladder, Heart, Small Intestine, Lung, Colon, Kidney, Bladder, Pericardium and lastly a special channel called the ‘Sanjiao’ or Triple heater. Basically the triple heater is a regulator or all the three levels of organs. The upper, middle and lower section organs. The other two non-organ related meridians are called the Governor Vessel (The Du Channel) & the Conception Vessel (Ren Channel). Gee, I wonder what the points on the conception vessel are used for :)
The Governor vessel runs from the very bottom of the body just under the rectum to the very top of the head. It basically follows the spinal Chord and helps govern nerve supply and motor function.
On the 14 channels there are 361 main points. There are also about 500 extra points not on those channels, including about 120 points on the ear alone. Each one of the Acupuncture points has a specific action and a specific function. Sometimes, the further away a point is from the source of a problem, the greater the action it has on that problem. These are called distal points. Some times we use points close to the source and these are called local points. I’m sure many of you have often wonder why we use points so far away from the source of your problem. These often have the greatest effect and some of these points include a special category of points called command points. Very strong points indeed :)
So how does it all work and why does it keep on working even after the treatment?
The answer to that is again simple but complex. How does a television signal turn into a picture on your TV screen? How does any electrical appliance work? How does a light turn on in your house? How does a radio signal transpose into music and sound on your radio?
It’s all via pathways, electrical signals and regulators. Each of the Acupuncture channels carries electrical impulses or electrons, just like nerve pathways. But slightly different in many ways. You’d need 5 years and a Chinese Medicine degree for you understand it, but in simple terms and easy understanding, I’ll explain it in term of electricity.
The electrical input in those channels is called Qi. Qi is also known as life force. Another way to look at it is to just call it energy. When that energy or Qi gets blocked or impeded, it causes blockages or disharmony in the body. This can be in the form of physical, emotional, chemical, environmental or spiritual blockages. Yes, Spiritual blockages. The Taoists masters that invented Acupuncture were very spiritual people. Too much meditation and pondering spiritual matters can cause blockages. Everything is about balance and moderation. Nothing to excess!
The blockages can cause a problem in an organ, then cause a blockage in a channel, causing muscular pain along a channel. Similarly, a blockage in a channel, from a trauma, can cause a problem in an organ. Wrong kinds of food, excessive emotions, hectic lifestyle, drugs, alcohol and many other factors can all cause blockages.
What acupuncture does, is it acts like fuse or a regulator. The acupuncture needle is a conductor. It goes down into the channel. By stimulating the needle in either clockwise or anticlockwise direction, it can regulate the electrical impulse in many directions. So, the needle goes into the channel. The needle is stimulated until the electrical impulse is bought to the needle. This is when you feel that pulse or electric like feeling. It’s called fishing for Qi, because it feels like a tug on the end of a line. The needle then traps the electrical impulse, much like a fuse in a meter box. The needle then regulates that electricity and then sends the electricity down the line to unblock the channel. In doing so, the blockage is now gone, facilitating the body to repair itself and get rid of pain. At the same time, that flow of electrical impulse sends a signal to the brain to release good endorphins in the body, helping pain and also regulating moods etc. It also activates the repair process again on a nervous system level too. The body now sets the internal balance clock and everything goes back to equilibrium. Simple electrics really. The light bulb blows. You replace the bulb. You turn on the switch. Electricity flows to the switch, the switch gets turned on, the electricity then flows to the bulb. We have light! Get the picture now. Simple really. Another way is to think of those channels as a railway line. Imagine a distal point is Roma street train station; we need to send a signal to throw the switch at your local train station. The signal travels up the line and throws the switch at a source point far from the origin.
The acupuncture also continues to work even after the treatment. This happens because the body continues to repair & reorganise itself. Someone asked me the other day, ‘But wont it just block again and pain etc, come back, after the endorphins are stopped being released & the needle taken out?’ If you clean out a corroding pipe and clean it back to shiny steel again will it block straight after. Not likely. Similarly the only way the body blocks again is through unhealthy living, poor diet etc. The way the Chinese explain disharmony, is to imagine blocking a river with a dam wall. The river stops flowing. The water stays clear for some time. But slowly, the water becomes stagnant and murky. The longer it stays stagnant, the more unhealthy the water becomes. It affects everything in it and around it. Soon the water becomes static and nothing can live in that water. What Acupuncture and Chinese medicine does is like taking a few bricks out of the dam wall. Sometimes it acts like knocking down the whole dam wall. Whole wall or just a few bricks, soon the water starts to flow again. Slowly, steadily, or very fast, the water starts to flow again and once again the river starts to flow. The water starts to move and become clearer and clearer. The flowing stream can soon be crystal clear and be safe for consumption again. This is the same with your health. Slowly, steadily, or raging torrent, the acupuncture breaks through those blockage to harmonise and balance the body. Just don’t allow the wall to be rebuilt by unhealthy living!
This is why it is important to maintain regular treatment if you have a chronic or long-term problem. We have to break down the wall brick by brick sometimes. For other people the raging torrent can be produced after one treatment, because the blockage is much more easily removed. Prevention is even more effective. It is so much harder to treat a disease or disharmony when it’s already formed, or been there for a long time. The Chinese have a saying “Treating a disease when is already formed is like digging a well when you are already thirsty, or trying to forge arms when a war has already started”.
Chart of how Acupuncture reaches all of the levels of muscle
Why it is more effective than Massage to treat muscular problems
Superficial muscle |
Massage |
Acupuncture |
Middle layer muscle |
Massage (Minimal) |
Acupuncture |
Deep layer muscle |
 |
Acupuncture |
Only Acupuncture can reach those deep small muscles that sometimes can be cause of stubborn deep pain. It is also the most effective treatment in releasing trigger points to release deep-knotted muscle. Electro-Stimulation (TENS) can also be hooked to the needles to further enhance muscle release and because the needle is under the skin and deep into the muscle is more effective than using the electro-stimulating pads. Another reason why Acupuncture, is the most effective therapy to release muscle.