How Acupuncture Works?

This wonderful article is from Jane Hong Jin, a California licensed acupuncturist, mainly trained in China. 

Acupuncture is a method of encouraging the body to promote natural healing and to improve functioning. This is done by inserting needles and applying heat or electrical stimulation at very precise acupuncture points. The classical Chinese explanation is that channels of energy run in regular patterns through the body and over its surface. These channels, called meridians, are like rivers flowing through the body to irrigate and nourish the tissues.  Blood flow and nervous pulses also follow these meridians to run through the body to various parts, structures and organs. An obstruction in the movement of these energy rivers is likened to a dam that backs up the flow in one part of the body and restricts it in others. Any obstruction and blockages or deficiencies of energy, blood and nervous pulses will eventually lead to disease. The meridians can be influenced by needling the acupuncture points: the acupuncture needles unblock the obstruction at the dams, and reestablish the regular flow through the meridians. Acupuncture treatments can, therefore, help the body’s internal organs to correct imbalances in their digestion, absorption, and energy production activities and in the circulation of their energy through the meridians. Modern science explains the functions of acupuncture in 2 major ways:

1. Needling the acupuncture points stimulates the nervous system to release chemicals in the muscles, spinal cord and brain. These chemicals will either change the experience of pain or they will trigger the release of other chemicals and hormones which influence the body’s own internal regulating system.

2.In Traditional Chinese Medicine YIN represents negative (-) and YANG represents positive (+). The main principle of Chinese medicine is to bring back and maintain a balance between the YIN and YANG. The YIN and YANG balance is the healthiest state of the body. The movement in human cells follows the movement of electrons. The electrons inside cells act according to their own regular patterns. These electrons in the living body are called bio-electrons.

Energy flow in the meridians is the direct or indirect transportation of bio-electrons. Meridians are the pathways where bio-electrons move more frequently than other parts of the body. When positive and negative charges in the bio-electronic movements are not balanced, the cells act abnormally - this is YIN and YANG imbalance. In Chinese medicine it is defined as “disease”. It is a beginning stage of the pathological cells’ electrons movement. Only radical change of the cells’ electrons movement is admitted by Western medicine as “disease”.

All the external factors, such as mechanical, physical, chemical, biological and internal factors such as emotional mental, hereditary, constitutional can cause and force the body’s bio-electrical movement to become imbalanced and lead to disease. Acupuncture can force the bio-electrons to resume to their normal and regular movement patterns of YIN and YANG balance. The more acupuncture treatment a patient has, the longer the normal movement pattern of the bio-electrons can remain, until finally the electrons inside the cells would not follow the abnormal movement pattern any more. Only at this point the problem can be deemed as solved and treated completely.

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