Acupuncture: Activate Your Body's Own Healing Potential
Brief Acupuncture History What is Acupuncture and How does it work? 
I know some of you might still be thinking, how can a small thin needle cure anything? Well, let’s not underestimate the power of the needle, just because it’s small. Remember how small your jam-packed full of information DNA strands are? You can’t even see those and you still know it’s working for you; at least you can see the needle. This small powerful needle has the ability to allow blood to flow more freely through your veins so that oxygen is reached to all parts of your body. Think about how allowing more oxygen and nutrients to reach your body parts will make you feel. Also, I’m sure that you’ll soon understand if not already what great healing benefits your body can accomplish with all that increased blood and oxygen flow.
So why does acupuncture cause oxygen to flow more freely through your veins? The needles used in acupuncture help to create more space in your muscles and tissues so that the blood has more room to flow. Just think about how stiff your neck and shoulders feel after being at the computer for long periods of time. What causes that pain, that discomfort? It’s the lack of blood circulating and oxygenating your shoulders, neck, and head. What causes that decrease in blood flow? When the muscles are too stiff, tight and compact, it causes pressure on the blood vessels and restricts the amount of blood that’s able to reach that part of your body. This tension sends a signal to your brain to cause pain so that you’ll find a way to help more blood to flow in that area. Reminder: This is one reason why it’s always important to stretch, you always want your blood to be circulating well so that all your body parts can be fully oxygenated and well nourished.We’ll go into greater detail about how a well flowing body system is related to health and illness in another section. But for now, the main concept to understand here is that it’s important for the blood in your body to be flowing well and acupuncture can help you do that. So now that we have a slightly better idea of how acupuncture works, we can move on and look at some of its vast health benefits.
Some specialized benefits of acupuncture include: Allergies and Asthma Angina pectoris Anxiety and Depression Dental Discomforts Diabetes Gynecological Problems Headache and Migraines Inflammation Joint and Muscle Pain Lowers Blood Pressure Rheumatoid Arthritis Stroke Recovery Vertigo or Balance Disorder Weight Loss Obese and overweight patients can be treated with full body acupuncture to help with better metabolism and food digestion. This treatment helps the body to release and get rid of toxins more easily and absorb nutrients more efficiently which helps to decrease appetite. Acupuncture also provides the body with more energy to inspire patients.
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From ancient times to the present, acupuncture has been used to treat every kind of illness possible, from the flu to joint pain and even cancer. With such an astounding background, it’s hard to disregard the fact that acupuncture’s healing benefits have indeed withstood the test of time and has by far surpassed any lab trial experiments we’d be able to create in our generation. Of course new research will still be able to further the benefits of acupuncture and be able to give a better explanation of how acupuncture works, but as for evidence that acupuncture works, it seems that 2000-4000 years of experience on human subjects show strong evidence that acupuncture deserves its place in the medical field.
Acupuncture can help boost the immune system and raise your yang energies to relieve symptoms of allergy and asthma attacks. Allergies with symptoms of a runny nose are often due to the body being too cold or damp which can result in deficiency of yang qi or energy. When the body is depleted of yang energy, the blood vessels are unable to properly constrict which is why the vessels in the nasal cavity are unable to support the nasal fluid resulting in a runny nose. Lying outside with your back in the sun for moderate time periods can also help to raise your yang energies.
Studies have shown that acupuncture has significantly improved the outlook of patients suffering from anxiety and depression. Acupuncture helps to recreate neuropathways and hormonal signals to help regulate and balance the whole body. Insomnia associated with anxiety and depression can also be relieved with acupuncture which helps speed up the healing process. 
When the meridians around the head and neck area are blocked, it causes added pressure and decreased blood flow to the head and neck. Acupuncture can help unblock these stagnant qi areas of the body to allow more oxygen flow and decrease pressure in the blood vessels. This will help release pressure and pain in the head and neck regions. *Remember that a headache can be caused by stagnant qi not only in your head and neck area, but also other parts of your body. This is why acupuncturists may needle the hand or foot, or other body parts in order to treat headaches.
Joint and muscle pain in some cases can be immediately relieved with the use of acupuncture. This treatment can be used for all joint areas in the body, and when administered by a true master of the art will be able to completely eliminate the root cause of the symptom. Furthermore, acupuncture has also been proven to work effectively in reducing osteoarthritis and epicondylitis or tennis elbow. 
