Wu Hsing Acupuncture and Medicine (pronounced "woo sing") is a system of Chinese medicine rooted in the Taoist Science of the Five Elements. To understand how this system may benefit you, let us begin by asking the question: What is health?

What is Health?

This question one asks mostly when one is concerned with the return to a state of health from a condition of illness. Take a moment to examine your understanding of health. Do we not sometimes pretend it to be like a car in the garage just back from major service, with everything working? But is health the mere absence of symptoms? Perhaps your concept of health goes beyond this to include a condition of harmony, balance, and happiness that you want to enjoy each moment, each day, each week? Perhaps health also means that you can readily recover from a stressful day or a sleepless night. Being in good health also suggests that all mechanisms of healing are working, so that your body can heal a cut, a sprain, a broken bone, or even a broken heart. In a state of health your immune system is working well and allows you to shake a flu, a fever, or other infection, as well as ward off the effects of stress. Moreover, a healthy mind enables you to think clearly in a healthy way and to choose a balanced lifestyle in regard to food, exercise, rest, and hygiene. In a like manner do we not feed our minds with a good book or exercise our minds in a new class? Do we not nourish and exercise our soul with music and art or by a walk in nature or a reflective meditation, where we are reminded that we ourselves are nature and belong in a larger context? We always cherish these moments of oneness, being held by the Universe itself.

Health is something that we tend to take for granted every day. This is easy to do, since when we are healthy, our minds will be occupied with other matters of life, which is how it should be. Only when we are not well do we realize how illness differs from the state of health. When we have the flu, all we want is for the symptoms to go away. As soon as we recover, we turn our focus back on the goals we want to achieve. Health again becomes something we are able to rely on to get us where we want to go. As a patient of Wu Hsing Health Care, you will have the opportunity to experience a system of healing which incorporates a complete concept of health, where health is seen as reflecting the harmonious functioning of your body, your mind, and your spirit. This connection between body, mind, and spirit is natural, because the essential life-force which keeps all of them well is the same energy. The Chinese called this life-force "Chi-energy."

What is This Life-Force, or Chi-Energy, That Makes Us "Tick?"

The harmony of body, mind, and spirit that we call health depends on the normal and healthy flow of Chi-energy. This energy runs through your body, assuring the optimum functioning of your cells, muscles and bones, glands and organs, nervous system, mind, emotions, and spirit. We could say that this energy is Nature's very sophisticated "software" that runs the "hardware" of normal organ function.

The analogy with software helps us grasp the concept that Chi-energy contains information. This information enables our organs to function smoothly with the ever-changing conditions around us. If something goes wrong with this program, the organism will send out distress signals, which we experience as symptoms. We can see that these symptoms are not a disorder in themselves, but are merely the body's (or mind's or spirit's) cry for help and healing.

As you receive care, the task of the acupuncture practitioner is to hear and interpret these cries. By understanding this "Inner Software" the makeup of our life-force energy, or Chi-the trained acupuncturist can then affect, correct, or repair any blockages and imbalances. This is accomplished by using very fine filament-like needles at specific acupuncture points on the body.