Everything You Need to Know About Gua Sha

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Gua sha is a natural alternative therapy that involves scraping your skin with a special tool to improve your circulation. Gua sha is intended to eliminate energy stagnation, called chi, in the body that people believe may be responsible for inflammation. 

This ancient Chinese healing technique may offer a unique approach to better health. Now gua sha is used for facial care, although this technique is also suitable for the buttocks, neck, arms, and legs. The method of its use depends on how the product hardness. 

The hard gua sha must be used by a qualified master. The tool leaves microtraumas on the blood vessels of the skin and in inept hands, gua sha can cause severe hematomas. You can use a medium and low hardness tool yourself at home. Gua sha can be made from rose quartz or nephritis. It is unpretentious in care, easy to process and aesthetic. Previously, wood, metals, and bones were used for their production. 

Eliminates a Variety of Problems

Gua sha allows you to affect not only the upper layers of the skin but also the muscles, thereby speeding up the metabolic processes, smooth out wrinkles, and restore body tone. The rejuvenating effect of this tool can be compared with the botox effect. Using gua sha on the neck, you can get rid of muscle hypertonicity and improve posture. Finally, gua sha is used for lymphatic drainage. It accelerates blood flow and removes fluid stagnation. 

There are certain massage schemes for each zone of your body, but on average the procedure is as follows: a specialist lubricates the skin with oil or moisturizer, warms up the area for the procedure kneading it with hands, and then massage the lines that need to be treated with gua sha. Some experts recommend cooling it before use.

Gua sha can also be pre-chilled in the refrigerator if you want. This is a particularly effective technique if you want to use them like patches under your eyes to eliminate swelling and bruising.

Along with cosmetic medicine gua sha is used in holistic medicine to treat liver diseases, migraines, eliminate stagnant processes in the chest, and Tourette’s syndrome. Studies by the Gua Sha Clinic at Nanjing University showed that the device reduces discomfort during menopause. For eight weeks, a group of 80 women had massage therapy once a week. At the end of the experiment, the respondents noted that the sleeping improves, anxiety and tiredness disappeared.

Worth to Remember

Before buying this device for personal use be sure to look at the information about the seller and ask him about the materials with which gua sha is made. Sometimes products can be made from cheap raw materials. If possible, carefully inspect the scraper: the edges should be without scratches and cracks on the surface.

You can use the scraper for several minutes daily, before applying your favorite serum or oil to your face. It’s easy to take care of the scraper: wash it with warm water and soap after each procedure.  Do not forget that rose quartz, which is most often used for scaper production is fragile so do not put excessive pressure on the device, do not drop, and store it in a special case. 

Side Effects and Risks

Gua sha causes capillaries to burst which provokes red or purple bruises, known as sha. The bruises usually disappear a few days or a week after the procedure and can be tender while healing. Applying an ice pack can help to reduce inflammation and ease the pain.

Gua sha practitioners should not break the skin during the treatment, as broken skin increases the possibility of infection, so a gua sha practitioner must sterilize their tools between procedures.

Gua sha is not suitable for everybody. People with medical conditions affecting the skin or veins, deep vein thrombosis, an infection, tumor, or wound that has not healed fully, an implant, such as a pacemaker or internal defibrillator must avoid using gua sha.