 Now when you look at Chinese medicine or acupuncture from the eastern side or how it's actually thought of in its own culture and where it comes from practitioners often talk about Qi Quote energy and blood. Those are two really important concepts But from the western side when we talk about biomedical research that on acupuncture What is acupuncture really doing and what is it really doing even in like a general philosophical or a very very very General medical sense in this video I'm going to share a little bit about what acupuncture does both at the high level the ten thousandth of view as well as the practical view Hey, I'm Alex Hein author of the book master the day and current doctoral student in traditional or classical Chinese medicine Now I've included there the first link in the description is a free Infographic on five practices you can do daily to add ten years to your life with classical Chinese medicine So you could check it out right there in the description box below So from the biomedical point of view Typically acupuncture has been shown to work in a few key ways The first is that Studies have shown that acupuncture may alter brain chemistry by changing the release of neurotransmitters and neurohormones So it affects part of the central nervous system related to sensation as well as involuntary bodily functions such as immune system function and reactions Processes that regulate a person's blood pressure blood flow and temperature So we tend to see nervous system effects endorphin effects immune system effects Now the second category broad category is that acupuncture really does affect the autonomic nervous system effectively So the autonomic nervous system typically governs the things we think we can't control consciously So for example research has been done that shows that acupuncture can affect smooth muscle functioning Sleep quality urinary incontinence sweating rate The rate of the transient lower esophageal sphincter relaxations Which is key for acid reflux and nausea and vomiting So it affects a lot of these processes that are One of the things that we think of is why they're so important is because Acupuncture is one of the best ways to activate more of that parasympathetic reflex So acupuncture not only can help can control or affect the autonomic nervous system the thing that we can't control But also for modern people that are super stressed It really is one of the best ways of flipping on the parasympathetic Just arrest and digest switches in the body Now from the chinese medicine point of view, what are we really doing? Right we talked about qi which is quote unquote energy. I use that word very loosely and then blood So the high level of chinese medicine is that everything is about flow Where there's pain there's a saying there's no flow and when there's flow, there's no pain But how does that deal with things like SIBO bloating gut dyspiosis headaches or menstrual complaints So with gut dyspiosis for example like so many patients now complain of SIBO which is bloating Burping acid reflux what a few decades ago was called candida. This is a really big epidemic in modern times For chinese medicine one of the reasons why that occurs. There's many one of them is what's called cold So because it's actually cold in the lower part of the body in the digestive system We want to warm that up. So we use herbs and formulas that actually stimulate for example Hydrochloric acid production use warming formulas We also use herbs that biometically i'm sure have been shown to reduce biofilms and clear them out That's one of the ways that we help the flow happen the flow of qi and blood Now for a headache the same thing could be true The headache in chinese medicine can come from many many many different sources But at the end of the day if there's flow there's probably not going to be a headache or the headaches will be really reduced And with something like infertility that we end up treating a lot Infertility the most common pattern we see is what's called like a cold in the uterus pattern Where the woman may be prone to having like physically being cold But may also have like brittle nails dry or thinning hair falling out here Thyroid issues, maybe is gaining weight Dry lips dry skin Fatigue sleep issues memory issues like this pattern can all be related to cold on one level And so the lack of flow in that case is due to the cold and the constriction So the formulas we give are related to warming and moving and the acupuncture is generally designed to do the same thing warm move and circulate So that's a little bit of a glance east versus west kind of correspondences of what acupuncture specifically does But the whole theory behind chinese medicine is that no matter what modality you use Acupuncture formulas moxa massage whatever they should all move the body in the same direction So the the quote-unquote flow of energy is the most important thing to get right first That's like a an adage that we learned before anything before any treatment or medicine is administered So at the end of the day, what does acupuncture do? It helps restore the natural flow It's the traffic conductor in the body as one of my mentors said It's saying everything's shunting this way in the body But we need to make it go that way now to make even things out balance them out and make this pathological process resolve itself Now of course if you want to stay in touch the best ways to download that free guide in the description Five daily habits that 10 years to life with classical chinese medicine That'll give you a few things to work on if you're more interested Again, that's right there in the description. You can also check out my last two videos right there and right there