How to heal injuries rapidly
(from page 23)
Pain is a message from your body that something is wrong. Your body needs help! You may have been told when something hurts, "Don’t touch it," "Leave it alone" or "Ignore it. It’ll go away."
This way of thinking is not good for your health. Your body communicates in many ways. Pain communicates that your help is needed now and guides you to the points that will relieve the pain.
Touch your pain, feel your pain with your hands—not just your mind. Rub and press when it feels good to do so, but stop what you are doing when it doesn’t feel good. Don’t aggravate your pain; get in touch with the place and the surrounding tissue. Rub for awhile. If it doesn’t aggravate the pain, try pressing.
If rubbing aggravates the pain then stop rubbing. Find another nearby point that feels like it could release some energy.
You may also find an acupoint listed in this book to rub and press. Look at the illustrated acupoint chart on page 200 for points nearest your pain. Try pressing several. Also, you may look in Acupressure Therapy on page 205 for suggested acupoints.
Rapid Healing
First lightly rub the area where it hurts, moving the skin around in circles or gently pressing and stroking. Then massage the area to feel the tissue.
Look for tissue changes and patterns of pain. Finally, feel for the most painful points. Take your time, especially if the tissue feels hard and congested or if the pain is too intense.
Make big circles to increase the circulation while you feel for other tender points. If it’s tender, massage at that level of pressure. You may find lumps or bumps. Often you will feel painful rope-like muscles. It’s common to find surprisingly painful places previously unknown to you.
After surveying the area, find the most painful point. Then press and hold it without moving. Relax and get comfortable. It may take time for your finger pressure to make a change.
Hold the point and remain still until the pain changes. If it gets worse, lighten the pressure. If the pain gets better, keep holding while sensing the other changes.
Does it feel tingly, heavy, less sharp or less sore? Do you feel something moving in your body? It may feel subtle. It may radiate a short or long distance. You may experience a tingly, glowing, flowing feeling.
You may feel currents—some warm and some cold. Rubbing and pressing will remove the stagnant energy, which helps to restore proper circulation of blood and lymph. When you rub gently, stagnant energy is dispersed often resulting in the reduction of pain.
Most people don’t experience energy sensations the first time they try, about half the people who try these methods will experience energy within minutes; a quarter will take days of practice. Some may never experience the energy sensations described in this book.
A Chinese sage once said, "The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step." The first time something new is tried, thoughts of failure, doubt and confusion sometimes surface. "What if I can’t do it?" Not all people can feel Qi. It is a sense. Just as some people are color blind, some people can’t feel energy sensations, even with the proper herbs and acupuncture.
Don’t expect too much at first. Energy sensations are quieter than pain. Keep looking, massaging and exploring your body. Most everyone who explores the twenty-eight points described in this book will experience energy sensations at some of the acupoints.
Energy sensations (deqi) are different than nerve sensations. Modern scientists in Japan and China have studied energy sensations extensively. In Acupuncture: A Comprehensive Text translated and edited by John O’Conner and Dan Bensky it states, "It was found that the perception of the conduction of the needle sensation was rather slow ..." (page 108 ). Nerve sensations are felt instantaneously.
When you hit your elbow a certain way, your hand feels numb with "pins and needles." What has happened is a pinched nerve between the bones of the elbow caused the predictable sensation in the hand. The body feels normal elsewhere, except from the point where the nerve was pinched toward the extremity. This is a law that can be applied when locating nerve damage. It is said nerve damage is found between the altered sensation and the central nervous system.
When you provoke an energy sensation (deqi), the tingling feeling can travel toward the center of the body or toward the extremities. In contrast, when you hit a nerve, the instantaneous feeling is felt only in the direction of the extremity. Recall hitting your funny bone. In this way you can tell the difference between an energy sensation and a nerve sensation.
Also, the energy sensation felt when pressing on a painful point or an acupressure point varies from one place to the next and from one person to another.