By: Rebecca Rice, L.Ac
The other day I was marveling at the fact that I hadn’t come down with a cold or flu all year! To the surprise of my pride, the next morning I woke with chills, mild fatigue, and rhinitis. Now I do see my missteps of the previous day-getting overjoyed with the sunshine and warm weather I went outside with damp hair and a lighter jacket, thus making myself more vulnerable to cold and flu viruses. I also had a big cup of hot chocolate and later that night was walking in the cold March wind to my car returning from a concert, wearing the same light jacket.
In Chinese medicine the nape is called the ‘wind gate.’ This is the area in the back of the neck where external pathogens can enter the body. This is why many Acupuncturists wear scarves in the winter – to protect the wind gate. I certainly provided the perfect invitation to the cold I contracted by exposing my wind gate through cold damp hair, wind, and lowered the strength of my immune system with sugar.
The treatment I chose was a hot shower, hot ginger tea, and an acupuncture treatment to open the wind gate, expel the pathogen and consolidate the wei qi. (The wei qi is the protective qi which lies at the surface of the skin and regulates what enters the body and what does not-chills are a sign that the wei qi is weak and has been infiltrated). Because I acted quickly with incorporating all of these therapeutic responses, I was able to significantly reduce the severity and the amount of time I had the cold. Thank You Chinese Medicine!
Spring Fever
March 8th, 2010Working Towards the Gold
March 1st, 2010By: Chris Reilly, L.Ac
The Winter Olympics of 2010 are over. We the audience had the privelege and pleasure to observe as for hundreds of competitors, years of hard work and a lifetime of dreaming came down to a single event, movement or even a single hundredth of a second. It was a chance to view life compressed and miniaturized right before our eyes into an intense and emotionally explosive period of days.
We can all look back through our lives and see how a single event can leave an indelible mark on the path that our lives take for better or worse. In a complete life, it’s harder to hash out who gets first place, and what decides whose “run” is the finest and most beautiful. What defines a successful life? Thomas Edison supposedly said, in reference to having tried 700 designs that did not work as light bulbs, “I have not failed 700 times. I have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work.”
Over the past year, I have seen friends and patients alike having to work creatively to get through some pretty tough times. Despite numerous hurdles and hardships, these individuals have found many ways that do work, and have stayed committed to their families, themselves, and their healthcare. In a time when resources are limited, and most integrative and complementary therapies are out of pocket, I just wanted to take the time to salute and thank the patients at the Center for Integrative Health and Healing who have made their own Olympic efforts to maintain their health and improve their well-being. We constantly try to achieve the “gold standard” in health care at the center, and if there are any ways that we can work to improve and meet your own standards for excellence, please feel free to let us know. You are our most valuable coaches and judges. Thank you for your support of our work.
Your Sleep Positions Could be Causing Your Pain
February 22nd, 2010By Sue Coughtry, LMT
Would you believe that a good night’s sleep can make you hurt the next day? Or make your chronic pain worse? It can. I see many people who wake up in more pain than when they went to sleep. There are a number of ways that your sleeping positions and habits can make you sore the next morning, or even make existing problems worse.
Here’s what can happen and what you can do to prevent it.
First, if you fall asleep tense, you’re going to wake up tense and often sore. Your body can’t let go of all that tension when you sleep. I recommend trying some progressive relaxation as you fall asleep. Start with your scalp (yes you do have muscles there) and relax the muscles there. Progress all the way down your body, spending a few minutes with each area. This really can make a huge difference in the way you feel when you wake up, and can also help you fall sleep faster as a bonus.
There are drawbacks to every sleeping position, so being aware of them can help you make adjustments. No one position is better – it’s all individual.
Sleeping on your stomach is very hard on your neck and shoulder muscles because your head has to be turned on its side. I recommend doing that as seldom as possible.
Sleeping on your side has some issues too. First, try not to curl your spine into the “fetal position”. Bending your legs up is fine but aim to keep the spine relatively straight and relaxed-that includes your neck. Next, look at how you hold your hands when you sleep when you’re sleeping on your side. If your hands are all curled up under your chin night after night you’re going to end up with pain from them eventually, or it will make existing pain worse. See how your knees and ankles line up – you may find that one knee pressing on the other can cause stress or pain in the knee joint. Same for your ankles. Your hips are wider than your knees so using a pillow under the top knee or between the knees can help prevent or ease knee, hip, and even back pain.
The major issue with lying flat on your back is that it can exacerbate low back pain. If that’s the case try sleeping with a pillow or soft bolster under your knees.
And, lastly, but importantly, is the subject of your pillows. The wrong pillow can cause neck pain and headaches. Big fat firm pillows are the main culprit. Soft thinner pillows are much better – especially the ones that can be scrunched up as needed. When you’re on your back, a soft pillow that can be scrunched to support the curve in your neck and yet be almost flat under your head, which is ideal. This keeps your neck and head aligned with the rest of your body. On your side you need more thickness to protect your bottom shoulder from collapsing too much. Again, stuff more of the pillow under your neck for that neck support. If you move around a lot as you sleep, the soft scrunchy pillows can easily be adjusted to any position. If you need the height of a big pillow for digestive or breathing issues, consider a foam incline that you can just put on the bed under the sheet and using just the one pillow as described above.
If you’re waking up with pain every morning it could be how you’re sleeping. See if any of these suggestions help. I’ve eased my own neck, shoulder, wrist and knee pain using these strategies. You can too. Let me know how it goes, perhaps I can make an individualized suggestion for you.
Why Yoga Makes You Feel Better
February 16th, 2010By Jim Whiting, Kripalu Yoga Instructor
Everyone knows stretching and exercise are healthy ways to feel better and to get into shape. After a yoga class you feel better than when you came. This is because of something called the parasympathetic nervous system. When we do yoga, we activate the parasympathetic nervous system through stretching and breathing. The parasympathetic nervous system is responsible for slowing down our bodies through muscle relaxation, calming the mind, and results in better digestion, better immunity, lower blood pressure and lower heart rate.
While vigorous yoga is great for stretching the muscles, it doesn’t do much for engaging the parasympathetic nervous system. Holding postures longer, slow focused breaths, breathing into stretches and making breathing as important apart of your yoga practice as the movement, will ensure you activate the parasympathetic nervous system.
All of the Kripalu yoga classes offered here at the Center for Integrative Health and Healing focus on breathing and breathing techniques to engage the parasympathetic nervous system and bring us into a deeper place of healing.
So, the next time you leave a yoga class feeling so much better, thank your parasympathetic nervous system.
Namaste.
Stretching Has Heart Health Benefits
January 13th, 2010By Sue Coughtry, LMT
Here is a big incentive to keep stretching, or add it to your health regimen. I just learned from an article on MSNBC that a study has found that women who are more flexible have about 7% less arterial stiffness and lower blood pressure than women who are less flexible. When you improve your flexibility by stretching it helps expand the arteries and keeps them more pliable, which improves heart function. This suggests that the more flexible you are, the better your heart health is. Amazing! We tend to link cardiovascular exercise with increased heart health and stretching just helps the muscles. Now we know stretching helps the heart as well. I’ve known for a long time how important regular stretching is for preventing and eliminating pain, but I had no idea that it could do this – though it does make sense. If your body is stiff on the outside it’s most likely stiff on the inside, and that has to constrict organ function. This study shows its true with heart function. This is another incentive for me to work more diligently on improving my own flexibility! How about you?
Ahimsa for the Holidays
December 16th, 2009By Beth Netter, M.D.
The Sanskrit word ahimsa means non-injuring, non-harming, non-violence. It is kindness. In Holistic Mind-Body Medicine, ahimsa is the number one tenet. All thoughts, words, and actions must be based on ahimsa in order to be in the highest and greatest good for all.
Ahimsa helps us navigate the world of our mind and our relationships (and isn’t our primary relationship with our mind?) with loving-kindness. Ahimsa helps us act skillfully when our habits or our desires try to lead us into actions which would potentially create pain, fatigue, inflammation, or some sort of emotional, mental, or physical di-ease.
During this holiday season we have many relationships appear in our awareness asking for our attention, time, and action. These relationships could elicit questions/choices such as:
“How much time do I spend shopping at any one round?”
“How much money do I spend on gifts?”
“Which events do I attend and how late will I stay at them?”
“What foods do I eat?”
“Do I choose to drink alcohol and how much at any one time?”
“What do I choose to do with my ‘free’ time during the holidays so I will feel rested, less stressed, healthier come January 2nd, 2010?”
“Am I going to worry about or hold onto anger vis-à-vis friends/family members/other people i.e., in traffic or in a line at the store?”
By going within to your Inner Intuitive Wisdom and asking yourself: “Is this thought/ word/ action in the highest and greatest good at this moment? Is this thought/word/action in alignment with ahimsa?” you will be able to make clearer, more creative, and health-promoting choices.
Holistic Mind-Body Medicine helps people know how to do this with greater ease and skill. It offers in depth understandings of how to use the mind and the body to create the life, health and happiness each person longs for. For example in it you would be offered the following practice: Check in with and thentrust your Inner Wisdom. Acknowledge any thought/word/action which feels out of alignment at that moment and offer it up to the universe from where it came. And then Go Within to see what else may be possible that would be in alignment with ahimsa and give it a go.
Experiment with this loving and simple practice of ahimsa and see if it helps to make this holiday season one of greater peace, happiness, and health for you and those around you. And always remember: Ahimsa Begins at Home. Care for yourself and others will receive the benefits of this ahimsa as well.
Winter Solstice and Chinese Medicine
December 10th, 2009By: Christopher Reilly, L. Ac
There are a great many reasons and methods to celebrate the winter holiday season. Numerous religious holidays, New Years and the American holiday of Thanksgiving have a tendency to keep us moving at top speed to keep up. In Chinese medicine, the coming of winter is associated with the movement of the water archetype.
With fall, we had the metal archetype- pulling in that which is most valuable and letting go of what is not essential at the time, just as the plants store their nutrients and shed their leaves. With winter we have a time of stillness to sit deep within ourselves and avoid arousing excessive passion. A time to embrace solitude and introspection, and a truly perfect time for the giving of thanks. A good image is the crisp clarity of a deep winter’s night, the moon shining down brightly through the dark as an embracing stillness is felt as a presence all around, and precious things are remembered.
In addition, the winter solstice itself is a powerful time in the tradition of Taoist alchemical practices. The power of the moment as the earth’s yin movement (toward increasing darkness) mysteriously transitions to a yang movement (toward increasing light) is reveared as one of the most important times of the year. Within the exact moment of the transition, there is thought to be a moment of perfect harmony, a mysterious blending of the yin and yang that opens the possibility of new creation and rebirth. It is a time to bring together those parts of ourselves we hold in the light, and those that we hold in the dark. A time of redemption, reconciliation, acceptance and rebirth.
Oh, and P.S.- take it easy on the cookies and spirits! There, I got it out of my system. Happy Holidays!
True Happiness Doesn’t Come in a Bottle
November 9th, 2009By: Christine Reeves, FNP-C, NPP- Nurse Practitioner Psychiatry
A holistic approach to psychiatry looks at the whole person — who you are as a human being and what your physical, emotional, energetic and spiritual struggles are. In planning your treatment a Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner taking a holistic approach looks at the issues from a holistic perspective, that is, we look at your nutrition, emotional struggles, environment, psychological traumas, and ones personal life balance. We do our best to avoid prescription medications, and use them when the multitude of natural remedies are ineffective. We prefer to use alternative treatment modalities such as supplements, guided imagery, therapy methods, meditation and various other techniques; keeping in mind every client has individual needs and preferences. Treatments we use are based on research studies, ancient healing practices and our own clinical experiences. Our goal is to help you find a healthy balance in your life and to attain a place of peace and joy.
In our society it is expected that one experiencing anxiety will receive a prescription for a anti-anxiety medication or that an individual feeling depressed can state they are depressed and receive an antidepressant with no objective testing. It is still unclear as to what the long-term effects of these drugs are.
I am curious to hear your thoughts on this topic- send in your comments.
Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) Can be Treated with Chinese Medicine
October 28th, 2009By: Rebecca Rice, Licensed Acupuncturist in Traditional Chinese Medicine
In my practice I have worked with a number of patients who have this diagnosis and are trying to conceive. I chose to write about this topic because it’s a very common condition; and one which can be positively affected by Chinese medicine.
The prevalence of PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome) is estimated at about 5%-10% of women who are seeking treatments for infertility. This may be a small representation of the estimated 20% of the population actually effected by the disease.
In Chinese medical theory PCOS is marked by a picture of “dampness.” This occurs when fluids in the body are ineffectively synthesized and accumulate to form cysts. As explained in western medicine, there is also a hyper-secretion of insulin and testosterone. This gives rise to abnormal follicular development also characterized by anovulatory cycles.
Acupuncture and Chinese herbs are beneficial to those with PCOS in the following ways.
1. Acupuncture and Chinese herbs can regulate the cycle.
2. Lifestyle changes based on concepts in Chinese medicine help manage weight and promote healthy eating habits. This is so important because 30% – 50% of obese women with PCOS develop diabetes.
3. Acupuncture and herbs are known clinically to improve egg quality.
In Chinese medicine we focus much of our treatment protocol on the lifestyle changes patient make. For PCOS, as mentioned above, diet is very important. Common foods to avoid are those that promote dampness; these are dairy (especially cheese), refined sugar, excessive sweets, and greasy foods. These will essentially promote weight gain and support the increase of excess insulin and testosterone in the body.
Forgiveness
October 20th, 2009By Jennifer Enos, NP
Its not only disease of the physical body that debilitates us but diseases of the heart and soul that can rob us of our true vitality for life. Yes, the physical health of the body is important but what is the use if our hearts are closed to the beauty of each given moment. Our society seems to be stuck in a cycle of perpetual blame, shame and guilt.
I noticed there is not alot of dialogue on our blog posts on this subject….I would like to hear from others…where are you with forgiveness.. Is there someone in your life that you need to forgive? Is this someone yourself? If so, what will it take or what quality will you have to bring forth in yourself and be diligent about for this change to occur? I would love to hear from you.
Bookmark|Share|Subscribe
Sign Up for Our Newsletter
Categories
- Acupuncture (10)
- Allergies (1)
- Beth Netter MD (4)
- Cardiovascular Health (1)
- Christine Reeves NPP (1)
- Christopher Reilly L.AC (8)
- Cleanse and Detoxification (1)
- Food as Medicine (2)
- General (7)
- Healthcare Reform (7)
- Jennifer Enos NP (3)
- Jim Whiting (1)
- Korey DiRoma Naturopath (3)
- Kripalu Yoga (1)
- Lyme Disease (1)
- Massage Therapy (3)
- Mind Body Medicine (4)
- Nutrition (3)
- Pain Management (3)
- Physical Fitness (2)
- Preventative Health (21)
- Psychiatry (1)
- Rebecca Rice L.AC (4)
- Recipes (2)
- Ronald L. Stram MD (2)
- Stress Management (6)
- Sue Coughtry LMT (5)
- Swine-Flu (1)
- Traditional Chinese Medicine (12)
- Women's Health (3)