Mar 26

Massage and Qi Gong

General, Traditional Chinese Medicine No Comments »


Qi Gong, the practice of cultivating and enhancing one’s Qi (or life force) , shares similarities with massage therapy:

Massage and qi gong are two complementary approaches to bodywork. It is said that qi gong balances the energy, blood and body fluid flow from the inside, and massage strengthens the flow from the outside. Qi gong uses intention and particular body movements to guide the qi in healthy directions, while the physical pressure and body manipulation of massage help to do so from the outside. Daoist masters and early Chinese medicine doctors saw the value of this internal-external approach to balance the body and harmonize the interior and exterior.

Early medical texts from the Daoist canon recommended massage and qi gong, particularly for muscle tension, locomotive and circulation issues, digestive disorders and psychosomatic disorders. Self-massage developed as a means of self-treatment and as warm-up exercises for meditation and qi gong practice, while professional massage therapists were still consulted when treatment was required.

Massage techniques became an integral part of qi gong practice early on. Self-massage warms the body, which stimulates the flow of blood and body fluids. Any qi gong practice that follows is said to be more powerful after circulation has been stimulated in this manner. The physical stimulation of massage will also help the practitioner to feel, and ultimately guide, the qi flow in the body. When you begin a qi gong practice, you start by visualizing the movement of qi until you can feel the flow of qi in your body. Once you can feel the flow of qi, you can then guide it. Thus, massage is a key technique to enhance and accelerate your ability to cultivate and circulate your energy. Likewise, self-massage techniques can loosen tight or stiff muscles that arise from our mostly sedentary lifestyle. If you do not rub or stretch these areas before qi gong exercises, you run the risk of injuring yourself.

Mar 24

March Madness!

DAAN, General No Comments »

Spring is here! Despite what the fashionistas are promoting in their store windows, most of us are still changing back and forth in our winter and spring collection. With the precarious weather and temperature fluctuations we are having, it is easy to be caught in the wrong season.

The simple solution to this is to have a scarf or a wind breaker (preferably with hood) handy in the car, office, or handbag. Under the Five Element Theory in TCM, spring corresponds to “wind”. A scarf or wind breaker can protect you from the “wind-evil” element. When you are exposed to too much wind, you are more susceptible to headaches, and if the “wind-evil” is trapped within your body, you are apt to feel lethargic.

In addition to bundling yourself up when it is windy or cold, warming up with ginger tea or a warm bath/shower is also a great idea. For those who are still feeling bouts of headaches and lack of energy after recovering from a cold/flu back in February, it might be because the wind-evil has once again penetrated through your porous “wei-qi”, otherwise known as the “defensive energy”. When this happens, the formula, Ge Gen Tong is often used to force out the wind-evil trapped inside. Once you feel more energized and have no more headaches, it is time to strengthen your defensive energy with qi tonics like Astragalus or ginseng.

With these simple tips, hopefully everyone can enjoy the bountiful colors spring brings, without the headaches.

Ginger Tea

Ge Gen Tong

Astragalus

Astragalus

Ginseng

Mar 17

Chinese herbs for eczema

Herbs, Skin Care No Comments »

Traditional Chinese medicine may be helpful in the treatment of eczema:

Adults with eczema also can benefit from traditional Chinese medicine, Japanese researchers report.

They studied 274 men and women who had suffered from eczema for an average of 12 years. Nearly one-third had severe or very severe symptoms, with patches of chronically itchy, dry, inflamed skin over at least 10% of their body.

“Medicinal Chinese herbal remedies were selected and administered in accordance with the sufferer’s symptoms — an approach known as Sho in oriental medicine,” says Yoshiteru Shimoide, MD, head of the Yoshiteru Shimoide Clinic of Internal Medicine in Kagoshima City.

After 3-4 months of treatment, 87% of the patients were symptom-free. An additional 12% markedly improved, he tells WebMD.

One patient showed mild abnormalities in liver function, which were alleviated by stopping the herbal therapy.

Mar 17

Heral treatments becoming more popular as the economy slows

Uncategorized No Comments »

As the recession continues, people are choosing to use alternative treatments, in part because they are cheaper:

For the three months that ended Dec. 28, nationwide retail sales of vitamins and supplements totaled nearly $639 million, up almost 10 percent from the same period in 2007. That includes a nearly 6 percent increase in sales of herbal supplements alone, according to Information Resources Inc., a Chicago-based market research firm. Its numbers do not include Wal-Mart or club stores.

Nationwide herbal and botanical supplement sales totaled $4.8 billion in 2007, when the recession began, up 4.3 percent over 2006. That was a marginally higher increase compared with the previous year, according to Jason Phillips of the Nutrition Business Journal, an industry-tracking publication. Sales of animal oil supplements — mostly fish oils — were up 29 percent from 2006. While that was a decline from the previous year, both categories continued to show strong growth in a faltering economy.

A government survey released in December said concerns about the cost of conventional medicine influenced Americans’ decisions to try alternative remedies. “Nonvitamin, nonmineral natural products,” including fish oil and herbal medicines, were the most commonly used alternatives, taken by almost 18 percent of Americans in 2007, the report said. Among those users, roughly a quarter said they delayed or didn’t get conventional medical care because of the cost.

Report co-author Richard Nahin of the National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine offered cautionary advice on the topic.

People taking herbal and other supplements should let their doctor know what they’re using, said Nahin, acting director of the center’s branch that oversees outside research the agency funds.

Mar 08

Tea time – health benefits of Chinese tea

Tea No Comments »

It’s well known that tea, especially green tea, can be very good for you:

Archeological evidence suggests that people consumed tea leaves steeped in boiling water as many as 500,000 years ago. Botanical evidence indicates that India and China were among the first countries to cultivate tea. Today, hundreds of millions of people drink tea around the world, and studies are now suggesting that green tea (Camellia sinesis) in particular has many health benefits.

There are three main varieties of tea — green, black, and oolong. The difference between the teas is in their processing. Green tea is made from unfermented leaves and reportedly contains the highest concentration of powerful antioxidants called polyphenols. Antioxidants are substances that scavenge free radicals — damaging compounds in the body that alter cells, tamper with DNA (genetic material), and even cause cell death. Free radicals occur naturally in the body, but environmental toxins (including ultraviolet rays from the sun, radiation, cigarette smoke, and air pollution) also give rise to these damaging particles. Many scientists believe that free radicals contribute to the aging process as well as the development of a number of health problems, including cancer and heart disease. Antioxidants such as polyphenols in green tea can neutralize free radicals and may reduce or even help prevent some of the damage they cause.

Green tea has been consumed throughout the ages in India, China, Japan, and Thailand. In traditional Chinese and Indian medicine, practitioners used green tea as a stimulant, diuretic (to promote the excretion of urine), astringent (to control bleeding and help heal wounds), and to improve heart health. Other traditional uses of green tea include treating flatulence (gas), regulating body temperature and blood sugar, promoting digestion, and improving mental processes.

Its use goes back thousands of years and is one of life’s simple pleasures:

The next time you sip a cup of tea, think of its health benefits. For example, its antioxidant properties are purported to reduce the risk and progression of cancer, boost the immune system and increase metabolism.

Legend has it that more than 4,000 years ago in 2,737 BC, tea was discovered by Chinese Emperor Shennong quite by chance. A dead leaf had fallen into his drinking water while it was boiling under the tree.

He unwittingly drank it and was so taken by the refreshing effect of the tea leaf that he named it cha (tea in Mandarin).

Tea drinking soon spread across the country and became a symbol of Chinese high culture, which later travelled to other parts of Asia, Europe, the Americas and Russia. However, beyond its social symbolism, tea was an important form of medicine used by early physicians.

Since ancient times, the Chinese have been using tea to improve their health and to cure illnesses, said Chin Chew Seng, a traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) physician and senior trainer at Eu Yan Sang in Singapore.

It is not known when tea was first used for its medicinal value but the earliest records were traced back to the Han Dynasty (206BC-220AD).

Today, there are about 1,500 varieties of tea according to the United Kingdom Tea Council. Only the leaves from the camellia sinensis species of plants are considered tea.

Try one of the many teas we offer.

Mar 08

Cupping

Acupuncture, Alternative therapies No Comments »

Cupping is a traditional Chinese medical treatment, similar in purpose to acupuncture, in that it attempts to stimulate the body’s meridians, enhance the flow of Qi, and restore the body’s balance:

Cupping uses suction to draw blood to a specific point on your body, allowing the circulation of that blood to heal certain organs and body parts related to “meridian lines” running along your neck, legs, hands, and back. This three-thousand-year-old therapy has been called many things and each technique has been a little bit different.

In ancient China, it was first called “horn therapy” because healers used hollow animal horns on the body to get rid of pus. Bamboo cups have also been popular and are inexpensive to make but since the use of a glass cap was started for cupping, nothing else has rivaled it because the transparent nature of the glass makes it easier for the technician to see the state of the skin trapped inside of the rim. Traditional use involves a bit of alcohol in each cup before being lighted by fire (hence the alternate name “fire-cupping”) in order to warm but not burn the skin. Conventional “air” cupping usage nowadays strays away from open flames and focuses on the safety of the patient by using a pump mechanism to secure the vacuum instead of burning the oxygen out of the glass.

By using warmth and the pressure of the device creating a vacuum, cupping promotes the flow of blood and “qi”—also known as chi, Chinese for “natural energy from the Universe”—helping to decrease swelling, get rid of fever, comfort pain in the lower back and extremities, stomachaches, vomiting, diarrhea, asthma, and lung disease among others. Another less well-known type is called “wet” cupping where the skin is pierced before the cup is placed over the area allowing a small amount of blood to collect and is thought to relieve certain conditions. This is also known as blood-letting alongside the regular cupping process in most alternative medicine definitions.

 
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