An essential component of Traditional Chinese Medicine based on ancient principles which go back several thousand years. It sees the body as three necessary, interconnected components: Jing, Qi (pronounced Chee) and Shen. Jing is considered the physical and reproductive aspects of our being. The Qi is considered the sum total of all metabolic reactions in the body. Shen encompasses our mental, emotional and spiritual consciousness. One cannot exist without the others and one can deeply affect the others.
Electromagnetic channels or meridians allow for the Qi to flow throughout our body. Points on these channels can be accessed and affected by Acupuncture needles, thus giving an Acupuncturist the ability to affect a patient's health at the Jing, Qi or Shen level, making it a remarkably comprehensive medicine that can treat all sorts of issues, from digestive issues, to physical and emotional pain, to allergies, headaches, and even spiritual crises.
Cupping is the term applied to a technique that uses small glass cups or bamboo jars as suction devices that are placed on the skin to disperse and break up stagnation and congestion by drawing congested blood, energy or other humors to the surface.
Cupping is much like the inverse of massage - rather than applying pressure to muscles, it uses gentle pressure to pull them upward. For most patients, this is a particularly relaxing and relieving sensation useful for the treatment and relief of physical pain and inflammation.
Moxabustion is a method of warming specific acupuncture points on the body by burning the mugwort herb close to the skin. This technique can be used alone or in combination with acupuncture – the Chinese character for Acupuncture literally means “Acupuncture-Moxabustion.”
Moxabustion can be used to maintain health by improving overall bodily function and boosting the immune system. It can be used to promote circulation over areas of chronic pain or muscle tension. It is especially used for pain that is worse with exposure to cold or damp weather, as with some types of arthritis pain.
Gua Sha began in China over 2,000 years ago as part of medical therapy to relieve chronic pain and toxic heat within the body. This needleless healing technique is a natural alternative therapy that involves a gentle scraping of the skin to release trapped or stagnant energy, called “chi”. This process helps to improve circulation and increase blood flow, which practitioners can help reduce toxins in the body and promote healing.
Essential oils are produced by steam or water distillation of the leaves, wood, petals, buds, needles, bark or roots of aromatic botanicals such as lavender, rosemary, cedarwood, rose, peppermint and cypress, among others.
The natural chemical composition and aroma of essential oils can provide valuable psychological and physical therapeutic benefits. These benefits are usually achieved through methods that include inhalation and topical application of the diluted essential oil massaged into the skin, muscles, joints, tendons, connective tissues and specific Acupuncture points for maximum efficacy.
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Practitioners use their finger, hand, elbow, knee or foot to apply pressure to a specific body location. This complementary and alternative Chinese medicine modality makes use of rhythmic compression techniques along different energy channels of the body to establish harmonious flow of circulation throughout the body and bringing it back to balance. By applying pressure to meridians, Acupuncture points, and groups of muscles and nerves, Tui Na removes blockages and works deeply in the body to affect positive change.
Chinese Dietary Therapy has formed over millennia to organize and categorize each food. Foods are grouped by taste (Sweet, Sour, Bitter, Spicy, Salty) and temperature as in Cooling or Warming. Depending on what Chinese medical diagnosis is assigned to a patient, there are proper foods that will be good specifically for that patient's diagnostic pattern. Whereas in Western Nutrition, where Nutritionists and Dieticians use macro principles such as calories, protein, fat and carbohydrates and broad guidelines given to all people, Chinese Dietary Therapy has bioindividualized dietary suggestions that are specific for each person. Western Nutrition focuses on the amount of macronutrients in each food, while Chinese Nutrition focuses more on how the food will be digested by the specific patient. If it isn't digested properly by a patient, those macro nutrients are useless and mean nothing in the real world. Therein lies the value of the Chinese system. The patients diagnosis, constitution, lifestyle, and the current season all play a part in recommending different foods for the greatest therapeutic and nutritional effect.
To provide a very generic example: if a patient is deemed by the practitioner to have excess heat and inflammation, certain foods may be considered that have a cooling quality to it and certain foods should be avoided or limited that have a warming quality that could exacerbate a patient's condition. Cooling foods include leafy greens and certain fruit, to name a few; Warming foods include beef, pork and spices, among others. A patient, therefore, could be recommended to eat certain cooling foods and limit certain warming foods to help balance out their condition, in conjunction with Acupuncture treatments and perhaps other lifestyle suggestions, like particular exercises.