Acupressure leads to a healthy life

Acupressure for all

In China or India, the room for traditional medicine like acupressure, acupuncture, yoga, ayurveda, music therapy, aromatherapy, tantra-mantra and other alternative medicines was always there for more than 5000 years. In fact today also because of their effectiveness, we use them in illness and pain. Acupressure is the treatment by applying pressure with the fingers to particular pressure points on the body by needle or some other pointed means. This application of pressure at a specific point of the body sends a message to the body to start its own self-healing process. The vital energy (Qi) always passes around natural pathways (meridians) in the body. Blockage of this vital energy is the cause of problems in our body. Acupressure changes these disturbances and establishes the normal flow for better health.

Keynotes to master acupressure techniques:

• It is a form of stimulation to relax muscles and we need to do it regularly.
• Have patience while practising acupressure on pressure points.
• Use deep and firm pressure to massage and stimulate each point.
• While taking massage on acupoints, try to relax in a comfortable posture, close your eyes, and breathe deeply.
• Repeat the massage as much as you like; there is no limit to several times a day.

God is supreme of all whose creations as well as inbuilt processes going inside them are incredible. Even many of the processes going inside our body are unknown to us. Acupressure is one of the old best-proven methods to understand about the amazing world of God. When we clap, stand, sit, walk, run, do physical exercises or move our body parts unknowingly the blockages open which makes the flow of vital energy through meridians and this cures many diseases.

Acupressure therapy was known to ancient India as “Marma Chikisha”, which is the simplest form of treatment to cure the mind and body. The best part of this is anyone can learn and with self-help, the body is properly treated through stimulation. Each acupoint is a mirror that tells about the trouble in the organ. Hence these pressure points have both diagnostic and therapeutic usage. Another added advantage is the treatment’s cheapness. Then it has no side effect and it needs no intake of medicines. Due to its simplicity and its benefits, for many it’s unimaginable. But it's regular practice makes unimaginable into unbelievable. Western medicine divides the human body structure and considers each organ as if it is different from the body and We also make symptomatic treatment in acupressure to cure the particular disease or a specific organ. Whereas in acupressure it is impossible to isolate a part without considering what effect it will have. It does concentrate on a specific illness or a particular organ but the entire body gets cured with both physical and mental state by this symptomatic treatment.

Ancient Kingdom of Acupressure:

In India, it has been found that Charaka, has described this therapy in Charak Samhita by stating “If the physician comes across a patient suffering from syncope then ……. Needling (acupuncture) and Burning (moxibustion) ……. are helpful in bringing about consciousness”. Acupuncture is not much different from acupressure.

In Acupuncture, the practitioner pierces needle into the point which may produce certain reactions. Thus, these ancient historical references show that Acupuncture is known as “Suchi-Chikitsa” (suchi means needle) in India.

Charaka, in “Charaka Samhita”, has explained about the meridian-o-logy part of Acupressure by saying, “Of all these, some varieties of (important) meridians are capable of controlling several organs and the symptoms manifested by their vitiation. This description is enough for an ignorant man to understand the characteristic features of these meridians, while for a wise man this description will offer enough material enabling him to understand the characteristic features of other meridians which are not described here. As long as these meridians do their normal functions the body is free from disease.”

Similarly, people were practising “Varma Acupressure” in the South of India. When the kings went to war, they used to have bodyguards called “Varmanis ”. These varmanis, was to treat the kings if King became injured in battle. Varma therapists treat the patient by pressing and twisting the proper points.

The modern martial art, has its origin in Varma and Adankal therapy and people practised these as Kalaripayattu. Adankal and Varma passed off from one generation to another through the traditional guru-sishya method.

Ups and Downs in Acupressure:

Gautam Buddha saw rising Buddhism and declining Hinduism in India. Rise of Buddhism based on non-violence and Buddhists were not allowed to use weapon even for self-defence. But at ancient India Buddhist universities, like Takshashila, Buddhist monks used to teach martial arts as part of self-defence. This training also included acupressure in it. This went on for a long time until Sankara’s arrival. Sankara in a short span of time revived the declining Hinduism and brought it back. Return of Hinduism and other socio-economic compulsions caused the decline of Buddhism in India. Buddhists with the knowledge of acupressure gradually went to Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka) and from Ceylon to China, and East Asia.

The arrival of Buddhist in Chinese soil further enhanced common Chinese forms of medicine. Great revolutions made it a communist country. The policy of communist China put forward unfriendliness towards America and western countries and they made its foreign policy and relation very conservative. Gradually this approach forced it to adopt the policy of containment, where it closed its frontier. During, this period Chinese developed Acupuncture and others in an indigenous and scientific way. In 1971, China made an end to this policy of containment, America’s president Richard Nixon visited China and his much-publicized interest in Acupuncture opened the way for its revival into the rest of the world. This made the World Health Organisation (WHO) include Acupuncture in its inter-regional seminar at Beijing, China in 1979. Such successive events caused the WHO to recognize Acupuncture as an alternative method of treatment.

Before WHO’s recognition the people of America, particularly Red Indian tribes, used to practice Reflex Zone Therapy (Reflexology). Though it cannot be proved, specialists tend to agree that it was Dr William Fitzgerald who first came across Zone therapy as practised by the Red-Indians, and it is his observation and studies that we owe our concepts of reflexology. Dr William Henry Fitzgerald (1872-1942), an ENT specialist, developed the zone therapy and published his findings on this form of healing in 1913, and hence people call him as the Father of Modern Reflexology. Reflexology, in its present form, is an important part of Acupressure therapy.