A patient in my Washington DC acupuncture practice asked me the other day about how to take his herbs. He was taking the herbs based on the Sexual Health for Men Over 40 herbal protocol that I featured in my last newsletter. (By the way, he had already started on the dietary recommendations in the article and was experiencing excellent results.) As I was writing down the dosages for each herb, I realized some important insights I had gained over the past years of using herbs that I wanted to communicate to him, but we didn't have time because it ...
Just before the holidays, a patient of mine asked me a simple question: What do you eat? She was interested in changing her diet to improve her health. We had talked about including more whole foods, vegetables, protein, high quality fats from real foods, fiber from whole food sources, and so on. So, I was beginning to list out all of the recipes I use for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, when all of a sudden, two Sundays ago in the New York Times, I ran across a short article that seemed like it was practically written for ...
Unusually for me, I found myself fairly wide awake last night, around 2:45 am, and I started wondering how I was going to get back to sleep. I remembered that my mom had mentioned a book by a woman who had tried all the western and alternative cures for insomnia, and had finally found that qigong was the only thing that really helped her. I have to say that I like the title: Wide Awake: What I Learned About Sleep from Doctors, Drug Companies, Dream Experts, and a Reindeer Herder in the Arctic Circle, by Patricia Morrisroe As a ...
Why do many people turn to meditation? They are interested in relieving their suffering. Suffering comes in many forms – physical, emotional, and mental. As I mentioned in a previous article about finding a meditation style that is right for you, there are many meditative approaches to healing on all three of these levels. In this article, I’d like to discuss a form of meditation that I’ve found to be very helpful for the emotional and mental levels of suffering. It centers around the concept of welcoming, or allowing things to be just as they ...
In my Washington DC acupuncture practice, I often see clients who are fighting a cold or flu. According to Chinese Medicine, it is essential to address a cold or flu from the very first early-onset symptom. Why? In normal cold and flu season, a Chinese herbal formula can stop the cold or flu in its tracks, not allowing it to progress beyond a tickle in the throat. Sometimes, of course, herbs may not stop the disease entirely. However, the course of the disease will most likely be shortened and symptoms decreased by applying timely initial treatment. The Concept of Immunity in Chinese ...
In my Washington DC acupuncture practice, clients often ask about Chinese herbs vs. Western pharmaceuticals. One of the biggest differences between conventional Western pharmaceuticals and Chinese herbal medicine is that the Chinese herbal medicine tradition contains many herbs that help strengthen and boost the vitality of the body. These are called tonic herbs. One of the major uses of tonic herbs is to strengthen the immune system. Tonic Herbs – the original dietary supplements Tonic herbs are meant to be taken in small doses over long periods of time, to build up the body’s energy. In this way, they are more like a supplement ...
Awareness Based on my own intensive process of healing through nutrition, I found that in the end, the most important part of the healing process came not as much from changing what I ate as from developing a greater awareness, or mindfulness, around the whole eating process. This awareness can be broken down into 4 parts: What does your body feel like when you’re eating, and after you eat? What are you eating / what are the ingredients? When are you eating / is there a regular schedule? What are you doing / what’s your state of mind while you’re eating? Notice that ...
Baking Soda as Deodorant?? Yes, I too was a bit surprised a few weeks ago when an aquaintance of mine suggested that I try baking soda as a deodorant. "It's actually the best deodorant I've found in terms of effectiveness," she informed me, "Better than every chemical and natural deodorant I've tried, and I've tried many over the years." An Experiment As a longtime consumer of natural, organic, non-toxic personal care and hygiene products, I was intrigued. I had tried a wide variety of deodorants and antiperspirants. I tried them in the usual solid format, and in the spray varieties. While I had ...
