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Chinese Medicine Living Has A Fresh New Design!! <3 Also...
We have officially launched our new site for Chinese Medicine Professionals - CML Pro Shop - which is now live!
This site is specifically for practitioners of Chinese Medicine - and the shop will have all kinds of resources that can be downloaded, copied and handed out to patients. We also have the option to add your name, clinic name and/or your logo to any of the sheets - we will personalize them just for you. We are excited to be able to give practitioners of this wonderful medicine resources to help educate and empower their patients so that they can spend their time doing what they do best. Yay!
There are several new info sheets in the Learn Chinese Medicine Living Shop. Here is the list:
- Summer Season in Chinese Medicine
- Fall Season in Chinese Medicine
- Winter Season in Chinese Medicine
- Spring Season in Chinese Medicine
- The Seasons in Chinese Medicine - Set of 4
- Insomnia in Chinese Medicine
- Constipation in Chinese Medicine
- The Colour of Foods Poster
- The Spleen - Theory in Chinese Medicine
- The Spleen - Nutrition in Chinese Medicine
- The Spleen - Dampness in Chinese Medicine
- The Spleen Associations in Chinese Medicine - Poster
**All these sheets are also available in the Chinese Medicine Professionals shop. Check them out!
We are finishing up some more Spleen sheets and when they are done they will be available as a set.
Here Are This Month's Articles...
- Tapping & Slapping Qi Gong
- Traditional Chinese Medicine - The Medicine of Prevention
- Eat Your Way to Health: Chinese Superfoods
- Quote of the Month
- Inspiration - Falling in Love with the Outdoors: Why National Parks Inspire Awe
- Chinese Medicine & Acupuncture in the News
- Recipe of the Month - Stir Fried Chicken with Goji Berries
- About Chinese Medicine Living
Tapping & Slapping Qi Gong
By John Voigt
The Exercise
This qigong may be done when standing, seated, or walking. It is a delight to do in the morning, especially with others in a park as the morning sun rises. But it may be done at any time, and it’s especially helpful if you haven’t moved for a while. As with any exercise, and especially if you have or may have an illness, first check with a health professional before adding it to your daily practice. And stop doing it if anything hurts when doing it or afterwards “No pain no gain” is a western malapropism.
This Qigong is done with penetrating percussive fingertip tapping, open hand slaps, and softly clasped fists. Hit gently but forcefully, imagining you are penetrating all the way into the marrow of the bones. Never should the skin appear bruised, instead the skin should feel tingly and radiantly alive. Underneath the skin, especially in the fascia, should feel strengthened and full of warm thick qi. Also, your acupuncture points may begin to feel opened and cleansed. All these positive sensations may last for twelve to twenty-four hours, or possibly longer.
The number of taps and slaps for each individual body part—usually of nine in a “bundle”—is for the beginner. Once you have grown accustomed to the exercise, the number of taps or slaps on any body part may be increased to up to one hundred or more in what I am calling a “bundle,” and the number of bundles may be increased from one to five or more. Yet even only a few taps, slaps, or hits with soft fists can prove beneficial and enjoyable. However it is important not to omit any section of the exercise; in other words, work on all the suggested parts of the body in the order that they are given, and try to do the entire practice every day.
The Warm Up
To build up the Qi (Life Force Energy): Rub your hands together, then stretch and wiggle your fingers. Feel the blood, qi and warmth flow into your hands. Tap your fingertips together. Wiggle your fingers again.
Pretend you are holding a beach ball. Inhale and feel this imaginary ball expand. As you exhale squeeze it back to its original size. Do this for a few minutes or until you feel your palms and fingertips grow warm—or even better, hot. This is to increase the quantity and quality of your qi as your taps and slaps are sending this healing vitality into the body.
1. The Upper Part of the Head. Lightly pat from the front to back with the fingertips. For the left side do 9 taps; then for the right side do 9 taps. Then repeat this. Avoid hitting the Baihui point, GV-20, at the crown (top) of the head.
Traditional Chinese Medicine - The Medicine of Prevention
By Emma Suttie, D.Ac, AP
I like to use the metaphor borrowed from the wonderful book Between Heaven and Earth that compares the body to a garden. Chinese medicine sees the body as a garden. Something that needs to be tended and nurtured. You must water a garden, pull weeds and be mindful of pests for your garden to thrive. You must look at your garden every day so that you can detect subtle changes and make adjustments so that your garden will flourish.
In the West, the body is seen more as a machine. Parts break and must be fixed or replaced. It is a reductionist model, reducing the body to parts, that instead of working together, are seen in isolation. We tend to wait until something "breaks" before we seek out a mechanic to do the needed repairs. This is one of the fundamental differences between the Eastern and Western models. In the West, we tend to wait until we are diagnosed with a disease before we seek out treatment, and in the Eastern model, we are learning to take care of ourselves on every level so that we can stay healthy and never get sick. Chinese medicine is a medicine of prevention.
The thing many people don't know about Chinese medicine is that it is not just going to have acupuncture for a headache, or when your allergies flare up, it teaches a way of life, or better yet a way of LIVING. In acupuncture school we are all taught the acupuncture points and their functions, but this is only a fraction of the overall picture. We are mostly looking at the entire body and its relationship to the environment. We are also looking at the body and its various parts in relation to each other. In the garden, if you tend it every day you see which plants are happy and which ones are struggling. You can see which ones need fertilizer and which ones are getting too much sun. It is the same with the body. If we are paying attention, we can feel the subtleties happening inside, if we have an excess liver, a deficient spleen or a disturbance in our shen. This kind of attunement is possible, and vital to being as healthy and balanced as we would all like to be. The thing is, that we have to learn how. And this is what Chinese medicine teaches.
This learning, or teaching - the sharing of information - is the job of the acupuncturist. That is the entire intention of Chinese Medicine Living and why I started it in the first place. It is not to hand over your health to someone else, it is to participate and empower everyone to achieve the healing, health and happiness they want, because they can have it.
How To Stay Healthy and Prevent Illness
The wonderful thing about the Chinese medicine approach to health is that it is all encompassing. You are not just your body, you are so much more! You are spirit, emotions, energy, light, they are all part of you. You are also flesh, bones, muscles and tendons, and all must be maintained so that you remain healthy. Every aspect is important, they all matter. The intake process of the acupuncturist or practitioner of Chinese medicine is comprehensive and extremely thorough. The theory is that we are trying to paint a picture of the entire organism, because every part is connected to every other part, nothing exists in isolation. If you have a headaches, we do not just look at the head, we must look at the entire body in all its aspects. The headaches is only the symptom, we must determine the main cause The other reason is that we are treating the root problem and not the symptoms. This is at the core of Chinese medical theory. Any illness that manifests is seen as a symptom of a deeper problem, and that is what we are trying to correct. People sometimes wonder, what if they have many symptoms, do you treat them all at the same time or can you treat them all at once? This situation depends on the severity of the symptom. If it is acute and causing distress to the patient, then we treat the symptom immediately and then treat the root. If the symptoms are causing discomfort, then both symptom and root would be treated at the same time, and if the symptoms are not causing distress, then the root would be treated, and once the root is discovered and corrected, the symptoms simply disappear. This is one of the reasons why Chinese medicine treatments are so effective. They are individualized treatments, seeking out the root of the problem and correcting it. It is not treating a headache, it is treating YOUR headache and why you are having them.
Eat Your Way to Health: Chinese Superfoods
Chinese medicinal cuisine has been an important part of East Asian culture for hundreds of years. The concepts of a balanced and complete diet were noted down by the Chinese as far back as the second century BCE, with The Yellow Emperor’s Classic On Medicine (Huang Di Nei Jing) containing what is very likely the world’s first set of dietary guidelines.
As with a lot of things, some kinds of food are better than others, and this article enumerates five Chinese superfoods used to reach optimum nutrition and even treat some common ailments.
GOJI BERRIES
Also known as Chinese Wolfberries, goji berries are native to the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region and often come in dried form. Alive.com states that legend has it goji berries once helped a herbalist live to a ripe old age of 252 years. While there’s no way to prove the veracity of this claim, goji berries are in fact known for their anti-aging properties. They are rich in carotene, antioxidants, calcium, iron, and vitamins A1, B1, B2, and C.
This Wen (neutral) food is well loved for its nutritive qualities, and is used to treat eye, liver, and kidney illnesses. They are often recommended to boost immunity, relieve hypertension, and manage inflammation.
CHINESE CABBAGE
The Chinese cabbage is a very common vegetable and is often served in a variety of everyday Chinese dishes. Also known as pak choi or bok choy, this Han (cold) food is one of the most nutrient-dense vegetables in the world. It comes in at just 9 calories, has barely any fat, but packs lots of protein, dietary fiber, and nearly all the essential vitamins and minerals.
Because of its rich nutrition profile, it is often used to promote bone health, regulate blood pressure, fight off inflammation, and even protect against certain forms of cancer, according to Medical News Today .
BITTER MELON
The bitter melon is another Han vegetable that possesses lots of medicinal benefits. It is rich in folates, phytonutrients, and vitamins A, B3, B5, B6, and C, as well as minerals like iron, zinc, and magnesium. As a result, Organic Facts claims bitter melon is great for purifying the blood, improving immunity, promoting weight loss, and even treating diabetes, asthma, fungal infections, and skin irritation.
Quote of the Month
Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility.
– James Thurber
Photo by Autumn Goodman on Unsplash
Inspiration
Falling in Love with the Outdoors: Why National Parks Inspire Awe
Olympus, the Grand Canyon, Uluru and the Serengeti: national parks are home to many of the wonders of our natural world. Aaron Millar explores their importance in conservation and how these protected spaces encourage us to feel environmental empathy
The great environmentalist, John Muir, said: “In wildness, lies the hope of the world”. The outdoors is more than a pretty photograph, or a glimpse through a car window screen, it’s an essential part of who we are. You may spend your days in front of a computer; you may have never scaled a mountain or jumped in a freezing river at dawn, but make no mistake: the wilderness is inside you.
This Earth Day, on 22 April, a worldwide celebration of environmental protection held every year since 1970, we must remember not just the challenges ahead, but the successes we continue to achieve. Below are the stories of three national parks around the world. They’re not famous; they don’t make the headlines. But they are leading the way in the conservation of public lands.
That’s important. Conservation biologists around the world agree: our best chance of reversing the trend of habitat and species destruction is to protect large swathes of vital ecosystems. National parks help support local communities and indigenous populations, protect threatened species and key biological hotspots, preserve our history and help provide vital breakthrough in medicine, climate change and more.
beautiful image photo by Amy Hanley on Unsplash
Acupuncture & Chinese Medicine in the News
Adaptability Program Gives Kids Therapy Through Martial Arts
New Study Shows Acupuncture Increases IVF Success Rate
Martial Arts Organization Teaches Discipline, Respect & Self Defence to Children
Acupuncture: The Non-Invasive Alternative to Cosmetic Surgery
7 Ways Acupuncture Changes Your Brain, According to Science
Art Works an Internal & External VIew of Life
Drinking Cold Beverages May Cause Infertility: TCM Doctor
Harmonising AYUSH and Modern Medicine: Can India Learn from China
Kamedis Conducts First U.S. Clinical Study on Chinese Botanical Efficacyfor Chronic Skin Disorders
World Tai Chi Day Observed in Auburn (Saturday April 28, 2018)
Are Popped Lotus Seeds the Next Popcorn?
Chinese Farm Using AI To Breed Six Billion Cockroaches a Year
Alternative Medicine Beneficial But Often Overlooked
Fake Drugs Are One Reason Malaria Still Kills So Many
Seven Unexpected Ways to Prevent Your Hair From Going Gray, According to Eastern Medicine
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If you would like to read about the latest scienntific studies involving Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine, please see our "Current Research" page to find all the latest. :)
Recipe Of The Month with NourishU
Spring Recipe - Stir Fried Chicken with Goji Berries
Therapeutic Effects
Nourishes qi and blood, clears toxicity and promotes regeneration of skin.
Ingredients
- Mutton – 360gm (cut into pieces)
- Dried shiitake mushroom – 10
- Astragalus (huang qi) 黃耆 – 30gm
- Dangshen (dang shen) 黨參 – 30 gm
- Wash mutton and put in boiling water to cook for a few minutes, remove and rinse.
- Soak mushroom for about 30 minutes, remove stem and cut into halves.
- Rinse herbs and put all ingredients in a soup pot with about 10 cups of water. Bring to a boil, reduce to medium heat and simmer for 3 hours.
- Add seasoning to serve. Drink soup and eat some meat.
Usage
Recommended for no more than twice per month in winter months for health promotion.
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About Chinese Medicine Living
Chinese Medicine Living is a place where Chinese medicine principles are applied to the way we live our lives to improve health on every level. In our articles, interviews and information we strive to teach how the body and the world is seen through the eyes of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) so you can better understand its theories, and how to live a healthy balanced lifestyle according to its principles. How TCM views the body and its connections to emotions, living in harmony with the world around us, and how to achieve the balance synonymous with health are the ways in which we strive to impart the limitless wisdom of Chinese medicine. Welcome.
If you would like to contact us, please email info@chinesemedicineliving.com. We would love to hear from you. If you are interested in learning more about Chinese Medicine, visit LearnChineseMedicineliving.com. If you are a practitioner of Chinese Medicine and would like resources to use in your clinic and to hand out to patients, please go to Chinese Medicine Professionals at CMLProShop.com
You can visit the Chinese Medicine Living website to learn more about this wonderful medicine. <3
