Acupuncture is a part of a complete medical system known as Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). In western medicine the physical body is divided up into parts. (TCM) is truly a (w)holistic medicine. The body is seen as being fully interconnected, with each ‘energetic system’ dependent on the next. If one system isn’t functioning properly, it can throw the entire body out of balance. Symptoms are viewed as a part of the whole, therefore the person is treated as a whole. 

 

In TCM there is no separation of body, mind, and spirit. The patient is treated as an entire person, not as a disease off in isolation from the rest of the whole.  Even though acupuncture is an ancient tradition, (approximately 3000-5000 years old) it can address many of the manifestations of illness in our modern-day society, where many of us live in a constant state of fight or flight and our sympathetic nervous systems are in overdrive. Acupuncture taps into our parasympathetic, which is the rest and rejuvenate part of our nervous system. Your body heals itself when in the parasympathetic state.  Most patients find treatments to be deeply relaxing. 

 

Think of it this way; everything in our natural environment depends on something else. A tree depends on the sun, rain, soil, and rocks. The same concept can be applied to the human body. If one part of the system is depleted or is in excess the entire system is thrown off balance. This example is truly the basis of this powerful medicine as you have this same balance of energy in the body. If one system goes out of balance, it will eventually create disharmony amongst the others.