These are real cups that are applied to the skin and are part of the external therapies used in the complex and articulated world of traditional Chinese medicine.

Let ‘s take a closer look at cupping, how and when it is practiced and what benefits it gives .

The practice of cupping 

Among the external techniques of Chinese medicine , that is those that do not include the intake of specific herbs or preparations or do not contemplate work on internal energy through movement as in the case of qi gong , we have cupping , together with tui na massage and moxibustion.

Also known as cupping , it implies a real aspiration on the skin locally through cups, which often resemble real glass containers of yogurt with a more rounded shape; sometimes they are also glass, bamboo and ceramic mugs. It is also used in India, Korea and Japan and was brought to the West by the Austrian doctor Bernard Aschner.

The application usually lasts from 5 to 20 minutes and no longer because it actually creates a very strong stimulus: the cups are applied on the so -called reflex zones of the body . What does it mean? That in our body the areas of the back or the foot or the face host specific points that are energetically connected to certain internal organs; by doing so, one goes to act on the internal organ and on the apparatus which reports a state of general disorder.

With cupping, excess “humors” are removed and it can be blood, phlegm, yellow bile, black bile, according to the ancient oriental tradition that is so similar to “ours” of Paracelsus.

There are two ways to operate: in fact, there is hot cupping and cold cupping :

1. 1. in hot cupping, flames are heated inside the cup: thus the volume of air decreases and aspiration takes place.

1. in cold cupping glass bells are used with a valve at their apex to which a rubber balloon is applied. The effect of the latter is generally softer and slower.