In This Chapter
* Defining acupressure and reflexology
* Tracing the roots of the healing arts
* Getting the keys to understanding qi
* Finding out how bodywork can help you
If you're like most people, you know little (if anything) about acupressure and reflexology. You may incorrectly believe that acupressure involves needles. It doesn't - but don't worry, we address that and other misconceptions in the next few chapters. And when thinking about reflexology, you may guess from the name that it involves your reflexes in some way, but that may pretty much be the extent of your insight on the topic.
Or perhaps you do have some knowledge of the healing arts. You may know, for example, that a basic tenet of these approaches is the idea that pain can often be traced back to its root, which is often some distance away from the place where the pain is felt. However, you may not know exactly what that is, or how to trace the source of your pain.
Regardless of your knowledge level, or your reason for wanting to discover more, you can definitely benefit from reading about these important approaches to healing. Bodywork is beneficial to almost everyone, and it's often helpful if you know the background behind the techniques.
In this chapter, you explore the roots of reflexology and acupressure. You find out about the fundamental principles involved, including the concept of qi. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, you discover how these approaches to healing can help you. No matter what your physical ailment or health concern, you'll probably be pleasantly surprised at the difference even a minimal amount of bodywork can make.
Acupressure and Reflexology Defined
Before you get too far into the healing routines and practices that we discuss in this book, you need to make sure that you understand exactly what acupressure and reflexology are. They're closely related, and in much of this book we refer to them jointly as a pair of complementary healing arts. But despite their similarities, they do have some differences.
Acupressure
Acupressure is an ancient healing art that entails using an object (generally the hands or arms) to stimulate specific key points on the body with the goal of relieving pain or discomfort. Pain and discomfort are considered to be signs of energy imbalance, which, if left in this state, will become illness and disease.
Acupressure approaches this energy imbalance in a concrete way through the identification of acupoints. Acupoints are located on meridians, or channels that run throughout the body and connect all parts of the body together. These acupoints are specific sites on the body that often treat pain or discomfort elsewhere. By addressing problems or imbalances at the acupoints, you can balance the flow of energy and thereby reduce or eliminate pain in the affected areas.
REMEMBER
Many people confuse acupressure with acupuncture. The two are similar and closely related. Both rely on the same fundamental principles, and both use the same points and meridians. The most important difference: acupuncture uses pins - technically, they're hair-thin, sterile needles - and acupressure doesn't. This difference is crucial, because the needle aspect is something that makes many people squeamish or nervous about acupuncture. For those people, acupressure can be an equally effective - yet much less nerve-wracking - alternative.
Reflexology
Reflexology is a system of healing based on balancing energy by stimulating areas in the feet and hands that relate to organs, glands, and parts of the body. Reflexology is similar to acupressure in basic principle, but the two have some differences as well. They both correct imbalances in the energy force by focusing on specific areas of the body where they pinpoint (and treat) that imbalance. Although acupressure involves meridians and acupoints, reflexology relies on pathways called reflex zones, which contain reflex areas located on the hands and feet. The reflex areas on the hands and feet are essentially holograms of the whole body; therefore, stimulating the hands and feet affects the whole body. By applying pressure to specific reflex points, you adjust the flow of energy and can create a positive response (reduced pain) in a corresponding location elsewhere on the body.
Digging Deeper into Origins and Philosophy
Many healing arts, including acupressure and reflexology, are based on the beliefs of Chinese energy medicine - which people first practiced more than 5,000 years ago. The ancient Chinese believed that spiritual imbalances caused many illnesses and physical ailments. In order to effectively address the pain, the Chinese believed, you needed to resolve your spiritual imbalance and get your energies and life force in a balanced state. In other words, the Chinese felt that you couldn't properly treat physical pain unless you also addressed your spiritual issues and any imbalances in your energy force. In this section, we explain a bit more about where this belief started as well as a bit about how acupressure and reflexology support that philosophy.
The origins of acupressure and reflexology
Acupressure and reflexology are no New Age "flash in the pan" trends. In fact, they've actually been around for thousands of years. Their roots are believed to trace back to the ancient people of Asia, who realized the many benefits of strategic touch as part of a healing therapy routine. (In the case of reflexology, some evidence indicates that ancient Egyptians also practiced this type of healing therapy. Treating the body through the feet and hands has also been found in many indigenous healing systems. For example, Native Americans and Australian aborigines are both believed to have healing practices based on foot manipulation.)
The ancient people of Asia discovered that pressing specific points on the body can reduce or eliminate pain - often in locations elsewhere on the body. Chinese doctors began focusing on pressure points as a way to treat pain, fight illnesses, and encourage healing after injuries. These sessions, like many others developed by the Chinese of the period, were often used to treat soldiers who had been injured in various military conflicts.
Stone probes, found in Chinese tombs and believed to date back thousands of years, are believed by experts to be the first tools used in acupuncture and acupressure. These stones were called Bian stones and were used as tools to apply pressure to acupoints.
Originally, in Asia, many schools of Chinese medicine passed down in family lines. Most of these schools were similar to each other, but they also had lots of little differences - such as the exact function, name, or location of a point, how you use point combinations, and the use of extra points and extra channels of qi. After the Maoist revolution, General Mao combined all the teachings into one, eliminating all the differences, and he called it Traditional Chinese Medicine, or TCM. However, current practices still use acupuncture and acupressure techniques that fall outside of TCM and don't necessarily use organ meridians or standard acupoints. Some examples are auricular (ear) acupunture, which many practitioners use today to treat addictions, and Korean hand acupuncture, which is similar to reflexology. The point? These examples show the vast array of healing techniques available to practitioners who use acupressure and reflexology therapies.
How and why they work
The foundation of Chinese energy medicine is the belief that a balanced and positive energy force is imperative for good health and emotional well-being. If you move or manipulate this energy to create a more balanced harmonious state, they believed you could effectively treat pain and illness.
As many people now acknowledge, the ancient Chinese healers were on to something. Today, people know that the body is like a big puzzle, with each part interconnected to other parts in many different (and sometimes mysterious) ways. In other words, you may say, "No man's body part is an island." A problem that originates with one part of the body inevitably begins to have repercussions on other parts of the body and mind.
Determining Preference: It's Up to You
We use acupressure and reflexology together in this book because the effects of one reinforce the effects of the other (see Chapter 3 for more detail). We can't give you a magic formula that tells you when using acupressure would be more beneficial than using reflexology. Many times it's a matter of preference - maybe you want to have your whole body touched and like the full-body approach of acupressure. Or maybe you have ticklish feet. Everyone is a little different, and some people respond better to one type of session than the other. Most people, however, enjoy both, and adding both to a session is the ideal because you're impacting more than one pathway and stimulating more than one type of physiological effect.
You may notice more acceptance of acupressure than reflexology in the mainstream. The reason? Acupressure has been studied more by Western medicine. Although Russians have studied reflexology, it has largely been ignored by medical researchers in the West. This fact is surprising because according to the Pacific Institute of Reflexology, the founder of modern day reflexology, Dr. William Fitzgerald, was a specialist in Boston City Hospital; the Central London Ear, Nose and Throat Hospital in England; and the St. Francis Hospital in Hartford. Unfortunately, until scientific research validates this approach, reflexology won't reach the same level of acceptance as acupressure.
Fundamental Principles of Acupressure and Reflexology
Learning basic acupressure and reflexology is much easier when you understand the fundamental principles. Pressure point therapies don't work with your body as if it's a machine; they work with your body as an energy system. The energy involved is called qi (pronounced kee) or chi (pronounced chee). Health and healing is dependent on the smooth and abundant flow of qi throughout the body. Life events can challenge your energy system, disrupting the flow of qi and causing imbalance.
Pressure point therapies seek to regain balance. Pressure is applied to specific points to regulate the flow of qi. As qi becomes more balanced, healing processes are stimulated. In this section, we focus on how this works and what forces are involved.
Your body as an energy system: An Eastern approach to healing
You probably know that models of healing in the West are significantly different from those in the East. In the West, health practitioners see the body as a machine. When the machine has a breakdown, medicine fixes the symptoms and considers that health has been restored. The progression is linear, and goes something like this:
1. You get sick.
2. You have symptoms.
3. You stop the symptoms.
4. You feel better.
Treatment is goal oriented, and the goal is to eliminate symptoms. Here's an example: You go to the doctor with heartburn. Using Western medicine, she gives you an antacid or a drug to block the production of acid. With either treatment your symptoms go away, and her job is done, even though the cause of the problem may not be addressed.
In the East, health practitioners see the body as an energy system. The progression of illness goes something like this:
1. Your energy flow is disrupted.
2. You develop symptoms that show you where the energy imbalance is located. 3. Treatment involves shifting the cause of the imbalance.
Treatment focuses on patterns and cycles of disease. Rather than being goal oriented, Eastern medicine tries to understand what the symptoms mean. Here's an example in this model: You go to the doctor with heartburn, and he assesses the balance and flow of your qi. He determines that the symptoms reveal too much qi in your stomach. He uses pressure point therapies to stimulate the rebalancing of qi and to explore the underlying patterns that created the imbalance. Are you working too much? Do you consistently burn the candle at both ends? Is this overwork an attempt to feel more useful, more worthy of recognition? After you understand your pattern, pressure point therapy can more effectively stimulate qi. Why? Because your mind and emotions are no longer working against you. Now that the pattern is shifted and your qi is balanced, you no longer need the symptoms of heartburn to tell you that you're out of balance.
REMEMBER
In the Western model, the doctor does the healing. Your body heals, but the doctor does it! In the Eastern view, you already have everything you need to heal yourself. All body processes are geared toward self-healing. Pressure point therapies help shift patterns to remove obstacles to balance. Everything is based on timing. You can't force someone else's energy to change, and you don't know the best timing for change to happen. When giving yourself or someone else a healing session, you're facilitating change. Whether or not that change happens is up to the wisdom of the body. Never try to force results. Daylight can't come until night is over.
The importance of qi
Unfortunately, we can't give you an exact definition of qi. Trying to define it is like trying to define consciousness or infinity. They aren't easily and intuitively grasped, but they're the foundations of higher principles. Essentially, qi is life force, but Chinese texts describe it not only as a force, or energy, but also as a substance. It's a substance that acts through matter, binding molecules together, organizing them into form, and holding form together. At the same time, it's a force that enlivens and activates the form it organizes.
Qi can be described as vital force that sustains all life. Have you heard the expression "dead weight"? That's a body without qi flow. Consider two bodies with all their structures working properly: one is alive and one is dead. The presence or absence of vital life force is the only difference between the two.
TIP
Every culture has a concept and name for life force. In China it's chi; in Japan it's qi or ki; in India it's prana; Polynesians call it mana; in Hebrew it's rauch; Islamic cultures call it barraka; and Native American and Australian tribes all have different names as well. In modern times, people have referred to it as biomagnetism, plasma, orgone, L-fields, and factor X.
Where does qi come from?
Qi is everywhere. It's present within, between, and around everything that exists. You can think of it as an ocean of qi that you're swimming within (and don't forget, humans are 65 percent water - or in this case, qi!). You may hear people call it universal life force or universal qi. Universal qi changes form when it embodies matter and becomes an individualized life force. You may not know it, but you were born with your own personalized qi that's yours for life. You may be asking yourself right now whether you were born with enough qi to last you your entire life. The truth is that you spend qi every day. Every activity you perform (including thinking!) uses qi. To live a long and healthy life, you need an abundance of qi, so supplementing your original qi is important.
Keeping your qi plentiful
You restock your qi in three different ways. The first way is to obtain qi from the world around you through the air you breathe, through the food you eat, and through natural elements like sunlight. The quality of qi you have to live your life with depends on the quality of what you eat and the environment you're in. Take a minute to consider the quality of qi that's becoming you. Is it reflected in the quality of your health, thoughts, and emotions?
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Acupressure & Reflexology For Dummies by Synthia Andrews Bobbi Dempsey Copyright © 2007 by Synthia Andrews. Excerpted by permission.
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