An ancient Chinese healing technique is used even today - Acupuncture which is very similar to acupressure. This is a method in which fine needles are placed in the skin at particular points - these points are called meridians and carry energy. The positive energy that is responsible for good health and a state of wellbeing is know as chi or qi and flows through the energy points known as the meridian. Along the body's exterior surface, there is a total of three hundred and sixty five different points of acupuncture scattered around, all of these points follow fourteen main meridian paths.



Fine needles are inserted or acupressure applied at specific sites on the meridians which stimulate and release blocked chi and reestablish free energy flow. It is something like clearing the blocks in the path of the river to allow its free flow again. Also used to regulate the speed of the chi flow, acupuncture aids the optimum flow levels, should the chi energy flows too fast or too slow.

This is a 4000 year old medical discipline, practiced and perfected over thousands of years; archaeological digs have found needles dating back as far as 1000 BC in the Shang Dynasty. There are three types and they are; Five Elements, Traditional Yin / Yang Theory and Western (or medical Acupuncture). There are three schools of this medicine, all using the same insertion points and parallel diagnostic methods; however they use distinctive approaches to the etiology of the basic cause of the sickness and the treatment.

Chinese medicine's five element cycle is the basis for the Five Element Acupuncture discipline; the belief here is that ailments are caused by both physical conditions and emotional stress. Based on this, it believes that physical cure can be achieved only by removing the mental stress first. Treatment of the underlying causes of illnesses in the five element treatment is a time consuming slow process to reach total recovery. The traditional yin / yang theory focuses on restoring the overall balance of yin and yang in the body. More than one acupuncture energy meridian is stimulated at a given time to trigger more than one element simultaneously.

Western Acupuncture has a tendency of focusing on the short-term, urgent treatment which combines Western and Eastern medical techniques. There are two sub-categories of the medical aspect, the first, anesthetic acupuncture, is used in surgical and dental procedures. Again it is used as a temporary pain reliever or as an analgesic for immediate effect. Well documented, reliable medical research has shown this therapy to be successful in treating high blood pressure and migraines, allergies, depression, arthritis, asthma and gynecological problems including infertility. This therapy has been very successful in treating illnesses that do not go away with normal medication; it has also helped in treating psychological disorders that are related to a person's wellbeing.