Integrative Health
Joshua Singer, L.Ac.
Licensed Acupuncturist
In the last few articles of this column we have talked about three of the five branches of Traditional Chinese Medicine; acupuncture, herbs, and exercise. Here we’ll talk about another branch, massage and related techniques.
Tui Na Massage
Chinese medical massage is called Tui Na, translated to mean, “push and grasp.” Like the other branches of TCM, Tui Na is based on the understanding of the flow of energy through the body’s meridian system. Tui Na uses hand techniques to massage the muscles and tendons of the body, acupressure techniques to directly affect the flow of energy, and manipulation techniques to realign the musculoskeletal relationships. Tui Na is a deep tissue massage and may feel different than a Swedish style massage. With the rolling technique, the side of the hand and knuckles are felt with pressure as the hand is rolled along the channels and muscles. This will help increase the circulation through the area along with breaking up adhesions in the muscles. Another interesting hand technique is one finger meditation. This focuses the tip of the thumb on the point with pressure while moving the hand back and forth. This technique is often used, similarly to acupuncture, to stimulate the point along the meridian to address internal organ dysfunction.
This style of massage has been used for a long time to manage not just musculoskeletal pain, but also respiratory illness, headaches, constipation, premenstrual symptoms, and emotional struggle. There is evidence showing that Tui Na was used to treat children’s diseases and digestive complaints in adults as early as 1700 B.C. in China. By 600 A.D. Tui Na was included in the Imperial Medical College as a separate department. Currently, Tui Na is taught as a separate but equal field of study in the major traditional Chinese medical colleges.
Cupping
Another form of therapeutic bodywork is called cupping. The earliest recorded use of cupping in China dates to the early fourth century. It has been called “fire jar,” because typically a small flame, usually a cotton ball dipped in alcohol, is put momentarily in a glass cup. This takes the oxygen from inside the cup and creates a vacuum as it’s quickly placed on the skin, causing suction. The skin and superficial muscle layer are drawn into and held in the cup. Sometimes bamboo is used for this, but originally hollowed out animal horns were used. When you consider massage as a pushing, downward movement across muscles, cupping is a pulling up of the muscle tissue. Drawing up the skin opens up the skin’s pores, which helps to stimulate the flow of blood, regulates the flow of energy, breaks up obstructions, and creates an avenue for toxins to be drawn out of the body.
Cupping is used to treat painful conditions, especially with localized tension or muscle knotting. It is also used to treat respiratory conditions such as bronchitis, asthma, and congestion. Often a salve is placed on the skin before the cups so that they can be moved along the channel or muscle group. There may be one to twenty cups possibly used, left for around twenty minutes. As the skin under a cup is drawn up, the blood vessels at the surface of the skin expand. This may result in small circular markings on the areas where the cups were applied. These are usually painless and disappear within a few days of treatment. You may remember seeing these markings at the Beijing Olympics on the backs of the swimmers, most likely to manage muscular strain.
Gua Sha
Gua Sha is another technique that involves scraping of the skin using a spoon, coin, jar lid, or a tool made from water buffalo horn. “Gua” means friction while “sha” describes blood stagnation at the skin surface and also means fever. The scraping will cause small red petechiae, or “sha,” to appear. This is also painless and will fade in a couple days. The appearance of “sha” indicates that there is local congestion, and the treatment will help restore proper circulation. You may feel immediate relief from pain, stiffness, or fever with this technique. Gua Sha is valuable in the prevention and treatment of acute infectious illness, upper respiratory problems, neck, back, and other pain syndromes. I can recall several patients who experienced significant reduction in their whiplash symptoms after several sessions of Gua Sha, along with acupuncture.
The Body Is Not In Separated Parts
Don’t forget that the body is a continuous network, not just of the channels of energy that Chinese Medicine focuses on, but also of all the tissues and organs. There isn’t a beginning and an end point in the body; it’s interconnected. By affecting the surface through massage, cupping, and Gua Sha, amongst other techniques, we can affect the local area, the internal workings, and the body as a whole. Please contact me if you’d like to learn more about and explore any of these massage techniques.