Acupuncture A Chinese Medicinal Procedure
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.
Acupuncture is a 4000 year old medical discipline, practiced and perfected over thousands of years. Archaeological digs have found acupuncture needles in the 1000 BC Shang Dynasty. The three types of acupuncture methods are the Five Elements method, Yin/Yang Theory and Medical or Western Acupuncture. Though the diagnostic approach used by all the three methods is similar, the causes attributed to the illness and the treatment of the illness varies from one method to the other.
The five elements acupuncture, being strictly based on Chinese medicine's five element cycle, believes or assumes that a particular illness is most likely to be caused by either a physical cause or emotional stress. The inner stress has to be treated and eased in order to heal and alleviate the physical symptoms. As the emphasis in five elements is on treating the underlying cause of an illness, it can be a slow process reaching full recovery although it is possible. According to the Yin/Yang theory the overall balance of the Yin and Yang has to be maintained for good health. Simultaneous stimulation of more than one element is achieved by stimulating the different acupuncture points on different meridians together.
Western Acupuncture uses a combination of both Eastern and Western medical techniques, focusing on critical and vital short-term treatment. Among the two categories of medical benefits of Acupuncture, the first type, Anesthetic Acupuncture finds its place in surgeries and dental procedures. Symptomatic or "first aid" is the second sub category. This is used mainly for temporary analgesic pain relieving. Reputable medical research has found it to be effective in treating depression, allergies, asthma, arthritis, infertility, gynecological disorders, migraines and high blood pressure. However, similar to several of the medicines used for energy, acupuncture is most effective when it is used for treating persistent conditions that don't respond readily to conventional medicines, or when dealing with all of the disorders that are related to the lifestyle of that person.
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