Acupuncture 101
Acupuncture is a 3,000 year old healing practice of Chinese medicine. Acupuncture improves the body’s functions and promotes the healing process through stimulation of specific acupuncture points on the body with fine needles. Heat therapy, manual therapy, moxibustion, cupping and topical liniments may also be used. Chinese medicine is based on an ancient philosophy that describes the universe, and the body, in terms of two opposing forces: yin and yang. When these are in balance, the body is in harmony. Energy, called “qi” flows along specific pathways, called meridians, throughout the body. If the flow of energy gets blocked, through injury, surgery, illness, or stress, like water stuck behind a dam, the disruption can lead to pain, lack of function or illness. A common saying in Chinese medicine school is “Where there is pain there is no free flow, where there is no free flow there is pain.”
Acupuncture can release blocked qi in the body and stimulate blood flow, evoking the body’s natural healing response. Modern research has demonstrated acupuncture’s effects on the nervous system, endocrine and immune systems, cardiovascular system and digestive system. Acupuncture can help to resolve pain, improve sleep, digestive function and sense of well-being.
In an official report, Acupuncture: Review and Analysis of Reports on Controlled Clinical Trials, the World Health Organization (WHO) has listed the following symptoms, diseases and conditions that have been shown through controlled clinical trials to be treated effectively by acupuncture:
• Low back pain
• Neck pain
• Sciatica
• Tennis elbow
• Knee pain
• Arthritis of the shoulder
• Sprains
• Facial pain (including cranio-mandibular disorders)
• Headache
• Dental pain
• TMJ dysfunction
• Rheumatoid arthritis
• Induction of labor
• Correction of malposition of fetus (breech presentation)
• Morning sickness
• Nausea and vomiting
• Postoperative pain
• Stroke
• Essential hypertension
• Primary hypotension
• Renal colic
• Leucopenia
• Adverse reactions to radiation and/or chemotherapy
• Allergic rhinitis, including hay fever
• Biliary colic
• Depression (including depressive neurosis and depression following stroke)
• Acute bacillary dysentery
• Primary dysmenorrhea
• Peptic ulcer
– Alicia DeMartin
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62 Creamery Rd
East Haddam, CT 06423
Please note the dates are from last week but the class schedule has not changed! Restorative yoga is still canceled until Benji’s return. Hope to see you in and making the walls sweat in this cold weather!
