Massage and Acupuncture?(2022)

Introduction

Massage and Acupuncture combined together gives an extra level of healings. According to the national holistic college institute report, approximately 47.5 million people had a total of 214 million massages in the U.S. in 2018.

More than 50 million American adults have discussed massage therapy with their doctors or health care providers in the previous year.

According to the NCBI report on 2014, During the past 40 years, acupuncture, a therapeutic technique of oriental medicine, has become more and more popular, evolving into one of the most utilized forms of complementary integrative medicine interventions in the United States.

In fact, more than 10 million acupuncture treatments are administered annually in the United States alone. Its rise in popularity, particularly in the West, can be attributed in part to its effectiveness for pain relief and in part to the fact that scientific studies have begun to prove its efficacy.

Consider oncology treatment. Studies conducted on both humans and animals suggest that acupuncture may strengthen the immune system during chemotherapy and can reduce the side effects of nausea and vomiting.

Studies done on animals support the use of electro acupuncture to relieve cancer pain. Other studies have examined the role of acupuncture in stimulating immune function, including increasing blood cell count and enhancing lymphocyte and natural killer cell activity.

Now, let us dive directly to the next blog article to get thorough understanding on massage and Acupuncture.

Massage and Acupuncture

What is massage?

Massage is the systematic rubbing of the muscles and soft tissues of the body. It is a broad term comprised of more than 80 massage modalities.

Massage comes in to effect starting from antiquity. Especially, the oriental world was the origins of rub principles and doctrines.

It emanates from the traditional and cultural healing processes of ancient civilizations. Some Asians associate it with the channeling of divine power.

Later, it expands to the western world. Nowadays, Massage is practiced globally to get relief from pain, to reduce stress and boost body relaxations.

It is used to get healings from physical, mental, and emotional feelings and sufferings. Acupuncture is one part of these massage philosophies. To read more on massage, click here.

What is acupuncture?

It is one of the oldest traditional healing methods which stems from the oriental world, Chinese. It was practiced as a Chinese traditional medicine starting 3000 years ago.

It is performed Based on the oriental world beliefs and principles; That is based on the energy channeling of the divine power. Asians believe that, there are free flowing energies in our body which helps us to keep balance and homeostasis with in the internal body and the external environments.

These free flowing energies has their own specific points which helps as a medium or channel to flow. These lines or points are called Sen lines or meridians.

Actually, when there is a blockage in the free flow of energy in these lines, individuals get diseased. Or disease and ailments follow.

The main role of acupuncture is to release these vital energy blockages and ensure health and well-being of individuals. It is commonly used to release blockage and ensure physical, mental and emotional wellnesses.

To read more on Acupuncture, click here.

How to do massage

Though, massage has different techniques and styles of manual manipulations, most of the time, massage therapists use, one of the most popular and widely used classical massage types, i.e., Swedish massage.

In Swedish massage, your massage therapists will use long, soft, kneading strokes, with alternative gliding, circular, rolling, rocking and taping techniques.

In fact, as the focus points of Swedish massage are the muscles, tissues and joints, pressing of these muscles and soft tissues is the game to effective body healing.

The pressure applied on these muscles and tissues may ranges from light, medium to vigorous pressures.

Based on the complaint of the client, or based on the source of pain, massage therapists may use deep tissue massage or other alternatives to release these body pains and tensions alternatively.

To do all these manipulations, massage therapists use their hands, foot, finger, thump and other devices. In addition to these, to ease their body work, massage therapists use other additional agents, oils and gels.

How to do Acupuncture

Acupuncture is an invasive procedure. To do acupuncture, massage therapists use thin, fine hair-like sterile needles which has the size of human hair.

Based on Chinese philosophy, the target areas of acupuncture are the energy lines or acupoints. The vital energy blockages are found in these acupoints.

So, to release these energy blockages, massage therapists insert thin sterile needles to these areas. As a result, the pains, stress, and agony created due to the energy blockages will be released.

Same to massage, the purpose of Acupuncture is to release body toxins, reduce stress, to ensure free energy flow and attaining maximum body relaxations.

Focus areas for massage and acupuncture

Even though, massage and acupuncture have their own several different focus areas, both strives to achieve the same goals, i.e., relieving pain, reducing body stress and boosting body relaxations. But, the target areas for massage and acupuncture are indeed versatile.

In Massage: The target areas for massage therapies are, the muscles, tissues/connective tissues/, joints, ligaments and tendons. There are superficial muscles and deep muscles connected together by an adjacent connective tissues and the fascia.

When the massage therapist suspect that, the cause of the client’s pain is superficial, they apply a long, smooth, Swedish strokes with alternating gliding, rolling and rocking strokes.

Whereas, when the cause of the pain seems to emanate from within the deep muscles and tissues, your massage therapists will use a deep tissue massage, with vigorous manipulations.

In Acupuncture: The focus areas for Acupuncture are the deep internal energy lines or Acupoints. These acupoints are found along the meridian lines.

Traditional Chinese medicine practitioners believe that, the human body has more than 2000 acupoints connected by pathways or meridians. But, this estimation is not based on scientific studies and research.

There are different speculations regarding the number of acupoints claimed by different individuals. But, according WHO standard acupuncture point locations, which was released in 2008, there are a total of 361 acupoints in human body. To read more on how to do Acupuncture, click here.

Based on this, acupuncture massage therapists work their procedure on these target acupoints.

Which one comes first? Acupuncture or Massage?

Indeed, massage and acupuncture have their own independent advantages. But, they struggle to achieve a common goal, i.e., enhancing the health and well-being of the human body.

In this regard, there are no strict rules that compelled and guide to do this first and that next order. Rather, massage therapists can apply them alternatively based on the complaint of their clients and on the basis of their indicated priority.

Considering this all, if there are no indications to prioritize, massage therapists can start in either way, i.e., massage first and continuing with acupuncture or in a reverse way.

In general, with no obvious indications to do first, massage therapists can manipulate this body works in either way.

Side effects of massage and acupuncture

In Massage:

In massage, there may be mild to moderate side effects following the manual manipulations. These side effects are not manifested in all individuals.

In fact, some individuals may show several signs and symptoms of muscle redness, pain, soreness and irritability. These side effects will improve after a couple of days without intervention.

In Acupuncture:

To be frank, Acupuncture has rare or no side effects. As far as, it is done by skilled acupuncture massage therapist, it is safe, no hesitation is needed.

But, as it involves medical procedure, I.e. invasive skin penetrations to reach the acupoints, it may have some mild temporary effects like momentary prick, tingling and jingle.

but, in the contrary, if it is done by unskilled and unexperienced acupuncturist, there may be visible side effects that comes due to wrong doings of the procedure.

Benefits of massage

• It reduces pain
• It relieves stress
• It improves relaxation
• It improves circulation
• It boosts immunity
• It activates hormones
• It enhances physical, mental and emotional healings

Benefits of acupuncture

We have clarified that, the focus areas of Acupuncturists are the Acupoints found along the meridian lines. When the free flow of vital energy is blocked along these pathways, disease and ailments occur. So, what are the benefits of doing Acupuncture?

• It is uses to clear and release the energy blockages across the sen lines
• To ensure body balance and homeostasis
• To release body pains from these pathways
• To reduce stress and anxiety by opening the energy blockages
• To attain body relaxation and gain bliss

Combined benefits of massage and acupuncture

Massage and Acupuncture works independently to attain the same goal, i.e., to enhance health and well-being, which helps to improve the overall quality of life.

So, rather than used solitarily, when used in combination, they give you an extra benefit. So, what are the combined benefits? To read more on combined benefits, click here.

• As massage and acupuncture focus points are different areas, when combined, creates a much more relaxation to the body than used independently.
• Both massage and acupuncture positively affects each other to achieve extra healings
• Releasing the blockage favors for massage to be more receptive and effective and massaging first favors for effective acupuncture therapy.
• Both Achieves a heightened stress reduction and mood alleviation
• Gives an extra boosting of immunity and wellness
• Achieves an increased level of blood flow and circulation
• Extra improvement in the health and well-being of individuals
• Overall improvement in quality of life

Massage and acupuncture in general, results in an increased level of body relaxation, in a tremendous level of stress reduction and an extra alleviations of body pains and agony.

I hope, you may get this article relevant. If you have any questions or suggestions leave, a comment.