TCM has a variety of natural healing methods that can help you resolve your health issues. These ancient healing forms have been used effectively-without harmful side effects-for thousands of years. These modalities reflect Chinese insight and ingenuity in creating methods that promote healing in specific ways.

Each and every TCM modality is based on Qi. You were born with a self-healing ability, and through the use of a particular healing form, TCM practitioners recharge that self-healing function in your body. These modalities can increase and balance your Qi, giving your body and being the healing support it needs to regain its healthy function.

1. Classical Herbal Therapy
TCM has relied on herbal therapy as a healing tool for thousands of years. Along the way, it has identified and classified the essential properties of literally thousands of herbs and just how they act on the body-mind-spirit. Interestingly, an extremely wide range of objects fall into the category of TCM herbs: dirt, stones, bones, insects, a diverse selection of animal parts, as well as more common plant parts, such as leaves, blossoms, stems, and roots. TCM recognizes that everything is energy, and so unique energies that can impact the human body and energy system are not limited to the plant kingdom.

This holistic healing system uses herbs in a truly unique way: in combination. In a TCM formula the individual herbs used combine to make a substance that is much more powerful that the sum of the individual parts. In a formula the herbs act together as a team, with each herb performing a specific task within the body, to achieve the objective of the formula as a whole.

2. Acupuncture
No one can really say how long acupuncture has been practiced. Ancient bone and stone "needles" thought to be thousands of years old have been found in modern excavation sites in China. What is known is that therapy with the technique of acupuncture has been helping heal people for ages. It’s impossible to define acupuncture without linking it to Qi, or energy. Everything in the Universe is comprised of energy. In your body, Qi flows through invisible energy pathways called "meridians," and it activates, warms, and nourishes your body.

Acupuncture needles-today, made of stainless steel-are used to relieve energy blockages at key acupoints along the meridians to help the Qi flow smoothly. An organ’s function can also be readjusted by acupuncture to help restore internal balance and harmony among the organs. It’s also important to know that effective treatment is dependent to a great degree on the acupuncturist’s skill and whether his or her energy frequency can match yours.
Pain, for instance, can come from different sources. It can be from an external cause, such as a sports injury, or from an internal condition, such as a Qi deficiency or Qi stagnation. Generally speaking, external conditions are easier to treat. Internal conditions tend to be more complex as the root cause is not so evident.

Is the key factor in acupuncture the needle, the acupoint, or the level of the practitioner? True acupuncture, also called "energy acupuncture," requires deep insight into what has caused the health problem and which organs have been affected. The needle is simply a vehicle between the practitioner’s Qi and the patient’s Qi. Bottom line, it’s the understanding, skill, and energy level of the acupuncturist that makes acupuncture work, and not the needles or the selection of certain acupoints.

3. Acupressure
Authentic TCM acupressure, called tuina (twee nah) in China, uses specific hand techniques, or sometimes tools, to stimulate acupoints and meridians. With acupressure, Qi that is blocked or stagnant can be released and allowed to flow freely once again.

Though different than acupuncture, acupressure can be just as effective. Actually, for some conditions, like sports injuries and simple sprains, it’s more useful and easier on the person receiving treatment. Sometimes, when it is appropriate, TCM doctors use acupuncture and acupressure in combination, which can accelerate the healing benefits.