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Acupuncture - You're Not Sticking Me With That!

By: Scott Goodman. 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.

apped energy or Chi is stimulated and released by inserting special needles at specific locations or through acupressure depending on the nature of the illness. This can be compared to a river blocked with debris. Removing the blocking debris allows the river to freely flow without obstruction. Acupuncture is also used to regulate the speed of the chi flow to optimum flow levels, when the chi energy flows too fast or too slow.

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.

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.