Kinesiology tape has a comprehensive array of therapeutic benefits. Because kinesiology taping can usually be left on for several days or up to a week, these therapeutic benefits are available to the injured area 24 hours a day, significantly accelerating the healing process from trauma, injuries and inflammatory conditions.
Pain Relief via Structural Support for Weak or Injured Body Parts
Kinesiology tape is a flexible elastic tape that moves with your body. This provides supports to your body parts without the tape slipping.
By supporting your body part kinesiology tape is able to provide you with pain relief and muscular support to help control body parts affected by muscle inhibition.
Muscle Support
As previously mentioned, your muscle strength may be assisted by kinesiology tape via physical assistance and tactile feedback through the skin eg proprioception boost. This phenomenon may assist both the able bodied athlete to enhance their performance and hypotonic eg children with low muscle tone.
Swelling Reduction
Kinesiology provides a passive lift to your skin via its elastic properties. This vacuum effect allows your lymphatic and venous drainage systems to drain and swollen or bruised tissue quicker than without the kinesiology tape.
It is also thought that this same principle can assist the removal of exercise byproducts like lactic acid that may contribute to post-exercise soreness eg delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS).
CUPPING THERAPY/ CUPPING MASSAGE
5 Benefits of Cupping Therapy
Most of the validity of cupping as an alternative medical practice comes from its long history of use over the past 3,000 years. Cupping techniques have been used extensively to treat a range of disorders and symptoms, sometimes on their own, or other times in conjunction with other alternative practices. It’s common for cupping therapy to be used along with massage therapy, essential oils, acupuncture or even as an adjunct to “Western medicine” treatments.
What we do know from the limited scientific studies that have been done is that cupping works by expanding the capillaries and increasing the amount of fluid entering and leaving tissues. Besides this, cupping therapy seems to provoke a relaxation response in some people, which means it’s useful for lowering stress and its negative effects.
While there’s a ton of anecdotal evidence that cupping can be effective and safe, to date very few clinical studies using humans have been conducted, making it hard to “prove” many of the time-honored benefits of cupping therapy. That being said, it’s worked for millions of people over many years, so here are five ways that cupping might be able to help you:
1. Helps Reduce Pain
One of the most common reasons people turn to alternative treatment methods is because they’re looking for a safe way to naturally reduce joint pain and muscle pain. After reviewing dozens of randomized clinical trials testing cupping therapy in patients with pain of any origin, a report published in Evidence-Based Complimentary and Alternative Medicine found that cupping significantly reduced pain in people with low back issuescompared to usual care treatments, showed positive effects in treating cancer pain compared with anticancer drugs and analgesics, and helped soothe pain associated with respiratory issues. (2)
Cupping is thought to release tissues deep inside the body, relax tense muscles and ease stiffness associated with chronic back and neck pains, migraines, rheumatism, and fatigue. Some athletes have been known to use cupping therapy to naturally improve performance and reduce stiffness, muscle cramps, joint pains and scar tissue caused by injuries.
Cupping targets soft tissue by applying local pressure to pain points and areas of swelling. As blood flow increases within vessels and capillaries, tissues receive much-needed nutrients and oxygen. Cupping practitioners use pressure, heat, suctioning and needles above or below the site of injury, allowing for energy to travel along the “channels” (meridians) that pass through the injury.
For help lowering pain, cups are commonly placed over the following areas: over the fleshy part of the shoulder blades, over the groin/loins, by the neck (for soothing tension headaches, toothaches or migraines) or around the lower back.
2. Promotes Relaxation
It might seem counteractive, but cupping often helps alleviate physical complaints and allows people to enter a more relaxed state since it sedates the central nervous system. This is similar to acupuncture, which you might assume hurts and is uncomfortable but actually seems to help lower most patients’ stress responses and therefore offers protection against anxiety and depression.
How can cupping be relaxing? Just the act of laying still and being “taken care of” during cupping therapy sessions might have a positive effect on someone’s psychological well-being, which could be one reason why it’s used to lower mental illnesses. Once the cups are placed down and suctioned, they might need to remain still for up to 20 minutes, which forces stillness and silence on patients who might otherwise lead very hectic lives. According to the Pacific College of Oriental Medicine, another reason cupping is soothing is because the cups help lift pressure in tense muscles, which offers a relieving sensation just like receiving a deep tissue massage. (3)
3. Boosts Skin Health
Cupping is used to reduce herpes, cellulite, acne and skin inflammation. While studies haven’t shown it can necessarily help with weight loss, the fact that it tones and firms skin by improving blood flow and expanding capillaries makes it popular among celebrities and people in the spotlight who want to appear to have toned skin. As part of a skin-clearing or cellulite treatment, oil is commonly first applied to the skin before the cups are suctioned and moved around, bringing heat to the area along with various skin-healing ingredients depending on the type of oil used.
Because cupping improves blood flow and might help lower inflammation, some studies have found it to be equally or even more effective at treating acne compared to antibiotics. A meta-analysis of six studies showed that for improving acne, the cure rate of wet cupping was better than the cure rate following use of tanshinone, tetracycline and ketoconazoleprescriptions. (4)
4. Helps Treat Respiratory Issues and Colds
Commonly used to help nourish the lungs and clear away phlegm or congestion, cupping therapy can be useful for speeding up healing time from respiratory illnesses like the flu or common colds. Cupping helps improve immune function by moving blood and lymphatic fluid throughout the body, which is why it’s been associated with reductions in lung diseases (especially chronic coughs), allergies, infections and asthma.
Treating respiratory conditions like pulmonary tuberculosis is one of the oldest uses for cupping and was utilized long before prescriptions were available. (5)
5. Improves Digestion
Acupuncture and cupping are both popular ways to improve digestion and reduce symptoms from disorders like irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). This might primarily be because they can lower a patient’s stress response, which is highly tied to healthy digestive functioning. (6)
Throughout history, cupping therapy has been found to be beneficial for people with frequent stomach pains, diarrhea, acute gastritis, loss of appetite, gastrointestinal diseases and water retention. For digestive disturbances, cupping is commonly performed in the following areas: around the navel, over the bladder, around the kidneys or over the stomach.
MOXIBUSTION - MOXA THERAPY
Moxibustion can treat many conditions. Here is a list of a few common treatments:
Moxibustion can turn breech babies as the warming and raising effect of the moxa encourages the baby to become more active and turn himself or herself around into a head down position. In 2001, a study was done comparing a group of women with breech babies who received moxibustion treatment and a group who did certain exercises and received external cephalic manipulation. The correction rate among the moxibustion patients was 92% while the other group only had a 73% correction rate.
It can also increase movement in the fetus during pregnancy.
It can reduce menstrual cramps, especially when used in conjunction with traditional acupuncture.
Moxibustion is commonly used for colds. It draws out cold and dampness trapped inside the body and warms the meridians, causing a smoother flow of blood and qi.
Moxibustion also has a strong energizing and tonifying/fortifying effect, which makes it ideal for patients with fatigue or weaker immune systems who get frequent colds and flus.
MAGNETOTHERAPIA
How Magnetic Therapy is Beneficial to the Human Body
WHAT IT DOES
Magnetic fields upon the body help to energize and boost the rate of
circulation; stimulating nutrient rich blood flow thus invigorating
your metabolism by oxygenating the organs providing muscle and
tissue more oxygen for mental and physical vigor while accelerating
the ridding of body wastes, flushing out unwanted toxins, releasing
more endorphins, the body's natural pain killers promoting repair
and stimulating faster healing; improving the bodies anti-infective
activity and enhancing immunity; normalizes endocrine production
by helping to regulate and balance endocrine functions; affecting
enzyme production for reducing swelling, stiffness and the acidity
from wounds helping in reducing inflammation; stimulating colla-
gen density in and around joints proven in studies to heal bones &
joints faster, to help alleviate chronic pain and invigorate
overall well-being.
HOW IT HELPS
Wounds and painful areas of the body are marked by a lack of
oxygen, off pH & poor circulation. It is believed that magnetic
stimulation helps with the normalization of calcium ion flow
which control the attraction of calcium ions to help heal broken
bones or help to remove calcium build-up from painful arthritic
joints. The acid / alkaline [pH] balance of body fluids can be
altered by magnetic fields; magnetic fields also alter enzyme
activity & biochemical processes with the lower frequencies
relieving pain, inflammation and bruising, using the higher
frequencies for the relaxing of blood vessels allowing increased
blood flow for a boost to your natural healing abilities. A
negative magnetic field is used to normalize disturbed metabolic
functions causing painful conditions like inflammation and cell
degeneration. Magnetic fields put directly on top of the head has
been proven to have a calming effect.
SUMMARY
Magnetism is an all natural choice and tool whose forces pe*****te
into the channels and collaterality of the body to help regulate its
physiological functions. Magnetic fields affect the relaxation and
constriction of capillary blood vessels affecting blood flow; as
proven by studies about blood microcirculation.
MASSAGE
You know that post-massage feeling. Your mind is clear and your body is relaxed. An occasional massage leaves you feeling great, but regular massage can do so much more. The work your therapist does in each session builds on itself, helping your body maintain its relaxed state and your muscles to remain loose even during times of physical and mental stress.
