Acupuncture: What is acupuncture?

The Chinese healing art of acupuncture is one that can be dated back at least two thousand years. Some authorities maintain that acupuncture has been practiced in China for even four thousand years. Though its exact age is vague, what is certain is that up until the recent twentieth century, much of the population of the world was uninformed about acupuncture, its origins, and its capacity to promote and maintain good health.

Even today in relatively "advanced" nations there are many who hold acupuncture under the stereotype of a new or radical medicine, one which would almost always be a second choice after more familiar Western approaches to handling illness.

On the most basic of levels, acupuncture can be described as the insertion of very fine needles (sometimes in combination with electrical stimulus or with heat produced by burning specific herbs, called Moxibustion) into the skin at specific acupuncture points in order to influence the functioning of the body.

The theory behind acupuncture

One of the most important concepts of Chinese medicine is that of natural balance. From this idea of balance arises the fundamental theory of yin and yang. According to this theory, life takes place in the alternating rhythm of yin and yang.

Day gives way to night, night to day; a time of light and activity (Yang) is followed by darkness and rest (Yin). Flowers open and close, the moon waxes and wanes, the tides come in and go out; we wake and sleep, breathe in, breathe out. Yin/Yang is a constant, continual flow through which everything is expressed on the one hand and recharged on the other. They are an inseparable couple. Their proper relationship is health; a disturbance in this relationship is disease.

The paradoxical nature of yin and yang is further illustrated in an excerpt from the Huang Di Nei Jing, or "The Yellow Emperor's Canon of Internal Medicine", which is considered to be the best known and earliest of Chinese medical texts:

Yang has its root in Yin
Yin has its root in Yang.
Without Yin, Yang cannot arise.
Without Yang, Yin cannot be born.
Yin alone cannot arise; Yang alone cannot grow.
Yin and Yang are divisible but inseparable.

The well-known symbol of the yin-yang further demonstrates that nothing is pure Yin or pure Yang; black and white embrace and intertwine in perfect symmetry, each side containing a small seed of its opposite. The conclusion drawn from this theory is that good health entails the balance and harmony of all that is yin and all that is yang within the body.

When such a proper balance of forces exists, the body has achieved a healthy circulation of the life force qi (roughly pronounced "chee"). In Chinese medicine it is theorized that the human body, as well as every other living thing, has a natural flow of qi throughout it. Qi is said to travel the body along channels called "meridians," of which there are mainly fourteen. Qi flows constantly up and down these pathways, and when the flow of qi is insufficient, unbalanced, or interrupted, yin and yang become unbalanced, and illness may occur. An understanding of the relationship between the body, yin and yang, and qi is necessary to understand the utility of acupuncture.

Needles

On the most basic of levels, acupuncture can be described as the insertion of very fine needles (sometimes in combination with electrical stimulus or with heat produced by burning specific herbs, called Moxibustion) into the skin at specific acupuncture points in order to influence the functioning of the body.

Acupoints

Traditionally, there are 365 acupoints on the body, most of which have a specific energetic function. Some are the meeting of meridian pathways while others are junctions with an internal pathway of the meridian. Some points tend to move qi towards the interior of the body while others bring energy to the surface.

The choice of acupuncture points varies from patient to patient and from treatment to treatment and relies on very careful diagnoses of different kinds. Diagnosis entails the observation of the body through looking, touching, smelling and listening. One of the primary and fundamental diagnostic methods of traditional Chinese medicine is pulse taking, which is far more intricate than pulse taking in the West. It has been said to take upwards of fifteen years to master this diagnostic art.