Acupuncture and Brain Signals

Acupuncture helps your body repair itself in many different ways.

Right now scientific research is using acupuncture to better understand how the body is actually working.  Let me give you an example of one way acupuncture works.

People often wonder why an acupuncturist might use a point on their ankle to treat neck pain.  It’s not that the point on the ankle is directly treating the neck.  The reason the ankle can be used to relieve neck pain is that both areas of the body share a processing point on the brain and the acupuncturist is ‘reprogramming’ the body’s signal for “neck pain” through a shared region in the brain. You can picture it like when we instantly send information to the other side of the earth by bouncing a message off a satellite orbiting in space above the earth.

Current acupuncture research is examining human embryology and how we develop.  What we are noticing is that certain parts of our bodies start from the same tissues.  The origin of our tissues as we develop is providing the evidence to explain one of the ways acupuncture works.

An example of this is that the Kidneys and Ears develop from the same point as we grow in our mother’s womb. These shared parts of our bodies can be stimulated with acupuncture to create a healing response elsewhere in the body.

The interesting thing is that relay of signals has been measured to be faster than nerve conductivity. Clearly, we are going to learn more about how acupuncture works, but rest assured, when performed by well trained and skilled acupuncturist, acupuncture can help you.