Easy Acupuncture for CT

Archive for February, 2009

Here is a great summary of what we already know. Fruits and Vegetables have an incredible effect on disease prevention. This article on the Harvard School of Public Health website lays out a compelling case for getting the proper amount on a daily basis!

“Eat your fruits and vegetables” is one of the tried and true recommendations for a healthy diet. And for good reason. Eating plenty of vegetables and fruits can help you ward off heart disease and stroke, control blood pressure, prevent some types of cancer, avoid a painful intestinal ailment called diverticulitis, and guard against cataract and macular degeneration, two common causes of vision loss. Read More…

Of course we all have difficulty getting the recommended 9 to 14 servings of fruits and vegetables on a daily basis. Even with the best intentions I have difficutly getting it done myself! I take a concentrated whole food supplement daily to augment my normal intake of fruits and veggies. Juice Plus is combination of 17 fruits and vegetables reduced to powder form and encapsulated. It is incredibly easy to take and very afforable. I recommend it to all my patients, even the ones who eat very healthy diets. The research is solid on Juice Plus, there are 11 published studies in major nutrition and medical journals and 13 more on going studies. It is a great product.

Nice to see this in the Seattle PI.
Medical Edge: Ask the Mayo Clinic

Dear Mayo Clinic: What do you think of acupuncture as a treatment for various ailments? How does it work?

A: Acupuncture, which has been used and studied throughout the world for more than 4,000 years, can be utilized to rebalance the flow of energy (qi or chi) in the body and effectively treat many conditions. At Mayo Clinic, acupuncture has been used successfully for pain management, postoperative nausea, anxiety relief, drug addiction, insomnia and headaches, to name a few.

Read the rest here

Okay, this ain’t rocket science its common sense, but as Mark Twain once wrote, “Common sense is very uncommon”.

Go on a “low information diet”. Turn off the TV and Radio News. Its all crap anyways and designed to induce fear. The old saying in the TV news biz is “If it bleeds it leads”. Suffering and bad news seems inevitable in the world, but do we have to immerse ourselves in it? Focus on what you can change in the world. If something is important, and you NEED to know about it, believe me you will hear about it. In the mean time turn off the news and violent TV shows!

Learn to breath! Most of us breath with our upper chest. Sort of a chronic hyperventilation style breathing. The problem is, we are designed to breath with our abdominal muscles. The chest muscles are secondary muscles of respiration. Using them to breath sends a signal to the adrenal glands that the body is under stress causing adrenaline to be released constantly. Anxiety attack anyone??

Instead, use your belly to breath. Push out your belly and that allows your diaphragm muscle to drop pulling the lungs open. It feels unnatural at first but with practice becomes second nature. If you doubt me, watch any child under the age of 6 years old breath. Their bellies go in and out. Not much stress in their lives!!

Take time to meditate, there are plenty of resources that can teach you how both on the web or in print. There are great CD’s that will guide you through meditation. My personal favorite is one by Rod Stryker, “Relax into Greatness“.  I keep it on my iPod and when I need a recharge I sit quietly and follow along. No chanting or burning incense is involved. You don’t have to sit in lotus position. Just listen and relax. I highly recommend it.

Exercise: this is a big stumbling block for most people, but it doesn’t have to be. You don’t have to join a gym or spend lots of money on fancy running shoes and gear. Simple things like taking the stairs at work instead of the elevator or parking farther from the store and walking a bit farther add up to increased fitness. A study at UC Berkeley in 1996 showed that a 10 minute walk can enhance mood for up to 2 hours!

Nutrition: Another big stumbling block for many people. Eating is not as simple as it used to be! It is in fact as easy or as hard as we choose it to be. I like to follow the “9 Simple Rules For Eating“.

If eating right is too complicated then supplement with whole food nutrition. Avoid vitamin supplements, the evidence is showing clearly that isolated vitamins have little if any effect on health. Whole food nutritional’s provide concentrated foods and are naturally high in antioxidants and can reduce the effects of oxidative stress on the body.

Acupuncture! It is, quite simply, a great stress reducer. Acupuncture stimulates the movement of the vital energy Qi  in the body. When Qi flows unimpeded in the body you are more resilient to daily stresses. You have more energy and are focused. Stress can lead to blockages in this energetic movement which ultimately can create dis-function and dis-ease in the body.

Regular acupuncture treatment can help reduce, overall chronic stress, increase your sense of well being and resiliency. Typically when combined with some of the above suggestions a regular monthly visit can reduce the toxic effects of stress!

Okay, we live in stressful times. We all know it and bad news is seemingly everywhere. Mortgage meltdown, failing economy, global warming, the NY Giants lose in the playoffs! Ugghhh… Every time you turn on the TV you want to run and hide under a rock! Call me when it’s 1996 again!

Chronic stress causes a host of physiological responses in the body, that if not addressed in timely and systematic way can lead to chronic and life threatening illnesses. These are well documented but bear repeating: depression, diabetes, heart disease, hyperthyroidism, obesity, obsessive-compulsive or anxiety disorder, sexual dysfunction, tooth and gum disease, ulcers, cancer all can result from chronic stress!

So how do you know if your stress is a problem? Most of us are aware that we are stressed in some way and have come to think it is normal. Everyone stressed! It’s the way things are!

Chronic stress is common in fact its endemic, but it is not “normal”. To see if it is potentially affecting your long term health, take the following quiz:

In the past 6 months have you experienced 1 or more of the following symptoms at least once per month??

Headaches/Tension, Fatigue/Tired, Pain Anywhere in Body, Digestive Disturbance, Difficulty Sleeping, Irritability, Low Back Pain, Neck Pain, Persistent Pain in any Joint, Pain Between Shoulder Blades, Ringing in Ears, Nervous or Anxious, Dizziness, Allergies, Tension Across Top of Shoulders, Numbing/Tingling in Arms or Hands, Numbing/Tingling in Legs or Feet, Difficulty Losing Weight.

Do the above symptoms cause you to be: moody, irritable, sleeping with interruptions or
restricted on daily activities?

Is your performance at work slipping? Are you having difficulty concentrating? Is your blood pressure elevated?

This is not a comprehensive list but all are warning signs of chronic stress.

Stress is insidious and you need a strategy to deal with it. In my next post I will be discussing some very basic strategies to combat the acid effects of stress.