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Natural Awakenings Naples and Fort Myers

Cupping is a Powerful Form of Chinese Massage

Most people are familiar with only two aspects of Traditional Chinese Medicine—acupuncture and herbal healing remedies. The third, less-recognized 3,000-year-old treatment is cupping, a technique that uses small glass cups as suction devices that are placed on the skin. Much like inverse massage, suction in the cups created by putting an inverted cup over a small flame and then placing it immediately on the skin lightly draws the epidermis and superficial muscle layer upward into the cup. The cups generally remain in place for approximately 10 minutes while an individual relaxes.

Cupping can be combined with acupuncture or used alone. The suction and negative pressure it provides loosens muscles, encourages blood flow and sedates the nervous system. It can be used to relieve back and neck pains, stiff muscles, anxiety, fatigue, migraines, rheumatism, respiratory conditions and congestion from a common cold. It can also be used to control asthma.

Like acupuncture, cupping follows five meridian lines on the back. Cupping these points can help to align and relax qi, as well as address more specific problems. By targeting the meridian channels, cupping works to open them and allow the life energy to flow freely throughout the body, as well as all tissues and organs.

Cupping is one of the best deep-tissue therapies available, and is believed to affect tissues up to four inches below the skin. Toxins can be released, blockages cleared and veins and arteries refreshed within these four inches. Even hands, wrists, legs and ankles can be cupped, thus applying the healing to specific organs that correlate with these points.

Jack Morris, owner of Acupuncture Solutions, located at 6628 Willow Park Dr., Ste. C, in Naples, is an acupuncture physician and advanced cupping specialist. For more information, call 239-293-4005 or Facebook.com/JackMorrisap.