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Today we have access to more things to help us heal than at any other time in history, one of the first and most important steps to healing is making sure you’re getting enough quality sleep every night for the body to do its internal restorative work. In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) yang qi is what keeps our minds and bodies busy during the day and at night it goes internal to help a deeper detox and repair the systems of the body while the yin qi takes over externally to rest our conscious minds and shut down muscle activity. This yin/yang trade-off, when working in balance, is the very foundation of good health according to TCM.
The nature of yin is cool and calm. It’s associated with calm, darkness, and stillness…all the relaxing sensations you get when you’re genuinely resting. A body in a yin state will slow down its heart rate and metabolism. In Biomedicine (Western Medicine), this relates to the parasympathetic nervous system. Its main purpose aligns with yin qi: to keep us calm and conserve energy. While the sympathetic nervous system is what switches on our fight or flight response and is more correlated with Yang qi. Yang is expansive, stimulating, warming, and gets us moving. In general, yang qi is more accessible during the day, while yin qi dominates the nighttime.
Sleep disturbances are one of the main manifestations of too much yang and/ or not enough yin. To correct issues like insomnia we need to look at how we are living in accordance with that natural balance.
1) Ingesting Too Much Yang: Before bed, or in general, spicy food, alcohol, or stimulants can disturb sleep. Spicy food and alcohol causes heat in the system, which creates excess yang in the body. Too much coffee also keeps yang qi stuck at the surface to be available for activity. Even just having a large meal before bed can block the yang energy from going deep in the body at night.
2) Too Much Activity/Excitement: The yang qi is needed deep on the inside of the body at night, don’t hold it hostage with outward energy requirements. Stop exercising at least 90 minutes before bedtime. This allows for endorphin levels and body temperature to return to levels that are conducive to sleep. Try not to argue before bed, or even get too excited. Give yourself time to wind down & transition.
3) You need to Cool Down: Literally. Yin is associated with coolness. To invite your yin qi to come out at night keep the bedroom temperature between 60-67℉.
4) Too Much External Stimulation: Lights, especially blue light from tv’s, phones and computer screens prevent melatonin release in the body, making it harder to fall asleep. If you need to finish work on a computer, wear blue blocker glasses or get a blue light blocking screen cover for your computer. Also, yin time should be quiet time, it’s recommended that all electronics should be turned off about half an hour before bed to help calm the mind before bed.
5) Too Much Stress, Not Enough Rest: We live in a yang-obsessed world. This creates stress as many of us are over-worked and over-stimulated, while not always having time for a healthy self-care practice (meditation, Tai Ch, etc.). This leaves us with a restless mind (‘disturbed shen’ in TCM terms), and can keep us lying in bed exhausted, but unable to sleep. The challenge is to resist the modern-day pressure to keep up and create more self-care time to support a more balanced lifestyle.
6) Feng Shui of the bedroom: A Feng Shui specialist can analyze the yin yang balance in your bedroom. For instance, the bed should be opposite the room’s door, but not directly in line with it (this is called the command position in feng shui). The headboard should be against a solid wall with balanced night tables on each side. It is also important to keep the area under the bed clear, not for storage. Many people find simple feng shui adjustments can have a perceptible effect on things like sleep and wake cycles.
In addition to these considerations for improving sleep, don’t forget the value of relaxing into a healing state on the acupuncture table. Acupuncture is a cost-effective self-care tool and can help reset your yin-yang balance for better sleep and overall health, call us today so we can help you get better sleep!
October has been recognized as Breast Cancer Awareness Month for more than 30 years. In the history of the condition, which has been around for at least 5000 years, this campaign to raise awareness and funds for study can be considered a recent undertaking. Cases reaching back to 3,000 BC are described in medical writings. Approximately 1 in every 8 women may get invasive breast cancer during her lifetime. (The lifetime risk of breast cancer for a man is approximately 1 in 883.) Educational efforts highlighting warning indicators such as breast enlargement or discomfort, nipple soreness, or pitted skin are used to promote early detection. Researchers in Western medicine have discovered hormonal, lifestyle, and environmental factors that may increase the risk of breast cancer, but the cause remains a mystery.
Chinese Medicine organizes causative factors into the following categories which can also interact in complex ways:
*Stagnation (liver qi): The liver oversees the moving of the qi in the body, dispersing stagnation caused by various influences (such as the other causative factors listed below). Emotional stress can cause a weakness in its capacity for qi distribution and regulation. The liver channel also connects directly with the breasts. Unchecked stagnation can cause dense tissue and masses to form.
*Heat: On a very basic level, heat in TCM can be likened to inflammation. This can be caused by internal or external influences. One of the main external influences that can lead to heat (and therefore inflammation) in the body are environmental toxins.
*Deficiencies: Both qi and blood deficiencies can contribute to the development of breast cancer. The immune system needs enough qi to target and remove abnormal (potentially cancerous) cells and regenerate healthy ones. A deficiency of blood can lead to stagnation if there is not enough blood to maintain vigorous circulation (picture a river during a drought). Also, a deficiency of spleen qi (related to digestion) often leads to dampness in Chinese Medicine.
*Dampness: One of the ways dampness expresses itself in the body is by the accumulation of excess fat. Also, dampness and heat combined usually generate ‘phlegm stagnation’ which can take the form of hardness, nodules, and tumors.
Luckily, the approach to prevention is not as complex as breaking down the causes.
Prevention tips:
Enjoy nutritious seasonal food to support the creation of new qi and blood.
Avoiding processed food will help to minimize toxic heat and dampness in the body and cut down on our body’s inflammatory responses.
Regular exercise helps us to maintain circulation and healthy weight while allowing us to sweat out toxins.
Filtering our air and water can help minimize our exposure to environmental toxins.
Liver detox teas and gentle cleansing protocols, especially during Spring (liver time), can be very beneficial in ridding the body of accumulated toxins and supporting the liver’s role in the free flow of qi.
Managing stress is critical. Target your biggest stressors in life and make changes to either remove them, limit them, or create better-coping strategies.
Massage and castor oil packs can be used preventatively to help avoid local stagnation, often found in fibrocystic (lumpy) breasts (though these direct approaches are usually avoided in the treatment of actual cancerous tumors).
Acupuncture and Herbs are wonderful tools for prevention and can also help to treat side effects of conventional cancer therapies (nausea, neuropathy, pain, etc.).
TCM’s approach to Breast cancer prevention is overall health promotion. Call us today to get in for some health-promoting acupuncture sessions, to help prevent cancer and other diseases, and feel your best!
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is all about balance. In this ancient system, the key to health is to move through the world in such a way that our bodies can remain in homeostasis, in balance. This idea connects to sleep patterns, what we eat, and ultimately the flow of Qi, or energy, throughout the body. For that reason, healthy eating in the summertime, according to TCM, is all about using cooling foods to balance out how hot it is outside. In other words, we can find homeostasis from the inside out.
With that in mind, here are a few suggestions for healthy foods to keep you cool and active all summer long.
Fresh vegetables: that are in season in your region are also a great choice, especially cooling vegetables like cucumbers, spinach, lettuce, peppers, celery, radish, carrots, and cauliflower. Vegetables have the second-highest yin energy, according to TCM.
Summer herbs: basil, cilantro, parsley, and mint are a great, healthy addition to most recipes. These herbs are also natural diuretics and heavy-metal detoxifiers, which flush excess waste from the body.
The best foods to eat vary with geography. If you live in a place where summer days are long, but not very hot and the nights get really cool, incorporate more neutral or even warming fruits and vegetables into your summer smorgasbord. These fruits and vegetables can include most varieties of squash, especially pumpkin, butternut and acorn squash, lentils and legumes, whole grains like brown rice and root vegetables like beets, potatoes, and parsnips.
In places with cooler summers, or during late summer, the fifth season according to TCM, diet is about prioritizing self-nourishment so it can be utilized as energy. Late summer is the time to choose smart sugars that won’t clog up the spleen pathway, including apples, carrots, dates, figs, grapes, peaches, pears, sweet potatoes, and squash. These smart sugars also regulate the body’s blood sugar, which decreases the strain on the pancreas.
For those whose summer climate is hot, here is a recipe for a cooling, detoxifying water you can drink all summer long to keep yourself in balance.
Cooling detox water:
Slice the lemon, lime, and cucumber and add to the water. Stir in the mint. Let it sit in the fridge overnight and enjoy chilled.
