Cupping is an ancient practice used almost universally in traditional healing arts. It is still practiced today in many forms of holistic medicine.

Cupping uses specialized glass or rubber cups to draw out congested fluids, blood, and localized toxins, making it very useful to resolve colds, flus, and other acute respiratory disorders. Acupuncturists apply cupping to treat acute colds based on the principle that a pathogenic factor such as Cold or Wind has penetrated the tissues causing stagnation, and therefore the achiness, fatigue and other symptoms.

Massage therapists and manual therapists can use cupping as a bodywork modality to provide relief from pain and tension by separating stuck muscle and connective-tissue layers. Cupping acts as a myofascial release technique and is an effective treatment for large areas of sore muscles. It is excellent in combination with massage to treat soreness and tension in the back, hips and legs.

As the cups draw congested fluids and toxins to the skin surface there is often a discoloration called “sha” that can look like a rash or a bruise. This is a normal part of the process of resolving stagnation in the muscles, and the sha typically fades in a few days.

Although cupping is an ancient technique there is some current research for its effectiveness including this article from the Mayo Clinic on cupping therapy for fibromyalgia.

The most traditional style of cupping is fire cupping which uses a simple glass cup that looks like a small fishbowl where a vacuum is created using a flame that is inserted briefly into the cup, the flame never contacts the client’s skin. Also commonly used are rubber or silicon cups with built-in suction. More info about styles of cupping here.

Cupping disinfection guide

In traditional Chinese medicine the organs are considered to be not only the solid structures we recognize in modern Western medicine, but also a sphere of influence that can include cellular, hormonal, muscle-skeletal, emotional, energetic, and inter-organ functions.

In traditional Chinese medicine theory there are twelve organs (zangfu), each with a yin or yang assignment which describes something important about its nature. In this article, to distinguish the Chinese medicine conception of the organs as opposed to the Western medicine conception the names of the organs will be capitalized.

Yin (zang) organs are solid organs that store qi, blood, fluids, or other substances. They generally benefit from nourishment and suffer from depletion. Yang (fu) organs are hollow and are meant to be active in transformation and movement of substances, not storage. They generally benefit from harmonizing and moving and suffer from stagnation.

The Lung, Heart, Spleen/Pancreas, Liver, Kidney, and Pericardium organs are yin. They store substances. The most Yin organ of all is the Kidneys, being the Water element, a very yin element, and located low in the body. The Kidneys store our most important substance the jing, our ancestral life-force. 

The Large Intestine, Small Intestine, Stomach, Gallbladder, and Triple-Burner organs are yang. They are hollow and use the qi to digest, transform, extract nutrients, and eliminate waste.

Zangfu is an important component of diagnosis and treatment for internal medicine and of particular use with herbal medicine.

Relaxed abdominal breathing is fundamental for health and wellness

Along with bringing the body into a parasympathetic “rest and digest” mode, it is the body’s most efficient way to expand the lungs while also preventing unnecessary neck tension.

The diaphragm is a parachute shaped muscle that occupies our entire midsection and can be thought of as shaped like two merged umbrellas which attach from our lumbar spine around the entire bottom and front of the rib cage.

The lungs are shaped like two jelly fish that start at the tip of the shoulder where it meets the neck, just under the scalenes muscles, and then each lung drapes down over the double umbrella shape of the diaphragm. When the lungs are expanded the diaphragm is contracted down so belly breathing contracts the diaphragm, which pushes down on the soft abdominal organs, expanding the abdomen. This draws the lungs downward, because they’re draped over the diaphragm, and thanks to negative pressure in the pleural cavity.

The close relationship between neck tension and breathing is due to the location of the lungs, which sit rather high in the chest cavity and only extend as low as about the 8th rib, leaving two rib spaces worth of empty pleural cavity.

When we are not breathing with the abdomen we are chest breathing and using our accessory muscles of breathing, the scalenes and sternocleidomastoid

These overworked muscles attach onto our upper two ribs from a large portion of the sides of the cervical spine and from the bottom portion of the back of the skull to the collar bone, respectively.

These muscles can easily get chronically tight when chest breathing is predominate. Not to mention that all that prime abdominal real estate space of pleural cavity that is underused down there at the 9th through 11th ribs when chest breathing is in action. So, relax, take a breath, and notice the difference.

Resources
Kendall, F., McCreary, E., Provance, P., Rodgers, M., Romai, W. (2005). Muscles testing and function with posture and pain (5th ed.). PA, USA: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.