If you are just beginning to investigate acupuncture, you probably have some questions. Let's start with the most basic. What are the benefits of acupuncture?

The Benefits of Acupuncture

There may still be a lot of debate raging in the Western World over how acupuncture actually works, but even its most vehement critics reluctantly admit that it does. They might attribute the fact to strange and little understood mental quirks much like they would view faith healing. Some claim acupuncture works because the people on the receiving end simply believe it is going to work. When you discuss the benefits of acupuncture this debate is a bit irrelevant. The bottom line is that it does work and this is the number one benefit.

If Traditional Chinese Medicine and its view of acupuncture is accepted, it not only works in treating the external symptoms but does much more. It restores the natural harmony of the body, the spirit, the mind, and the soul of a person. It brings their elements into harmony and restores their balance of Ying and Yang. Even if these concepts are dimly understood in the West, they certainly sound like they would belong on a list of the benefits of acupuncture.

There are other benefits of acupuncture when you consider it from a Medical procedure and treatment point of view. One of the most important is an almost total absence of harmful side effects. There are few drugs and surgical procedures in the Western sphere of Medicine that can make that kind of claim. There is a very rare chance of some bleeding and subsequent bruising in the area where the needles are inserted. There are some people that would argue that a risk of infection always exists whenever the dermal layer of the skin is broken and any penetration takes place. Since trained and licensed acupuncturists will be using sterile needles taken from a secure package just before insertion and disposed of afterwards, the chance of infection is very slim.

Additional benefits of acupuncture include a relatively low cost compared to results and almost no need for recovery time as is the case with most surgical procedures. What are in many ways virtually the same treatment procedure is used to treat a wide variety of ailments. The acupuncturist, of course, sees each treatment as being vastly different. The patient does not view it this way at all. The insertions of needles into different points will still seem like the same procedure. This reduces the anxiety felt by patients on the receiving end of a new surgical procedure.

The benefits of acupuncture are many and the drawbacks are few. This has accounted for its remarkable growth in areas outside of China in the past few decades. There is a growing resentment against Western Medicine because of high costs, shoddy care, and often ineffective treatments. To many, it seems Doctors merely throw high cost pills at any type of problem including subtle mental disorders. More and more people are turning to alternative medical treatments and acupuncture is one of the most beneficial of these.