Fighting the body blues with Cupping Therapy
A mid-week physiotherapy session is always a great gift to your body. It helps you release your body pains and beat the fatigue of the busy life. If you too are considering on making it a routine like me (which you should), you might want to try the Cupping therapy! Here’s all you need to know about it.
Cupping therapy is an ancient Chinese form of alternative medicine, a lot like reverse massage. Unlike the conventional way of putting pressure on the body, the structures of the body are lifted up in this technique. Especially recommended to tackle sport-related injuries, and gym related stiffness like the IT Band syndrome, plantar fasciitis, shin splints, sciatica, and frozen shoulder.
Advantages: The suction and negative pressure provided by cupping can loosen muscles, enhance blood flow, and sedate the nervous system. Cupping helps relieve back and neck pains, stiff muscles, anxiety, fatigue, and even acts on the cellulite.
The process: In cupping, certified practitioners create suction on your skin with a specialized glass or plastic cup using heat or an air pump respectively. The 10 to 30 minutes suction pulls the skin slightly up and away from the underlying muscles, allowing blood to circulate under the cup area. This aids muscle health and functionality, clears out pathogens, and boosts the immune response. The negative pressure draws the tissue up into the cup, opening up the body and releasing tension in its structures without the discomfort of force or compression.
Side effects: The therapy is fairly safe, as long as you go to a trained health professional. However, be cautious of mild discomfort, temporary scars that last up to a week, in the area where the cups touch your skin.
A ‘dizzy’ or ‘light-headed’ feeling after the treatment is a common complaint, which can be prevented with a little help to get up after the session and spending a few minutes after to get hydrated. Having said that, it can be safely administered at the frequency of once or twice every week.
Physiotherapist recommendation: Vidushi Vedhera – I have known her forever and swear by her. She’s a sports physiotherapist (also affiliated with the Indian Trap Shooting Team), and a certified soft tissue therapy expert. She’s been helping people of all ages with their posture misalignment, musculoskeletal or sports injuries, and joint arthritis for 7 years now. Her work is to identify the disturbed dynamic pattern of your body first and then correct it with manual therapy and exercises for long-term results. You can connect with her at #vidhushivedhara
You can also visit your regular physiotherapist and ask for a session. I would be surprised if you don’t go back asking for more!
