What a Pain in the Neck! Natural Remedies for Neck and Upper Back Pain

Upper Back and Neck pain (UBNP) have become very commonplace in modern society. With the amount of sitting (slouching), computer work, driving and looking down (at phones, tablets, etc) that we do, it is not surprising. When the torso is vertical, either standing or sitting, with the head properly aligned over the shoulders, gravity's impact on the musculature is minimal. As the head starts to come forward, from looking down or toward a computer screen or windshield, the upper back and neck muscles have to work much harder to resist gravity's pull on the heavy skull. The more the head comes forward, the more strain there is on the upper back and neck muscles, which can often weaken and begin to hurt over time.


Stress is something else that can cause UBNP. When you experience stress (mental, emotional or physical), the muscles contract; this is one of many physiological responses to stress hormones rising. Very often we contract the muscles of the neck, chest and upper back as if we are bracing ourselves for something: the shoulders raise, tensing the trapezius muscles (the muscles that help us shrug), they may come forward as the pectoral (chest) muscles contract and we might take shallower chest breaths (instead of diaphragmatic or abdominal breaths), which will cause tension in the chest, upper back and neck.


From a Chinese Medicine perspective, stress affects the Liver, which is a Yin organ. It affects the smooth flow of Qi, or energy, in the body. When it doesn't flow smoothly, it stagnates, causing tension and pain. It is similar to the pressure that builds when water is trying to pass through a clogged pipe. The Liver's Yang organ pair is the Gallbladder; when the Liver is stressed, you often see Gallbladder channel pain: headaches on the sides of the head, pain down the sides of the neck into the trapezius muscles, chest tightness, hip tightness, pain down the sides of the legs or knees, IT band (Illiotibial band) pain, etc. The Gallbladder channel starts at the outer eyes, runs over the sides of the head, around the ears and down the sides of the body to the 4th toe. Click here to see the Gallbladder channel.


The first step toward stopping all sorts of UBNP, is to look at your posture. The way you hold yourself and the way you move during your day plays a big part in how your body feels. You may require the assistance of a yoga instructor, physical therapist or someone with a trained eye to see what your specific postural imbalances might be. If your pain is relatively new, adjusting your posture might be enough to get rid of the pain. If it is chronic, you might need some expert help.


One great tip toward keeping you on top of your posture is for the car. Sit upright in the driver's seat with your head back against the head rest. In that position, adjust your rear-view mirror so you can see behind you properly. While you are driving, if you can't see behind you in the rear-view mirror, that is a reminder to sit up straight again.


When you are sitting at your desk working on the computer, make sure that your monitor is at eye level. Sit toward the front of your chair so that your back is not leaning and you can easily place your feet on the ground (knees a little lower than your hips). If you are "vertically challenged" like I am, sometimes a small stool under your feet can help you reach the floor; if your are "vertically blessed" just make sure your chair is high enough to place your hips higher than your knees. Make sure your shoulders are over your hips and your head is over your shoulders. Check in with yourself periodically and make sure you are not shrugging or sinking in your chest. Once an hour (or more often) take a break to do some shoulder and neck stretches:

• Roll your shoulders back 3-5 times then forward 3-5 times while taking some slow, deep breaths. Make the circles as big as you can, squeezing the shoulders up by your ears and then rolling them back or forward and pressing them down.
• Let your head fall toward your right shoulder (shoulders should drop toward the floor) and hold for 3 deep breaths, then repeat to the left side. While your head is to one side you can turn your chin toward your collar bone or nod your head to get other parts of your neck to stretch.
• While sitting up straight, interlace your fingers in front of your chest, then reach your knuckles forward as you pull your chest toward your back so that your upper body looks like a "C". Hold for 3-5 breaths. Then interlace your fingers behind your back and try to reach your knuckles away from your hips as you squeeze your shoulder blades together. Try to take some deep breaths and hold 3-5 breaths.

Just like with Lower Back Pain, Upper Back and Neck pain respond very well to Acupuncture, Chinese Herbal medicine, Cupping, Gua Sha and Moxibustion. These techniques help to calm stress, reduce inflammation, move the Qi and relieve pain.


Next month I will go into more detail about Cupping and Gua Sha, what they are, what they do and why they are beneficial. If you would like to receive email reminders about my new posts, click here to sign up; you can unsubscribe at any time.

Oh, My Aching Back! Natural Remedies for Lower Back Pain

As many as 80% of adults will experience some form of back pain in their lifetime. In my next post I'll be talking about Upper Back Pain (UBP), but this month the topic is Lower Back Pain (LBP).

Lower back pain is very common, especially as we age. According to Chinese Medicine, the Lower Back is the realm of the Kidneys, whose energy naturally declines as we age. "Old age" symptoms, like arthritis, loss of hearing, greying hair, wrinkled skin, osteoporosis are all conditions related to waning Kidney energy. Other symptoms could be urinary frequency or incontinence, hormonal imbalances (think Menopausal hot flashes/night sweats/insomnia, hypothyroidism, low libido), fatigue and lower back and knee pain. As Kidney energy weakens, the incidence of LBP goes up.


Possible causes of Kidney energy depletion aside from age could be longstanding fear (a battered wife, child of a violent/unpredictable alcoholic, war trauma); "burning the candle at both ends (high stress/too much work with not enough sleep or proper nutrition);" consuming too much caffeine and/or sugar; eating too many artificial sweeteners, colors, flavors, or chemicals; or heredity (parents had weak Kidneys when you were conceived).

Lower Back Pain can present in many ways:

• Stiff and achy in the morning that improves as you move through your day. Often better with stretching or exercise.
• Sharp, possibly shooting pain that is worse with movement and better with rest. Sometimes related to disc degeneration and sciatic pain. Possibly due to a physical trauma.
• Soreness that feels better with heat and rest.
• Tightness that feels better with pressure (like massage) and heat. Often better after stretching or yoga.
• Pain that is worse with cold, often worse in winter or on cold days.
• Deep bone pain that tells you rain is coming.
• Pain left over from a physical trauma (car accident, skiing accident, sports injury, etc) that is more nagging and annoying, but that you are always aware of nonetheless.

Of course it can present in other ways too.

You might say, "but my back pain is from a car accident (or some other trauma), it didn't come on gradually, I know exactly when it started." Even if pain is due to a trauma, you have to ask yourself, why is your pain in your lower back as opposed to some other part of your body? Three people can have the same car accident and walk away with 3 different sets of injuries. The impact is felt in the "weakest" part of the body, so the location of the pain is based on imbalances that existed before the accident. If your lower back pain is due to some type of impact, chances are your Kidneys were weak before the accident.

The first thing you should do when looking to overcome your back pain is notice your Attitude toward your pain. When you have a "bad back," you are attaching a negative association to your back. Having a bad back makes the pain more permanent (in your mind), and therefore adds a level of stress to the equation, as well as making it a condition that can't change. What if instead of being "bad" (after all, it probably hasn't robbed a bank or kicked its sister), your back just needed extra attention, some mindfulness or extra love before you engage in certain activities? What if it needed some extra care and nurturing? Your back might feel a few degrees better just by shifting your relationship to the pain.

Once you are being kinder to yourself (which is sometimes a challenge, but gets easier with practice), strengthening your core (abdominals and lower back muscles) is important. When your abdominal muscles are weak, your body moves from your back; if it is not strong enough to take up the slack from your abs, it will start to hurt. I'm not saying do a million crunches, crunches are typically a waste of time, unless done slowly with precision. Exercise styles like Pilates, yoga, or even simple pelvic tilts using your abdominal muscles can be useful to strengthen and support your lower back. Also, unless your doctor or physical therapist has told you otherwise, it is also important to strengthen the muscles in your lower back to support the spine. Talk to a physical therapist, personal trainer, yoga or Pilates instructor before starting any core strength training routine to ensure that you are actually targeting your core muscles and not just compensating with other stronger muscles. Form matters.

If your pain is worse with cold or rainy weather, eating more warming foods can help. Sometimes just avoiding cold or iced foods and beverages can be enough to make a difference; sometimes you need the addition of warm foods and spices, like ginger, cinnamon, rosemary, basil, clove, black pepper, quinoa, oatmeal, sweet potato, lentils, walnuts, mussels, eel, shrimp and lobster to name a few. In Winter months, avoiding all cold foods and beverages is a must in this situation.

Acupuncture, Moxibustion, Cupping, Gua Sha and Chinese herbal medicine are all very effective treatment options for most types of lower back pain. By differentiating the type of pain, treatments can be much more effective. Plus any exacerbating factors, like emotional stress, can be addressed as well.

Insight into Depression: Why it is Different for Everyone

Depression: a serious medical condition in which a person feels very sad, hopeless, and unimportant and often is unable to live in a normal way.
b (1) :  a state of feeling sad :  dejection (2) :  a psychoneurotic or psychotic disorder marked especially by sadness, inactivity, difficulty in thinking and concentration, a significant increase or decrease in appetite and time spent sleeping, feelings of dejection and hopelessness, and sometimes suicidal tendencies. --from Merriam Webster Dictionary.


TCM poses that there are many different types of depression with different sets of symptoms. While the definition above covers many bases, not every depressed person will present with all of those symptoms.




According to Chinese Medicine there are 5 elements: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water. Each of these elements has a different set of internal organs associated with them:

• Wood-- Liver and Gallbladder
• Fire-- Heart, Small Intestine, Pericardium, Triple Warmer (no Western equivalent)
• Earth-- Spleen and Stomach
• Metal-- Lung and Large Intestine
• Water-- Kidney and Bladder

Each element and internal organ set expresses depression in a different way:

• Wood: Anger, frustration, irritability and feeling stuck are all symptoms of Liver depression. Since the Liver is in charge of the smooth movement of Qi through the body, when it is stuck or stagnant, you can see signs of emotional stagnation, like feeling emotionally stuck. If the Qi is moving in fits and starts (not smoothly), you can have bursts of anger or feeling short tempered. You may also find yourself yawning or sighing a lot.

• Fire: Depression with anxiety, feeling ungrounded, lack of joy and mania are all symptoms of Heart depression. All emotions are felt by the Heart so the Heart is usually involved with all types of depression. The Mind is also connected with the Heart in Chinese medicine, another reason why the Heart is often associated with depression.

• Earth: Fatigue where you can't get out of bed, all of your muscles ache or are weak, and apathy toward food are symptoms of Spleen depression. There could also be OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) with overthinking, worrying and obsessing in a way that is emotionally paralyzing.

• Metal: Sadness and grief. This type of depression is common after the loss of a loved one, or multiple losses in a short period of time. When grief is prolonged, it is common for people to develop Lung illnesses, such as bronchitis, pneumonia or asthma. They can also be more susceptible to colds while grieving.

• Water: Lack of motivation. The Kidney is the source of the Will (Zhi), or will power, so Kidney depression often presents as lacking the motivation to get things done. Sometimes it is small like not having the energy to do housework but having energy for things you enjoy; sometimes it is bigger, like not being able to make yourself do the big work project that has a deadline and people are counting on you. There is often an element of fear to it as well; putting things off for fear of not being good enough, fear of success, or other possibilities.

Traditional Chinese Medicine treats the person, rather than the disease. Although you may be seeking treatment for depression, your practitioner will treat all of you; by addressing the imbalance that is causing the depression, your symptoms will go away. Depression is a symptom (or set of symptoms), not a definition of who you are.




I find it interesting that some antidepressant medications work for some people and not others, and I believe it is because depression presents so differently for each person. I don't have research to back this up, but I feel like this would be a great place for Eastern and Western medicine to mix and support each other. It would be an interesting study to figure out if certain drugs would work better with certain types of depression as outlined by Traditional Chinese Medicine; this could then help doctors prescribe the right medications for the right people and minimize or possibly even eliminate side effects, or the jumping from one anti-depressant to the next, hoping to find the right one. Chinese herbal medicine typically has no side effects because each prescription is tailor made for each person. Wouldn't it be great if Western medications could be prescribed in the same way?

What is Healthy Digestion? The Scoop on Poop.

We all know when our digestive system is "off." The discomfort, the smells, the inconvenience. But what is healthy, "normal" digestion/elimination supposed to look like? Many people don't think they have a problem because their bowel movements have "always been like that," but daily loose stools, or bowel movements only once a week are not signs of health. Normal for you might not be healthy.


So let's start with the basics.


It doesn't matter whether the stool sinks or floats, that is dependent on the fat content of the waste. A healthy bowel movement happens 1-3 times daily, is a medium brown color and is soft, formed and easy to pass. Period. That's it. You should not be sitting on the pot for hours, reading the entirety of the 7th Harry Potter book. If your experience is different, it might be time to ask yourself what is going on.


Diet and nutrition have everything to do with healthy digestion. You eat foods that are bad for you, you will have problems with elimination. Now I say "bad for you" because not all food is bad for all people. If it was cultivated on a farm or naturally in the ocean, it is considered food. If it was created in a lab (soda, most junk foods, artificial sweeteners, colors, flavors, preservatives, etc) it is not food and should be avoided. Some people have food sensitivities or allergies, so certain foods, for them are off limits. Common foods in this category are Wheat/Gluten, Dairy, Egg, Corn and Soy, but there might be others as well. That being said, these foods are not inherently bad foods. They may have been adulterated or Genetically Modified in some way which makes them unhealthy in that form. Dairy for one person causes agony, while for another it is medicine. If you notice abdominal pain or loose stools (or lack of stools) after certain foods (or even hours or 3 days later) you might have a food sensitivity. Keeping a food log for a month or so can often help you track down the culprits, but sometimes eliminating whole food groups is necessary; add each questionable food back one per week to find the problem foods. If you are still struggling, you might want to meet with a food allergy/sensitivity specialist.


If your bowels are moving too fast (loose, watery, frequent) it is likely that you are not absorbing all the nutrients from your food; this can lead to malnutrition, despite taking supplements or eating "the right foods." If your bowels are moving too slowly (more than a day between bowel movements) then toxins that are normally eliminated are staying in your system too long. Many skin problems, like some forms of acne, are due to this latter situation.


According to Chinese Medicine, there are a number of reasons for "improper" bowel movements:


Spleen Qi (pronounced "chee") Deficiency-- this usually causes stools to be loose, but could also cause incomplete bowel movements. Stools can sometimes have undigested food in them (aside from corn--no one digests corn). The stools are usually a medium or darker brown color and accompanied by gas, bloating, fatigue and lack of appetite as well (the sensation of hunger, not your ability to eat). Causes of Spleen Qi Deficiency are overthinking (common with students), pensivity or too much physical work.


Liver Qi Stagnation-- since the Liver is what moves the Qi through the body, when it is stagnant, things don't move well. This can often cause constipation with sometimes days between bowel movements, or gas pain or bloating that is relieved by bowel movements. This is also the culprit when you have alternating loose stools with constipation, or extreme variations in the texture and quality of your bowel movements. This is often the cause of IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome). You may also have headaches, irritability, muscle tension and frequent sighing or yawning when not necessarily fatigued. Causes of Liver Qi Stagnation are stress, frustration, anger, unfulfilled desires, not moving your body enough.


Heat in the Large Intestines--sometimes stagnation can lead to heat (like friction that builds in an engine when the gas and brake are simultaneously applied). These stools are often dry and hard, are sometimes painful to pass. Sometimes there is bright red bleeding on the stools (if it is mixed into the stools or stools are black, see your gastroenterologist right away). If it is toxic heat, the stools could be lighter brown or yellow in color, loose or watery,  as well as having a foul odor. Heat can be caused by long term Liver Qi Stagnation, insufficient cooling, Yin Deficiency, or eating too many hot spicy foods.


General helpful tips:


In general, drink half your body weight in ounces of water per day (For example, if you weigh 150 lbs, drink 75 oz of water every day). Fruits, vegetables and non-caffeinated beverages, like herbal tea, count toward the total. For every 8oz of caffeine that you drink (coffee or tea--you are not drinking soda, of course) you need to drink16 oz of water to make up for the diuretic properties of those drinks.


Probiotics are a must for all irregular bowel problems. For daily health you'll want a product that has 1-5 billion organisms per dose, up to 20 billion if you don't have healthy bowel movements every day as described above. You can also find probiotics in real yogurt (with multiple strains of live active cultures) or kefir daily. If you are avoiding dairy, fermented foods like sauerkraut, kimchee or kombucha are all great options.


Eating enough fruits and vegetables is essential to over all health as well as healthy digestion. This, again, adds to your overall water intake, but the fiber with the water is a great combination. Green smoothies are great, especially in the Spring and Summer when the weather is warmer (usually too cold for the fall and winter--depending on where you live). If you fall under the Spleen Qi deficiency category, you might want to drink this once a week until your Spleen is stronger and only at room temperature, never cold. Start with a green leafy vegetable or two (kale, collards, romaine lettuce, spinach, chard, mustard or dandelion greens), add 2-3 types of fruit, some form of protein (yogurt, whey protein, hemp protein, etc), chia/hemp/flax seeds and a liquid (I like almond or coconut milk, but water or other types of milk work too). Blend and drink.


Specific helpful tips:


With Spleen Qi Deficiency, make sure you don't have any food sensitivities that are causing your loose stools. Sometimes removing those foods is all you need to do. Beyond that, eating more cooked foods rather than raw. If you digestive system is very weak, the coldness of the raw can be very depleting to the Spleen and worsen the problem. Brown rice (long cooked), oatmeal, flax, pumpkin, squash, sweet potato, lentils, broad beans, salmon, chicken and turkey are all foods that benefit the Spleen.


With Liver Qi Stagnation the best thing you can do is move your body. Whether it is going for a walk, a swim, a bike ride or taking a yoga class, moving your body will move your Qi. Doing gentle twists can also help. Lie down on your back and pull your knees into your chest. Pause and take 3 deep breaths in and out, expanding the belly as you inhale and letting it contract while you exhale. Keeping your knees close to your torso, drop them over to your left side as you look to your right. Feel free to place pillows or blankets under your knees or your right shoulder for support if you feel strained. Maintain the twist and breathe deeply into your lower belly, just like before. Inhale and exhale as fully and completely as possible for 5-10 breaths, then repeat to the other side.


With Heat in the Large Intestine, avoid hot spicy foods of all types, including foods containing hot peppers, cayenne, basil, rosemary, cinnamon, wasabi and ginger. If it is a "food poisoning" or "stomach bug" situation, the best thing to do is stay hydrated and let it run it's course. Trying to stop the bowel movements will only prevent the bacteria from being able to leave your body. If you have constipation from Heat, make sure you are getting enough water in your diet, as well as moistening foods like coconut oil, flaxseeds, hemp seeds, dried fruit like prunes and figs (they are "dried" but are moistening to the intestines), and dark green leafy vegetables. Helpful cooling foods are foods such as yogurt, seaweeds, cucumbers, celery, apples, melon and all citrus, as well as spices such as peppermint, dandelion greens and root, cilantro and marjoram.


As with all health problems, the more chronic a condition, the more it needs to be seen by a medical professional, Eastern and Western. A healthy gut means a healthy person.


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I'm Exhausted. Do I have Adrenal Fatigue?

There has been a lot of talk lately about Adrenal Fatigue. I am seeing more and more of it in my practice; this is not a good health trend.

 

Adrenal Fatigue comes from "burning the candle at both ends." Someone who experiences a constant high stress state for long periods of time while simultaneously not taking care of themselves (not sleeping enough, eating the wrong foods, too much sugar/caffeine, exercising too much for the amount of sleep they are getting, etc). When you are in your 20's, the body has a certain amount of reserve energy (in TCM we refer to this as Jing) that can be used under just such occasions, like using a credit card. By they time people enter their 40's and 50's, if they continue at this pace, their reserves become empty (they accrue a lot of debt and max out their credit cards) and people become exhausted; no amount of sugar or caffeine can get them going.

 

From a Western perspective, when the body feels stress, the adrenal glands, which sit on top of the Kidneys, release a chemical called cortisol that gives us the burst of energy needed to get through the stressful situation. It gives us that little boost that allows us to handle an overwhelming meeting or meet a deadline. When the stress passes, the cortisol levels drop back down, and we return to normal functioning. Occasional boosts of cortisol are fine, the problem comes from keeping cortisol levels high all the time, while simultaneously using stimulants (which put even more stress on the adrenal glands), not sleeping enough and/or not eating nutritious foods. If someone is in a constant state of stress, or "fight or flight," their adrenal glands are pumping out a constant flow of cortisol. If they are not simultaneously getting sufficient sleep and eating nourishing foods to replenish, eventually the adrenals can't handle it any more and they stop working. This is Adrenal Fatigue.

 

Typical symptoms are:

 

• Feeling tired even after sleeping through the night
• Exhaustion
• Food cravings, especially for salt, sugar or other refined carbs
• Caffeine no longer helps you get through your day but you can't live without it
• Feeling easily overwhelmed
• Foggy headedness
• Low or no libido
• unexplained weight gain or difficulty losing weight

From a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) perspective, the Jing that I mentioned earlier is our "Essence," it is inherited from our parents at conception; the state of their Jing plays a part in the quality of ours. If your parents were stressed out with low Jing when you were conceived, you may have less Jing than someone who had healthy parents. The Jing is related to the Kidneys, so how well your Kidneys function (the Chinese understanding of Kidneys) plays a part in how quickly or slowly you deplete your Jing.




According to TCM, the Liver is most affected by stress. The Liver gets its support and nourishment from the Kidneys (organs which include the physical Kidneys, the adrenal glands, the thyroid gland, the ovaries/prostate and other glands in the endocrine system). When the Liver is over stressed, it takes more Qi from the Kidneys than its fair share. Over time in order for the Liver to keep functioning (the Liver is what keeps us moving through our day) it keeps draining energy (Qi and Jing) from the Kidneys  and they eventually they konk out, leading to Qi Collapse, which is the equivalent of Adrenal Fatigue.


Obviously it is best to avoid Adrenal Fatigue to begin with by sleeping 7-9 hours per night, eating foods that nourish the body (rather than just quell the hunger) and managing stress with acupuncture, exercise, yoga, meditation, tai chi, qigong, etc. However, if you already have Adrenal Fatigue, there are options out there to help bring you back to health:

• Remove stress to the best of your ability. When you are exhausted, even gentle yoga can sometimes be too much, but meditation, even just 3 minutes at a time, can be a very powerful stress reducer. It can be a simple as observing the sensation of your belly rising and falling as you breathe. Whenever the thoughts start to get louder, notice that you are thinking and return your attention to your breath. Repeat this as many times as it takes. Meditation is not about getting to that "blissed out quiet space" it is about training the mind to have a single focus. It takes practice, but it is something that doesn't take a lot of physical effort and can have a large payoff.
• Ask for help. This can be challenging for many people, but often this is what has gotten you here in the first place. Ask for help from your spouse, friends, parents, children. Let go of the image of the pace that your life used to move at and see if you can move at a slower pace. Your task for the day might just be to feed yourself. If your house is messy, let it be messy for a little while until you are feeling better, or enlist the help of someone else. If you continue to tax your body, even with little things, the road to health is much longer.
• Eat good foods. Nourish your body with cooked vegetables, grass-fed/pasture raised meats and poultry, easy to digest grains like rice, quinoa, millet (cooked with a ratio of at least 3 cups water to 1 cup grain). Eat small meals and chew well to allow for the best absorption. Bone broths are also great. Try to avoid sugar, artificial sweeteners and caffeine since these will just leave you more depleted. Honey is okay, especially raw, in small doses, like in tea. There are also many Qi tonic herbs that you might find useful, like astragalus, ginseng, rhodiola, or ashwagandha. Talk to an herbalist to try to find the best ones for you to use.
• Sleep. Sleep is when the body repairs itself, so if you need to nap, do so if you can. If you can't sleep well, try a warm bath before bed or spray some lavender on your pillow. Acupuncture, homeopathy and herbal medicine may also help, but it is important to meet with a practitioner who can guide you to the correct treatment for your particular sleep issues.

It is important for you to see your doctor or a Functional Medicine doctor to get a diagnosis and check to see if you need supplemental cortisol as well. There are many herbal formulas, both Chinese and Western, that might be useful for sleep, energy and stress reduction which will also aid in your recovery. You don't need to be so tired all the time. With the proper treatment, you should improve over time to where you once again feel like you can live your life.

 

Acupuncture and the Heart

This is the time of year when people are flooded by messages of love. Valentine's Day can either be a day full of love and joy, or a day full of woe and disdain. I'm choosing this post to discuss the Heart, especially the emotional aspect, how it is viewed by Chinese Medicine and how it can affect our health.




Like with the Western understanding of anatomy and physiology, one of the Heart's main jobs is to pump blood through the body, creating warmth and circulation, from the core of our body out to the extremities. However, unlike the Western understanding of anatomy and physiology, Chinese theory sees the Heart as having additional properties. According to Traditional Chinese Medicine, the Heart houses the Spirit which in Chinese is the same word as the Mind--Shen. In TCM the Mind and the Spirit are seen as the same and what happens in the Mind/Brain/Spirit, happens in the Heart. The Spirit is what makes us who we are, what animates us, the light within us. This Sprirt, or Shen, is seen through the eyes--that sparkle (or lack of sparkle) indicates the quality of a person's Spirit.




This is why positive or negative thoughts will affect the Heart; whether you are thinking positively or negatively about yourself or someone else, it will have an effect on the Heart. Although Joy (or lack of Joy) is the emotion usually associated with the Heart, all emotions, even those that are associated with the other internal organs (Joy/Heart, Anger/Liver, Fear/Kidneys, Worry/Spleen, Sadness/Lungs)are felt by the Heart. Since the Heart feels all of the emotions and the Heart pumps blood through the body, the energy and effects of those thoughts and emotions are carried throughout the body and affect our health. How many times have you felt worry in your stomach (paired with the Spleen), or anger or frustration resulting in a tight neck and upper back (Gallbladder channel, which is paired with the Liver)?



It is common to speak about the Body/Mind/Spirit connection--this is the ultimate expression of that.




When the Heart is in balance we feel appropriate amounts of Joy. If there is excess Joy, or "too much" Joy, that translates to symptoms of mania. If there is insufficient Joy, or lack of Joy, you see one of the many manifestations of depression (each organ has a type of depression associated with it --a post for another day).




The Heart is the Fire element. When there is too much Heart heat (either Fire or Yang) a person often feels ungrounded, agitated or anxious. You can also feel Heart palpitations, racing or spontaneous sweating with panic attacks. These can also be due to insufficient Heart Qi or Blood. This agitation can disturb the Spirit which can then interrupt sleep, making it difficult to fall or stay asleep, sometimes causing restless sleep. Insomnia is the result of a disturbed Spirit "wandering around" at night rather than settling in for the night.




If you are feeling anxious, manic, agitated, joyless or are having trouble sleeping, chances are your Heart energy is out of balance and you could use some acupuncture. Seeing your local acupuncturist for an accurate diagnosis is best, but in the mean time, see if you can fill your heart with love, kindness and compassion, from yourself, to yourself. Kindness toward yourself is a very powerful way to nourish your Heart and feel Joy.

Can Acupuncture Help You With Your New Year's Resolutions?

I'm not a big believer in New Year's Resolutions, mostly because, as I wrote in Resolution or Reflection, it is the wrong time of year for anything to stick. That being said, many people do make resolutions at this time of year that commonly have to do with their health: lose weight, get fit/ exercise more, eat better, quit smoking, quit diet soda (yes please!!), quit drinking, walk every day, run a marathon, relax more, get healthier, etc. These are all things that are important and often very challenging to do because they take time. How many times have you made a resolution and a month later (or a week later) it is already broken?

When it comes to your health, it should be a marathon, not a sprint. Health is something that builds slowly over time because it needs to sustain you; it is not something that is just for today. If you quit smoking it is not just for this week, you don't want to smoke ever again (hopefully). Diets fail because once the diet is over the weight comes back on. A lifestyle change is much more effective for long term results and feeling better over all, even if you are taking it one day at a time. Acupuncture can help you with many of these resolutions because acupuncturists help you look at your overall health to assist you in feeling the best you can feel.

Quitting smoking/drinking/diet soda:
Acupuncture calms the nervous system and helps ease cravings making it less effort to quit. It also supports the Lungs and can help your body get rid of the phlegm that accumulates as the body heals from the damage that smoking causes. Acupuncture supports the Liver which aids in the detox process, helping your body get rid of the build-up of chemicals that smoking, drinking and diet soda (or diet anything) can create. The fewer chemicals in your body, the better you feel. Acupuncture has been used to treat addiction in this country for decades to help people quit whatever substance it is they are wishing to quit. It treats both the physical symptoms as well as the psychological ones without side effects. However, you must want to quit; if you don't fully commit to quitting, you won't succeed.

Losing weight:
Unfortunately acupuncture is not the "magic bullet" that makes the weight just fall off your body. Sorry about getting your hopes up. However, acupuncture can help improve your metabolism to help your digestion and your ability to process food. Lack of hunger is not a sign of health, it is a sign that your body is out of balance. When hunger is too strong, acupuncture can help regulate that, as well as food cravings. Acupuncture can also help with stress. One reason that people gain weight is stress, not just due to "stress eating," but also stress slows down your metabolism making it much harder to lose weight. Your acupuncturist can also make dietary suggestions about foods that best support your particular imbalance and support your eating the best foods for your body.

Exercising more:
While acupuncture can't make you walk into the gym, it can support the work you do there. It can help relive sore muscles and help you heal from injuries. Plus acupuncture can help improve your energy so that you can work harder without feeling exhausted afterward (if you do feel exhausted after exercise you need to slow down and do less. Read more about that here).

If you are struggling with your New Year's resolutions, talk to your local acupuncturist. She or he might be able to help you be a better you for the entirety of the New Year.