Overview of Energy Medicine

The term “energy medicine” refers to numerous forms of treatment that interact with the subtle electromagnetic fields that run through and around the body.

Probably the most familiar of these treatments in the United States are acupuncture / acupressure and homeopathy, but others such as reiki, laser and other forms of light therapy, chi gung, jin shin jitsu, and many others are gradually gaining in popularity.

The energy medicine techniques I use in my office are all applications of acupressure and/or laser acupuncture (no needles and painless), typically paired with a method of assessment known as Applied Kinesiology, which is also sometimes called “muscle testing”.

Muscle testing is somewhat controversial and there are quite a few skeptics out there, but for most of the patients I use it with, seeing – or perhaps more correctly, feeling – is believing, and it’s quite remarkable just how accurate it can be.

Frankly, energy medicine stuff can be kind of weird. In fact, I don’t think there’s much point in me actually demonstrating the techniques in this explanation, because it just looks kind of hokey and it’s hard for an outside observer to really understand what I’m doing – it’s something you kind of have to experience.

I will give you a basic overview of the concepts of energy medicine though.

Let’s start with the body’s energy field. You’re probably aware that nerves act kind of like wires to carry electrical signals to and from the muscles and organs of the body.

Well, there are other electromagnetic fields in the body that don’t use “wires”.

For instance, acupuncture meridians are energy pathways in the body that allow for communications between organs and systems through a system of energy relay points – kind of like the cell phone towers of the body.

The body also puts off subtle electromagnetic fields that surround it, similar to the field that any electrical machine or device puts off – but much lower in intensity.

One of the criticisms of energy medicine is that, although there’s limited research on the clinical benefits of some treatments like acupuncture, there’s essentially no research on how the body’s energy systems actually work.

In large part, this is due to the fact that the body’s electrical fields are so tiny. Just a single electric light puts off an electric field many times greater than what the body produces.

When you add in electrical outlets and computers and other equipment plugged into them, it makes it next to impossible to isolate the body’s electromagnetic fields to perform any kind of in-depth analysis of them.

Think of it like this – if you shine a flashlight on a wall in a dark room, you can clearly see the light the flashlight is producing and measure the characteristics of it.

But shine that same flashlight on a wall in a brightly lit room, and it’s much harder to see and evaluate the light of flashlight separately from the ambient light.

Well, there’s so much ambient electromagnetic field around us at all times, trying to study the body’s electromagnetic field is kind of like looking at a flashlight beam on a wall lit up by thousands of watts worth of industrial searchlights!

Nonetheless, research is kind of the Holy Grail in Western medicine, so the lack of data on the body’s electromagnetic system makes it a subject of great skepticism, to say the least, for many in the medical community.

What sceptics often overlook is that although little is really known about the body’s energy fields, there is evidence that external electromagnetic fields (EMFs) do have documented effects on the body.

A wide variety of symptoms and adverse effects associated with high/prolonged EMF exposure have been reported in the scientific literature.

Is it really such a leap then, that correcting disturbances in the body’s energy fields could have beneficial effects? I leave that to decide for yourself.

Although there are various techniques for evaluating the body in energy medicine, as I said previously, I mostly use Applied Kinesiology (AK for short), which is commonly known as “muscle testing”.

There is research evidence that AK is not just some trick or placebo effect – as critics often suggest as the mechanism for it specifically and energy medicine in general.

Just as an aside, even if energy medicine only has a placebo effect, if it provides lasting relief of symptoms, does it really matter if the treatment is placebo or “real”? Again, I leave you to your own opinion.

Getting back to evidence for AK muscle testing, the muscular weakness seen with reactions to tested substances or stimuli can be documented with electromyography equipment.

In other words, when a tested muscle goes weak, there is an objective, measurable decrease in the electrical nerve signals to the weakened muscle.

While AK testing can certainly be faked, when done legitimately, it can provide useful information on the effects certain substances and stimuli have on a given individual’s energy system.

The basic concept is that we can use AK testing – essentially, pushing on your arm to see if it goes weak, to determine what’s causing interference with your body’s electrical system.

In case you’re wondering – it doesn’t matter how strong the person being tested is relative to the person doing the testing.

I once had occasion to muscle test a professional heavyweight bodybuilder. I quite literally could have done pull-ups on his extended arm, but the first time we hit a weak response, his arm dropped with a light push from me.

He looked a bit startled and said he wasn’t ready, and to test it again. The second try had the same result. He said he still wasn’t ready. The third time it was the same thing – his arm dropped with little resistance.

He asked to try it one more time, but to give him a moment to prepare. He visibly psyched himself up, huffing and puffing, veins popping out on his head and when he growled, “Do it now!” his arm still dropped.

I was relieved that he laughed in disbelief that the skinny guy had pushed his arm down like it was nothing. He was relieved when I explained what was happening…

Because it’s the nerve signals, not the muscle that’s changing, even very strong individuals will go weak when something messes with their body’s electrical field.

It’s kind of like a light that has a dimmer switch – when I turn down the electricity, the light gets weaker, but the light bulb is unchanged.

This alteration in the flow of electricity obviously affects the strength of the arm muscle being tested, but it goes well beyond that.

All the muscles, and everything else that is controlled by the nervous system is affected in one way or another, so while people often come to me because they’ve been told that I treat something like allergies, or digestive problems, or gout, that’s not really what I’m doing.

I’m correcting the function of the body’s electrical system, and that in turn often results in improved function in the systems that are producing their symptoms, whatever they may be.

I think that covers the basics of energy medicine in general, at least in how I use it. For more details…

Click here to learn about the specific energy medicine techniques I use in my office.