Cupping

Chances are if you experience an achy, nagging stiffness or tightness located somewhere in your shoulders or lower back. We all do, thanks to the effects of gravity on muscles! - sitting at a desk for 8 hours a day or working hunched over your phone or steering wheel. Sound familiar? Cupping reduces muscle spasm and tightness in the muscles of the back and neck. It does so by increasing blood flow to the muscles. Muscles don’t typically get an immediate blood flow to it since it is made up of skin that is farthest away from the site of blood vessels. The skin that everyone sees, is actually the shedded skin from deeper in the body. This means that your muscles that you rely on for day to day work, are not receiving enough blood flow. This lack of immediate blood flow means waste products such as lactic acid, and cellular waste products build up in these areas. This “garbage heap” in the muscles leads to tightness, spasm, and even pain. Ever get pressed on the back of the shoulders and you screamed “ouch”? That's because your muscles hold tension in them, even when you don’t realize that they are tight. Exert even more pressure over time and bam- you develop a muscle spasm from chronically tight muscles! Cupping session were made to relax the spasm in the muscles, both as a treatment when you are very tight or as a great preventive way to relaxes spastic muscles. The effects can be instantaneous after even a single session. To get the most out of cupping, plan to do several visits to reduce spasm in the muscles. Your muscles will be happy that you did!

In Chinese medicine, the skin acts as a barrier to the outside world and aids the respiratory system (lungs) in defending the body. It shields the body from external harm from the environment. Ever “catch a draft” or were you ever told to “cover your neck in the winter? Weather extremes - cold, heat, humid weather can have adverse effects on the body. These climate influences can actually penetrate lodged in the muscle layer leading to colds, sinus infection, body aches of a cold or virus and even a tight neck or headache. Suffering from a “cold” means that the cold has penetrated deeply in the skin, through the pores, causing body aches, chills, shivering, and feeling fatigued. (In contrast virus and flus enter through the mouth and cause sore throats). So the way to enhance immunity is to cup the skin in a rapid “on-off” fashion on the skin, calling up circulation to the skin level, which is indicated when the skin gets slightly flushed.

Cupping the upper back near the lungs helps to enhance immunity grinding the immune system to the surface of the skin. Cups here help to aid in circulation which in turn help the immune system with the increased stimulation by the cups themselves.

Because of the connection of the skin to the immune system, stimulating the skin with cupping can help stimulate the immune system so it can have beneficial effects on skin conditions, such as eczema, and the effects of allergies as well. The cups help to get more blood flow to the skin and reduce itching and dryness.

Placing cups directly on the upper back in the vicinity of the lungs can help open up the diaphragm and regulate breathing. It is a great treatment for asthmatics especially during the cold winter months, when cold tends to worsen the asthma attacks. It is also a great treatment in treating coughs due to pneumonia. The gentle suction causes the alveoli, the small sac like structures in the lungs, to open easier, allowing for more surface area for taking in more oxygen, and for relieving the constricted feeling asthmatics and coughers experience.