Posted by Traditional Chinese Medicine(TCM) has more than 2500 years of history in practice, it includes various forms of treatment including herbal medication, massage, acupuncture, exercise(Tai ji) and other treatments.
The concepts
TCM is based on various concepts like qi (a concept comparable to the force in star wars), yin & yang(a physiological concept indicates the balance). The TCM basics is that the body’s vital energy (chi or qi) circulates through channels, called meridians, that have branches connected to bodily organs and functions.
Herbal medication – 中草药
TCM uses a lot of herbs as medication recipe, those recipes are introduced thousands of years ago.
In fact “herbal medication” is not accurate in terms of describing Chinese medicine, because it also includes animal substances like tiger bones, Scorpio, dried sea horses and a lot more. It was proposed by someone to call the medicine in TCM as natural medicine instead of herbal medicine, although most of the ingredients are herbs.
A TCM pharmacy looks like this:
All the different herbs are stored in different drawers as raw materials, based on the doctor’s prescription, the pharmacist will weigh the different herbs and put them together. The patient can choose to take the herbal medication recipe home and cook the herbs into medical soup:
Or ask the pharmacy to make little balls out of them for easier carrying around:
When I was very young, my grandma used to take me to the fields to find some of the herbs that could help against cold.
Cupping therapy – 拔罐
When I was young, my aunt once hurt her ankle when walking on high heels, my grand parents used cupping method to cure her. I did not understand the theory then, they could not explain either. It was passed on by the ancestors generation by generation for home curing.
Basically, you take a glass cup, you lit up a match and throw it into the cup so that the fire can burn up the oxygen inside it, and then you place the cup on the place where you get injured. After it cools, it produces lower pressure on the skin via suction, it is said that cupping removes harmful substances and toxins from the body to promote healing. But that’s not proven.
Acupuncture – 针灸
According to TCM, stimulating specific acupuncture points corrects imbalances in the flow of qi through channels known as meridians. By penetrating the skin with needles, it can stimulate certain points on the body.
Guasha – 刮痧
My father used to give me a gua sha on my arm when I was complaining I have pain in my belly.
According to Wikipedia, Gua sha (Chinese: 刮痧; pinyin: guā shā), meaning “scraping sha-bruises”, is a traditional Chinese medical treatment in which the skin is scraped to produce light bruising. Practitioners believe gua sha releases unhealthy elements from injured areas and stimulates blood flow and healing.
Exercises – 运动
Taiji and Qigong(太极和气功) are two famous Chinese exercise to help you heal or strength your health according to TCM, it is both slow motion require combination of breath and movement to make sure your qi is flowing correctly through your body.
Nowadays, you can still see people practicing taiji in the park early in the morning, taiji sometimes is also used as an item for art performance.
For difference of Taiji and qigong, read it here.
A video below gives you a complete view about TCM:
Photos are from internet