I offer acupuncture among many other modalities as part of my practice at Deep Root Medicine. Acupuncture has been made use of in China for over 2500 years, though China is not the only place where acupuncture has been used historically – evidence of its use as a modality for treating illness has been found in unexpectedly far ranging locations around the globe. While treatment with acupuncture needles is not the only modality available to a practitioner of Chinese medicine, it is a powerful one. By inserting very thin, filiform needles into particular points of the body, a striking variety of effects can be achieved.

There are six standard “channels” of the arms and legs: taiyin, yangming, shaoyin, taiyang, jueyin, and shaoyin. These are often broken down further into arm and leg branches of these channels, producing the commonly referred to “12” acupuncture channels. These channels, along with the Conception, Governing, and the other “extraordinary” channels, make up the pathways along which Qi flows in the body. The movement of Qi throughout the body is a way to describe the “functional” aspects of physiology, from metabolic processes to cell respiration, from the coordination of muscle movements to the dilation and contraction of the pupil. All physiological processes and actions, both voluntary and involuntary, can be understood to have their motive force and capacity for action due to Qi.

What acupuncture aims to do is to influence, enhance, harmonize, redirect, or otherwise manipulate the Qi that flows through these channels, to enhance the body’s ability to heal itself, or to overcome places in the body where Qi – and therefore physiological activity – has begun to stagnate. Qi is tonified, harmonized, or redirected in the body by the selection of certain points along the channels. If the channels are like rivers, then the points are like whirlpools, or underground springs. These points, over thousands of years of empirical research, have been shown to have distinct effects on the body, perhaps especially when used together and in concert with other points, to produce a unified “message” for the body to respond to.