Acupuncture is one the oldest healing techniques in the world that has the power to improve the quality and duration of a person's life. This medical procedure originated in the northwestern parts of China nearly 2,700 years ago and became popular in the United States in its early 1970's. Now this treatment is used by nearly one-third of the world as a primary health care system to harmonize their body, mind and spirit. The fundamental principle of acupuncture is to treat a person as a whole by addressing his body, mind and spirit and find the root cause of the diseases.
It's really interesting to know the evolution of acupuncture. Thousands of years ago a Chinese soldier approached his doctor for frozen shoulder, but the doctor was not able to cure him though he put all his efforts. So the soldier made it a practice to suffer all his pain, but one day a miracle happened. During a battle, an arrow got struck in the soldier's leg and this cured his frozen shoulder. By hearing this, the Chinese doctor tried this technique in his patients and the treatment refined in the art of acupuncture.
According to traditional Chinese medicine, energy channels, or meridians, are running throughout our body in regular patterns, just like rivers, to feed and nourish our tissues. A hindrance in the movement of these energy rivers will block the flow of energy to that area and regions associated with it. In order to restore the energy flow through the meridians, acupuncturists unblock the obstructions in its path using certain needled called acupuncture needles. So, when a practitioner trigger nerve and muscles with his needle, a person's internal organ imbalance will be corrected, thereby improved digestion, absorption, and energy production activities. The modern scientific explanation for this treatment is that needling the acupuncture points stimulates the nervous system to release chemicals in the muscles, spinal cord, and brain.
