An ancient Chinese healing technique is used even today - acupuncture which is very similar to acupressure. Acupuncture is normally used to maintain good health and treat ill-health by using really fine needles that are inserted into the individual's skin at certain points that are located along the meridian pathways of energy. In times of good health, the energy flows freely through the meridians but injuries and disease tend to block the flow.It is brought down to a simplistic explanation of getting the Qi or Chi to flow without any blockage through the human body in order to maintain a state of good health. There are a total of 365 different acupuncture points scattered across the exterior surface of the body, these follow the paths of 14 main meridians.

Special needles or acupressure used at precise locations along these meridians release the blockages by stimulating the trapped chi. It's like removing accumulated debris from a river so it can resume flowing freely. Chi may also flow either too quickly or too slowly, in which case acupuncture is used to regulate the stream of energy.

1000 BC). Traditional Yin/Yang theory, Western or medical acupuncture and Five Elements are the three types of acupuncture. All three use similar diagnostic methods and the same system of points, but they take a different approach to the underlying causes of an illness and its treatment.

The five elements acupuncture, being strictly based on Chinese medicine's five element cycle, believes or assumes that a particular illness is most likely to be caused by either a physical cause or emotional stress. Based on this, it believes that physical cure can be achieved only by removing the mental stress first. Five elements method is a slow process as it does not merely treat the symptoms but the reason behind the illness due to which the process takes a longer period of time to achieve full recovery. The old yin/yang theory of acupuncture mainly concentrates in bringing back the entire balance of the yin and yang in the human body. In this type of acupuncture different points are pierced with the needles all along the meridians in order to help cure and affect different illnesses in your body.

Western acupuncture combines Eastern and Western medical techniques and its focus is more on urgent short term treatment. Out of the two sub categories, anesthetic acupuncture is the first and it is mostly used in surgical and dental procedures. The second sub-category is that first-aid or symptomatic isn't used for the illness's diagnosis but in order to assist with the temporary relief of analgesic pain. Some very respectable and reputable medical research has shown that it has been very effective at treating allergies, depression, arthritis, asthma, gynecological disorders, infertility, high blood pressure and migraines. Acupuncture is found to be one of the most effective methods to treat illnesses that persist for a long time without any results from conventional treatment or when the illness is caused by problems caused by one's lifestyle.

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