Have you ever wondered about trying cupping massage – you’re not alone. More Canadians than ever are looking into cupping as a means of treating their pain and muscle soreness, as well as for skin care. Like acupuncture, another form of traditional Chinese medicine, cupping massage has seen slow adoption but it’s begun to catch some real steam.
Who uses cupping?
Cupping has been used by Olympic athletes such as Michael Phelps as well as Hollywood celebrities like Jennifer Aniston, Kaley Cuoco, and Busy Phillips. People can identify by the RED circle marks on their bodies. Cupping therapy has also been used by many Instagram influencers, with #cuppingtherapy attached with more than 100,000 posts so far.
Where does cupping come from?
Cupping is an ancient therapy and like acupuncture, it’s 1,000s of years old. Cupping works by boosting blood flow and initiating the body’s natural healing processes. Thankfully, cupping therapy cost is low which makes it accessible to almost everyone with a few extra bucks in spending money. Usually a set of 4 silicone cupping, for example, only takes less than 30$. You can use it as long as you can if use and clean appropriately.
How do you do cupping?
If you’re doing silicone cupping at home, there’s a real art and science to getting it right. The basics of cupping though are to place a silicone cup on the skin’s surface and create suction. Tissue, including skin and fat, get lifted upwards. This helps to break up any stagnancy and engages the muscle fibres as well which is why it’s so good at relaxing tight, achy muscles. The average time to leave on cups is between 2-5 minutes. If you want to do a facial cupping massage, make facial cuppings leave shorter time on the face. You don’t want to overdo it and leave the red mark!
Does cupping therapy work?
A lot of Western medicine experts do not like cupping and won’t entertain the idea that it produces any kind of benefit. Despite that, there are thousands and thousands of people who argue otherwise. They’ve experienced the benefits themselves. With the several benefits of cupping at home, there’s also a lot of individuals applying it themselves post-workout. It is hard to explain the magic of cupping massage, but as long as it works, you should give it a try.
What are the real benefits to cupping?
People use cupping massage for so many different reasons, from silicone cupping for cellulite to headaches. Due to the treatment not being area-specific, you engage the entire body and its systems to promote healing. For this reason, so many internal processes are affected and symptoms of all types can be cured. Here are some of the most common reasons people do cupping.
- Improve mobility.
- Increase range of motion.
- Ease muscle soreness.
- Ease pain, including back pain and neck pain.
- To cure joint stiffness.
- To aid in surgery recovery.
- To help minimize arthritis symptoms.
- Cupping done regularly can reduce the appearance of cellulite on the body although treatments need to continue in order to provide a consistent result.
On people who have cupping done, you may notice round purple bruises or marks. These look painful but they aren’t and they usually fade after a few days. These bruises form from bursting capillaries from the suction. The look is only temporary and fades quickly, while the benefits thankfully last a little while longer. Some experts can identify by the level of darkness of these bruises. Darker marks indicate more moisture weight remains inside the body, and you should apply the cupping massage more often.