Acupuncture Is Practical Medicine

Healing the body is both a noble aim, and for many people, a practical necessity. Caring for the body over the course of a lifetime is a responsibility, and indeed it is a noble aim to try to carry out this responsibility to the best of one’s ability. Each of us has the task, beginning in childhood and continuing through to the end of our life, of coming to our own understanding of just how much attention needs to be devoted to caring for the body so that it functions well in life. 

Some people invest a great deal of time and energy to the maintenance of their physical health - rigidly keeping to a perfect diet, exercising for hours a day, undergoing purifying cleanses, taking many kinds of supplements - and perhaps for such people the body is like a jewel that that needs to be polished regularly. Other people seem to attend to the body just enough to get by, and perhaps for them the body is more like a servant or slave who should require as little of one’s attention as possible.

The approach to physical health within the Acupuncture and Chinese medical tradition is  a kind of ‘middle way’ between these two extremes. While Westerners who hear talk of Qi, Yin and Yang might have the impression that acupuncturists relate to the body in an esoteric or other worldly manner, the fact is that this approach to medicine is grounded in the practical considerations and Earthly demands of ordinary life. It is neither interested in creating super-humans nor in promoting ideological extremes about the body and physical health. 

From a Chinese medical point of view, physical health could be boiled down to just a few simple and practical considerations:

● Do I have enough energy to fulfill my daily work and family responsibilities? 

● Is the food I eat being absorbed and eliminated properly? 

● Is sleep restorative? 

● Is there anything in the body - pain, discomfort, illness or injury - that is interfering with my ability to appreciate and take pleasure in ordinary life?

While physical health alone is of course not sufficient to leading a happy and fulfilled life, a healthy and stable body can serve as a support for maintaining emotional and psychological health. A chronically unhealthy body can destabilize a person’s mental health, and recovery from a physical illness can bring hope and new energy to one struggling with emotional and psychological difficulties.