Chinese Traditional Medicine holds that there are five elements out of which everything is made.  The balance of these elements creates harmony and therefore healthy systems.  Including our bodies.  They assign every organ and function of the body to one of the elements, and they say that the energy of that organ runs through the body through channels called meridians.  When you are sick, a chinese doctor would say that your life energy got stuck in some meridian and it is this unbalance that creates the disease.  They find the element that is unbalanced, the organ, the meridian, and then the point or points on the meridians where the energy got stuck.  In those points they insert needles, which function as energy unblockers making the energy run smoothly again, and makes you recover your health.  As surprising and strange as this philosophy sounds to western ears, it works.  They have used it for thousands of years and continue to do so to date, with amazing results.  Only a very experienced acupuncturist can find the one point that will unblock the whole system and restore your health, however, the knowledge is very applicable, even by not so expert hands.

Aupressure works with the same principle as acupuncture, but without the needles.  It uses just pressure or gentle massage of the meridian points to get the energy flowing again.  This method is completely risk free and it yields results, especially as a means of maintaining health and wellbeing.  You just have to be willing to study your symptoms a little, find the probable culprit, follow the meridian with your finger, and when you find the point that hurts, you have found a blockage.  If you massage or press said point until the pain recedes, you have made the energy flow.  You can continue to follow the meridian and find other painful points and massage them too.  There is no down side, there are no ill side effects to doing this, and wether you believe in the chinese five elements or not, there is no harm and potentially a lot of good in keeping the energy flowing freely through the body.  Give it a try!!

My recommendation is, after doing your daily awareness check, determine which organ or function is bothering you at this time, localize the meridian and unblock it, regardless of anything else you may take for the condition.  An example: my kidneys often suffer from ill effects and I bloat.  I check  and unblock my kidney meridian every night until I get them running efficiently again and the sympptoms subside.  Then I check myself for any other symptom or bother, find the organ, the meridian and do the same.  It is not a once in a lifetime thing, it is more of a maintenance technique.

Think of your energy channels as streets in your city.  You may notice that some points, especially intersections tend to get clogged and others run smoothly.  To keep the traffic going, you need to maintain the street lights, tha state of the streets and probably at times, you need a traffic officer to direct the flow and avoid bottlenecks.  That is what you are doing in your system, maintaining a correct flow of energies through the body. 

It is easy to find meridian charts on the web, just google them.  You can also order on line the charts that accupuncturists use.  Remember, the trick is to find the OUCH points on the meridians, the ones that hurt are blocked.  The ones that are not painful are probably fine and need no meddling.  At the end of this blog I will post a chart for the kidney meridian, you can start with this one, since our kidneys are usually stressed out with all the medications for lupus.