What is Acupuncture?

Among all the ancient healing therapy in the world, Acupuncture has been practice in wide range of cultural and social backgrounds for more than 5,000 years to treat all kinds of diseases before modern medical knowledge adapt into the 21st century. Nevertheless, acupuncture is acknowledge by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the U.S. National Institute of Health (NIH).

As part of traditional Chinese medicine, also known as Oriental medicine, this alternative holistic medicine is one of the safe and effective therapy aims to restore and maintain health through manipulating the points on a complete system of meridians for body to reach a “balanced state” among three vital components: Essence (Jing 精), Energy (Qi 氣), Spirit (Shen 神). The idea of “balanced state” is similar to the idea of “Homeostasis” in conventional medicine.

Acupuncturist clams that by stimulating specific points on the body- most commonly by inserting hair-thin disposable needles through the skin, the body is able to regulates itself to reach the balanced state. The method of inserting needles at specific points stimulate the release of endorphine and ACTH, especially in combination of electrical stimulation.

Traditional Chinese Medicine treatment includes acupuncture, Chinese Herbal prescription, Moxibustion, Cupping and Tui-Na (推拿); usually, acupuncture in conjunction with personalized herbal formulas is the most affective treatment for most patients with internal diseases. Meanwhile, it is also important for patients to keep up with a healthy lifestyle consisting of healthy diet, quality sleep, and exercise.

According to TCM, there are various factors causing internal diseases:

Emotion: emotions such as joy, worry, fear, anger, and sadness correspond to the five Yin(Fu 腑) organs of the body: heart, spleen, kidney, liver, and lungs. An overacting or surpressing emotional states may contributes to an unhealthy organ or set of organs, or even imbalance among organs that results in complications of internal disease.

Diet: similar to emotion, different properties of food and herbs including sour, bitter, sweet, pungent, and salty correlates to the five Yin(Fu 腑) organs of the body: liver, heart, spleen, lung, and kidney. Proper diet also results in a healthy body to formulate healthy vital substances: Essence, Qi, Blood, Body Fluids, Mind(Shen).

According to Giovanni Maciocia CAc (Nanjing), “Chinese Medicine sees the working of the body and mind as the result of the interaction of certain vital substances.”

In other words, it is very important for patient to consider a healthy lifestyle along with the TCM acupuncture treatment for better efficiency of treatment outcomes.