This traditional therapy has not only been used in Asian countries, but can be found as a popular healing method, passed down through generations as a family tradition in the Middle East and other countries like Greece and Poland. In recent years cupping has been growing in popularity, with celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow, Jennifer Aniston, David Arquette, and athlete Michael Phelps drawing public attention to this wonderful therapy.

One of the earliest documentations of cupping can be found in the work titled A Handbook of Prescriptions for Emergencies, which was written by a Taoist herbalist by the name of Ge Hong and which dates all the way back to 300 AD. Cupping is the term applied to a technique that uses small glass cups or bamboo jars as suction devices placed on the skin. There are several ways that a practitioner can create the suction in the cups. One method involves swabbing rubbing alcohol onto the bottom of the cup, then lighting it and putting the cup immediately against the skin. Suction can also be created by placing an inverted cup over a small flame, or by using an alcohol-soaked cotton pad over an insulating material (like leather) to protect the skin, then lighting the pad and placing an empty cup over the flame to extinguish it. 

Flames are never used near the skin and are not lit throughout the process of cupping, but rather are a means to create the heat that causes the suction within the small cups. Once the suction has occurred, the cups can be gently moved across the skin (often referred to as "gliding cupping”). The suction in the cups causes the skin and superficial muscle layer to be lightly drawn into the cup. Cupping is much like the inverse of massage - rather than applying pressure to muscles, it uses gentle pressure to pull them upward. For most patients, this is a particularly relaxing and relieving sensation. Once suctioned, the cups are generally left in place for about ten minutes while the patient relaxes. This is similar to the practice of Tui Na, a traditional Chinese medicine massage technique that targets acupuncture points as well as painful body parts, and is well known to provide relief through pressure.

Generally, cupping is combined with acupuncture in one treatment, but it can also be used alone. The suction and negative pressure provided by cupping can loosen muscles, encourage blood flow, and sedate the nervous system (which makes it an excellent treatment for high blood pressure). Cupping is used to relieve back and neck pains, stiff muscles, anxiety, fatigue, migraines, rheumatism, cellulite, and even the common cold. For weight loss and cellulite treatments, oil is first applied to the skin, and then the cups are moved up and down the surrounding area. Like acupuncture, cupping follows the lines of the meridians.

Cupping is one of the best deep-tissue therapies available. It is thought to affect tissues up to four inches below the skin. Toxins can be released, blockages can be cleared, and veins and arteries can be refreshed within these four inches of affected materials. Even hands, wrists, legs, and ankles can be “cupped,” thus applying the healing to specific organs that correlate with these points. This treatment is also valuable for the lungs, and can clear congestion from a common cold or help to control a person's asthma. In fact, respiratory conditions are one of the most common maladies that cupping is used to relieve. Three thousand years ago, in the earliest Chinese documentation of cupping, it was recommended for the treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis.

Resources

An Updated Review of the Efficacy of Cupping Therapy A 2012 review of studies suggests cupping therapy’s healing power may be more than just a placebo effect.

Web MD. Cupping Therapy

Bentley, B. (2013) Mending the Fascia with Modern Cupping. The Lantern, 10 (3), 4 - 21
Chi, Lee-Mei. The Effectiveness of Cupping Therapy on Relieving Chronic Neck and Shoulder Pain: A Randomized Controlled Trial
Boris V. Dons'Koi. Repeated Cupping Manipulation Temporary Decreases Natural Killer Lymphocyte Frequency, Activity and Cytoxicity