by Anastasia Fermin, Sunshima blog writer
Acupressure is a popular form of natural or alternative medicine. It’s a traditional Chinese medicinal treatment for pain, digestive problems, stress, anxiety, migraines and other common health problems. Acupressure is essentially a type of deep massage that targets your body’s acupoints to alleviate the symptoms of health conditions and possibly cure them. It can also be described as acupuncture without the use of needles.
How can stimulating your acupoints benefit your body?
According to Chinese medicine, stimulating the acupoints in your body through acupressure can activate your body’s healing energy, or Qi. It aids with promoting more efficient circulation of your blood and your lymphatic and hormonal systems. It also has a calming effect to reduce symptoms of stress and anxiety. Stress can be especially detrimental to health and well-being and acupressure aims to reduce the effects of stress to allow your body to function as it should.
Why is acupressure important?
While acupressure should not replace your prescribed medical regime or treatments, it can be used in conjunction with mainstream medicine to supplement your treatment. Patients being treated for chronic or terminal diseases such as cancer can benefit from an acupressure massage once approved by their doctor. It is a safe alternative therapy to bring pain relief which can make coping with other treatments easier to bear. Nausea and pain associated with cancer treatments can also be managed with acupressure.
It’s important in many other ways also:
You can self-treat
While many people opt to visit a certified acupressure therapist, you can learn some key techniques to treat yourself at home. It doesn’t require much except learning how to find your acupressure points and how to apply pressure to them for relief. Acupressure self-treatment tools such as rollers, balls, mats and pillows also allow the patient to benefit from acupressure without any prior knowledge of acupressure points or study of traditional medicine.
Reduce dependence on OTC pain medication
It can help reduce the frequency of taking pills for migraines which contain many different chemicals that can be harmful over time or have unfavourable side effects. Using acu-massage methods to treat your migraine is a more natural and chemical free approach to pain management associated with migraines and headaches in general.
It helps you to be mindful
Acupressure can enable you to become more mindful and aware of your body. It can encourage you to be more in tune with yourself and how to make yourself feel well if you experience any issues. It boosts your mood and can even be useful to help you unwind after a long day and promote better sleep. Being aware of how your body feels and functions can also help you pinpoint any problems you feel need to be checked out by a doctor.
There are many natural remedies and practices that have spanned centuries. Perhaps these methods have survived so long despite the major advancements of modern-day medicine because they do indeed work. Acupressure continues to stand the test of time. Many athletes, celebrities, as well as the average person use acupressure to treat pain and stress related issues. It’s a safe practice that can help you feel so much better even after one session!