Ear acupuncture or auricular acupuncture is a complementary therapy that specializes in acupuncture points that are located on the outer ear through use of needles or electro acupuncture methods in order to provide relief for many chronic complaints. The outer ear consists of as many as two hundred acupuncture points and each point has a unique name that generally refers to a particular part of the anatomy.

The Ear Acts as a Switchboard to the Brain

The function of the outer ear is to act as a kind of a switchboard to the brain and every acupuncture point on the ear, when treated provides electrical impulses from the ear through the brain to the specific part of the body that is being treated. Ear acupuncture thus implies that if a person has a painful knee then by treating the knee acupuncture point on the ear it would cause the patient to feel relief.

Ear acupuncture is widely used within Oriental medicine and the ear is but one part of the micro system which is used for treating ailments that occur in other parts of the body. Ear acupuncture is often used as a primary mode of treatment or together with other full body treatments. Many people wrongly think that ear acupuncture originated in the Orient but it was really a French physician named Dr. Nogier whose work in the 1950s was presented at a conference in Germany and which greatly interested researchers in China.

Ear acupuncture is one of the many holographic systems that in theory feel that the whole body can be represented diminutively within the body itself. The basic theory concerning ear acupuncture is that it is possible for therapeutic intervention to take place wherein the auricle of the outside of the ear is used to provide relief from pain, dysfunction as well as disease. The ear's auricle is a complete micro system of the human body and it also represents all vertebrae, sympathetic/parasympathetic nerves, spinal nerves, visceral organs and also the central nervous system and consists of over 200 acupuncture points.

Ear acupuncture is greatly used for treating many conditions including addictions, mood disorders, obesity, pain as well as other miscellaneous conditions. The acupuncture points that exist on the ear are helpful in regulating the internal organs of the body, as well as structures and functions. An acupuncturist may select a few ear acupoints which may be helpful in providing relief to the patient.