Category: Research & Articles

The Chinese New Year is an opportunity to honor family and friends and enjoy some of China’s traditions. Lucky colors for the year are brown, red, and purple, and lucky numbers are two and seven. Some foods are considered lucky because of the similarity of their names to other words in the language, such as the fact that the Chinese word for “orange”, 橙 chéng, sounds like the world for gold, 金 jīn, or that the word for “tangerine”, 柑橘 gānjú, sounds like the word for “luck”, 运气 yùnqì. The bright orange color of the fruits also represents the metallic sheen of gold. Find out what other lucky foods to eat and display to ensure a prosperous and happy new year!

The New Year is one of many powerful times to create fresh new energy in your home, to welcome positive energy and let go of the old. Space Clearing is the art of cleansing and consecrating spaces. It is a profound and effective technique for clearing and revitalizing the energy in buildings.

Traditional Chinese Medicine can provide an alternative treatment for seasonal allergies and sinus problems. Most medical practitioners will recommend using decongestants, non-steroidal nasal sprays, allergy shots, antihistamines, or nasal corticosteroids to combat these sinus problems. While these options have been successful for many patients afflicted with burning throats, itchy eyes, inflamed eyes, and stuffy nose, there are many individuals that do not respond well to these treatment plans, or who would like to go a more natural route.

Pediatrics as a specialty is one of the oldest topics discovered in the Chinese medical literature. Sabine Wilms discusses that as early as the Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD), there is mention of pediatric treatments in at least 19 volumes within the Imperial Library, (Venerating the Root, Part 1, 2013). Sun Simiao was a notable author in the early Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD) who emphasized the treatment of children and women above any other medical issue.

Katy visited our center with a seemingly disparate collection of symptoms that were causing her distress. She described a pattern that was episodic in nature and involved abdominal bloating, belching, acid reflux, loose stools, shallow breathing, and palpitations. A cardiologist had ruled out serious heart disease and she’d been offered beta-blockers for what had been diagnosed as pre-ventricular contractions (PVCs) and occasional tachycardia.

We are presently experiencing a quantum evolution in our perceptions of the aging process, which involves the elimination of outmoded ideas about what it means to be elderly. This paradigm shift has been facilitated by half a billion Baby Boomers1 worldwide who have provided a powerful stimulus for a collective change to the ‘face of aging’. This is not the previous silent generation, but an outspoken, entitled demographic, which, by force of their sheer numbers, is amending existing conscious and unconscious social contracts.

There is a rise in the incidence of mood disorders. Depression, anxiety, panic attacks, rage, eating disorders, substance abuse, and many more are becoming common. There are also moods secondary to complaints, such as the fear and anxiety that may accompany a diagnosis like cancer or infertility; the disappointment of training for an event, only to get an injury; the difficulty of living with conditions like pain, insomnia, and trauma. There are also everyday concerns for our finances, reputation, relationships, family and friends, the environment, and more.

What is a marriage? Two people joining together to be more than either one alone. Of course, that’s just one aspect of a marriage. In addition to the union of two people, we use the term “marriage” to describe other types of joining, such as a marriage of form and function, marriage of words and art, or the provocative William Blake title of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. This article discusses the marriage of acupuncture and psychology.

Acupuncture and aromatherapy are two individual modalities that have been used for thousands of years to successfully treat a gamut of conditions and diseases. But what happens when they are combined together in one treatment? Is the treatment session more effective? Is there no difference at all? Does it increase patient satisfaction and comfort? I set out to answer these questions in 2011 while obtaining a doctoral degree in acupuncture and Oriental medicine. Here I will share with you what I discovered and suggest that yes, combining aromatherapy with acupuncture can make a treatment more effective.

One of the four categories of examination in Chinese medicine is the “looking diagnosis”. Observing the patient’s skin tone, the Shen in the eyes, and checking the tongue are all elements of creating a clear, effective diagnosis. Observing posture can add a layer to the examination that is insightful, especially given the frequent occurrence of postural distortion in modern times. We can start looking at our patients as soon as we greet them in the waiting room. How do they sit, stand, and walk? What kind of posture do they have? Instinctively, many of us sense that a slouching or hunching patient has a qi deficiency.