Eastern Health Treatments And A Few Major Therapies

The huge resurgence in Eastern health therapies during the preceding decade has tended to focus on acupuncture and shiatsu, but these are just two of the concepts associated with Chinese health treatments. It seems that there is a public reaction to present day medicine, because chemicals (drugs) are used too much, and there can be unwanted side effects to the treatment. Chinese medicine and present day practices differ in numerous ways, but the most elemental is the way in which these 2 approaches see the human body. The Eastern practitioners, including those in Japan, India and China, operate on the idea of mind-body, which is to say that the human system can't be split up into physical, mental, emotional and spiritual parts, but should be thought of as a whole, and treated accordingly. On this side of the world, the Western concept sees these facets of life as though they existed separately. This split view of the human organism can cause damage in the long term.

Another large divergence between the two perspectives is that, even though this is slowly changing, Western medical treatment is often reactive while Eastern medicine may focus on treatment before sickness. Loosely speaking, in the West we have a tendency to see the doctor when when ill, and want rapid treatment to put us back on the road again. In the East, it was the traditional role of the doctor to keep the patient healthy, so that illness doesn't arise. In olden times, a doctor in China was compensated for regular treatments, and the payments stopped if the patient was sick!

The major idea behind oriental medicine is to do with the life force 'chi', which is the universal force that permeates our bodies and all that exists in our universe. Balance of this energy, or Yin-Yang, is vital to human health, and when it becomes unbalanced, we are sick. All of the disciplines within the Chinese medicine realm are related to affecting this energy in assorted ways, and embrace homeopathy, aromatherapy, acupuncture, reflexology and zen shiatsu, the latter 3 being very closely related.

Zen-shiatsu is developing well in most European countries, and variations in approach and application are springing up in France, such as the Shiatsu Toulouse branch. Reflexology could be named 'shiatsu for the feet', as it is a type of pressure manipulation applied with the hands in the same way as shiatsu. Acupuncture employs very thin needles to penetrate the skin at really precise places,which correspond to the channels of energy flow in the body, thereby regulating the flow. Shiatsu works on exactly the same energy channels, or meridians, but uses pressure applied by fingers, thumbs, hands, elbows, knees and feet for balancing energy. The Shiatsu Toulouse variety has a soft approach physically, but promotes profound reactions on the energetic level.