Week 2: Acupuncture as effective energy medicine

Energy, Energy Medicine, and Acupuncture

Energy, in physics, is defined as the capacity for doing work. Energy medicine deals with imbalanced energy fields of the body, and TCM theories are based on Yin-Yang balancing and overall health of human bodies.

Acupuncture is a physical intervention which manipulate the Qi flow in the the meridians. Many question about the efficacy of this treatment modality because acupuncture is utilizing an energy that is unmeasurable and meridians that are invisible with modern technology, but for someone who experienced acupuncture it's undeniable for them to sense the Qi flow moving inside their bodies.

Measuring the Unmeasurable Is Impossible

Qi is more than just the capacity of doing work. There is a huge gap while translating Qi directly to the word "energy."  Qi (气) originally means the any existing substance rather than the heaven and the earth. Later it was used to describe the functional part of the eaten grains being processed in the body (aka. digestion). In TCM, Qi refers to the functional aspect of life. Furthermore, Qi can also describe the weather, the air, a person's mental spirit, breathing, attitudes, odor. Long story in short, Qi has a collection of meanings - some of them are quantitative concepts while some of them are qualitative. For instance, Sheng Qi (生气) in Chinese literally means "generating Qi", but it also means someone being angry or agitated. In this case, how you mathematically measure the psychological part becomes very difficult.

Luckily, You Do Not Need To Believe In Acupuncture To Make It Work

Some wonder if acupuncture is a placebo effect. I think any medicine, scientifically or "pseudoscientifically" can have a certain degree of placebo effect. However, how do we explain the animals that respond to acupuncture? How do you explain children, or even babies, respond to acupuncture? They obviously do not have to believe in medicine before getting the treatment.

Western sciences, including western medicine, usually focus on the vast majority and statistics. We often see because X amount of success rate we conclude this treatment is successful/unsuccessful. Medical care, however, can be very individualized. How many of us complain about "this medicine does not work for me" even though laboratory research tells you that it SHOULD work by status? Acupuncture, or TCM treatments, can probably help fill in that gap since they can be modified to fit individual needs based on pattern differentiation.