Cupping Therapy

What is it and how does it work?

The cups can be made of glass, plastic or silicone.  A vacuum is created in the cups, then placed on your body, where the skin, fascia, and connective tissue are drawn into the cup.  This suction draws blood flow to the area while creating space between all the layers of your body.  Cupping can also help to regulate and balance the body.

One way to think about cupping is that it is the inverse of massage. Rather than applying pressure to muscles, the suction uses pressure to pull skin, tissue and muscles upward.  Static cupping is performed by leaving the suction cups stationary to release adhesions. This type of cupping is more likely to leave cupping marks on the clients skin.  Dynamic cupping is the application and continuous gliding of the cup over the muscles.  Dynamic cupping not only feels amazing , reducing pain and tension but also leaves behind little to no cupping marks as compared to static cupping. It is a favorite of many clients!

The Effects of Cupping Therapy

When injuries occur deep in the muscle, bleeding often occurs causing deep bruises and edema in the area (involving the clotting of sticky proteins).  The combining presence of these elements usually results in stagnation of circulation to the area – resulting in pain, dysfunction, and chronic conditions.  The vacuum formed by cupping draws up the old non-circulating stagnant blood and sticky fluids from the area, bringing them up to the surface and away from the injury so that healthy free circulation can be restored to the affected area, thus creating space for oxygen, living cells and nutrients for faster recovery.

Where there is dead, static blood, lymph, cellular debris, pathogenic factors, and toxins present in the body, cupping can leave marks which indicates that the stagnation has been moved from the deeper tissue layers to the surface.

Cupping therapy can greatly benefit the body in many ways:

• Create relaxation of muscles and local tissues
• Help to loosen adhesions in the (fascia) connective tissues around muscles and significantly improve tissue flexibility
• Stimulate lymph and promote blood flow to the injured or restricted area and increase healing to injured tissues
• Detoxify tissues which have been chronically tight and inflexible.

Unrestricted and proper circulation is essential for any healing process to occur in our bodies.  By encouraging blood to an area, we promote blood flow and stimulate a beneficial healing immune response.  Fresh blood brings more oxygen to the local area, and as our bodies clear away the marks, it will naturally clear up all the accumulated toxins and stagnated blood in the surrounding tissue.

When the skin and tissue are drawn upwards, there is a physical space that is created between skin, fascia, and muscle. This encourages circulation where it may have been obstructed and helps to release knotted and adhered tissue.

Cupping performed along the back and spine can help to regulate the nervous system by calming the sympathetic (fight or flight) nervous system.  Many conditions can be attributed to chronic stress – the over stimulation of our fight or flight systems.  When our bodies and minds are relaxed, healing can finally take place.

Light moving /dynamic cupping can really target the lymphatic system. By applying just the right amount of pressure, while directing the movement towards major lymphatic centers, cupping can effectively clear out fluid build up while stimulating the lymph system.

Cupping marks are NOT BRUISES!

Cupping marks appear due to restriction in the connective tissue (fascia) as well as in the underlying muscle.  So if the area is not circulating well, there will usually be darker cup marks.  Healthy tissue that is unrestricted has good flow of circulation and generally has no marks at all or a little pinkness at best that usually disappears shortly after the treatment.  The most common misunderstanding regarding one of the most powerful and beneficial after effects of cupping, is the marks that sometimes result.  I highly encourage clients to continue to do the cupping and possibly even buy a set to do it at home (with the proper training), because the benefits increase over time guaranteed.  Also, the more often you do it, the faster and better the results are.  My cupping marks were a dark purple to an almost black colour when I had my first cycle of treatments and now it’s only pink in the same areas as circulation improved and the area healed. Any discomfort or intensity also lessens over time to a point that it feels amazing to have cupping.

In many countries – this is a non-issue as they’ve experienced themselves the amazing detoxifying effects suction therapy can provide.  However,  in some industrialized countries where Allopathic (western) Medicine still over-shadows more holistic, natural approaches, these surface discolourations are misinterpreted as damage rather the result of debilitating agents being drawn to the surface. Westerners also live in an image conscious society, so without sufficient understanding some people are unnerved upon seeing this important after effect.  Once people understand what these marks are, and feel the results – the concerns disappear.

The colour and pattern of the marks depend on the level of stagnation in the area, and range from a bright red to dark purple, usually lasting three days to a week – sometimes longer if the person is sedentary or very sick.  If there is no stagnation present, there will be only a pink marking which disappears in a few minutes to a couple of hours.  If the person receiving treatment sweats alot on a daily basis – no marks may ever occur.  People who live/work/play in toxic environments (or have been/are exposed to a heavy dose of toxic material) may consistently mark.

Sites where there is old trauma or injury may require multiple cupping treatments to remove all stagnation. You will find in follow up treatments the marks will be progressively lighter as the pathogens are systemically removed from the body.

Complement your next massage by adding cupping therapy to your treatment – your body will thank you!

Other Services

Myofascial Release

Trigger Point Therapy

Swedish Massage

LOCATION

57 Dundas Way
Markham, ON L6E 0R7

OPEN HOURS

Monday 12 pm – 6 pm
Tuesday 12 pm – 7 pm
Thursday 12 pm – 7 pm
Friday 12 pm – 6 pm
Saturday: 9 am – 3 pm

CONTACT ME

Angela Samuels, RMT
57 Dundas Way
Markham, ON L6E 0R7
info@angelasamuelsrmt.ca
647-284-0651

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