As a part of Chinese culture, Traditional Chinese medicine(TCM) has evolved over thousands of years with its extensive and profound influence on ordinary Chinese people. TCM include internal medicine and external treatments such as acupuncture, moxibustion, and Tuina massage.
Ear seeds is a unique therapy characterized with its convenient, low-cost and quick curative effect, making it effective for many people with chronic conditions. In recent years, Auriculotherapy has been favored by patients for its simple operation, easy mastery, no adverse reactions, economical safety, and stable curative effect, which is used to treat difficult and miscellaneous diseases.
What is ear seeds?
There are 361 specific acupuncture points in the body, including 91 on the ear, in which all of the body’s tissues and organs can be treated with ear acupunction points. “Lingshu·Kouwen” of Huangdi Neijing recorded: “The ear is where the ancestral veins gather”. The ear is the place where the meridians of the whole body are most densely gathered, to which 12 meridians directly or indirectly connected. The ear offers acupuncture points that correspond to each organ and nervous system of the body. There are long history that a large number of methods of stimulating auricular points to treat diseases was described in the medical literature of all dynasties.
Auriculotherapy is based on the idea that acupoints on the ear is stimulated to alleviate pathological conditions through the conduction of meridians and nerves with the use of acupuncture, ear seeding, electrotherapy and massage.
Ear seeds is a kind of Auriculotherapy, which use herbal medicine seeds on acupressure points of the ear instead of the needles to stimulate the acupoints by moderately massage, pinch, and press. It can improve the flow of Qi through the conduction of the meridians. It is a kind of external therapy that can gradually relieve and treat symptoms.
Ear seeds – a good helper for insomnia
With faster pace-of-life and increased life’s pressure, the insomnia problem are prevalent among working-age people, making the insomnia prevalence go up continually. Although insomnia is not a critical disease, and seemingly to be “normal”, it affects you daily life, and brings many hidden dangers to health, and the consequences cannot be predicted and measured.
Normally the sleeping pills can temporarily relieve the symptoms but not get to the root cause of the problem, and it even bring unwanted side effects. Long-term use of sleeping pill may lead to addiction and dependence, and cause various iatrogenic diseases. Therefore, non-pharmacological treatment of insomnia has received much attention in recent year.
In TCM, the main cause of insomnia is the dysfunction of viscera, such as the uncoordinated of warming yang of the heart and nourishing yin of the kidney, deficiency of qi and blood, and imbalance of yin and yang. According to the principle of “ear acupuncture”, the medical pills is placed on several selected acupoints such as Shenmen, heart, sympathetic, pillow, and subcortex to stimulate the auricular points, so as to dredge the meridians, move qi and blood, conduct the heart and kidney, and regulate visceral functions, balance of yin and yang, and it can effectively calm the mind and nerves, greatly improving the quality of sleep. The improvement of sleep and reducing insomnia and dreaminess can be achieved through a little herbal medicine seeds with no need of injections and medicines.
Ear seeds – an effective way for anxiety
It was unbelievable that by stimulating the acupoints on the ears can boost your overall mood. Depression may be related to abnormal brain function. From the perspective of TCM or western medicine, “ear treatment for brain disease” makes sense. According to TCM, the ear is “the gathering of the ancestral veins”. In terms of the distribution of meridians, it is closely related to the hub of Shaoyang.
Thus, stimulating the acupoints on the ear can enlighten the spirit by adjusting the cardinal of Shaoyang, so as to treat depression. From the perspective of Western medicine, the ear is one of the most sensitive organs in the body, and the concha is the only area on the body’s surface where the afferent fibers of the vagus nerve are distributed. The curative effect of anxiety relief can be achieved through the stimulation of auricular points that transmit nerve impulses along the auricular branch of the vagus nerve to brain regions related to anxiety.
The auricular therapy for patients with different constitutions proposed by the World Health Organization includes anxiety, schizophrenia and other mental diseases. The effective rate of Auriculotherapy for neurasthenia is 89.5-93.4%. A large number of studies on auriculotherapy have shown that it have the functions of strengthening the brain, the heart, and the mind.
“The enhancing the spirit” means that it has the function of treating and adjusting mental and nervous system diseases, such as neurosis, epilepsy, hysteria, neurasthenia, and depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, and childhood mental and neurodevelopmental retardation. Auriculotherapy are characterized with less side effects, safety, and long duration of curative effect, and it has obvious advantages in the treatment of anxiey and depression.
Visit a TCM Clinic in Dudai Today
Shanghai Medical Clinic has TCM physicians that are committed to helping patients with insomnia and anxiety lead a normal life as much as possible.
We offer a wide range of therapies, including Chinese herbal medicine, acupuncture, Tuina massage and physiotherapy.
