Acupuncture: Moving the Chi

Even the Sun Stands Still

2011-12-22T08:35:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

I got a late start leaving a meeting last week and wound up cycling home in the dark at 4 p.m. I’d have to say that the short winter days are one of the most challenging aspects of life in the northern tier, but things are turning around. Today the Winter Solstice will take place in Seattle at 9:30 p.m. (5:30, tomorrow, Coordinated Universal Time), marking the end of our ever-longer nights and the return of light.

Not to lessen the significance of Christmas, Hanukkah or any of the other festivals of lights, but this astrological event is the original reason for the season. The Earth is tilted on its axis at, on average, a 23.5-degree angle and today is when the North Pole is farthest from the sun, causing it to appear to rise and set in the same place. We call it the first day of winter, and while the days will now grow longer by increments until the Summer Solstice in June, the average temperature of the “top” part of the globe will continue to drop as the oceans slowly lose the heat they still store from the warm summer months.

Humans can hardly think without resorting to metaphor and there is none more profound than this. It’s not an accident that this is a time for reflection as well as celebrating new beginnings. It’s not an accident that we seek out the people who mean the most to us, family and friends, those we love and without whom we live in perpetual winter. It’s not an accident that Christians retell the story of the birth of a child, the son of God, the light of hope in a darkened world. It’s not an accident that we give one another gifts and wish each other merriness, happiness and cheer – the darkness is passing, buck up, light is returning, have hope.

Winter is often used as a metaphor for death, but the comparison is superficial. The trees may not have leaves, the forests may have been temporarily emptied by hibernation and migration, there may be fewer children on the play grounds and at the beaches, and it may stay that way for some months to come, but we shouldn't mistake stillness for death.

The word “Solstice” comes from the Latin phrase for “sun stands still.” We spend the rest of the year in motion, moving forward, making progress. But if we can hold still long enough to listen, we hear winter whispering to slow down, take stock, cut back, rest, tend to the core of what makes life worthy of its name. All is calm. All is bright.

Even the sun stands still today.

This post was created by "Teacher Tom" in his blogpost, "Even the Sun Stands Still": (http://teachertomsblog.blogspot.com/2011/12/even-sun-stands-still.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TeacherTom+%28Teacher+Tom%29)

Living Well and Fully in the Autumn

2011-10-05T11:46:00.000-07:00

The following article, "Suggestions for living well and fully in the Fall" was written by my colleague, Barbara Catlin, L.Ac. She is teaching a workshop on Oct. 8, 2011, called Conscious Living and Conscious Dying, in Columbia, MD. See the end of the article for the link to her workshop.

by Barbara Tansill Catlin

The energy of Fall supports us in letting go, in allowing life to be exactly as it is, in giving acknowledgment and respect. Here are ways to make the most of your autumn season:

1. Assess personal values.
What do I value? Am I living in accordance with these values? If not, what needs to go? What needs to come in?
* Let go of detrimental relationships.
* Loosen your grip on ideas and habits that no longer serve.
* Recycle or throw away things that are no longer useful.
2. Acknowledge those who are important.
Who is precious to me? Have I let them know?
* Send a letter of gratitude or flowers of celebration to those who have helped you, those who inspire you, those you love.
* Is there anyone I have left out of my daily life because of anger or fear?
* If forgiveness is necessary, is it time to ask for it? Time to extend it?
* Am I able to make the phone call, write the letter, show up for a visit? If not, what else might be done to clear the way for healing?
3. Notice the daily rhythm of your life from sun-up to sundown.
Do I feel ease as I move through the tasks of my day? Do I feel hurried and overwhelmed? Does the rhythm of my day promote order and peace?
* Create a structure/schedule that serves your natural rhythm. Notice how you feel differently at the beginning and end of each day.
4. Accept life just as it is.
Do I resist part of my life? What parts? What person, place, thing, or idea needs to be incorporated? Transformed? Let go?
* Resolve to either make the change or let it go.

Barbara Tansill Catlin practices acupuncture in Columbia, MD. Learn more about her work at www.biggerconversations.org including "Conscious Living & Conscious Dying", an event for both professionals and the general public on October 8, 2011.

Sleep: Recharging Your Power

2010-11-27T10:12:00.000-08:00

In winter, nature sleeps. If you are having trouble sleeping, (in winter or anytime of the year) you aren't re-charging your batteries like you should, and you might be feeling tired, fuzzy-headed or even sick during the day. Studies have shown that you are more susceptible to chronic health problems (cardio-vascular illness, diabetes, immune problems, for example) if you are not getting your 8 hours of sleep. Here are 33 suggestions for you to consider as you plan how to remedy your re-charging problem.

Optimizing Your Sleep Sanctuary

1. Sleep in complete darkness, or as close to it as possible. Even the tiniest bit of light in the room can disrupt your internal clock and your body's production of hormones. Light signals your brain that it’s time to wake up and starts preparing your body for ACTION.
2. Keep the temperature in your bedroom cool. Studies show that the optimal room temperature is between 60 to 68 degrees. Keeping your room cooler or hotter can lead to restless sleep.
3. Move alarm clocks and other electrical devices away from your bed. If these devices must be used, keep them as far away from your bed as possible, preferably at least 3 feet, and especially away from your head. Electrical fields in the bedroom will keep you awake.
4. Remove your clock from view. It will only add to your worry when you stare at it all night.
5. Avoid using loud alarm clocks. It is very stressful on your body to be suddenly jolted awake. If you are regularly getting enough sleep, an alarm may even be unnecessary.
6. Reserve your bed for sleeping and sex. No watching TV or doing work in bed.
7. Consider separate bedrooms. Recent studies suggest, for many people, sharing a bed with a partner (or pets) can significantly impair sleep.

Preparing for Bed

8. Get to bed as early as possible. Your body (particularly your adrenal system) does a majority of its recharging between the hours of 11 p.m. and 1 a.m., and your gallbladder dumps toxins during this same period. Prior to the widespread use of electricity, people would go to bed shortly after sundown, as most animals do, and which nature intended for humans as well.
9. Don't change your bedtime. You should go to bed and wake up at the same times each day, even on the weekends. This will help your body to establish a sleep rhythm.
10. Establish a bedtime routine. This could include meditation, deep breathing, or reading. The key is to find something that makes you feel relaxed, then repeat it each night.
11. Don't drink any fluids within 2 hours of going to bed. This will reduce the likelihood of needing to get up and go to the bathroom.
12. Go to the bathroom right before bed. This will reduce the chances that you'll wake up to go in the middle of the night.
13. Eat a high-protein snack several hours before bed. This can provide the L-tryptophan needed for your melatonin and serotonin production.
14. Also eat a small piece of fruit. This can help the tryptophan cross your blood-brain barrier.
15. Avoid before-bed snacks, particularly grains and sugars. These will raise your blood sugar and delay sleep. Later, when blood sugar drops too low (hypoglycemia), you may wake up and be unable to fall back asleep.
16. Take a hot bath, shower or sauna before bed. When your body temperature is raised in the late evening, it will fall at bedtime, facilitating slumber. The temperature drop from getting out of the bath signals your body it’s time for bed.
17. Wear socks to bed. Feet often feel cold before the rest of the body because they have the poorest circulation. A study has shown that wearing socks reduces night waking. As an alternative, you could place a hot water bottle near your feet at night.
18. Wear an eye mask to block out light. It is very important to sleep in complete darkness. But it's not always easy to block out every stream of light using curtains, blinds or drapes, particularly if you live in an urban area (or if your spouse has a different schedule than you do). Wearing an eye mask will help.
19. Put your work away at least one hour before bed (preferably two hours or more). This will give your mind a chance to unwind so you can go to sleep feeling calm.
20. No TV right before bed. Even better, get the TV out of the bedroom. It’s too stimulating to the brain, preventing you from falling asleep quickly. TV disrupts your pineal gland function.
21. Listen to relaxation CDs. Some people find the sound of white noise or nature sounds to be soothing for sleep.
22. Read something spiritual or uplifting. This may help you relax. Don't read anything stimulating, such as a mystery or suspense novel, which has the opposite effect.
23. Journaling. If you often lay in bed with your mind racing, it might be helpful to keep a journal and write down your thoughts before bed.

Lifestyle Suggestions That Enhance Sleep

24. Reduce or avoid as many drugs as possible. Many drugs, either prescription or over the counter may adversely affect sleep. Look up the side effects of the drugs you are taking and see if your meds are the culprit.
25. Avoid caffeine. At least one study has shown that, in some people, caffeine is not metabolized efficiently, leaving you feeling its effects long after consumption. Be aware that some medications or supplements contain caffeine.
26. Avoid alcohol. Although alcohol will make you drowsy at first, the effect is short lived and you will often wake up several hours later, unable to fall back asleep. Alcohol will also keep you from entering the deeper stages of sleep, where your body does most of its healing.
27. Make certain you get regular exercise. Exercising for at least 30 minutes per day can improve your sleep. However, don't exercise too close to bedtime or it may keep you awake.
28. Lose excess weight. Being overweight can increase your risk of sleep apnea, which can seriously impair your sleep.
29. Avoid foods you may be sensitive to. This is particularly true for sugar, grains, and pasteurized dairy. Sensitivity reactions can cause excess congestion, gastrointestinal upset, bloating and gas, or other problems.
30. If you are menopausal or peri-menopausal, get checked out by a physician. The hormonal changes at this time may cause sleep problems if not properly addressed.
31. Tell your acupuncturist if you are having sleep problems. Regular treatment with acupuncture or herbs may help you establish the correct body rhythms.

If All Else Fails

32. Increase your melatonin. Ideally it is best to increase levels naturally with exposure to bright sunlight in the daytime (along with full spectrum fluorescent bulbs in the winter) and absolute complete darkness at night. If that isn’t possible, you may want to consider a melatonin supplement. In scientific studies, melatonin has been shown to increase sleepiness, help you fall asleep more quickly and stay asleep, decrease restlessness, and reverse daytime fatigue.

(These suggestions have been derived and edited from Mercola.com)

Abundance--Not Scarcity

2010-07-17T11:46:00.000-07:00

There is Abundance, Not Scarcity

Paul (not his real name) arrived at my office the other day, while I was on the phone with a prospective patient. He overheard me telling the caller that the best plan might be to go to one of my colleagues closer to where she lived, making treatment more convenient.

After the call, Paul shook his head. “Do you know how unusual your brand of medicine is?” He continued: “Any medical doctor you call would try to convince you that theirs was the ONLY practice for you. They wouldn’t give you the telephone number of a competitor. That’s the LAST thing they would do.”

He also reminded me how he eventually came to me: he had called an acupuncturist about 15 miles away and that person in turn referred him to me because it would be a better fit (location, health issue, etc.).

Paul works for the medical insurance industry, and he has been around western medicine for a long time. This seems to be the first time he has run into what I’ll call the “abundance model.” The Abundance Model (my term) says that there’s no shortage of sick people. It also says that for every person I refer to a colleague, I will likely get two additional calls from new clients. (Honest, it’s true, not just a theory.)

In my teaching career at the acupuncture institute, I know many of my colleagues and have referred many clients to them. So if you encounter a practice (of any kind) where there seems to be an air of stiff competition, you might be dealing with someone who is more concerned about his/her profits than about your well-being.

Do you have a sense of suffering in your life around scarcity? Competition?

Did you compete for your grades in school? (Can’t everyone get an A?) Do you like to have the newest smart phone on the day it is issued? (So what happens if you have to wait another week or two?)

What if your orientation to life becomes “abundance?” What if you just knew in your bones that there is enough for everyone?

And if that becomes the way you think, then how much of your suffering would cease?

Tough Love

2010-02-21T06:29:00.000-08:00

In the past several weeks I’ve found myself being a real hard-ass.

One of my clients has neck pain and headaches. I have advised her on several occasions to wear a scarf and hat in the cold wind of winter, because her head and neck pain were exacerbated by cold and wind. Last week she came in with a wet head (she got up late and washed her hair and didn’t dry it be fore leaving the house, and then didn’t cover it before heading out into 25 degree weather.) Her expectation was that I would “fix” her headache and neck pain.

Enter the hard-ass. I told her that if she refused to wear a hat and scarf, or went out with a wet head, I would refuse to treat her and that her pain was her own damned fault. Yesterday, she came in with a scarf and hat. I was relieved, and, it turned out, she was in less pain.

Sometimes getting tough is the only tool I have left. Acupuncture WON’T fix a problem that we are continually creating by our behaviors. Acupuncture won’t make you thin if you continue unhealthy eating habits. Acupuncture won’t help you sleep if you stay up all night on the computer and don’t help yourself with good nighttime sleep habits.

So look at what you are doing to sabotage your own health. We are all in the position to make changes that help us to achieve the results we are looking for.

Acupuncture and The Insurance Issue: An Inside Look

2010-02-07T08:50:00.000-08:00

This post was from Dr. Lisa Nash, a chiropractor in Vermont. It was taken from PerennialMedicine, a listserve on Yahoo for acupuncturists and those who are in a larger conversation about healthcare, as opposed to "fix-it" medicine. Dr. Nash has graciously permitted a reprint of her words.

Dear friends,

I am a chiropractor and so a member of a profession which has gone from being excluded from the insurance game to being a player within the last thirty-some years. While chiropractic and Chinese medicine differ in many important regards, I think some aspects of my profession's experience are likely relevant to you as you--individually and collectively--consider how you want to engage with the insurance industry.

Industry--there's the key word. Insurance is an industry, born of an industrial paradigm and keyed to the sensibilities of an industrial society. While those sensibilities are changing a bit as we move from an industrial to an "information" age, the basic assumptions are not radically transforming. Insurance is wedded to, inextricable from, a view of the body as a thing (an old fashioned machine or a computer, take your pick), and to a view of illness and injury as technical problems to be "fixed" or "solved" in the most expedient way possible.

Everything about the process of dealing with insurance hammers this point home. One must reduce the living patient--a unique spark of Divine creativity manifest here on Earth--to a set of numbers otherwise known as diagnostic codes. One must likewise reduce one's experience of and work with this person to a set of procedure codes, and one must make sure that one's notes justify the numbers one has chosen in both cases. This is not optional. If one is going to play the insurance game, one must play by these rules. Sure, people bend them all the time, but to do so compromises one's integrity in ways that are subtle but pervasive and powerful, and also puts one's financial security--the very security most of us are seeking when we choose to bill insurance--at risk. Here in Vermont, insurance companies have taken to auditing chiropractors' notes and demanding that the chiropractors repay the insurance companies--to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars--if there is any sign of discrepancy between the diagnosis and procedure codes and the chiropractor's notes.

The real issue is not the hassle of dealing with insurance--this is truly a technical problem which is easily managed in a variety of ways. The deeper question is whether the insurance paradigm is commensurable with the paradigm of Chinese medicine, and if not, what engaging with the insurance industry will do to your soul, as individual practitioners and as a community of healers.

Americans are prone to believe that we as individuals or minorities can engage with these vast collective entities and transform them from within. We tend to consistently over-estimate the power of the individual and to underestimate the power of the collective. Looking at the history of chiropractic's enfoldment by insurance, I would say that the collective entity has had far more effect upon us than we have had upon it.

Before the 1970's, chiropractors served a small minority of their communities but were greatly trusted and often beloved within those communities. Most were low-tech, high-touch family doctors, similar in tone, although not in method, to the allopathic family doctors of earlier generations. The trust and love were, I believe, rooted in part in the fact that chiropractors lived close to the economic standards of the (often working class) communities they served.

Since the 1970's, many chiropractors have gotten quite wealthy, but because the insurance paradigm defines us as musculoskeletal specialists, we are increasingly working as--and rightly viewed by the public--as such. Here in Vermont and in some other, mostly rural or poor urban, communities some chiropractors still play a wider role, one more in keeping with our profession's historical roots and beliefs, but we are the exception, not the rule. Meanwhile, I do not see that the insurance industry has become significantly more receptive to the understanding of the soma, health, and healing that was traditionally embedded within chiropractic thought and practice.

While chiropractors have undoubtedly gained a certain measure of credibility among allopaths in the years since we gained insurance recognition, we still serve a tiny minority of the public (less than 10%), and I would say that we have sacrificed some of the love and trust we historically enjoyed within the communities we served. Engagement with insurance has also deepened existing divides within the profession. The schism between those who want to play the allopathic game, with its relentless and exclusive demand for "scientific validation" and "evidence-based medicine" and those who insist that illness, health and healing are fundamentally mysterious and cannot be wholly encompassed within a Western mechanistic, reductionist scientific paradigm is probably irreconcilable.

Chinese medicine is rooted in a much more powerfully articulated tradition than modern chiropractic, a tradition that insists on mystery, even poetry, as necessary aspects of the dance of healing. This tradition is a powerful ally, but I question if even it is strong enough to withstand the daily assaults offered by engagement with the dominant mechanistic/reductionist paradigm so fully embodied in insurance. You, your traditions, your practices, will be changed by such engagement, and you will not have as much choice about the form such changes take as you might like to think.

I do not say there is a right or wrong answer here. I do think full consciousness of the risks as well as benefits of dealing with insurance is necessary. The allure of greater accessibility and income is great, but so are the potential losses. Caveat emptor.

love,
Lisa

Chinese New Year: The Year of the Tiger

2010-02-01T07:36:00.000-08:00

Tigers of Chinese Astrology are truly a force of nature. They are dependable, unpredictable, fearless, stout-hearted, tender and loving. Tigers have the ability to think on their feet and have a primal desire for adventure and first hand experience of life.

The well-known striped coat of the Tiger reflects yin and yang: the theory/practice of opposites: yes/no; go/stop; high/low; fast/slow; now/later. For those of us who believe animals can think, we can see—even in our housecats (a smaller version of the Tiger)-- that they are constantly making decisions. When the cat has identified her prey, as she gets a lock on the goal, her tendons and ligaments tighten as she gets ready to run or pounce, she mentally calculates how fast to run, how high to jump, when to attack. It’s decision-making at the highest order. The wild cat that is slow---or wrong---goes hungry.

The springtime (Wood Element) embodies all these decisions too: nature is “deciding” when to emerge; how fast to grow; when to blossom; how much to show itself. Groundhog Day, which is always in the same week as Chinese New Year, is the American equivalent of this decision-making. The groundhog, hearing and feeling the expansion of tree roots, decides when to emerge, and whether to stay out or go back in. With the cues of longer days and the occasional warmth that sporadically appear in late January, the groundhog emerges (at least Phil in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania) to engage in his ritual decision-making.

As we emerge from Winter, we need to use our cleverness. Is this the right time to take off your coat? Is it right to go from being a couch potato to running the marathon? Is it time to leap into action in the garden? We are beginning to get restless as the winter seems to drag on; cabin fever starts to set in. It is so tempting to burst forth too early. Those who do will get sick: taking off the coat too early will leave you vulnerable to colds and flu. Planting the garden too early will yield dead plants as frost can continue well into late March, not to mention sore muscles and tendons from working your body after a long, lazy winter. Telling others your plans too early will leave you bored with them before you actually begin. The spring is a time of tender beginnings. Doing things too soon will yield “a hungry cat.”

Watch how nature slowly emerges in the Spring. There is order, timing, and vulnerability. Emerge slowly and wisely. Make good decisions about when and how to emerge. And when you do, be assertive and embody the power of the Tiger.

The Chinese Classics on WINTER

2009-11-28T12:55:00.000-08:00

The following comes from a translation of The Nei Jing, the ancient classic of Chinese medicine:

"The three months of Winter are called the period of closing and storing. Water freezes and the Earth cracks open. One should not disturb one's Yang. People should retire early at night and rise late in the morning and they should wait for the rising of the sun. They should suppress and conceal their wishes, as though they had no internal purpose, as though they had been fulfilled. People should try to escape the cold and they should seek warmth; they should not perspire upon the skin, they should let themselves be deprived of breath of the cold. All this is in harmony with the atmosphere of Winter and all this is the method for the protection of one's storing. Those who disobey [the laws of Winter] will suffer an injury of the kidneys [testicles]; for them Spring will bring impotence, and they will produce little."

From Ilza Veith's translation of the Nei Jing, p.103

Clearly a bit sexist, but you get the message. It's time to "do" life differently. For the next few months (until early February) the winter demands that we get into quiet mode. Without this adjustment in our energetic output, we will have a poor "yield" in spring and summer.

Infant with Colic, GERD and Dypsnea

2009-11-24T11:16:00.000-08:00

Several months ago a client called about her new grandson, who had been having vomiting, constipation, "colic" symptoms and very rigorous crying bouts. He was so digestively upset that he was losing weight rapidly. He was only about two months old, and the symptoms were so severe that the doctors were considering some kind of surgery on his GI system to probe the symptoms.

Now, I don't treat little babies very often (hardly ever) but this seemed like a pretty intense intervention, so I encouraged her to bring him with her to her next appointment with me.

What I saw was a pretty pissed-off little baby, with physical signs indicating what happens when someone is angry. He had been swaddled so tightly that he could barely move. The doctors had encouraged this wrapping technique. When beings (children, adults, cats, dogs, etc.) are held too tightly they "fight" in rebellion. The energy that is supposed to go "down" in us (digestion, pooping, sleep) now travels UPWARD, and creates pathology. (The same things happens when I walk my dog and see dogs who are rarely--if ever--let off the leash. They pull and pull until their throats are damaged and can hardly breathe.)

I encouraged the mom and grandmother to loosen this child's clothing and blankets, and to allow his legs and arms to move freely. The grandmother called two days later to tell me that all the symptoms, including the angry, incessant crying had disappeared. He was eating again, not vomiting, and he was a much happier baby. I didn't use needles. All I did was observe and make a recommendation about this particular baby's energy, and what he seemed to need to thrive. (I am not saying that this is what can help ALL babies with this digestive issue, but rather that we have to look at the individual and find out what is helpful.)

Acupuncture is a way to look at the body's energy through a particular lens...a lens of what needs to change in order for the organism to thrive. Sometimes simple changes are what's needed to change the direction of health. An acupuncturist is a coach who can look through a lens different from your own and can make some suggestions that western practitioners often don't think about.

Patient or Partner?

2009-11-23T18:00:00.000-08:00

I’ve always been uncomfortable with the word “patient.” While on the one had it helps me to understand that health doesn’t come instantaneously, it also has the flavor of being passive. We have been trained in this culture to be good “patients," as in: “Trust me, I’m the doctor; I know what’s best for you. Be compliant. Don’t question”.

As an acupuncturist, I will ask my clients to be more active in their own healthcare. First, (and not unimportantly) you will be asked for a commitment of your time, energy and awareness.

With acupuncture, treatments are more frequent and may be regularly scheduled over the course of long periods of time. Will you be committed to getting there on time, personally prepared for the treatment? Are you willing to put the time in to make necessary changes?

Next, I will ask you to observe your daily patterns, such as sleep, moods, energy levels, food cravings, elimination, etc., to discover for yourself if you are living in a way that optimizes your own health.

And at some point in treatment, I will ask if you are willing to do some homework. For example, are you willing to cut down on your coffee, alcohol, or work hours? do some exercise? take naps? adjust your bedtime? Are you willing to keep a journal that will help record your patterns and the symptoms you have been experiencing? Are you willing to do the things that will enhance the treatments you are receiving? Are you willing to eliminate the phrase "Well, that's just how I am"?

If you find that making commitment to some change is not possible, we will have to figure out what is in the way and how to proceed from there. We need to figure out how to make change as palatable and smooth as possible. And once you see results, I am hoping that the changes will be positive enough to make them permanent.

Partners keep their agreements or negotiate other ones. Be partner, not passive.

Control-Alt-Delete Sugar

2009-11-10T14:16:00.000-08:00

I found the article below in an online blog, and thought it worthy of pasting here. Please put your comments, suggestions here, because I'm ALWAYS trying to find sugar alternatives for myself, as well as for my clients. So far, I am using honey and agave syrup, and don't miss the white sugar nearly as much as I thought I would.

By Glenna Crooks | October 5th, 2009
"Perhaps you’ve seen it: the grocery-shopping mom, complaining about a sugar tax, saying it’s hard enough to raise a family in these times.

I saw it, and could not believe it. Was this ad actually claiming that families need sugared sodas to make it through tough times?

It took watching it on line at http://www.nofoodtaxes.com/ads/ several times to see that yes, indeed, that’s what it claimed.

I’ll agree that a soda and other sugared items are a nice occasional treat, but I see no evidence that they’re necessary to keep a family happy – or that there are no alternatives.

I’ve begun talking to kids about what they drink. Here is what I got:
• I used to drink apple juice, now I drink water.
• I drink water; that’s good for you.
• I drink milk when I eat and water other times.
• I used to drink (naming a brand soda) but now I drink water. The (soda) made my feel icky and I did not know how much until I stopped drinking it all the time.
Personally, I’m not a huge fan of plain water. I like a slice of lemon in it.

What about you? Do you have a favorite alternative to sugared drinks?
Do you have any recipes for the beleaguered Mom trying to keep her family happy in these tough times? Do you have any tricks for weaning a family off sugared drinks?"

Aging and the Life Cycle

2009-10-05T13:19:00.000-07:00

Last week, I went to a new doctor, a specialist I had never seen before. She remarked on my name, Clayton, as a name not often seen in “women of your generation.” I was dumbfounded, and felt like slapping her. “My generation,” indeed. What did this little punk know?—she looked about 12 years old. I regained my composure and we managed to get on just fine, but I reflected on that statement for awhile after that visit. (Actually, I was rather startled at the degree of my reaction, and the duration of it.)

The next day, a haircut scheduled, I went to my hairdresser and, in conversation, she mentioned that people like me, in my “golden years,”……I admit I couldn’t even hear what followed. “GOLDEN YEARS!” DAMN.

Then, a couple of days later, I received an email from one of my clients. She was passing along some humor, which I love to receive, and it was addressed to “my more mature friends,” and then proceeded to tell some jokes of interest to “elderly” people (that exact word was in the email) having to do with laxatives and Depends.

That was it. In the space of 4 days, I had been referred to, personally, as an old lady three times. Then…making matters worse… I received my Social Security earning statement, which has now become an annual event. (When does that happen? When they get wind of people referring to me as “old?”)

So what’s the message here? Is this the time to dye my hair? Get a face lift? Retire? Buy a plot?

In times like this, I have to realize that I am listening (and thinking) with a filter of being an American in a western culture that worships the young. I must open my mind (change my filter?) and think about Chinese medicine and what the sages say. (A more educated and open-minded version of a crystal ball?) After all, the Asians revered age, saying that wisdom is the proprietary advantage of those who have lived longer and experienced more.

The stage of life I’m referring to is the Metal stage. (All cycles have stages, whether the cycle is short, such as a year, or long, such as a lifetime.) The Metal stage is said to be characterized by “decrease.” We see this as the waning of the length of days in Autumn, and the waning of youth and fullness in age. Ok, so far so good. I am on board with this. I’m not blind to the mirror: silver hair, small lines on my face, and droopings here and there. (Note: I’m not being specific as to where.)

(Let me pause here to tell you that I just heard a famous “foodie” on the radio describe the sweetest fruit as having shrunk just a bit in its wrinkled skin..I like that. I also love the look of the maples turning color outside, and the smell of the leaves rotting in autumn...all the sensory cues representing this stage of the life cycle.)

The Metal time of life is said to be rich with knowledge, memory and the gems of having lived and learned. This is the phase of life that is known for honor and integrity, meant to be respected. Metal, the icon of this stage, is created through pressure---the pressure of centuries of living; organic matter made stronger through time. What is created is golden, valuable, gem-like…rich….diamonds, jade, rubies.

I liked this. “Golden years” takes on a whole different cut when I think of it this way; not a disparaging euphemism at all. My task is to enter this phase of my life with the grace and strength I know I have within, and the knowledge that I can live through anything that comes my way. All is placed in perspective with age and experience. Thankfully. I'll need all the grace I can muster when eventually I have to shop for my Depends.

The Autumn Season in Chinese Medicine

2009-09-22T14:11:00.000-07:00

The Autumn Season | Chinese Medicine

Within the cosmology of Chinese medicine, human beings are regarded as microcosms of the natural universe. We are subject to the same cycles that occur in nature. Autumn follows on the tail of the harvest, signaling that it is time to prepare for winter. The sap of trees settles into the interior, sinking down toward the roots. With fall comes a sense of gathering in, stocking up, mingled with a sense of loss as the light begins to fade and the air chills. It is a time to eliminate what is unnecessary and become aware of what is essential.

The organ system that shares the power of this season is the Lung. Corresponding to the temperament of autumn, the Lung pulls in and refines the Qi, (energy) sending it downward to nourish our roots. Ruling the skin, the outer limit of the human body, the Lung protects against external invasion and safeguards internal resources. Since autumn is a dry season, we need to protect ourselves from cold air evaporation of moisture from our skin. Moistening, softening, and nurturing foods for this time include white rice, white beans, pears, radishes, sea vegetables, potatoes, cabbage, turnips and parsnips.

The Lung is also responsible for our capacity to discern and discriminate, defining and refining our sense of what is right, morally and ethically. It is the Lung that nourishes our capacity to be analytic, critical, methodical, efficient and disciplined. Autumn reminds us that we reap what we have sown, that all of our actions have consequences. The clarity that comes with autumn enables us to distinguish between the things that contribute not only to our own well being, but also the benefit of others, reminding us that we live in an interdependent world. This capacity will serve us in this election season as we choose leaders who represent our higher aspirations for a peaceful world that equitably shares resources, and a natural environment that can sustain us all.

This article is borrowed from a blogpost by Harriet Bienfield, L.Ac., author of Between Heaven and Earth: A Guide to Chinese Medicine

Autumn Rituals

2009-09-22T14:01:00.000-07:00

Someone sent me a lovely article on the Autumn Ritual of Americans as well as in those cultures around the world, and I thought I would pass it along. I will soon post a Chinese medicine note about Autumn, but this gets us to think about today, the Equinox, as well as the descending of the yearly cycle:

Autumn Rituals

In almost every corner of the world, autumn is a time for harvest, reflection, and reverence for our ancestors, and many fall holidays reveal those very themes.

One of the purposes of the changes of seasons is to notice changes we might not have if everything stayed the same. Each season prompts us to reflect and go inward. It is a time to pause and review our lives. As we take the time to stop and honor the life changes we are experiences, we build a bridge between our everyday existence and the sacred.

Whether we’re aware of their deeper significance or not, even our most simple and commonplace autumn traditions, such as apple picking and dressing up for Halloween, reflect the ancient themes of harvest and ancestor worship.

In Melanesia, people make rice dollies out of the last plants of the harvest; in England, they make corn dollies. Both practices represent the belief that the spirit of the grain will stay alive, thereby ensuring another good harvest.

This year on Oct 3rd the Chinese will celebrate the Harvest Moon Festival by eating special moon cakes and catching the moon’s refection in a bowl of water. A similar holiday is observed in Vietnam-the mid-fall festival of Trung Thu-where people celebrates the beauty of the moon by eating moon cakes, lighting incenses, and making special star lanterns. And in Korea it is called Chu Suk- Korean Thanksgiving.

Fall is also a tie for honoring the connection between the living and the dead, as well as the natural order of life, death, and regeneration. It’ no accident that after the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashana, comes by Yom Kippur, the day of atonement and also a time when the deceased are honored, and then Sukkot, the harvest festival.

Autumn Equinox (September 22nd)

The Equinoxes are the two days out of the whole year when the northern and southern hemispheres receive the same amount of sunlight and the days and nights are the same length. It represents balance and a pause between the summer –a time of lots of activity—and winter-a time of hibernating and slowing down. From now on the days will be getting shorter and the nights longer.

This is also the time when the ancient Greeks celebrated the sacred Eleusian rites – a time when the Goddess descends into the underworld. This was the most important goddess festival in all of Europe

Celebrate the Harvest:

Get together with friends and family to create a special meal using food of the season: use corn, squash, root vegetables, and grains

Decorate your home with symbols of autumn: colored leaves, Indian corn, cranberries, apples.

Dunk for Apples

Create an altar and fill it with symbols of what you have personally harvested at this time: your new script, a miniature car or home, a picture of you in vibrant health, money. Let your children participate and acknowledge their successes even if they are small.

Give Back: Make sure to take time to make a contribution to your community for the blessings you have this Fall season. The more we give the more we receive. Give to the local food bank, volunteer you time to tutor a child, donate clothes, books or toys to your Temple, Church or local community center. It is important to appreciate what we do have and not focus on lack. Life is a precious gift and we need to value every moment.

Kitchen Wisdom for Cold and Flu Season

2009-09-11T00:13:00.000-07:00

Chinese medicine doesn’t make a big difference between a cold and the flu, and they are treated much the same. The robust person reacted to the invasion of a respiratory pathogen by getting "wind-heat" and a weaker person reacted to the invasion by getting "wind-cold." (See my last blogpost to see the differences in symptoms.) In ancient times (2500 years ago) there was a simple remedy that was used to address the first signs of cold and flu for someone who developed "wind-cold." It was called Green onion and Ginger Decoction. The contents are still available today at your local grocery store:

For Wind-Cold:
Take 2-3 slices of fresh ginger and 2-3 scallions (green onions) and put them in 1 gallon of water that you have brought to a boil on the stove. Reduce the “soup” heat to a simmer, and simmer for about 30 minutes, covered. Then dispense with the “solids” in the soup, and put the liquid into a thermos to keep it hot. Sip on the hot ginger and scallion soup over about 3 hours.

After doing this you will start to sweat. Make sure you climb into bed, keeping warm, don’t sit in a draft, and make sure that you keep yourself in dry clothing. This will do what your grandmother called “sweating the devil out of you.” The worst of the cold/flu should be gone within 24 hours.

If you would like to address the chills, you can cut a few more slices of ginger and boil them up, throwing the boiled water into a hot bath, where you will sit and soak in the ginger bath until the water starts to cool. Make sure you dress warmly when you get out, and get into bed and pile on the blankets. Remember you want to sweat it out. Do not uncover yourself if you start to feel hot. The point is to….did you miss it?...sweat!

In addition to these strategies for wind-cold, consider some dietary advice: eat warming foods such as soups, and spicy foods that will help open your nasal passages. Eating dairy will create more phlegm and will increase respiratory congestion, so beware.

For Wind-Heat: The strategy is to cool yourself off a little, but not to expose yourself to wind in the form of drafts (like open windows) or vented air. Cooling should take place internally with things like (hot) peppermint tea or chrysanthemum tea. Also, it is important to refrain from eating foods that will make you "hotter" such as sugar, very spicy food, caffeine or alcohol; all these will make you feel worse. Eating dairy will make the phlegm you are experiencing thicker, greener, and more difficult to get out.

There are also Chinese herbal products that help with both wind-heat and wind-cold, so ask your friendly neighborhood acupuncturist to help you select the right product for an immune enhancing strategy that prevents the invasion of pathogens, as well as the products that can help once symptoms begin.

Chinese Medicine's Approach to Cold and Flu

2009-09-10T10:30:00.000-07:00

Chinese medicine has great advice to offer when it comes to enhancing immunity and keeping the body strong against external pathogens (including flu viruses). Because the Ancients didn't have electron microscopes to differentiate viruses and bacteria, the focus is less on the pathogen (the virus or bacteria) itself and instead considers the body's ability to protect and heal itself. The weaker person will receive the pathogen and generate "cold," while the robust person will generate "heat." (See a further explanation, below.)

Here are some ideas gleaned from the Chinese medicine tradition to consider incorporating in order to stay strong and healthy this fall and winter:

Avoid being exposed to cold temperatures and wind when possible. This includes central air conditioning and fans that may blow on you at work or in your sleep. The perspective is that a sudden and stressful change in temperature can lower our body's defenses. (Grandma was right about this one!)

Avoid wearing wet clothes. Change into dry clothing at the gym, don't go out with a wet head after a shower or after sweating, don't expose open pores (sweaty skin) to cold temperatures.

Avoid over-work and exhaustion. This one should come as no surprise. Seems every medical tradition can agree that fatigue makes you more susceptible to illness.

Decrease your dairy intake. Dairy (as well as sugar and oily foods) is thought to create a thick phlegm environment in the body, which makes fighting a cold or flu an uphill battle. If you feel you are getting sick it is a good idea to eliminate dairy altogether.

Get Acupuncture. Acupuncture can be very effective at warding off a bug if caught early (usually within the first day of onset of symptoms). The point selection will vary for different people. Acupuncture is a great to way to support your immune system before cold and flu season.

Keep certain Chinese Herbs on hand. Chinese herbs are an incredibly effective way to combat a cold or flu. It's interesting to note that different people exposed to the same pathogen may react with different symptoms based on the person's constitution and the stage of the illness. In Chinese medicine the person's symptoms are the guideposts to the way to treat. They are thought to have either a "cold" or "hot" quality and the "vehicle" of delivery is seen to be the wind:

Wind-Cold (This reaction to a pathogen is typical of a weaker immune system, often seen in middle aged or older adults, and weaker children):
Characteristics: mild fever, chills, inability to get warm, achy joints, no thirst, nasal or sinus congestion with clear mucus, runny nose with thin mucus, cough with clear mucus, stiff neck and shoulders, headache [usually back of head]).

Remedies for Wind-Cold:
Diaphoretic (sweating) therapy is often recommended for this condition, since it warms the body and pushes the pathogen out through the pores. Hot liquids and foods, including miso soup and ginger tea (using minced fresh ginger)

Wind-Heat (This reaction to a pathogen is typical of younger children, adolescents--especially males--and robust young adults):
Characteristics: the fever is worse than the chills, sweating, swollen and sore throat, headache [usually top of head], irritability, and thirst. If there is a cough, it is usually dry or nonproductive, with occasional expectoration of yellow mucus.

Remedies for Wind-Heat:
Avoid sweets and stimulants (such as caffeinated beverages). They aggravate the condition by feeding the pathogen.
Drink Chrysanthemum and/or peppermint tea (both are cooling).

In my next post, I will give you a recipe from the Chinese Kitchen school of flu and cold remedies. (I made up that name; don't go Googling it!)

CDC Advice for This Flu Season

2009-09-10T10:27:00.000-07:00

The CDC has posted the following recommendations on their site as ways of staying healthy against the H1N1 flu virus this year:

Influenza is thought to spread mainly person-to-person through coughing or sneezing of infected people:
*Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze. Throw the tissue in the trash after you use it.
*Wash your hands often with soap and water, especially after you cough or sneeze. *Alcohol-based hands cleaners are also effective.
*Avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth. Germs spread that way.
*Stay home if you get sick. CDC recommends that you stay home from work or school and limit contact with others to keep from infecting them.
*Follow public health advice regarding school closures, avoiding crowds and other social distancing measures.
*Find healthy ways to deal with stress and anxiety.

Stay tuned for more news from my office on how to stay healthy during cold and flu season!

Getting Rid of Yesterday: Constipation and Its Remedies

2009-09-08T15:23:00.000-07:00

Constipation is a common complaint that I hear from clients in my office. I have learned to ask clients what they mean by constipation, because it is not always immediately obvious that we are using the same definition. Many years ago, I had quickly skimmed over asking a client about her elimination when she said that she had “regular” bowel movements. Much later, I found out that “regular,” to her, was at least once every two weeks! THAT is constipation! By not getting out the residue from yesterday, we are setting ourselves up for a toxic today. We should eliminate feces at least once per day in a well-formed, easy-to-pass bowel movement. There should be no undigested food observable in the bowl, and the shape should be a “gentle S” curve, mimicking the shape of the intestine.

In this article, I want to spend a few minutes talking about the types of constipation, and what we can do about each kind. There are 4 main kinds of constipation:
1. Not enough fluids
2. Not enough fluid absorption
3. Not enough fiber
4. Not enough motility

1. Not enough Fluids: Sometimes, we just don’t take in enough fluid to make the waste in our systems “passable” in our intestines. The symptoms of this condition are constipation (non-daily stool) and sludgy, hard, dry, tarry-consistency stool that is hard to pass, requiring strain and effort. If you think you are drinking a lot of fluid, let’s just review some basics about fluids so that you will be able to determine if what you are drinking is the right kind of fluid, and enough of it to boot:

a. List your body weight in pounds. Divide that number in half and write it down. Now add 8 for every caffeinated beverage you drink each day; add 8 for every carbonated beverage; add 8 for every alcoholic beverage you drink in a day. (Each of those kinds of fluids is DE-hydrating, so you lose fluid when you drink those, and end up with a net deficit.) The resulting number (after all those additions) is the net number of fluid ounces of fluid (water) you need to drink daily.
b. The best fluid to drink is water, but sometimes it’s hard to down that much water, especially if you are carrying excess poundage. To make it easier, you can flavor the water (with decaffeinated tea, fresh lemon or lime juice, non-sweetened flavored additives, etc.). You can also add in the soup you “drink” (brothy, not creamy).
c. This strategy should loosen up the stool considerably to help it pass easier.
d. Beware, however, that at first, you will urinate A LOT before the water stays in the intestine long enough to fully moisten the stool. The water first will be claimed by all the cells in your body to help rid the cells of toxins that have been building up through your period of dehydration. Once you get re-hydrated on a cellular level, the water will stay in the intestines and work to soften the stool. This can sometimes take a few weeks.

2. Not enough Fluid Absorption: Sometimes you drink a lot and your intestines simply don’t absorb the fluids enough to help the stool move. This is akin to watering a dried out plant, where the water is simply not being absorbed by the dirt and roots, while it drains out the bottom of the pot. Fluids will make you urinate but won’t ever loosen the stool in the intestine. If this is the case, then you might have to help yourself absorb the liquid by using products meant to keep the water in the intestine. Possible products are Mira-Lax or similar, non-flavored powders that you add to drinking water, so that water is absorbed INTO the intestine. The hitch here is that you must drink a lot of water, so that your cells are not left dehydrated when the body’s fluid goes into the intestine to moisten the stool.

3. Not enough Fiber: Most of us do not get anywhere near the 25-30 grams of fiber per day that is recommended for the adult diet. Before you assume that this is the case for you, however, take a count of how much fiber you are getting. If you are not eating enough daily fiber, seriously consider changing your diet, because in addition to not getting the requisite fiber, you are most likely not getting the vitamins and minerals that you need either. After a diet change, if you are still having constipation issues, then you might have to add a fiber supplement to your diet. Products such as Metamucil, Benefiber, Citrucel, or similar products or their store-brands might help. Some of these products create uncomfortable gas for some people, so you might want to try a couple of brands to see which is right for you. It has been the experience of my own clients that Citrucel capsules (or its store-brand equivalent) don’t have the same gas-potential that some of the other products have. The caveat to be heeded however, if you take fiber supplements, is that you MUST take them with a LOT of water. If you take a fiber supplement and do not drink enough water, then it will be like adding cement to your system—and you will create painful, hard-to-pass feces.

4. Not enough Motility: Sometimes, your intestines just don’t move. We naturally have a gentle “wave” of movement in our guts (called peristalsis) that causes food to descend and waste to pass through our intestines in a smooth, even way. For some people, this “wave” doesn’t have a lot of energy (or qi) behind it, and as a result, the stool can’t move. Often, this is where things like acupuncture, massage (including self-massage), and exercise come in. Your acupuncturist can discuss these techniques with you and show you how to employ them.

Motility of the intestine is also what gets “moved” with many laxatives. Laxative dependence can be a huge problem, however, so you might want to discuss the other, more drug-free, natural ways to “get moving” with your healthcare provider. And don't think that "herbal laxatives" are free of risk--some of the most addictive laxatives on the market are "herbal" or "natural."

If these strategies don’t describe your issue, or if applying these strategies doesn’t work, there might be something serious going on (like an obstruction or intestinal paralysis), which might warrant a visit to your gastroenterologist.

An acupuncturist can work with you to help you with determining which of these strategies (together or in combination) can help stimulate the movement potential of your intestines, and can help with a re-balancing of the fluids in your system so that all the organs are working smoothly to get you feeling better—cleaner, healthier, more robust and ready for your life.

(*Note: This article is not intended to endorse any product. The reader is responsible for applying any advice listed herein. A visit to the appropriate healthcare provider may be warranted before taking any of the advice listed here.)

Free Class at the Acupuncture Institute in Laurel

2009-09-03T14:35:00.000-07:00

This week, I'm posting an announcement of a free class being taught by a colleague of mine at Tai Sophia Institute. It's free; all it takes is "just showing up." To learn more about it, go to the school's website:http://www.tai.edu/IntroPrograms.aspx
You can register online at that web address.

Here's the Announcement:
Bring more wellness into your life with FREE wellness classes. Join us the week of September 14 to sample practical wellness information and wisdom from Tai Sophia’s exceptional graduate programs and Natural Care Center wellness clinic. The week of September 21, preview a selection of our popular movement, bodywork, and meditation class series.

FREE — Powerful Practices for Everyday Living
Monday, September 14, 2009
6:30 PM - 8:00 PM
Learn three simple practices to unleash profound change in your work, your home, and yourself. Participants in this course will gain practical tools to take effective action, let go of unnecessary suffering, find vast possibility in all situations, and create greater ease in relationships with work colleagues, friends, and family.

Join us for an evening class rooted in over 45 years of training and experience. Author, educator, and acupuncture practitioner Tom Balles teaches in all three of Tai Sophia’s master’s degree programs and has practiced acupuncture for 25 years. Co-Program Manager for Tai Sophia’s Workplace and Organizational Wellness programs, Cheryl Walker, has 20-plus years of experience as a business owner, educator, and leadership coach.

Instructor(s): Tom Balles LAc, MAc (UK), and Cheryl Walker, ML, MCC

Saving the World

2009-08-25T11:54:00.000-07:00

I'm taking a bit of a break for a week or so, and wanted to post something that someone sent me that I found to be profound. It is the Welcome address to freshman parents at Boston Conservatory, given by Karl Paulnack, pianist and director of music division at Boston Conservatory. However, as you read, maybe you can insert your own calling to the work you do on this planet, and think of it as "world work" that brings more to the world than just your paycheck.

Saving the World

“One of my parents’ deepest fears, I suspect, is that society would not
properly value me as a musician, that I wouldn’t be appreciated. I had
very good grades in high school, I was good in science and math, and
they imagined that as a doctor or a research chemist or an engineer, I
might be more appreciated than I would be as a musician. I still
remember my mother’s remark when I announced my decision to apply to
music school—she said, “You’re WASTING your SAT scores.” On some level,
I think, my parents were not sure themselves what the value of music
was, what its purpose was. And they LOVED music, they listened to
classical music all the time. They just weren’t really clear about its
function. So let me talk about that a little bit, because we live in a
society that puts music in the “arts and entertainment” section of the
newspaper, and serious music, the kind your kids are about to engage in,
has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with entertainment, in fact it’s
the opposite of entertainment. Let me talk a little bit about music and
how it works.

The first people to understand how music really works were the ancient
Greeks. And this is going to fascinate you; the Greeks said that music
and astronomy were two sides of the same coin. Astronomy was seen as the
study of relationships between observable, permanent, external objects,
and music was seen as the study of relationships between invisible,
internal, hidden objects. Music has a way of finding the big, invisible
moving pieces inside our hearts and souls and helping us figure out the
position of things inside us. Let me give you some examples of how this
works.

One of the most profound musical compositions of all time is the Quartet
for the End of Time written by French composer Olivier Messiaen in 1940.
Messiaen was 31 years old when France entered the war against Nazi
Germany. He was captured by the Germans in June of 1940, sent across
Germany in a cattle car and imprisoned in a concentration camp.

He was fortunate to find a sympathetic prison guard who gave him paper
and a place to compose. There were three other musicians in the camp, a
cellist, a violinist, and a clarinetist, and Messiaen wrote his quartet
with these specific players in mind. It was performed in January 1941
for four thousand prisoners and guards in the prison camp. Today it is
one of the most famous masterworks in the repertoire.

Given what we have since learned about life in the concentration camps,
why would anyone in his right mind waste time and energy writing or
playing music? There was barely enough energy on a good day to find food
and water, to avoid a beating, to stay warm, to escape torture—why would
anyone bother with music? And yet—from the camps, we have poetry, we
have music, we have visual art; it wasn’t just this one fanatic
Messiaen; many, many people created art. Why? Well, in a place where
people are only focused on survival, on the bare necessities, the
obvious conclusion is that art must be, somehow, essential for life. The
camps were without money, without hope, without commerce, without
recreation, without basic respect, but they were not without art. Art is
part of survival; art is part of the human spirit, an unquenchable
expression of who we are. Art is one of the ways in which we say, “I am
alive, and my life has meaning.”

On September 12, 2001 I was a resident of Manhattan. That morning I
reached a new understanding of my art and its relationship to the world.
I sat down at the piano that morning at 10 AM to practically routine; I
did it by force of habit, without thinking about it. I lifted the
cover on the keyboard, and opened my music, and put my hands
on the keys and took my hands off the keys. And I sat there and thought,
does this even matter? Isn’t this completely irrelevant? Playing the
piano right now, given what happened in this city yesterday, seems
silly, absurd, irreverent, pointless. Why am I here? What place has a
musician in this moment in time? Who needs a piano player right now? I
was completely lost.

And then I, along with the rest of New York, went through the journey of
getting through that week. I did not play the piano that day, and in
fact I contemplated briefly whether I would ever want to play the piano
again. And then I observed how we got through the day.

At least in my neighborhood, we didn’t shoot hoops or play Scrabble. We
didn’t play cards to pass the time, we didn’t watch TV, we didn’t shop,
we most certainly did not go to the mall. The first organized activity
that I saw in New York, that same day, was singing. People sang. People
sang around fire houses, people sang “We Shall Overcome”. Lots of people
sang America the Beautiful. The first organized public event that I
remember was the Brahms Requiem, later that week, at Lincoln Center,
with the New York Philharmonic. The first organized public expression of
grief, our first communal response to that historic event, was a
concert. That was the beginning of a sense that life might go on. The US
Military secured the airspace, but recovery was led by the arts, and by
music in particular, that very night.

From these two experiences, I have come to understand that music is not
part of “arts and entertainment” as the newspaper section would have us
believe. It’s not a luxury, a lavish thing that we fund from leftovers
of our budgets, not a plaything or an amusement or a pastime. Music is
a basic need of human survival. Music is one of the ways we make sense
of our lives, one of the ways in which we express feelings when we have
no words, a way for us to understand things with our hearts when we
can’t with our minds.

Some of you may know Samuel Barber’s heart-wrenchingly beautiful piece
Adagio for Strings. If you don’t know it by that name, then some of you
may know it as the background music which accompanied the Oliver Stone
movie Platoon, a film about the Vietnam War. If you know that piece of
music either way, you know it has the ability to crack your heart open
like a walnut; it can make you cry over sadness you didn’t know you had.
Music can slip beneath our conscious reality to get at what’s really
going on inside us the way a good therapist does.

I bet that you have never been to a wedding where there was absolutely
no music. There might have been only a little music, there might have
been some really bad music, but I bet you there was some music. And
something very predictable happens at weddings —people get all pent up
with all kinds of emotions, and then there’s some musical moment where
the action of the wedding stops and someone sings or plays the flute or
something. And even if the music is lame, even if the quality isn’t
good, predictably 30 or 40 percent of the people who are going to cry at
a wedding cry a couple of moments after the music starts. Why? The
Greeks. Music allows us to move around those big invisible pieces of
ourselves and rearrange our insides so that we can express what we feel
even when we can’t talk about it. Can you imagine watching Indiana Jones
or Superman or Star Wars with the dialogue but no music? What is it
about the music swelling up at just the right moment in ET so that all
the softies in the audience start crying at exactly the same moment? I
guarantee you if you showed the movie with the music stripped out, it
wouldn’t happen that way. The Greeks: Music is the understanding of the
relationship between invisible internal objects.

I’ll give you one more example, the story of the most important concert of
my life. I must tell you I have played a little less than a thousand
concerts in my life so far. I have played in places that I thought were
important. I like playing in Carnegie Hall; I enjoyed playing in Paris;
it made me very happy to please the critics in St. Petersburg. I have
played for people I thought were important; music critics of major
newspapers, foreign heads of state. The most important concert of my
entire life took place in a nursing home in Fargo, ND, about 4 years
ago.

I was playing with a very dear friend of mine who is a violinist. We
began, as we often do, with Aaron Copland’s Sonata, which was written
during World War II and dedicated to a young friend of Copland’s, a
young pilot who was shot down during the war. Now we often talk to our
audiences about the pieces we are going to play rather than providing
them with written program notes. But in this case, because we began the
concert with this piece, we decided to talk about the piece later in the
program and to just come out and play the music without explanation.

Midway through the piece, an elderly man seated in a wheelchair near the
front of the concert hall began to weep. This man, whom I later met, was
clearly a soldier—even in his 70’s, it was clear from his buzz-cut hair,
square jaw and general demeanor that he had spent a good deal of his
life in the military. I thought it a little bit odd that someone would
be moved to tears by that particular movement of that particular piece,
but it wasn’t the first time I’ve heard crying in a concert and we went
on with the concert and finished the piece.
When we came out to play the next piece on the program, we decided to
talk about both the first and second pieces, and we described the
circumstances in which the Copland was written and mentioned its
dedication to a downed pilot. The man in the front of the audience
became so disturbed that he had to leave the auditorium. I honestly
figured that we would not see him again, but he did come backstage
afterwards, tears and all, to explain himself.

What he told us was this: “During World War II, I was a pilot, and I was
in an aerial combat situation where one of my team’s planes was hit. I
watched my friend bail out, and watched his parachute open, but the
Japanese planes which had engaged us returned and machine gunned across
the parachute chords so as to separate the parachute from the pilot, and
I watched my friend drop away into the ocean, realizing that he was
lost. I have not thought about this for many years, but during that
first piece of music you played, this memory returned to me so vividly
that it was as though I was reliving it. I didn’t understand why this
was happening, why now, but then when you came out to explain that this
piece of music was written to commemorate a lost pilot, it was a little
more than I could handle. How does the music do that? How did it find
those feelings and those memories in me?” Remember the Greeks: music is
the study of invisible relationships between internal objects. This
concert in Fargo was the most important work I have ever done. For me to
play for this old soldier and help him connect, somehow, with Aaron
Copland, and to connect their memories of their lost friends, to help
him remember and mourn his friend, this is my work. This is why music
matters.

What follows is part of the talk I will give to this year’s freshman
class when I welcome them a few days from now. The responsibility I will
charge your sons and daughters with is this: “If we were a medical
school, and you were here as a med student practicing appendectomies,
you’d take your work very seriously because you would imagine that some
night at two AM someone is going to waltz into your emergency room and
you’re going to have to save their life. Well, my friends, someday at 8
PM someone is going to walk into your concert hall and bring you a mind
that is confused, a heart that is overwhelmed, a soul that is weary.
Whether they go out whole again will depend partly on how well you do
your craft.

You’re not here to become an entertainer, and you don’t have to sell
yourself. The truth is you don’t have anything to sell; being a musician
isn’t about dispensing a product, like selling used Chevies. I’m not an
entertainer; I’m a lot closer to a paramedic, a firefighter, a rescue
worker. You’re here to become a sort of therapist for the human soul, a
spiritual version of a chiropractor, physical therapist, someone who
works with our insides to see if they get things to line up, to see if
we can come into harmony with ourselves and be healthy and happy and
well.

Frankly, ladies and gentlemen, I expect you not only to master music; I
expect you to save the planet. If there is a future wave of wellness on
this planet, of harmony, of peace, of an end to war, of mutual
understanding, of equality, of fairness, I don’t expect it will come
from a government, a military force or a corporation. I no longer even
expect it to come from the religions of the world, which together seem
to have brought us as much war as they have peace. If there is a future
of peace for humankind, if there is to be an understanding of how these
invisible, internal things should fit together, I expect it will come
from the artists, because that’s what we do. As in the concentration
camp and the evening of 9/11, the artists are the ones who might be able
to help us with our internal, invisible lives.”

One Size DOESN'T Fit All

2009-08-14T05:10:00.000-07:00

Using food to regain and maintain health has long been a feature of all the world’s medicines. We are constantly on the lookout for information about how common foods are used to make us healthier. However, we must take our own conditions into consideration before blindly accepting a “one size fits all” approach, common to western thinking.

In a recent article about how cinnamon has been linked to improving blood glucose and cholesterol levels in people with Type 2 diabetes, the article concludes by saying “we need more evidence to prove efficacy, but adding more cinnamon to a diet probably wouldn’t hurt either.”

One of my clients read that article. He decided to try it, without consulting a trained herbal professional. He used less than a teaspoon of cinnamon per day, and his blood pressure shot up to 200/100 over the period of a week. When he removed the cinnamon, his BP went back down to its normal level. Despite what cinnamon does for blood glucose or cholesterol, here is a person who should not be using a lot of hot, pungent foods in general---cinnamon, garlic, etc., because his state of health will get WORSE with large doses of those foods.

Western herbalism (and western science in general) is often looking for herbs/foods that will benefit the health of everyone. And while cinnamon will be a terrific choice for some people, it is not going to be “harmless” to everyone. And, when you add our tendency to think “if a little will help, more will be better,” you can really be in trouble!

This is a great example of how the "one size fits all" approach of western thinking can be a disaster when applied carelessly. Chinese medicine looks at your health in general, and can recommend foods or herbs that will benefit you without harming you in other ways. So watch out for those magazine articles that tout the efficiency of anything that can be found in the cupbord when used in large doses: you can be asking for trouble.

The Ten Mistakes We Make in Using Supplements

2009-08-10T08:41:00.000-07:00

1. I need supplements (Maybe you need a better diet!)
2. More is better (herbs/supplements/vitamins, etc.)
3. “Natural” is healthy. (Hemlock is natural and it could kill you.)
4. If they sell it over the counter in the Supplement Shoppe it’s a safe product.
5. Magazine articles that recommend supplements apply to you.
6. Supplements (or foods or drugs) can’t possibly be responsible for altering my mood.
7. The FDA regulates supplements. (They don't.)
8. The guy in the store recommended it so it must be good (and I didn’t know he could likely be working on commission).
9. If it was good for my friend, it’s good for me.
10. My doctor told me to take “x supplement/vitamin/herbal” so I bought the cheapest one I found online; after all, it was a bargain.
11. Science showed that X was helpful for my condition. (But "science" doesn't know YOU!)

(Yes, I said ten, but you got an extra one for free since you are a sucker for bargains.)

But My Doctor Said...

2009-08-10T08:00:00.000-07:00

(Recognizing the point of view of our western practitioner-counterparts)

Some of my clients have reported that their doctors have told them to avoid acupuncture and Chinese herbs. I have to confess, this made me angry. I never tell patients to stop taking their medications. I simply refer them back to their prescribing doctors if I have a question about it. I thought, “how dare they make such judgments about MY work!”

When I shared this story with my very good friend, A.M. (who is a western doc AND and a licensed acupuncturist) she explained the physicians' reasoning to me in a very logical, unemotional way. She told me that if a western doctor were to see someone taking herbs or going to an acupuncturist and did not have knowledge of it's usefulness one way or the other the doctor would HAVE to recommend against acupuncture and herbs to avoid any sort of liability on their end. Before she learned acupuncture, she said, she usually told her patient that she has no knowledge of the field but that she also could not ethically recommend or support the patient with these choices since they are not within her scope of practice. That's more words than most docs will say. They will simply say, "Don't go to acupuncture."

Western healthcare professionals are coming from a completely different angle of reasoning– which is very useful to know when you are talking to your doc. Often they are just covering themselves from your blame and potential lawsuits should something happen to you. In a legal sense, your physician carries ultimate responsibility for your health.

I found that this bit of insight from my doctor-friend stopped me from getting upset or angry in the face of such reports from my clients. One of the best sayings I’ve ever encountered is: When you hear someone say something, WHAT they are saying is much less important than WHO is saying it. So if you are encountering resistance from any of your doctors about using acupuncture or Chinese herbs, please let them know YOUR experience with it, and ask them to speak with an acupuncturist (maybe yours), who would be happy to answer any concerns they have.

Communication between members of your healthcare team can help answer their questions, even though it doesn’t decrease their liability insurance.

Have a Big Appetite for Life But Feeling too Full?

2009-08-06T09:46:00.000-07:00

If you're feeling overscheduled or overstuffed in your life these days, simplify your "diet" and find something to which you can say no. Take one or two things off your "to do" list that contribute to feeling overstuffed but aren't necessarily nourishing you. Leave the abundance on your plate for someone else or for yourself at another "meal". Even if it means canceling plans, letting someone down, including yourself; consider the consequences of continuing to over feed. We guarantee you'll feel freer, lighter, and more well nourished, not less.

Another thing, since August is a common vacation month, if you haven't planned one because you're too busy, there's too much to do, you can't find the time, and it's "weighing" on you; create it. Take a break, even a short one and see how the world continues when you step away. This time will not only refresh and lighten you, but it will help you gain perspective to see how you might simplify things when you return so you're not so stuffed and weighed down.

PULSE DIAGNOSIS

2009-08-05T08:16:00.000-07:00

Reading the pulses (yes, plural!) in Chinese Medicine is a very important part of our diagnosis. A practitioner can tell a lot about you internally, even before you report your symptoms. A lot of patients are mystified by this diagnostic skill. It’s just one of the many different ways that acupuncture differs from conventional medicine. Since a lot of my patients often inquire about what I’m doing when I read their pulses, I thought I’d write a brief post about what we are doing and why.

Pulse reading is not something that practitioners can learn over night- it takes a lot of practice, taking several thousand sets of pulses to learn the technique. There are twelve pulses in that a practitioner is looking for, and each pulse represents a different organ or function inthe body. This is why we read the pulse on both wrists, not just one. (You have six pulses on the right side and six on the left.) By reading your pulse, among other things, we can tell if your eating habits are good, if you have a cold coming on, and if your energy is high or low. We can also take note of how your organs are functioning at that time, and if there is a “disconnect” between organ systems (like a failed circuit)

When an acupuncture practitioner reads your pulse, they are interested in the pulse rate, but, even more, we are also looking for certain “qualities” in the pulse. Some terms you might hear an acupuncturist say are “wiry” (if you are stressed out or in pain), “slippery” if you have a lot of phlegm, or even “rapid” if you have a fever. There are 28 different qualities that pulses can have. While anyone can learn to FIND the pulses in about an hour, the complexity of the skill is why it takes a LOT of practice to become proficient.

The qualities of the pulses often lead a practitioner to ask specific questions, which will verify the information on the pulse, and can open up a conversation with the client. So don’t be afraid to ask the practitioner what they are feeling in your pulse. Doing so will often yield a fruitful discussion about self care.

Digesting Life

2009-07-20T08:59:00.000-07:00

(Digesting Life is Part 3 of Garbage In-Garbage Out, first published on July 18, 2009)

In Chinese medicine digesting your life experience is akin to digesting food. The same processes take place. The experience that you “take in” should be digested and transformed into something useful for your life. To take in without transforming it into something useful is a recipe for unnecessary accumulation. (You’ve met people who know a lot but can’t do anything with it!)

On the non-food front, the following will help you “digest” your life experiences:
1. Do one thing at a time. Multi-tasking may make you think you are important, but it often leads to lack of focus, inattention to detail, forgetting and other mental lapses, more fatigue, feelings of worry that you forgot something important, and other symptoms of “under-digestion” of your thought processes.

2. Think of others as well as yourself. Being stingy and being overly-giving are two sides of the same coin. The goal is balance. Remember the airline’s advice: If the masks fall from the ceiling, put yours on first and then attend to your seat partner. If we don’t care for the soil, then the soil won’t grow our food. It’s a simple equation that works in many ways. If you have an important job, children, pets, or you take care of other things that you value, then taking care of yourself becomes even more important.

3. Appreciate what others try to do for you. Even though it may not be the perfect thing, try to say thank you---genuinely and from the heart. People do the very best they can, even if it’s not exactly right for you.

4. Savor life. Whether the life experience is going to the grocery store, or filling the car with gas, appreciate the sights, smells, feelings that go with the event. (My dog taught me this when I realized that a trip to the county dump was as exciting as going to the park.) Life should “taste great”.

5. Take care of your own needs. If the restaurant seats you at the table under the vent, and you don’t like the draft on your neck, ask to be moved. If you are going to an all-day meeting, will a pillow make those hard chairs more bearable? Ask for a break in the action if your butt falls asleep. Taking a snack might help you if you tend to get ravenous by mid-afternoon. Acknowledge what it takes for life to be comfortable for you, and provide your own self-care. If you don’t take care of yourself, no one else will, and you will then end up resenting it. One of my clients speaks about being treated as a child by his wife, when she tells him what to do. Then, he complains that she didn’t remind him to take his medicine. This is a no win situation for this man. Accept the responsibility that is yours.

6. Do a “gratitude journal.” I won’t take credit for this. I heard about it from Oprah, and she requested that, daily, we fill out one page listing the things we are grateful for. There HAS to be something listed every day. This was an eye opener for me and for my clients who are surrounded with blessings but don’t take the time or energy to absorb, or even notice them. It is revealing when you are feeling empty, bereft, or otherwise “malnourished by life” that you can be walking past a full buffet of life’s nourishment and complaining about hunger simply because you don’t see what’s in front of you.

7. In the balance between giving and receiving, know when you are doing too much of either one, and not enough of the other. If you give too much and end up resenting it, you become an angry doormat. If you take too much and don’t give back, you risk alienating others, and being seen as needy (and worse!). Balancing giving and receiving is an art that takes consciousness and some work.

Phlegm and Dampness

2009-07-19T08:57:00.000-07:00

(This is Part 2 of Garbage In-Garbage Out, first published on July 18.)

Many of us have trouble with conditions Chinese medicine calls “phlegm” and “dampness.” (These two conditions are related. Essentially, phlegm is a heavy, thick, mucous-y substance that collects in “empty” places like joints, sinuses, and other spaces in the body. Dampness is excess fluid that tends to settle in the lower reaches, such as puffy ankles, bloating, swellings, etc.) Symptoms of both of these conditions include but are not limited to: sinus trouble, headaches, swollen joints, overweight, cysts, arthritis and neuropathy. If you are having trouble with phlegm or dampness, you might want to reduce or eliminate foods that contribute to the problem. Foods most often linked with dampness and phlegm are dairy (yogurt, cottage cheese, milk, ice cream, butter, sour cream, cheese), wheat, and eggs. (Note: the percentage of fat in the dairy products is not the issue, but rather the “milk solids.”) Substituting soy or rice products is simple and often you may not notice the difference. If you must eat bread, consider toasting it rather than eating it un-toasted, or consider eating breads made from spelt, or other non-gluten starters. Another contributor to phlegm and dampness is concentrated foods (foods which are cooked down and made into sauces, jams, purees, etc., such as tomato sauces, apple sauce, pumpkin butter, etc.) It takes about 5 oranges to make a 4 oz glass of orange juice, and 4-5 tomatoes to make a ladle of tomato sauce. Think about eating the “whole food” rather than the concentrated forms.

Next Post will by Part 3 of Garbage In-Garbage Out

Garbage In-Garbage Out: Food, Digestion, Pooping and Savoring Life

2009-07-18T08:42:00.000-07:00

Garbage In--- Garbage Out: Food, Digestion and Pooping

“Garbage in-Garbage Out” is the modern day shorthand for “you only get out what you put in.” This chapter is for those people who eat. I thought about addressing it to those with digestive disturbances, but many folks who have those don’t know who they are because symptoms haven’t gotten so bad yet, or the symptoms don’t directly appear to be digestively related. It’s also about consciously doing what is good for your digestion, anyway. This and the next couple of posts are going to be about how to think about eating and improving your digestion, as well as how the digestive process is affected by (and effects) your life.

The body is a “transformer”: it transforms your food and drink into flesh, blood, enough energy to make your heart beat and your other organs perform their daily tasks. If the food you take in is not right for you (even if it is “good food” by all other standards) and if the food is not consumed in the correct circumstances or is the wrong temperature, then the “output” will be flawed.

As your acupuncturist, I can honestly say that without your help in this arena I don’t have a shot at getting or keeping you well, especially if what ails you is chronic. I need your partnership to tend yourself between treatments, so that treatment isn’t always starting at zero, trying to pull you out of the muck. What you do between treatments is much more important that what needles you get.

One of my first clients was a patient of a retired acupuncturist. This patient had been having treatment weekly for about 4 years, with little to no improvement in her condition. Puzzled, I questioned her about her diet, and she told me that she consumed Twinkies and a Coke while driving to work in the morning, and then ate nothing again until dinner. This is where we started. After a prolonged struggle that included denial, anger, and other stages of loss, she finally decided to “try” to eat better. We just picked a few simple things to get her started, rather than overwhelming her with dietary rules that would scare anyone away.

So this equation (of production equaling input) can start with food, and then be carried over to the other dimensions of your life.

What you eat:
All food has an energetic character. Lettuce, for example, is light and airy. Beef is heavy. Chicken is lighter than beef, but heavier than lettuce. When we want to achieve certain results, it follows that we should eat the things that create the results we want. Want to lose weight? Eat lighter food. Want to have enough substance to make a baby? Eat red meat. Your acupuncturist should be able to give you some guidance for your specific goals. However, below I have outlined some suggestions that will help you make some decisions on tending yourself in a way that supports your digestive processes.

Some Guidelines to assist your digestive organs:

1. Eat regular meals. Eating at the same time of day helps your body anticipate nourishment, and keeps you from getting very hungry.
2. Establish regular times for elimination. Get to know when your body wants to eliminate. It will help you schedule your day. The best time of day to have a bowel movement is between 5 and 7 am. All of our organs have a two-hour window of peak operating efficiency, and this is the time of the colon’s peak efficiency. This gets rid of yesterday and makes room for today. Your stool should have no evidence of undigested food and should not be overly watery, liquid mush or too hard to pass easily.

3. Eat breakfast between 7 am and 9 am. (Yes, eat breakfast even if you are not hungry!) Between 7 and 9 am is the time of the Stomach. Calories taken in at this time are burned most efficiently. Eat a hearty breakfast. Your entire day depends on the nourishment that fuels it in the morning.

4. Eat smaller meals as the day progresses. While the stomach is most efficient at between 7 and 9 am, it is LEAST efficient between 7 and 9 pm, when most of us are sitting down to dinner. Culturally, we eat rather large dinners and then go to bed, leaving the stomach to hold and process all that food when we are supposed to be resting. This is a recipe for indigestion and incomplete use of food (ie: weight gain, indigestion, constipation, etc.). Eating much more lightly at night will help you use your food much more efficiently. And try not to eat anything at all after 7 pm., giving yourself time to digest BEFORE you lay down.

5. Don’t eat while reading, watching TV, or driving. Relax and enjoy your food, taking your time to eat, chew, and digest. Don’t eat mindlessly. Being social at a meal is fine, and probably good for your stomach.

6. Restrict your consumption of raw/uncooked foods. If you are having digestive problems, you should know that uncooked food is making your stomach work many times harder. If you are eating cold foods, the stomach has to first “cook” the food that you send it, before it can break it down and use it. If you are getting headaches, have bad breath, indigestion, diarrhea, stomachaches, flatulence, fatigue, feelings of heaviness, or odd bodily odors, for example, it could be that you are sensitive to particular foods OR that you are intolerant of the way they are prepared and eaten. You will actually get more nutrition (fuel) from steamed or slightly cooked foods than you will from raw foods, because the net result of eating raw foods is that so much energy goes to your body’s need to cook and digest rather than to performing life’s tasks. This is not to say that your shouldn’t enjoy a limited amount of seasonally correct cold foods (salads, raw fruits, etc.) But if you do eat a cold meal (sandwiches or salads) have a cup of hot tea with it, to help the stomach in its “cooking” process. However, if you do have chronic problems such as diarrhea, prolapses, hernias, hemorrhoids, easy bruising, undigested food in your feces, “heavy feeling” arms and legs, foggy thinking after eating, then eating hot food is likely going to help you. This brings me to another of my favorite recommendations to clients: crockpots (also known as slow cookers). These handy devices save energy, cook meals while you are busy doing other things, make the food very digestible to your system, and essentially are a “must have” for anyone with digestive problems.

7. Wean yourself off of iced beverages. Eating a hot meal is counter-acted by following it with a glass of ice water. Learn to drink water/other beverages hot or at room temperature. The stomach’s responsibility, remember, is to cook your food, and it can’t do it efficiently in ice cold water!

8. Make sure that you are hydrated. The stomach cannot efficiently operate if it is dry. This does not mean drinking with meals, however. You can try drinking water both with and away from meals, and see which your body prefers. Most of us are dehydrated. Use the following formula to roughly determine if you are drinking enough water:

Body weight in pounds = # of fluid oz. of water daily
Divide this number by 2

PLUS: Add 8z of water for each carbonated beverage
Add 8 oz of water for each caffeinated beverage
Add 8 oz of water for each alcoholic beverage
Are you drinking enough water?

8. Notice your cravings. Give in to some (with mindful limitations), because your body is telling you that you need something. However, when a craving becomes an addiction, it is time to find out what exactly is going on. You might need medical testing or some kind of input about how certain foods affects your body, mind and spirit.

9. Reduce caffeine. Caffeine is a drug. It has no calories, and so the “energy” that it produces in you comes from your vital stores of energy (qi). It robs your kidneys (in Chinese medicine; the adrenals in western medicine) to give you the “buzz” that you seek. After a prolonged period of caffeine use, it follows that you will age faster, become dehydrated and have more illness and weakness than you would otherwise.

Next Post: Phlegm and Dampness: what happens when the digestive process is compromised

Summer, Sun, Sex and Basketball

2009-06-20T17:14:00.000-07:00

Today we celebrate the summer solstice. The longest day; the shortest night. The height of summer.

In the west, this is known as "the first day of summer," but actually summer has been going on for at least a month; we are halfway through!!

This is the time when the universe is in love with all of us: we co-mingle our fluids by sweating and swimming. We take in the warmth of the season by going naked in the sun (or at least as naked as the law will allow.) It is a time of full expansion—of the light and of our energy. If we don't get enough sun and warmth in this season, we will suffer in cold of winter. We store the warmth in our bones.

The season of Fire (summer) is at the apex of the year. Imagine one of those incredibly graceful professional basketball players who glide across the court and leap into the air, positioning for a dunk. At the top of the arc, he seems to pause—freeze in place—as he suspends himself in the air in order to land the ball in the bucket. It seems like magic, that pause. The apex of the arc is characterized by stillness, that moment of suspended animation.

In the tai chi symbol, there is the upward white wave next to the downward black wave. At this moment we are at the exact top of the circle, where there is a little black dot in the white side of the wave. That little black dot is the seed of winter which gets planted today. It is the "seed of the opposite." The ancients slowed activity on the day after the summer solstice to symbolically sow the seed of winter: to recognize in thought and action that the days are now getting shorter.

So tomorrow, pause for a period of time, suspend your animation. Then resume your celebration of summer. Sweat, swim, bond with the universe, and maybe play some basketball.

An Herbal Walk with Jim Duke: Sat. May 30, 2009

2009-05-30T13:04:00.000-07:00

Walking with Jim Duke in his Green Farmacy is a treat for an herbalist's sweet tooth. Dr. James Duke, for those of you who may not know him, earned his Ph.D. in Botany from the University of North Carolina, and is a world-renowned for his numerous publications on botanical medicine, including the CRC Handbook of Medicinal Herbs. He is notable for developing the Phytochemical and Ethnobotanical Databases at the USDA. He is the author of the ultimate compendium on healing herbs, entitled "Green Pharmacy." In his "retirement" he is an adjunct faculty member of the Tai Sophia Institute (where I am Faculty Emeritus). This working botanical laboratory is a stone's throw from the school: 90 plots of land actively growing healing herbs. Specimens are arranged by illness: from Alzheimers and Arthritis to Sciatica and Vaginosis.

Wearing a huge woven sombrero to ward off the sun, Dr. Duke met us in the small driveway sporting bare feet, and a big walking stick which was used not so much for ambulation but for reaching plants and pointing out the herbs growing on the hillsides. This softspoken gentleman farmer with the slow southern drawl is a walking database on herbs, chemistry, pharmaceuticals, and diseases. We strolled for over two hours, with Jim pointing out the plants that are used as spices (all the plants here are medicinal, and today's featured plants are used to spice up culinary recipes, which was the theme of today's tour.) Reaching for samples of each plant, we tore off pieces, smelled them, "bruised" them (smashed them between our fingers), and chewed them. (I felt better immediately!)

In this haven, chairs and tables dotted the landscape to provide sunny and shady spots for scattered groups engaged in hands-on study. A black snake rested on a hot rock at the side of the pond lined with the mucilaginous herbs, undaunted by the two-leggeds walking by. Content to share the space, I wondered if this wild thing had learned to be tame enough to rest in the knowledge that nothing here could hurt him.)

This visit is one of many offered by the community education department of Tai Sophia Institute. Each season brings a different tour, with different themes. If you want an amazing experience in the Green Farmacy, go to the school's website: www.tai.edu, and look under the community programs link and sign up for one of these popular Herb Walks. Right here in our backyard we have a natural wonder well worthy of your time and small donation.

I love it when....

2009-05-26T13:22:00.000-07:00

I love it when I find out, sometimes years later, that I helped someone.

I was in Lowe's recently, and ran into an "old" client whom I had not seen for years. I had thought that acupuncture mustn't have done so well for him, since he hadn't returned for treatment. He greeted me with great gusto, like an long-lost friend, and proceeded to tell his wife that I was the one who saved him from surgery. He went on and on, singing the praises of acupuncture (and me). I hadn't heard this before. He never returned to my office to let me know. (Note to professionals everywhere:It's a good thing I was wearing clean clothes, since this was a great marketing event: a bystander asked for my card!)

Soon after, I received a call from a regular client who left a message on my voicemail that I had "cured" her sinus infection. (I never use the word cure, and take no credit for "curing" since nature does the healing, not me.) But it was great to hear and very thoughtful for her to call to tell me.

And a colleague whom I treat just told me that her acupuncture treatments this winter really helped speed the healing from pneumonia, an illness that has had the tendency to linger for her in the past.

Then, a long-since-vanished client called to make an appointment after a 15 year absence, and we talked like we had seen each other only yesterday, like there was hardly a lapse in time. I recognized his name and voice immediately. He has an appointment this week, and I eagerly await his return.

These communications all came to me within a week's time. Perhaps the universe heard my silent musings of my occasional doubts, my wondering if it's time to retire, my fear of what will happen to acupuncture as health care delivery is overhauled in the near future, and my apprehension as money continues to tighten for my clients.

I know that I really needed to hear these things. And I decided to call the people who helped ME in the last several years to let them know how much their service meant to me. Sometimes we just forget to do it in the moment, forgetting that even the experts need the feedback.

Another East/West Difference

2009-05-18T17:06:00.000-07:00

As a westerner who believes that talk therapy can be extremely useful to "turn the light on in the darkened soul" I find myself, as an acupuncturist, at odds with the modality that permits clients to perseverate on their illness, repeating the damage done to them in the past and re-living it with each telling.

The client who undergoes therapy and somehow finds himself "stuck" in the past ("My family is to blame for how I turned out"; "I can't be different because of what happened to me," etc.) often wants to share with me the etiology of their suffering. While it's interesting from a human-to-human, compassionate point of view, as an acupuncturist I find that repeating the story of their hurts is NOT useful in my treatment room since my work is geared toward helping them discover their own potential and finding ways to change their lives and their emotional experiences.

Imagine a person on a clear, linear trajectory that gets "bumped" off his/her path by a life event. Abuse: bump!--off target. Hurt or loss: bump!--jolted off again. By now, the person is "lost" and desperately trying to be back on the original path to the divine. With each verbal repetition of the events, especially without some kind of resolution in the immediate telling, then the body experiences the assault or loss as having occurred AGAIN! If the telling happens often, the body believes it to be true NOW just as much as it was true THEN. But NOW is not "THEN": it may be 20 years later, and the person isn't moving on as an adult, but is re-living "past-life" again and again. Energetically, that's STUCK!!

As an acupuncturist, if I permit the client to tell, re-tell, and essentially re-live it all, I am permitting illness to deepen right in front of me. I must stop the conversation, AND I have to look for a healthy moment in which to needle---to ask the body to find its way BACK to the divine path that the universe intended. I have to help the client find ANOTHER WAY. I feel that if I put the needle in while the patient is living in the past (during the re-telling) I am anchoring the past into his/her body.

I expect to encounter anger, sadness, grief and all the other emotions. Those are normal and, believe it or not, fleeting and ephemeral. To "solidify" them with a STORY about the past-- a time that does not exist anymore-- is to ask the body to return to that time and place and re-experience it. Acupuncture asks the body to find it's way back to the ideal, to health, to a path of destiny where the client isn't stuck, but is moving toward their future in a balanced, easy way.

This is really the meaning behind the title of this blog: moving the qi. Not "getting stuck." (That was an acupuncture joke.)

2009-05-18T16:58:00.000-07:00

The LA Times just published a story about the efficacy of using ginger to curb the side effects of chemotherapy. While I am delighted that the public is learning that simple herbal substances can have an affect on health, it concerns me that articles like this will often lead some readers to follow this advice blindly. So here's the original story:

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-nausea15-2009may15,0,3896541.story

The upshot is that scientists have discovered that a teaspoon of ginger daily will help to curb the nausea of chemotherapy. Actually, Chinese herbal medicine uses ginger for upset stomachs, but there are some caveats: if the patient has a lot of heat already present in the stomach it may not be a great idea. (Those who are on multiple rounds of chemo will often have eroded stomach lining, and the chemo slows or stops the creation of more epithelial cells. That's why the hair falls out and mouth soreness happen, too.) Ginger can be warming to the stomach, and when the stomach is "hot" then it could make things worse. A LITTLE ginger could go a long way, and too much,....well....

This reminds me of a client who came in about a year ago who had successfully used acupuncture to help control his blood pressure, among other things. All of a sudden, he started getting high BP readings at home and at his doctor's office. After questioning, I discovered that he, too, had read an article in some health magazine about how cinnamon helps to prevent heart attacks. The article stated that 1/2 tsp. of cinnamon per day was tested and found to be efficacious, and ended by saying "at least it won't hurt you." So my client thought, "Well, if a little won't hurt, then more would be better." He began taking 1 teaspoon of cinnamon per day. Nobody told him (and it wasn't in the article) that cinnamon can raise BP!! The mystery was solved, his BP is now under control again.

While these substances are "natural" remember that "natural" doesn't always mean safe for YOU. It's possible to overdose on any natural substance, and even without an overdose, some substances may not be good for all people under certain conditions. So if you have questions about that article you read in the most recent edition of the health magazine (or even the LA Times) go online to check or ask your acupuncturist or local qualified herbalist.

Joe Biden Was Right

2009-05-02T06:05:00.000-07:00

Joe Biden was right

This week, a flourish of backpeddling by the Obama administration tried to make up for the “gaffe” that VP Joe Biden made on morning TV, saying that he wouldn’t advise members of his family to use airplanes, subways or other “enclosed spaces” as a prevention for the spread of the swine flu.

In an age where the airlines are losing money, and public transportation saves air quality, the administration doesn’t want panic on behalf of those industries, and doesn’t want to incite even more fear in the public.

So what are the facts? Any place that re-circulates air also re-circulates viruses of all types. This includes your car, your home or your office building when the windows are closed. Most of the time, our immune systems and general health can handle it. So Joe wasn’t doing anything but truth-telling to a public in desperate need of the truth.

So is it time to panic? No.

Most of us are healthy enough to withstand a virus doing battle with our bodies. If we do get the swine flu, it is likely that most cases will be mild, because we are healthy and can fight this battle easily. If your immune system is compromised, you should be concerned about exposure (including being in closed spaces), and should take precautions to prevent contracting the flu. You have probably heard about hand washing ad-nauseum, but it is the most effective strategy for prevention of contracting the flu AND for limiting the spread of the virus to your family and friends.

WebMD’s website is a wonderful resource to let us all know about further steps to take to limit the spread and keep us from getting sick. Here’s the link for a slideshow about the swine flu: http://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/slideshow-swine-flu. The CDC also has an informative website that is updated constantly. This one is about prevention: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/protect/preventing.htm.

Now back to Joe, and his admonition about “enclosed spaces.” We can’t always avoid enclosed spaces, such as office buildings whose windows don’t open, public transportation, hospital visitation, etc., but we CAN use the precautions advised by t he CDC and keep ourselves as healthy as possible. This is a social (ie: public health) problem, and it takes everyone doing his/her part to protect all of us.

Generally prevention is so much easier than fighting an infection once it has come aboard. So if you want to consider measures in addition to those recommended by the CDC, here’s what this acupuncturist advises:

1. Eat right. You should know what this means for you. Often, lots of fruits and veggies, limited fats, little if any sugar, food that you brings you joy and good health.
2. Get necessary sleep.
3. Be with friends. Don’t eliminate your social life because of fear. Be responsible, however, and think about having a picnic outdoors rather than in the office basement lunchroom.
4. If you must travel by public transportation, then use common sense. Anti-bacterial wipes will clean the tray table and arm rests on a plane. Anti-bacterial lotions can clean your hands after touching the pole in the subway. And don’t touch your nose, eyes or mouth (entryways to your insides) before you have had a chance to wipe your hands clean.
5. Wipe down all surfaces that you commonly touch or breathe on. Examples: your cell phone, telephone, computer keyboard, remote controls, desktops, doorknobs, etc.
6. Use some Vaseline or other “sticky” product at the entryway of your nose. When you breathe in, you can trap particulates (viruses, bacteria, pollen, etc.) and they won’t get into your lungs.
7. See your acupuncturist. Regular treatments can optimize your immune responses. And generally good health limits the receptivity of your body to disease.
8. Take precautionary supplements. Maybe some additional Vitamin C? Make sure your Vitamin D levels are up to snuff (this might require testing by your doc.) And your acupuncturist may have some herbal supplements that will help you ward off invading viruses. If you don’t have an acupuncturist handy that can prescribe the appropriate supplements, you can get Airborne at the drugstore. It will chase off many viruses that make us sick.
9. And lastly, don’t let fear grip you unnecessarily. We have the best healthcare in the world, which brings together the gifts of the ancient medicine of the first century AD and the modern scientific advances of the 21st century AD. It is VERY unlikely that Americans will suffer the degree of illness, overall, that has already been found in Mexico because of the quality of our healthcare, and the better overall health of our citizens.

So Joe was right. Just not politically correct.

Allergies or Irritants?

2009-04-24T08:56:00.000-07:00

Spring signals itself in many ways…the world gets greener, we get eager to spend more time outdoors, AND many of us start with runny noses and itchy eyes.

Allergies, right? Well, maybe.

Allergies are the body’s responses to foreign matter when the invader is specifically identified as being a life-threatening attacker. For example, lots of kids these days are “allergic” to peanuts. If they eat one, their bodies can’t discern that a peanut is a harmless thing used to make kid-friendly sandwiches. Their cells go on alert; they swell, itch and have trouble breathing. Same with allergies to pollen, dust and other respiratory triggers: eyes, nose and respiratory organs think that a small grain of pollen or dust is a terrorist in disguise.

So if these are your symptoms, then it might be allergies. BUT, it could also be an irritant. Irritants are thing that enter the nose and eyes (dust, pollen and other things floating through the air in spring) and they simply irritate the tissue lining your eyes and respiratory tract. Anyone could get an irritation if enough of the offending floating stuff is taken in. Think of what happens when you get something in your eye--even something you aren’t allergic to. When you wash it out, the tissue settles down. And if you do have allergies, irritants can make the symptoms worse.

So before you reach for an “allergy pill” doing some of the following actions may resolve the symptoms because it may not be an allergy at all. If you reach for the pill first, you may be medicating unnecessarily. Or if it is an allergic reaction, you may be overdosing when smaller doses will do.

1. Probably the very best thing to do is to use a neti pot. A neti pots is a little vessel that looks like an aladdin’s lamp. It is used to wash out the nose and clear the irritants from your nose hairs and turbinates (skull bones that form a maze behind your nose) that trap particulates and keep them from your lungs. There are internet sites that show you how to use a neti pot, so I won’t describe it here. (See one at: http://www.thegreenhead.com/2006/11/neti-pot-nasal-passage-cleanser.php as an example.) I have had clients who swear by the use of this simple, old-fashioned device. Here’s my latest testimonial:

“I first heard about a Neti pot about a year ago and didn't think it sounded very appealing or like anything I would even consider doing. Because I have allergies and occasional sinus problems I eventually decided to try the Neti Pot. My first few attempts were sloppy, and I really didn't enjoy using it. I did begin to notice a big difference in my sinuses however. I now use my Neti Pot about two or three times a week and love it. Not only does it clear my sinuses, it also keeps them from drying out during the winter. I love my Neti Pot now and look forward to using it. I describe the results as the fresh, clean smell of the air at the beach. I highly recommend it. “ Margaret K.

I have been asked by clients how often they have to use a neti pot. I reply by asking them how often they bathe. When they tell me “every day,” I respond by saying that using a neti pot is the respiratory system’s bath. Daily washing will only help your respiratory system keep clean.

2. When you go out, think about putting some Vaseline or a similar product at the very bottom of the lining of each nostril. This can potentially trap the flying debris and keep it “glued” to the outside of your body, rather than letting it go up through your sinuses.

3. Wash your face and hands after coming indoors or after touching your pets.

4. Wash your hair and change your clothes. Being outdoors means that all that stuff is trapped in your hair and on your clothing. So don’t wear the same clothing, especially around your face, day after day. Your hair should be washed, especially before going to bed, where your face rubs all over your pillowcase. And wash the pillowcase nightly too, especially if you want to be efficient at this cleaning thing.

5. Wear a hat and eyeglasses/goggles if you are going to be outdoors for a long time, or in the wind. This keeps your hair and eyes from collecting the unseen debris.

6. Close the windows in your house and car on days when the particulates are especially bothersome. If you need to, use an air conditioner (but be sure that the filters are clean!)

7. Use an air purifier next to your bed or desk or any place that you stay for many hours. An air purifier only works in the immediately adjacent area, so don’t expect miracles from one little machine. And keep the filters clean!

8. Reduce the degree of irritants and allergens by being conscious of what you put into the surroundings in your home and car. Because changing your home and car is a more expensive endeavor, you can be mindful of these things when redecorating or buying a new car:
•Put in hardwood floors rather than new wall-to-wall carpet;
•Use leather furniture rather than fabric; (or use fabric furniture covers that are easily washed and replaced:
•Don’t have drapes or fabric wall art that collects dust easily, (use blinds, shutters, or easily washed curtains)
•Keep your dog’s hair short and bathe him/her more frequently;
•Don’t let the dog sleep in your bed. (yeah, right!)
•Install leather seats in your next car---no fabric.

9. Get regular acupuncture. Acupuncture has been recognized by western medicine as one of the modalities that helps reduce allergies. Sites such as www.WebMd.com have many articles that talk about how acupuncture has been found to help many people permanently. To be effective for seasonal allergies, don’t wait til spring to start. What you do in the seasons before spring will have an impact on the following seasons.

These steps should help reduce the junk in your nose, eyes and lungs, so that symptoms may be more easily managed. If, however, you are still bothered by symptoms, the most effective medications available over the counter tend to be really expensive, with the cost being close to a buck a pill. (They know when they have you over a barrel, huh?)

If you are a client of an acupuncturist or Chinese herbalist, you can ask if she prescribes any herbal supplements. I prescribe a very inexpensive formula (it has a Chinese name that nobody remembers, but I call it “magic snot pill”) and the cost is extremely low compared to the OTC western stuff (about 7 bucks for 100 pills/taken 2 at a time). Even my neighbors show up every spring to get some.

Spring is so wonderful that it would be a shame for you to miss out on any part of it, or feel too symptomatic to enjoy the season’s wonders. With a little consciousness, some effort at cleaning your respiratory organs and your environment, and doing some complementary medicine (acupuncture and herbs) you can be relieved of your cabin fever of winter, and be out in nature during all it’s blooming bounty.

Where is Grandma when you need her?

2009-03-30T11:04:00.000-07:00

The stomach flu is going around. Several clients came in recently either having had it, or were just getting it. Besides needles, what can help relieve the upset?

When I was a kid with the stomach flu (or food poisoning, or the "heaves") my mom used to give me room temperature "coke syrup" that she got from the corner soda fountain. A teaspoon or sip of that would help to resolve my upset stomach. No other food would be given to me for a day or so, until my stomach had a chance to rest; only the thick syrup would comfort it. We didn't really use the carbonated form of the soft drink, because carbonation and coldness tend to upset the stomach more, and watering down the syrup decreases the sweetness that we needed.

Today, it's hard to come by coke syrup, although there are a couple of mail order companies that sell it (eg: The Vermont Country Store Catalog). Instead, I keep a can of heavy syrup fruit cocktail in the back of the cupboard for such needs. I drain the fruit out, and then sip on the reserved liquid.

In Chinese medicine, the flavor of sweet is said to nourish the stomach. That's why sweet things appeal to children, and why we feel we MUST have dessert after large meals. When Chinese herbal formulas are given, especially to those with weak digestive systems, herbs are added such as licorice or dates to sweeten up the formula making it more easily digested.

It's almost always true that your grandmother knew the best home-remedies for everyday illnesses. They are also almost always quite consistent with Chinese medicine.

crowding out your pathology

2009-03-28T10:34:00.000-07:00

I was in the treatment room this morning, when a patient asked why I was needling points on her "constitution". Of course there is no easy, short answer to such a question, so I pulled up my chair and talked about the garden.

Chinese medicine, which is a reflection of Chinese philosophy, says that we are conceived by our parents and are imbued with a destiny that belongs solely to us as individuals. That creation is a blueprint of our future in its shining possibility. It will come true if nothing gets in the way. Illness is what gets in the way. Like the acorn (which holds a perfect little oak tree) our fetus is the perfect us, just smaller.

A few years ago, I had so many thistles growing in my flower border that I could easily spend one to two hours weekly digging them up by their roots. But there were always more. I then had the bright idea to plant something desirable that would crowd out the thistles, making it tough for their roots to re-grow. So I planted this lovely groundcover which blossoms in the spring with bright yellow flowers. NO MORE THISTLES.

So what has this to do with Chinese Medicine and destiny? If I, as your acupuncturist, support your destiny (your constitution, your basic gifts, the things that you do really well,) then there will be NO ROOM for illness. As such, we want to crowd out pathology...make it hard to take root, difficult to generate.

So, in a given treatment, I have the option of eliminating a pathology, OR supporting what's healthy, and crowding out the pathology. Often I do both until the client becomes able to crowd out the pathology for him/herself.

I'm glad she asked the question.'

The truth is in here somewhere....

2007-07-16T14:00:00.000-07:00

It's been quite awhile since I began this blog. I find that I want the entries to be perfect, and thus don't write much. However, I find that if I just jump in, I might not be perfect, but there will at least be something on the page.

Today, I'm taken with how much pathology can look like health. I was out in my garden, pulling weeds. It takes a really trained eye to distinguish between some of the weeds and the desired plants. There is a "bush" growing right from the base of my bluberry bush that looks EXACTLY like the blueberry bush---but it isn't the blueberry. The leaves are the same color, shape and texture. Last year, I didn't find out it wasn't the blueberry bush until AFTER it had sucked all the nourishment out of the soil and grew and grew and eventually took over the blueberry. This year, I'm arguing with myself about poisoning the undesirable visitor so that the berry bush can re-claim it's victory in the garden. I'm also noticing that weeds growing in the groundcover try to mimic their surroundings---sporting the same height, the leaf density, and color, of the intentionally planted landscape. These parasitic plants are masquerading as invited guests so they will be fed and cared for and allowed to flourish!!! So what am I writing this for?

Well, in my acupuncture practice, another colleague brought a patient for a consultation. The patient's complaint was "painfully hot feet and hands." Indeed, her feet were very red and swollen, (and her hands less so) but to the touch, her feet were ICE COLD. To get relief from the subjective feeling of being hot, the patient has been soaking her feet in ice water and packing them with ice packs every night. The other signs observable in this patient resonate with COLD (her pulse, her tongue). The cold is masquerading as heat so that the cold will be "nourished" (fed) by outside pathogenic behaviours of the patient. ("Cold" can be experienced subjectively as "heat"---think: dry ice.) In this case, the treatment for her feet and hands is to warm them up.

When we behave in a way that SEEMS to reflect our needs, can the behavior be "wrong?" Yes indeed. Think of all of us out here that are addicted to sugar or fats. We can SEEM hungry, when in fact it has only been an hour since our last meal, and there is no way we could be legitimately hungry. The pull toward consuming more and more of what we crave is, in itself, an illness. The illness perpetuates itself in the craving. This is also true with those of us addicted to working, caffeine, etc. When we overdo, and can't stop, then the activity itself is perpetuating the problem, just like the over-tired child who just can't go to sleep because he is over-tired. This is when we have to let our common sense intervene, and stop the cycle of getting deeper and deeper into the weeds.

Tending ourselves like a garden, we must be able to recognize which behaviors are the "weeds" needing elimination, and which are the plants needing cultivation. When the Chinese talk of "cultivating the qi" they mean to promote health and discourage un-health. It an be harder than it appears at first blush, because those damned weeds often appear to be healthy plants. But are they?

Introduction

2007-02-11T19:22:00.000-08:00

This is the first, albeit short, entry to MovetheQi, an occasional posting about Chinese Medicine, lessons from the classical Chinese Medical Literature, learnings from my clients, nature and my teachers. Thanks to those who tune in.

I have been in the practice of acupuncture for neigh on 18 years at this point (since 1989: the year of Tienenman Square and the fall of the Berlin Wall). At that time, the walls of my perception came tumbling down, when I realized the poetry and Truth of this ancient medicine. From that time, I have been amazed at the changes that can happen when the healing comes from the inside out. I started looking seriously at Chinese Herbal Medicine about 10 years ago, and found that all maladies that currently affect humankind have always existed. In the old texts, they describe remedies that address things that we arrogantly think of as "modern"---HIV, heart disease, strokes, migraines (although they weren't called such) etc. I have since come to think of herbal formulas as "those things that are missing from our diets." So with this meager knowledge, I write.

Why a Blog? One foot in the 21st century, and the other foot in the year 1000 (or so) is why. My clients are tech-savvy (some of them). They are also tuned in to their bodies, nature and know that wisdom can come from anywhere. It's also a place for me to record my observations about nature, so that I can learn and have a record of it.

So here goes. Pardon if the posts are irregular or maybe a bit esoteric. But I'll try to make them understandable to all by referring to what's going on in nature.

Thanks for checking it out occasionally.

CS