Twenty years into practicing Chinese medicine, the one word that consistently draws a blank stare is “energy.”Energy, or Chi, is an abstraction. As fuzzy as it might seem, it is something real, and it has to be part of the conversation because Chinese medicine is an energetic medicine. Lately, I have been thinking about energy more in terms of electrical current, and framing it that way has helped my patients actually understand why acupuncture works.
We are used to thinking of the brain as the body’s electrical hub. Everything else? Not so much. But it would be a mistake to write off your other tissues as quiet bystanders. Here is the bottom line: the human body is a bioelectric machine. Electrical currents are running through you at all times, in every tissue, not just your brain. They are doing things. Acupuncture is the spark that can bring you back to life. One of my patients said it best while lying on the table. She told me afterward: “I felt all these connections throughout my body, like when you’re lighting Christmas lights. When one goes on, they all go on!” As your acupuncturist, my job is to find where the electrical flow has gone off and bring it back into balance.
I am an avid baseball fan, so bear with me. A pitcher is said to have “electric stuff” when his pitches carry exceptional velocity and movement. But if that electricity is ungrounded, it turns to wildness and chaos. This can look like insomnia, anxiety, hyperactivity, mood swings, hyperthyroid conditions, or involuntary muscle contractions. Proper grounding is what keeps everything connected, allowing your nervous system to do its job. On the flip side, if a pitcher’s stuff loses its electricity, it goes dull and flat. That shows up as depression, apathy, chronic fatigue, over sleeping, or over-eating. This is where I work to charge things back up, clear the blockage, and get the current moving again.
Thinking about the body this way makes acupuncture a lot less mysterious. Too much electricity, I help bring it down. Not enough, I help build it back up. Come see your electrician and jumpstart your life.
