The TCM channels and meridians: what they are and how they work

what on Earth are these channels and meridians you know something that is wholly unique in terms of healing modalities in the world is traditional chines medicine not because it has traditional herbal formulas not because it has different lenses to look at health and Illness but because of something very specific the meridian and channel system and the acupuncture points for thousands of years they've been very specific about what symptoms come from what channels and even what points and what regions are used to treat those exact same symptoms but begs the question what on Earth are those channels and what do these points actually do hey guys I'm Dr Alex hin Board license doctor of acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine and author of the health book master of the day so let's jump in so what on Earth are these channels the hippie Californians here where I live now they describe them as energy Pathways I personally don't believe that's true but I wanted to share a story that I found very interesting there's a story about a doctor named Wang ji and there's a book about him and his theories called applied Channel Theory now in this textbook his Protege a man named Jason was on a train with him going through the countryside now he was palpating a point on what we call the stomach channel on the shin area and he was palpating this one zone that deals with what we call large intestin heat something like maybe denter right someone who got like food poisoning or traveler's diarrhea now in particular he was palpating this man's Shin he said this is really unusual this gummy I'm finding here and the man said no you know my bowels are totally fine my GI is fine I don't really have any other issues and he he was like oh well you know it's not 100% it's just one of our diagnostic parameters about 30 minutes later that first man comes back profusely sweating on his face from the bathroom and the man had just confessed that he had actually just began having diarrhea and he was looked at this man as if he was like a fortune teller of some kind and he was like how did you know that this teacher Wang G became quite famous on that bus because of this almost mystical pred you know we think oh this is mus muscles and flesh in tendons but the acupuncture points are not primarily focused on the physical muscle flesh connective tissue and it's about the physiological effect it has on the body now there's another example of an ancient doctor called Jang Jong Jang and he wrote a book that's all about traditional herbal formulas and he has one chapter called Running piglet syndrome and he says in running piglet syndrome the patient feels Chi rushing up into their chest and their throat and they feel as if they are going to die and then it goes away and it comes back sometime later based on the context of that statement would you describe that Chi as energy or would you call that stress hormones so from my point of view these channels are the reservoirs of what we call Chi and I think the reason why this profession is sounded so mystical or pseudoscientific is that people try to think Chi is energy and I do not believe that's true I think that Chi is the complex interplay of bioelectricity of vascular blood flow of lymphatic flow but fundamentally it is a much more complex concept than just saying Chi is energy now one final thing here there's a researcher named Dr Langan and they were studying the relationship between acupuncture meridians and connective tissue their study which appears in something called the anatomical record found an unusually high correspondence between the SES of acupuncture points and connective tissue planes leading these researchers to conclude that the connective tissue plays an important role in the way that acupuncture has specific healing effects and how they are delivered ultimately our ancient medical Classics say that the point of these chi flow and all this Meridian stuff is that when there is an imbalanced flow in one channel related to the organ right we have 12 channels related to certain organs that is the beginning of disease problem is how do you know what is the channel or organ associated with your illness or your weird symptoms to figure that out I've put together something called the root cause quiz according to traditional Chinese medicine these symptoms are most likely linked to these organs or physiological Pathways it's the first link below this video I've put together and we've gone through the most common probably 50 or 100 symptoms my patients have come in with and the questions that you've sent me about symptoms the organs they relate to as well as I've hyperlinked to dozens of our most popular videos on those actual organs and symptoms so if you have digestive Problems download that quiz below the video see which symptom correlates with which organ then go watch the free videos we've hyperlink to we've taken a lot of time to make it a valuable and useful resource so check it out the first link below the video now how do these channels meridians work from the traditional Chinese medicine point of view ancient doctors compared the channels of the body and the points to almost like River causeways you know let's say you have this free flowing river and we'll say this is your digestive system smooth function is like a smooth flowing river there's no logs in the river free flow of chi free proper physiological function is like someone who eats there's no discomfort when they eat they don't have acid reflux they don't get excessive bloating and they don't have a regular bowels when that flow is disrupted the proper function of the digestive system let's say now has a kink in it now that Kink can be a common one the person's overeating significantly or eating heavy heavy calorie standard American diet foods drinking lots of coffee drinking lots of alcohol fried food greasy food now suddenly they're noticing a little bit of indigestion and ancient doctors called that stomach counterflow Chi now how do the channels meridians work from a science point of you there are four main things I want to cover here that will help explain number one is that acupuncture has distinct effects on the electrical currents in the body themselves so for example Studies have found that acupuncture alone can induce measurable changes in the nervous system by stimulating electrically certain points now electroacupuncture is used and using small currents to stimulate acupuncture points has been shown to have efficacy in pain relief and other conditions now the second way acupuncture can affect this is through thermography and also fmri studies so some Studies have shown that by doing thermographic Imaging studies there are changes and skin temperature along the Meridian Pathways after acupuncture and also functional MRI Studies have shown that acupuncture can actually modulate brain activity in specific regions related to pain emotion and sensory processing the third is the good oldfashioned chemicals endorphins so acupuncture has been shown to stimulate the release of endorphins and other neurotransmitters which can help reduce pain inflammation as well as obviously affect your mood and finally you have the dream team of acupuncture stimulating the meridians and channels and also just the physical muscles and flesh can improve blood flow and also lymphatic drainage Studies have found that acupuncture can increase local blood flow around the points being stimulated now that can potentially explain some of the effects on inflammation healing and tissue repair so these mysterious channels very intriguing and very unique to this medicine but they are real in the sense that they are these physiological Pathways that meet to the physical Pathways of the fascia and the Flesh and the connective tissue themselves don't forget guys I work with a limited number of new patients every single week in my clinic in Los Angeles or virtually via tele medicine if you'd like to get in touch go to Dr alex.com clinic or check out the phone number and the email in the description box of this video below you can just call the clinic or email us directly to book with me and before you go I have a great related video on some of the mysteries of acupuncture in Chinese medicine right up there