Acupuncture Theory and Meridian System

[Music] finally today I'm going to talk about acupuncture Theory Channel Meridian theory in acupuncture I'm going to share the cyclical flow of chi the Meridian layers the function the characteristics why do we use them in clinical practice to select our points in order to have a better treatment it's really important to understand how the Meridian Theory function in order to do a better treatment does that Mak sense I'm also going to look at Western science and how it looks at meridians so we can explain it better to our patients in a term that they can totally understand grasp and educate the world about this amazing medicine are you ready for it let's go welcome back to my channel if it's your first time here I'm Clara from AIP Pro Academy and I create Chinese medicine and acupuncture content for students and practitioners making it easy to grasp and fun to learn let's rock it let's start with the Meridian layers and then we're going to go and look at the 12 regular main meridians characteristics and how we utilize them in clinical practice but if we start at the layers we're going to start at the deepest layer all the way up to the surface the deepest meridians are the 12 regular meridians plus the eight extra vessels then the next one is looking at the 12 Divergence the 15 collaterals the 12 muscular regions and the 12 dermatomes I have a whole video explaining all the Meridian layers and I'll link it below this one so you can access it and watch it more in depth so today I'm just going to go over them very quickly because I want to really focus on the 12 main meridians the 12 meridian's main function is to carry chat and blood while for the vessels it's to carry Essence so really connects them with TCM kidneys right the next layer is the Divergence the 12 Divergence come from the 12 main meridians and they kind of extend the main meridians in a bigger area does that makes sense so they diverge they extend for example the large intestine will have a Divergence that start at the shoulder and ex stand all around the shoulder so we can treat more problem affecting the shoulder utilizing the large intestine meridian connecting to its own Divergent the 15 collaterals which are usually 15 or 16 do watch my Meridian layer explaining why they are 16 or 15 and I also have a video on the L collateral specifically so you can watch that I'll put it in the link below as well so the 15506 16 collaterals what they do is they connect the internal and external part of the body but they also connect the yin and yang related organs or meridians so for example the lung collateral will connect to the large intestine through the lure collateral point which is long seven and then the large intestine will connect through the lower Connecting Point of the large intestine which is large intestine six so stomach 40 connects to the spleen that's the L Connecting Point of the stomach and it has a l collateral from stomach 40 that connects to the spleen spleen four is the L Connecting Point of the spleen and it connects to the stomach okay so that's what the collaterals do the muscular regions are just the surface part of the main meridians so the muscular region let's say of the bladder which covers the whole back all the back muscle are going to be connected to the bladder Meridian but also to the surface muscular region of the bladder okay and then if we look at the dermatomes it's the same thing so let's say the dermatome of the long where the long travels if we see in clinical practice that someone has ezema on the long Meridian then we need to see what else is happening so it's really going to help us figure out that maybe eczema is due to liver overacting on the lung and creating some outbreak or ezema but also because it's located on the L Meridian then we know to also address the lung right not just the liver so it really helps us narrow down our diagnosis so those are the layers of the meridians that are going to help us in clinical practice to identify which Meridian is affected what point to select for example with the lower Connecting Point if you have stomach and spleen issue let's say stomach cheery Belling acid reflux but you also have spin she deficiency like diarrhea loose stools bloating Cravings then you can use the collateral like stomach 40 and spleen four because they're the L Connecting Point connecting the spleen and stomach together does that make sense so this is how we're going to use them let's look at the 12 main meridians because those are the one we use the most in clinical practice and all the points that we use obviously are going to be located on the 12 main merant so their function is to carry Chi and blood it is to connect the internal organ with the external part where the needles or the points are there are six hand Meridian which means they start or finish at the hand and six foot meridians which means they start or finish at the foot there are six Yin meridians and six young meridians and they obviously bear with each other so those are the hand Meridian long and large intestine yin and yang heart and small intestine yin and yang and per cardium and sanou yin and yang for the foot Meridian we have the spleen and stomach yin and yang the kidney and the bladder same thing yin and yang and the liver and gallbladder liver is Yin gallbladder is young as you can see it's a beautiful balanced system let's look at the main functions of the 12 regular meridians the first one is they carry Chi and blood so they're moving Chi and blood all over the body the second one is they pertain to the dang Fu organs and they're connect the organs to the surface where the points are remember the long Meridian for example starts in the middle gel that's the internal branch and it goes down to the large intestine then up to the long organ and then it'll go back up to the throat and comes out at long one on the chest when long one starts all the way to Long 11 that's the external Branch so all the points along the external Branch are the one that we're going to needle in order you connect to the internal branch which goes through the large intestine the lung and the middle G which makes sense to me because the spleen and stomach in the Five Element theory is the Earth element and the Earth generates metal or generates a good long and large intestine so the long and the large intestine have to be connected to the digestive system because the digestive system generates a good immune system and it's found in the large intestine in the gut see the relationship here it's so important that we understand the pathways of the meridians as well so we know how we can utilize them in clinical practice and their connection to each other so one of the function like I said of the main Meridian is to connect the internal organs through the points to the external part of the body that's how we look at them and the last function is the 12 main meridians really balance Body Mind and Spirit now let's look at their characteristics the 12 main meridians travel up and down vertically so all of them are vertical there's no horizontal they are all bilateral so always on both sides they run exteriorly and interiorly vice versa so always connecting the interior with the external and they form a hole because the cyclical flow of chi allows them to have a flow that's constantly going it never stops now let's look at the cyclical flow of chi within the 12 meridians it can start anywhere you want it doesn't matter because it's a Continuum of chi flow linking all the meridians together but let's start at the lung which connects to the large intestine that's the next flow of chi because the long and large intestine are related yin and yang teing then the next one is the stomach followed by the spleen the heart small intestine bladder kidney pericardium sand gel gallbladder liver and back to to the long first of all when you start the first four are tiin Meridian the long is the hand tie in and the foot tie in is the spleen and we're going to talk about the names of the meridians after okay now when you look at the stomach and the large intestine they're both young mean meridian so the large intestine is a hand Youngman and the stomach is a foot yman so see how the first four four are all connected both tiin long and sple both young men large intestine and stomach so there's a connection there then the next four after the spleen is heart and smell intestine kidney and bladder heart and kidney are both Shan heart is hand Shan kidney is foot Shan small intestin and bladder are both T small intestine is hand Tong blad is foot Tong see how amazing it is the whole cyclical flow of Chu me blows my mind because it so makes sense and it's very well organized and the last four when we continue is pericardium and sanow liver and GBL both liver and pericardium are Jan meridians hand and foot and Sania and gallbladder are both sha young Meridian hand and foot isn't that so cool okay so when we look at those we can see the relationship each of the four that are continuing right now another thing that happened during the cyclical flow of chi is it's going to be hand hand foot foot hand hand foot foot okay so we got two hands long and large intestine followed by two foot meridians stomach and spleen and it continues like this it goes between hand and foot so we have a cyclical flow of chi that continues to really provide Chi all over the body and connects all the part the upper part the lower part and everything another thing about the cyclical flow of chi is that all young meridians go to the head no y Meridian goes to the Head remember if you compare the body of the head the head is more young the body is more Yin so the yin meridians do not go to the Head Only the Young meridians do because this is the most young part of the body that's how you remember that the young Maran all go to the Head small intestine large intestine sanou and then gallbladder and stomach and bladder right you could see that there really long Meridian the longest meridians are the stomach the bladder and the gallbladder when you think about it okay now we look at this and we look at the fact that we're going to start at the chest with the long long one and we're going to go down that's the direction of the long Meridian it goes from the chest down to the hand from the large intestine it goes from the hand back up to the head okay so remember this we go chest down to the hand hand back up to the head stomach is the next one from the head goes all the way down to the foot and spleen spleen one starts at the foot and goes back up to the chest okay so let's do that again long chest to hand large intestine hand to head stomach head to foot and spleen foot to chest we're back on the chest after the first four second thing happen again heart starts at the chest small intestine goes to the Head bladder goes to the foot and kidney comes back to the chest that's the second one so it's always the same thing chesty hand hand to head head to foot foot to chest you got me okay and the last one is the same pericardium starts at the chest goes down to the hand Sania goes from the hand to the Head gobl from the head to the foot and liver from the foot back to the chest and we start from the lung again down to the hand see the flow of chi is fantastic and marvelous so remember this again I'm going to do it again because I think it's like a song when I was in school we did like a song we were chanting saying chesty hand hand to head head to foot foot to chest okay and you repeat that three times now what's interesting is that it's all on one side it feels like how does this side side connects to the opposite side that's intriguing right well remember that the large intestine meridian pathway this is the only Meridian in the whole body that crosses to the other side so the large intestine starts at the hand or at the index finger and it goes up and it finishes at large intestine 20 but it crosses the body just above the lip here and finishes on that side that's the only Meridian that crosses the body so obviously when we start at the let's say the lung for the chi flow we're going to start at the chest down to the hand hand to the head and we end up on the other side so now we can do the whole flow all the way here when we finish at the liver up here down from the lung long down large intestine up and then we cross to the other side isn't that awesome this is why when you pick a point like large intestine 4 and you have a headache on the opposite side it works really well if you choose large intestine 4 on the opposite side of the headache because the floor of CH crosses specifically at the large intestin Meridian isn't that mindblowing so cool to me it makes so much sense so I hope that's really helping for you to understand how we go about choosing point in clinical practice because of the meridian Fury which is fascinating so here you can see the graphic that kind of helps you understand this is part of my book The acupoint made easy book but I just wanted to show you what it looks like right so we have three Yin meridians that start at the chest and go down to the hand and it's easy to remember which one because their organ is always located in the chest the heart the lung and the pericardium are all three of them on the chest so it's easy to remember aha those three start at the chest because the organs are at the chest and they go down to the hand now you look at the opposite meridians the large intestine the small intestine and the sanou which are opposite of heart lung and pericardium start at the hand and finish at the head remember only young Meridian goes to the Head then at the head we have the stomach which is a young Meridian the gallbladder and the bladder and it goes all the way down to the foot those three young Meridian go from the head to the foot and then the three foot Meridian start at the foot the spleen the liver and the kidney and they finish at the chest yes so we got three y meridians from the chest down to the hand three young Meridian from the hand up to the head three young Meridian from the head down to the foot and three Yin Meridian from the foot up to the chest that's your cyclical flow of chi yes now let's look at the names of the meridian we have six Yin and six young meridians we have six foot six hand so let's start with the most surface so even though the 12 main meridians are the deepest of all the layers within each of those meridians there's some that are more surface and some that are deeper so the thae young meridians which are the small intestine and the bladder which cover the back and the head area are the most surface this is why those two meridians are great to use when there's external path pen Invasion so when you look at bladder 12 for example it's an upper back point that is really good to help expel external pathogen Invasion specifically like excess cold see this is how we utilize this in clal practice and taong usually means greater young the next one is the young Ming or the brightest Young The Young Ming is going to be the large intestin at the hand and the foot's going to be the stomach young mean meridians have the most Che te and the most blood that means they carry the most tea and the most blood that means that they are very powerful to be used for acute and chronic issue and they resolve those issue or help the body self-heal much faster okay the next layer gets a little bit deeper which is the sanou and the gallbladder which are called the shaoyong shaoyong means lesser young so little bit less young because they are going to be so close to to the yin Meridian right they're going a little bit more deeper so the shaoyong is often referred to as the revolving door between the yin and the Yang between the internal and the external and you can see the gallbladder Meridian for example it's zigzagging right it's front back front back it zigzags all the way down it doesn't know if it wants to be in the front in the back it's not really sure so it's in between the Sandow at the shoulder and the back of the shoulder but it starts coming up to the front right it ends up in the front so it's front and back yin and yang so it's really the Sha is that revolving door which means those are great Meridian to use when we have acute and chronic issue at the same time but also things that are affecting the body externally and internally at the same time or an alternative between hot and cold or upper heat lower cold where the opposite is always going to be there and some patients we want to use the shaoyong meridians Isn't that cool okay the next names or layers as we get deeper is the long and spleen which are TA Yen which means greater Yin so the long and spleen if you look at all the yin the Meridian they're the more surface of the yin one but obviously they're deeper than all the young ones right and Lung and Spen are a very good relationship because spleen is the mother of lung in the Five Element Theory so they relate really well in clinical practice the next layer is the Sha Yin sha Yin means lesser Yin and it is going to be the heart and the kidney those are sha and Meridian the shaan Meridian have the least amount of chi and the least amount of blood it doesn't mean that they're not useful of course we use heart seven kidney 3 kidney seven heart Point kidney Point all the time however if there is a heart and kidney issue that means that it's deep seated heart is usually the Mind kidney is the root of who we are our Essence so it's harder to treat and it's harder to address that's why you look at them having less Chi and less blood it means that we're going to need a lot more treatment or a few more sessions then if we use meridians like the young mean Meridian large intestine and stomach because those have a lot of chi and a lot of blood so we're going to resolve the problem a little bit faster does that make sense and the last or the deepest of all meridians when I comes to 12 meridians is the J Yin J Yin means the end of Yin so kind of like at the bottom right pericardium and LI or the Jan Meridian and what's interesting is if you look at blood stasis for example and what's interesting is if there is heat affecting the Jan Meridian it will affect the liver and the pericardium this is why we have liver fire it affects our mind and we can't sleep and we get irritable it really affects the pericardium and we feel really restless so this is when we can look at points from the pericardium and the liver to calm that fire but also calm the mind like pericardium 8 and l two does that make sense I think to me the acupuncture Channel Theory makes so much sense when you think about it look at it from a deeper lenses before we continue to look at Western medicine's View on meridians and how to communicate to our patients in a way they can understand and I want to remind you that below this video I have the link to the Meridian layers the eight vessel video and the Lu collateral video as well that goes much more in depth Western medicine view on acupuncture looks at it from a perspective of where the points are located there's a high concentration of minute nerves that are superficial but also blood vessel and as you can see neuromuscular attachment where vessel Muses and nerves penetrate Muscle fascia when we insert a needle in those area of high concentration of minute nerve they send a signal to the brain through the spinal cord for the body to self-regulate to release endorphin to decrease inflammation to literally self-heal how do I explain to patients how acupuncture work I always say this is very simple it literally nudges your body to self-regulate to self heal when I needle a point the minute nerve sends a signal to the central nervous system for your body to self-regulate it's very simple it doesn't cure or treat anything it helps the body self-heal this is why it's awesome and acupuncture rocks when looking at neurology acupuncture points are strategic conductors of electromagnetic signals simulating acupuncture Point induce the release of endorphins which can help in pain management and connecting to the central nervous system when it comes to the immune system acupuncture is great to stimulate a response and stimulate the immune system to release antihistamine for allergies or to help the body really gets its fighter its antigen activated it also is really proven by many studies that acupuncture increased the level of white blood cells balance specific hormones and other substances that can improve immune function and overall health it's fantastic woohoo when it comes to the circulatory system acupuncture promotes the dilation of blood vessel to improve blood flow this can help reduce blood pressure and support the delivery of oxygen and nutrients to tissues obviously that's how we reduce inflammation so cool see we can totally explain to patients how acupuncture work in a scientific way because because that's going to help them really trust your ability to help them because they didn't go to school and they don't know Chi and they don't know the whole gamut of things we learn that are very TCM related right so we want to talk to them in a way they totally grasp and understand acupuncture also can block signals from reaching the brain that's why it's used so much in lure of anesthetic when people cannot have asthetic because they're allergic or there's issue it is used a lot in dentistry as well to relieve the pain while they're working on the person's mouth so cool acupuncture can also trigger the release of various biochemicals such as hormones and neurotransmitters which can regulate and balance the hormones in the body this is what I do a lot when it comes to fertility and Women's Health and Men's Health and it reduce inflammation alleviate stress and relieve anxiety this is why totally acupuncture Rox the Meridian system also corresponds to the body fasal Network we totally hear about fascia all the time which is a web of connective tissue surrounding and connecting muscle organs and other tissues well acupuncture works by stimulating the fascia affecting the structural and Functional Health of the body this is so cool right I truly hope that this channel Theory with the Western science behind it can help you understand how you select Point how you treat patients but also how you communicate to your patients the amazing benefits of acupuncture check out the Meridian layers right here to go deeper into the channel Theory and no matter what keep rocking it using TCM

[Music] finally today I&#39;m going to talk about acupuncture Theory Channel Meridian theory in acupuncture I&#39;m going to share the cyclical flow of chi the Meridian layers the function the characteristics why do we use them in clinical practice to select our points in order to have a better treatment it&#39;s really important to understand how the Meridian Theory function in order to do a better treatment does that Mak sense I&#39;m also going to look at Western science and how it looks at meridians so we can explain it better to our patients in a term that they can totally understand grasp and educate the world about this amazing medicine are you ready for it let&#39;s go welcome back to my channel if it&#39;s your first time here I&#39;m Clara from AIP Pro Academy and I create Chinese medicine and acupuncture content for students and practitioners making it easy to grasp and fun to learn let&#39;s rock it let&#39;s start with the Meridian layers and then we&#39;re going to go and look at the 12 regular main meridians characteristics and how we utilize them in clinical practice but if we start at the layers we&#39;re going to start at the deepest layer all the way up to the surface the deepest meridians are the 12 regular meridians plus the eight extra vessels then the next one is looking at the 12 Divergence the 15 collaterals the 12 muscular regions and the 12 dermatomes I have a whole video explaining all the Meridian layers and I&#39;ll link it below this one so you can access it and watch it more in depth so today I&#39;m just going to go over them very quickly because I want to really focus on the 12 main meridians the 12 meridian&#39;s main function is to carry chat and blood while for the vessels it&#39;s to carry Essence so really connects them with TCM kidneys right the next layer is the Divergence the 12 Divergence come from the 12 main meridians and they kind of extend the main meridians in a bigger area does that makes sense so they diverge they extend for example the large intestine will have a Divergence that start at the shoulder and ex stand all around the shoulder so we can treat more problem affecting the shoulder utilizing the large intestine meridian connecting to its own Divergent the 15 collaterals which are usually 15 or 16 do watch my Meridian layer explaining why they are 16 or 15 and I also have a video on the L collateral specifically so you can watch that I&#39;ll put it in the link below as well so the 15506 16 collaterals what they do is they connect the internal and external part of the body but they also connect the yin and yang related organs or meridians so for example the lung collateral will connect to the large intestine through the lure collateral point which is long seven and then the large intestine will connect through the lower Connecting Point of the large intestine which is large intestine six so stomach 40 connects to the spleen that&#39;s the L Connecting Point of the stomach and it has a l collateral from stomach 40 that connects to the spleen spleen four is the L Connecting Point of the spleen and it connects to the stomach okay so that&#39;s what the collaterals do the muscular regions are just the surface part of the main meridians so the muscular region let&#39;s say of the bladder which covers the whole back all the back muscle are going to be connected to the bladder Meridian but also to the surface muscular region of the bladder okay and then if we look at the dermatomes it&#39;s the same thing so let&#39;s say the dermatome of the long where the long travels if we see in clinical practice that someone has ezema on the long Meridian then we need to see what else is happening so it&#39;s really going to help us figure out that maybe eczema is due to liver overacting on the lung and creating some outbreak or ezema but also because it&#39;s located on the L Meridian then we know to also address the lung right not just the liver so it really helps us narrow down our diagnosis so those are the layers of the meridians that are going to help us in clinical practice to identify which Meridian is affected what point to select for example with the lower Connecting Point if you have stomach and spleen issue let&#39;s say stomach cheery Belling acid reflux but you also have spin she deficiency like diarrhea loose stools bloating Cravings then you can use the collateral like stomach 40 and spleen four because they&#39;re the L Connecting Point connecting the spleen and stomach together does that make sense so this is how we&#39;re going to use them let&#39;s look at the 12 main meridians because those are the one we use the most in clinical practice and all the points that we use obviously are going to be located on the 12 main merant so their function is to carry Chi and blood it is to connect the internal organ with the external part where the needles or the points are there are six hand Meridian which means they start or finish at the hand and six foot meridians which means they start or finish at the foot there are six Yin meridians and six young meridians and they obviously bear with each other so those are the hand Meridian long and large intestine yin and yang heart and small intestine yin and yang and per cardium and sanou yin and yang for the foot Meridian we have the spleen and stomach yin and yang the kidney and the bladder same thing yin and yang and the liver and gallbladder liver is Yin gallbladder is young as you can see it&#39;s a beautiful balanced system let&#39;s look at the main functions of the 12 regular meridians the first one is they carry Chi and blood so they&#39;re moving Chi and blood all over the body the second one is they pertain to the dang Fu organs and they&#39;re connect the organs to the surface where the points are remember the long Meridian for example starts in the middle gel that&#39;s the internal branch and it goes down to the large intestine then up to the long organ and then it&#39;ll go back up to the throat and comes out at long one on the chest when long one starts all the way to Long 11 that&#39;s the external Branch so all the points along the external Branch are the one that we&#39;re going to needle in order you connect to the internal branch which goes through the large intestine the lung and the middle G which makes sense to me because the spleen and stomach in the Five Element theory is the Earth element and the Earth generates metal or generates a good long and large intestine so the long and the large intestine have to be connected to the digestive system because the digestive system generates a good immune system and it&#39;s found in the large intestine in the gut see the relationship here it&#39;s so important that we understand the pathways of the meridians as well so we know how we can utilize them in clinical practice and their connection to each other so one of the function like I said of the main Meridian is to connect the internal organs through the points to the external part of the body that&#39;s how we look at them and the last function is the 12 main meridians really balance Body Mind and Spirit now let&#39;s look at their characteristics the 12 main meridians travel up and down vertically so all of them are vertical there&#39;s no horizontal they are all bilateral so always on both sides they run exteriorly and interiorly vice versa so always connecting the interior with the external and they form a hole because the cyclical flow of chi allows them to have a flow that&#39;s constantly going it never stops now let&#39;s look at the cyclical flow of chi within the 12 meridians it can start anywhere you want it doesn&#39;t matter because it&#39;s a Continuum of chi flow linking all the meridians together but let&#39;s start at the lung which connects to the large intestine that&#39;s the next flow of chi because the long and large intestine are related yin and yang teing then the next one is the stomach followed by the spleen the heart small intestine bladder kidney pericardium sand gel gallbladder liver and back to to the long first of all when you start the first four are tiin Meridian the long is the hand tie in and the foot tie in is the spleen and we&#39;re going to talk about the names of the meridians after okay now when you look at the stomach and the large intestine they&#39;re both young mean meridian so the large intestine is a hand Youngman and the stomach is a foot yman so see how the first four four are all connected both tiin long and sple both young men large intestine and stomach so there&#39;s a connection there then the next four after the spleen is heart and smell intestine kidney and bladder heart and kidney are both Shan heart is hand Shan kidney is foot Shan small intestin and bladder are both T small intestine is hand Tong blad is foot Tong see how amazing it is the whole cyclical flow of Chu me blows my mind because it so makes sense and it&#39;s very well organized and the last four when we continue is pericardium and sanow liver and GBL both liver and pericardium are Jan meridians hand and foot and Sania and gallbladder are both sha young Meridian hand and foot isn&#39;t that so cool okay so when we look at those we can see the relationship each of the four that are continuing right now another thing that happened during the cyclical flow of chi is it&#39;s going to be hand hand foot foot hand hand foot foot okay so we got two hands long and large intestine followed by two foot meridians stomach and spleen and it continues like this it goes between hand and foot so we have a cyclical flow of chi that continues to really provide Chi all over the body and connects all the part the upper part the lower part and everything another thing about the cyclical flow of chi is that all young meridians go to the head no y Meridian goes to the Head remember if you compare the body of the head the head is more young the body is more Yin so the yin meridians do not go to the Head Only the Young meridians do because this is the most young part of the body that&#39;s how you remember that the young Maran all go to the Head small intestine large intestine sanou and then gallbladder and stomach and bladder right you could see that there really long Meridian the longest meridians are the stomach the bladder and the gallbladder when you think about it okay now we look at this and we look at the fact that we&#39;re going to start at the chest with the long long one and we&#39;re going to go down that&#39;s the direction of the long Meridian it goes from the chest down to the hand from the large intestine it goes from the hand back up to the head okay so remember this we go chest down to the hand hand back up to the head stomach is the next one from the head goes all the way down to the foot and spleen spleen one starts at the foot and goes back up to the chest okay so let&#39;s do that again long chest to hand large intestine hand to head stomach head to foot and spleen foot to chest we&#39;re back on the chest after the first four second thing happen again heart starts at the chest small intestine goes to the Head bladder goes to the foot and kidney comes back to the chest that&#39;s the second one so it&#39;s always the same thing chesty hand hand to head head to foot foot to chest you got me okay and the last one is the same pericardium starts at the chest goes down to the hand Sania goes from the hand to the Head gobl from the head to the foot and liver from the foot back to the chest and we start from the lung again down to the hand see the flow of chi is fantastic and marvelous so remember this again I&#39;m going to do it again because I think it&#39;s like a song when I was in school we did like a song we were chanting saying chesty hand hand to head head to foot foot to chest okay and you repeat that three times now what&#39;s interesting is that it&#39;s all on one side it feels like how does this side side connects to the opposite side that&#39;s intriguing right well remember that the large intestine meridian pathway this is the only Meridian in the whole body that crosses to the other side so the large intestine starts at the hand or at the index finger and it goes up and it finishes at large intestine 20 but it crosses the body just above the lip here and finishes on that side that&#39;s the only Meridian that crosses the body so obviously when we start at the let&#39;s say the lung for the chi flow we&#39;re going to start at the chest down to the hand hand to the head and we end up on the other side so now we can do the whole flow all the way here when we finish at the liver up here down from the lung long down large intestine up and then we cross to the other side isn&#39;t that awesome this is why when you pick a point like large intestine 4 and you have a headache on the opposite side it works really well if you choose large intestine 4 on the opposite side of the headache because the floor of CH crosses specifically at the large intestin Meridian isn&#39;t that mindblowing so cool to me it makes so much sense so I hope that&#39;s really helping for you to understand how we go about choosing point in clinical practice because of the meridian Fury which is fascinating so here you can see the graphic that kind of helps you understand this is part of my book The acupoint made easy book but I just wanted to show you what it looks like right so we have three Yin meridians that start at the chest and go down to the hand and it&#39;s easy to remember which one because their organ is always located in the chest the heart the lung and the pericardium are all three of them on the chest so it&#39;s easy to remember aha those three start at the chest because the organs are at the chest and they go down to the hand now you look at the opposite meridians the large intestine the small intestine and the sanou which are opposite of heart lung and pericardium start at the hand and finish at the head remember only young Meridian goes to the Head then at the head we have the stomach which is a young Meridian the gallbladder and the bladder and it goes all the way down to the foot those three young Meridian go from the head to the foot and then the three foot Meridian start at the foot the spleen the liver and the kidney and they finish at the chest yes so we got three y meridians from the chest down to the hand three young Meridian from the hand up to the head three young Meridian from the head down to the foot and three Yin Meridian from the foot up to the chest that&#39;s your cyclical flow of chi yes now let&#39;s look at the names of the meridian we have six Yin and six young meridians we have six foot six hand so let&#39;s start with the most surface so even though the 12 main meridians are the deepest of all the layers within each of those meridians there&#39;s some that are more surface and some that are deeper so the thae young meridians which are the small intestine and the bladder which cover the back and the head area are the most surface this is why those two meridians are great to use when there&#39;s external path pen Invasion so when you look at bladder 12 for example it&#39;s an upper back point that is really good to help expel external pathogen Invasion specifically like excess cold see this is how we utilize this in clal practice and taong usually means greater young the next one is the young Ming or the brightest Young The Young Ming is going to be the large intestin at the hand and the foot&#39;s going to be the stomach young mean meridians have the most Che te and the most blood that means they carry the most tea and the most blood that means that they are very powerful to be used for acute and chronic issue and they resolve those issue or help the body self-heal much faster okay the next layer gets a little bit deeper which is the sanou and the gallbladder which are called the shaoyong shaoyong means lesser young so little bit less young because they are going to be so close to to the yin Meridian right they&#39;re going a little bit more deeper so the shaoyong is often referred to as the revolving door between the yin and the Yang between the internal and the external and you can see the gallbladder Meridian for example it&#39;s zigzagging right it&#39;s front back front back it zigzags all the way down it doesn&#39;t know if it wants to be in the front in the back it&#39;s not really sure so it&#39;s in between the Sandow at the shoulder and the back of the shoulder but it starts coming up to the front right it ends up in the front so it&#39;s front and back yin and yang so it&#39;s really the Sha is that revolving door which means those are great Meridian to use when we have acute and chronic issue at the same time but also things that are affecting the body externally and internally at the same time or an alternative between hot and cold or upper heat lower cold where the opposite is always going to be there and some patients we want to use the shaoyong meridians Isn&#39;t that cool okay the next names or layers as we get deeper is the long and spleen which are TA Yen which means greater Yin so the long and spleen if you look at all the yin the Meridian they&#39;re the more surface of the yin one but obviously they&#39;re deeper than all the young ones right and Lung and Spen are a very good relationship because spleen is the mother of lung in the Five Element Theory so they relate really well in clinical practice the next layer is the Sha Yin sha Yin means lesser Yin and it is going to be the heart and the kidney those are sha and Meridian the shaan Meridian have the least amount of chi and the least amount of blood it doesn&#39;t mean that they&#39;re not useful of course we use heart seven kidney 3 kidney seven heart Point kidney Point all the time however if there is a heart and kidney issue that means that it&#39;s deep seated heart is usually the Mind kidney is the root of who we are our Essence so it&#39;s harder to treat and it&#39;s harder to address that&#39;s why you look at them having less Chi and less blood it means that we&#39;re going to need a lot more treatment or a few more sessions then if we use meridians like the young mean Meridian large intestine and stomach because those have a lot of chi and a lot of blood so we&#39;re going to resolve the problem a little bit faster does that make sense and the last or the deepest of all meridians when I comes to 12 meridians is the J Yin J Yin means the end of Yin so kind of like at the bottom right pericardium and LI or the Jan Meridian and what&#39;s interesting is if you look at blood stasis for example and what&#39;s interesting is if there is heat affecting the Jan Meridian it will affect the liver and the pericardium this is why we have liver fire it affects our mind and we can&#39;t sleep and we get irritable it really affects the pericardium and we feel really restless so this is when we can look at points from the pericardium and the liver to calm that fire but also calm the mind like pericardium 8 and l two does that make sense I think to me the acupuncture Channel Theory makes so much sense when you think about it look at it from a deeper lenses before we continue to look at Western medicine&#39;s View on meridians and how to communicate to our patients in a way they can understand and I want to remind you that below this video I have the link to the Meridian layers the eight vessel video and the Lu collateral video as well that goes much more in depth Western medicine view on acupuncture looks at it from a perspective of where the points are located there&#39;s a high concentration of minute nerves that are superficial but also blood vessel and as you can see neuromuscular attachment where vessel Muses and nerves penetrate Muscle fascia when we insert a needle in those area of high concentration of minute nerve they send a signal to the brain through the spinal cord for the body to self-regulate to release endorphin to decrease inflammation to literally self-heal how do I explain to patients how acupuncture work I always say this is very simple it literally nudges your body to self-regulate to self heal when I needle a point the minute nerve sends a signal to the central nervous system for your body to self-regulate it&#39;s very simple it doesn&#39;t cure or treat anything it helps the body self-heal this is why it&#39;s awesome and acupuncture rocks when looking at neurology acupuncture points are strategic conductors of electromagnetic signals simulating acupuncture Point induce the release of endorphins which can help in pain management and connecting to the central nervous system when it comes to the immune system acupuncture is great to stimulate a response and stimulate the immune system to release antihistamine for allergies or to help the body really gets its fighter its antigen activated it also is really proven by many studies that acupuncture increased the level of white blood cells balance specific hormones and other substances that can improve immune function and overall health it&#39;s fantastic woohoo when it comes to the circulatory system acupuncture promotes the dilation of blood vessel to improve blood flow this can help reduce blood pressure and support the delivery of oxygen and nutrients to tissues obviously that&#39;s how we reduce inflammation so cool see we can totally explain to patients how acupuncture work in a scientific way because because that&#39;s going to help them really trust your ability to help them because they didn&#39;t go to school and they don&#39;t know Chi and they don&#39;t know the whole gamut of things we learn that are very TCM related right so we want to talk to them in a way they totally grasp and understand acupuncture also can block signals from reaching the brain that&#39;s why it&#39;s used so much in lure of anesthetic when people cannot have asthetic because they&#39;re allergic or there&#39;s issue it is used a lot in dentistry as well to relieve the pain while they&#39;re working on the person&#39;s mouth so cool acupuncture can also trigger the release of various biochemicals such as hormones and neurotransmitters which can regulate and balance the hormones in the body this is what I do a lot when it comes to fertility and Women&#39;s Health and Men&#39;s Health and it reduce inflammation alleviate stress and relieve anxiety this is why totally acupuncture Rox the Meridian system also corresponds to the body fasal Network we totally hear about fascia all the time which is a web of connective tissue surrounding and connecting muscle organs and other tissues well acupuncture works by stimulating the fascia affecting the structural and Functional Health of the body this is so cool right I truly hope that this channel Theory with the Western science behind it can help you understand how you select Point how you treat patients but also how you communicate to your patients the amazing benefits of acupuncture check out the Meridian layers right here to go deeper into the channel Theory and no matter what keep rocking it using TCM

Transcript for:Acupuncture Theory and Meridian System

Transcript for:
Acupuncture Theory and Meridian System