How Does Acupuncture Work?

 

Years ago, while working as an engineer in Boston, I received acupuncture treatments to reduce the high level of stress in my life. I had been on a very demanding project at work and after hearing rave about a colleague of an acupuncturist, I became curious enough to start acupuncture treatments per week. I found the treatments to be incredibly relaxing. Although difficult to describe in words how I felt physically or emotionally after treatment, I was sure I wanted to experience the physical and emotional state at any time, one extreme contentment, comfort and awareness.! It was obvious to me that acupuncture has made a change, but as an engineer, I sought a logical explanation and became curious about how acupuncture might stimulate such a response in a patient. It seemed unlikely that the insertion of a dozen very fine needles into the body of a patient for about twenty minutes can cause such a chan dramatiquege, yet this is precisely what happened. I received more treatment, the more I was able to feel the therapeutic effects, and more I became fascinated by acupuncture.

During these treatments, I was often frustrated when I asked the acupuncturist to explain how acupuncture worked. The acupuncturist would briefly state that the energy is unbalanced are balanced. Each subsequent question seemed to be filled with a material of the same brief, matter-of-response. I guess my acupuncturist actually avoided my questions. I felt that he could not really explain how acupuncture worked, so instead, it filled the air with incomprehensible jargon, new-age. I just wanted an answer to my question.

Several years later, while living in Santa Fe, New Mexico, I met a student who was studying acupuncture at a college local. She had studied acupuncture for two years and graduating in a year. Now I COULD probably get an answer to my question. I asked him precisely how a needle inserted into a portion of the human body could cause a change in a different part of the body. I asked that same physiological or chemical changes were under way to explain this phenomenon. She did not hesitate at all before I say "I do not know. I have no idea. "Again, I found this very unsatisfactory answer. Would not his education, the program holds a Master Certified, focus Surques very subject? How could she be unable to answer this question after two years of studies on acupuncture?

After another year has passed, my interest has continued in acupuncture has led me to apply and register for Southwest Acupuncture College in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The program of 3000 hours, leading to a Master of Science in Oriental Medicine, helped me see my questions and their answers in a new light. In hindsight, I can now understand why leréponses my questions were also unsatisfactory. I did not know when I was looking for an explanation of a Western concept very oriental. By asking my questions, I was not only interested in learning about how acupuncture worked, but I was also implicitly expect an answer in my language, in terms understandable by a person living in Western .In the teaching of academic programs in traditional Chinese medicine in the United States today, there is little emphasis Placed on the question of how acupuncture works, a scientific perspective. Rather, educational programs focus on helping students understand the explanation of Eastern acupuncture, first one I found so evasive and confused.

BR, this does not mean that research studies are not attached to how acupuncture in terms of modern science. In many such studies, acupuncture has been shown to trigger the brain to release endorphins UNED enkephalins, chemicals with analgesic properties. Other theories suggest that acupuncture needles Jam neuronal circuits and thus prevent pain signals from reaching the brain. Further studies have shown that the insertion of acupuncture needles activates brain regulation of neurotransmitters and hormones, affecting many primary systems in the body including the nervous, endocrine and immune systems.

Still, while studying acupuncture, I finally started to see the value of understanding the explanation of traditional Chinese acupuncture, as it is the paradigm in which instructors and practitioners have worked for thousands of years. If we try to talk about Chinese medicine from a strictly scientific point of view, then we're not talking about real Chinese medicine. We would be excluding a large number of Chinese medical philosophy is inextricably linked important that this medicine is and where it comes from. During lacour of my studies, I began to see and possibly incorporate the fact that, in order to learn how the traditional Chinese medicine, it is necessary to understand those who have a history of practice.! br! br! Thus,? Acupuncture works because with extremely thin, sterile acupuncture needles for single use, an acupuncturist can access a patient's energy and restores balance.

Theory of traditional Chinese medicine is based on the fact that there is an energy that flows through the human body through specific channels, or channels. The energy flowing through these channels can be blocked or hampered because of emotional stress, the selection of unhealthy lifestyles, harmful environmental factors, poor nutrition or physical injury. When this energy is blocked, the result is pain, discomfort, or disease. The acupuncturist uses acupuncture needles (and other methods) to stimulate specific points slightly from the body to rebalance the normal flow of this, energy relieving pain and treating disease. Hopefully, you can not find this explanation unsatisfactory. If you do, you may not be alone.