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Cupping Therapy: An Ancient Practice Extending From East to West
Cupping is a therapy that has been around for thousands of years. It has been traced to ancient African cultures as well as China, Japan, Greece and Rome. However, the question must be asked: does it work?
The flight to Kuala Lumpur landed at around 9:00 AM on a rainy Saturday morning in 2006. After a 30-hour flight that started in Miami and made stops in Chicago and Tokyo, I felt that buzzing in my ears that told me a bout of severe jet-lag was about to follow.
This was one of the many times I had been to Asia and my body had still not learned to deal with the twelve hour or so difference in time between Eastern Standard and the Far East. All of my previous trips to the Orient always seemed abysmal. Besides falling asleep in meetings, I was never able to sleep at night. My brain was never quite in-sink with the time zone. In the morning I wanted to sleep; at night I wanted to jog around the block.
After trying everything from melatonin to sleeping pills, someone suggested acupuncture. So when I arrived at the hotel, I asked the bellhop for a good place nearby I could go where some Eastern magic could be performed that would get my circadian rhythm…
