Possible Radiation Fallout?

Concerned about possible nuclear radiation fall out?
You can eat food high in iodine, such as:
Seaweed.
and
Shitake mushrooms
and
Fish.

All of these are high in iodine.

Possible Radiation Fallout?

Asthma, Coughing, Skin, and Hair Problems Can be from Grief

In Chinese Medicine, each major organ has an emotional component as part of the organ.  The lungs emotional component is associated with grief and sadness.  If you have unresolved sadness (such as when someone has died or if you were part of very sexual assault) your body can respond with symptoms of asthma, respiratory problems, skin problems, as well as problems with your hair.  In Chinese Medicine, all of these symptoms are associated with lung problems and one of the key reasons for this can be unresolved grief and sadness.

These symptoms are associated with Qi stagnation in the lungs.  There are ways to help you resolve the stuck Qi; acupuncture, Qigong, herbs, and diet can all help get the Qi to flow again.  Some of this you can do on your own, but you may want to see a professional to assist you if the problem is long term or chronic.

Sometimes you don’t even know why you have Qi (chee) that is stuck.  You are only aware you are having problems such as a cough that won't go away, or that you keep getting colds, or you have asthma and problems breathing.  Or you may have noticed you now have eczema, a skin rash on your body that is new and nothing seems to help it go away.  Or maybe you have noticed you are losing more hair than normal and you are leaving the bathroom with a carpet of hair on the floor after you brush your long locks.  All of these can be symptoms of “lung Qi stagnation”.

I know, because this is what I had.

For example, I had several colds, including pneumonia. I’ve also had a new rash and I noticed when I washed my hair I had more and more hair stuck in the comb rather than still on my head. I was starting to think this was part of aging, but then I took a Qigong class and discovered my symptoms were from a different cause.

After going through the various Qigong exercises in class, our instructor warned us this intense process may have allowed some unprocessed emotions to surface.  It did.

That night  I dreamed my mother was being killed and when I woke up, I knew I must have some unresolved sadness and grief surrounding my mother’s death.  My mother died shortly after I had her placed in skilled nursing facility and with her death came lots of guilt and grief.  I didn't expect this to be my issue and source of sadness affecting my lungs and stagnating my lung Qi, but there it was, staring me in the face and now I knew these problems were from this unresolved issue.

Because our bodies are designed to self heal, there are ways to use information like this to help heal.  I was now aware my symptoms were related to my grief which caused my Qi to get stuck and stagnate in my lungs.

To get the Qi to move, there are certain foods to help move the lung Qi.  There are also herbs and exercises as well as sounds to help get the Qi to move.

Foods that can help the lungs and Qi move are broccoli, citrus, pears, pork apples, and even coffee. Peppermint is also good for the lungs as well ginger.  There are also some movements and sounds that can help move the lung Qi and get it moving, including the sound of “SSS” as well as the sound of “SHH”.  These sounds are proven to open up the lungs and relieve phlegm and well as help dispel grief.

If you also have lung Qi stagnation, you may also want to try some self healing methods to get your Qi moving, too.  If your sadness and grief are long term and you have had long standing lung problems, skin, and/or hair problems, you may also want to consider seeing a professional Acupuncturist, Qigong Therapist, and/or Grief Counselor.

Chronic coughing, eczema, and hair falling out just aren't all that fun.  It also doesn't seem to go away on its own. You have to help your body heal, resolve your sadness, and get your Qi flowing back to normal.

You will be able to FEEL the difference even before you SEE the difference.  The healing can be that quick.

Asthma, Coughing, Skin, and Hair Problems Can be from Grief

Benefits of Medical Qigong

Qigong is one of the main branches in traditional Chinese medicine.  Qigong is also used in the practice of martial arts and spiritual development.  Qigong is not a religion, only a tool that uses the life force energy of the body and environment to help bring desired and focused results. As a result, Qigong is used in different disciplines.

Qi (pronounced chee) is bioelectricity.  It is also known as the life force energy of all living things.    Qigong uses this life force energy in three different types of Qigong categories:  

• Martial Qigong, the study of using the life force energy to defend, fight, and disarm your opponent. 
• Spiritual Qigong, the study using meditative internal visualization of the life force energy for spiritual for growth and development
• Medical Qigong, the study for health and healing, specifically designed for medicinal affects

Qigong is composed of three aspects to promote vitality by gently stretching and moving the body to dissolve energy flow blockages.  These components include

1. Physical exercise
2. Meditation and visualization
3. Breathing exercises

The goals of Medical Qigong practices are

• to balance and harmonize the yin (blood, body fluids, and quiescent) and the yang (metabolic functions of Qi activity) of the body.  
• to harmonize the body and mind with your environment.

According to Suzanne B Friedman, the author of “Heal Yourself with Qigong” many clinical studies have concluded that Qigong has a positive effect on various health problems, including:

• High Blood Pressure 
• Mortality and stroke
• Levels of superoxide dismutase (SOD) called anti-aging enzyme
• Sex hormone levels
• Cardiovascular functions
• Cancer
• Senility
• Bone density
• Endocrine gland function
• Asthma
• Immune function
• Cholesterol levels

Qigong is different than regular exercise.  Qigong cultivates posture, breath, and focused intention to partner with your life force energies to purge, strengthen, and regulate balances in your body.  It is simple, but also very effective.

The practice of Qigong can help you improve your health.  Often, the results can be rather remarkable and astonishing.

Benefits of Medical Qigong

QiGong

One of the things I like about Chinese Medicine is that it is non-linear. There is no separation between the mind, the body, and the spirit. Emotions are stored in the organs and with this concept, can be a contributing factor to disease and how a disease is presented. This is so very different from Western medicine. In the West we often look at diseases in silos. “I can only deal with things from the neck up” is what you may hear from your Ear/Nose/Throat (ENT) doctor. “I don’t do anything with women’s organs” is what you may hear from a Family Practitioner. We tend to specialize in organs or specific locations in the body.

In Chinese Medicine, organs are not broken out and silo’d. Each patient is seen as a whole and every symptom, no matter what part of the body, mind, or spirit, is included in the assessment, the diagnosis, and treatment plan.

One of my next classes in Chinese Medicine will be a QiGong class taught by Suzanne Friedman. She is an expert in QiGong. She says that QiGong uses the energy fields of the body to help purge, strengthen, and balance a person. I like that.

The healing objectives of QIGong are:

• To eliminate the pathogenic factors, such as the accumulation of emotions, or factors from the environment, or an invasion of cold, damp, heat, or dryness.
• To increase or decrease a person Qi to counteract the deficient or excess conditions in the body
• To regulate and balance yin and yang energy and bring the body back into internal harmony.

These are the texts we will be using in this class (should you want to follow along).

• "Medical Qigong Exercise Prescriptions: A Self-Healing Guide for Patients & Practitioners" by Suzanne Friedman.
• "The Yijing Medical Qigong System" by Suzanne Friedman
• "Heal Yourself With Qigong: Gentle Practices to Increase Energy, Restore Health, and Relax the Mind" by Suzanne Friedman

QiGong is considered one of the branches of Chinese Medicine. The branches I’m studying so far include acupuncture, food (or diet and nutrition), herbs, and movement (QiGong/Exercise).

Pretty exciting stuff.

QiGong

Eating REAL Food is Part of the Chinese Medicine Prescription of Good Health

Since nutrition is one of the five branches of Chinese Medicine, it is something we can’t ignore when you study Chinese Medicine.

I attended a workshop titled, “Eat Real Food; Nutrition in the 21st Century" by Nishanga Bliss, L.A.c. and she reminded us that in Chinese Medicine, good food means food that is not processed, not refined, is eaten in season of your local area, and is NOT filled with hormones and/or chemicals.

Most of us don’t eat this way.

Most of us these days eat prepared food, fast foods, packaged food or junk food, and as a result, our bodies tend to become reservoirs of chemicals, toxins, plastics, poisons, and crud. Over the years, we start to exhibit signs and symptoms of interesting health problems due to eating the way we do. Many of our health problems could be treated, mitigated, or even eliminated if we started to eat REAL food.

To start us on the road to eating REAL food (and hopefully changing some of our bad habits), our instructor, Ms. Bliss, recommended we start with some baby-stepping guidelines to move towards eating REAL FOOD:

• Don't eat packaged food that has over 5 ingredients listed on the label.
• Eat locally produced food. If it is not locally grown, then eat organic.
• If not organic, then eat food from a family farm.
• If not from a family farm, then from a local business.
• If not from a local business, then from the region.
• Go to the Farmers Market before trying the Supermarket. Plan your meals around local ingredients you find at the Farmers Market.

Our instructor then asked if we thought we needed to go to a deeper level of the REAL FOOD process; that of being CLEANSED? (My immediate thought was Oh, NO! Enemas!) But that is not what she had in mind at all.

Cleansing (the Chinese Medicine Way) is to take nutritious REAL food and only consume that food for a period of 3 weeks. The REAL and good food will then start to work its ways through your entire system and go to all your nooks and cranny's (including the mechanisms that take 28 days to get restarted) and pull out the toxins and stuff we don't need or want.

Three weeks of eating REAL and GOOD food will help your system remove the chemicals and junk stuck in your itty bitty tiny weeny cells and purge it out through your gut, your lungs, your sweat, and out through your urine. After a period of 3 weeks, you should look and feel "clean", "different", "better"...and maybe even "new".

Ms Bliss recommends you do this type of diet cleanse each spring or whenever you have two or more of these kind of symptoms over a period of two months.

• Allergies
• Skin rashes or breakouts
• Tight neck and shoulders
• Headaches
• Constipation, loose stools, or both
• Difficulty falling or staying asleep
• PMS
• Menstrual cramps
• Restlessness, irritability, or anger
• Mood swings
• Frequent infections or colds
• Poor memory
• Mental fogginess

Here are the rules for this simple, food-based cleanse of REAL food our instructor recommended:

CHOOSE

• Vegetables. Eat all types as much as you wish. Raw vegetables are more cleansing, cooked ones are more strengthening. People who are robust and those cleansing in warmer climates can choose more raw foods (50% of more). Those who are tired or deficient and those cleansing in cool weather should choose more cooked foods (75% or more).

• Cleansing Vegetables. Eat at least 2 of these per day; avocados, artichokes, asparagus, beets, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, burdock, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, celery, chives, cucumbers, eggplant, garlic, jicama, kohlrabi, leeks, mushrooms, onions, peppers, rutabaga, radishes, especially daikon and Spanish black radish, sea vegetables, turnips.

• Leafy Greens. All leafy greens, such as arugula, beet, daikon, and turnip greens, dandelion greens, kale, and collard greens, mustard greens, swiss chard, spinach, lettuces of all types, edible flowers.

• Fruit. Choose any fresh or frozen fruit, with an emphasis on seasonal fruits from your area. Try to each twice as many veggies as fruit. No dried or canned fruit.

• Fats and Oils. Choose only expeller-pressed organic olive oil, unrefined coconut oil or ghee for cooking, and organic expeller-pressed flax oil and olive oil for dressings

• Beans. One to three servings of organic lentils, mung beans, chickpeas, or other beans daily. Soak all beans overnight before cooking. Avoid unfermented soy (tofu or soy milk)

• Grains. One to three servings of organic brown rice, wild rice, or quinoa daily, and prepare these by soaking overnight before cooking.

• Animal Foods. Choose from organic or pastured poultry, beef, lamb, or goat, and wild-caught, low mercury seafood only, up to four 2-3 ounce servings per day. One to three organic or pastured eggs daily. Prepare animal products by boiling, baking, roasting, or poaching, or raw(no raw egg whites). No cured, smoked, or preserved meats, but canned salmon and sardines are OK.

• Seasonings. Natural wheat free tamari or shoyu, chickpea miso, raw apple cider or other raw vinegars, fresh lemon juice, celtic sea salt, or other unprocessed salt, fresh or dried organic herbs and spices, raw honey, nutritional yeast.

• Fermented foods. Raw sauerkraut or lacto-fermented pickles, ideally with each meal.

• Beverages. Aim for ½ your body weight in ounces of water a day (avg 8-10 glasses). Choose filtered water, herbal teas, kombucha, beet kvass, freshly pressed vegetable juices or pressed fruit juices diluted with water.

The cleanse should be done over 3 weeks. Our instructor said everyone who does this cleanse ends up feeling better and healthier. Some even lose weight.

Since it will soon be spring, which marks the time for spring cleaning the house, consider cleansing your innards (your body).

Perhaps just eating locally is a good place to start to move you on a path of better health. Or maybe it is choosing to not eat anything packaged with more than 5 ingredients. This can help, too.

If you decide to try the 3 week cleanse, you may discover a new healthy body. Switching over to REAL food can make you feel that different.

Who knows? Maybe a new you is what you are going to find this year. After all, food is a part of our life. We can choose to partner with food that is good for us or partner and hang out with food from the wrong side of the tracks.

This may be the year we decide to start hanging out with food that is REAL and can help us feel better.

Eating REAL Food is Part of the Chinese Medicine Prescription of Good Health

Leave that Fat in Your Dairy!

First off, to my children, I'm sorry.

I learned at our Chinese Medicine nutrition workshop that skim milk is a disgrace (nutiritionally speaking) with all the other milk choices available. Lowfat yogurt should be an embarrassment. And let's not even talk about low fat sour cream!

I became aware during our Chinese Medicine Nutrition workshop that "the previous generation", which is MY generation, did a great disservice to their children (including mine) by having them drink adulterated dairy products. We should have allowed, and encouraged them, to drink WHOLE milk and all the dairy products with all the fat left in them. Also, it would have been better if we allowed them to drink the NON-pasteurized stuff, too, so they could improve their guts anaerobic bacteria. It is also believed that pasteurization has helped produce a generation that is lactose intolerant. But no, we listened to the recommendations at the time and fell into the trap of thinking low fat would be better for us. Now we are learning it was a LIE!!! Yes, a LIE!!

The BEST course would have been letting our kids drink straight from the cow, or at least get milk straight from a local dairy with cows chewing on the grass with music playing around them singing songs (think happy cow).

I can't believe all the things I'm learning that I did wrong! I may need to go to the bar and sulk away with a fat loaded and sugar infested milkshake swirled with lots and lots of vodka to help flush away my new found guilt.

Leave that Fat in Your Dairy!

Food is a Basis for Qi Production

Food is the basis for the production of Qi and blood in your body.

• If no food is eaten for half a day, the Qi is weakened.

• If no food is eaten for a whole day, Qi is depleted.

Food is very important in Chinese Medicine.

Fasting is not seen as being therapeutic.

Food is a Basis for Qi Production

Traditional Foods that Move the Liver Qi

According to my instructor, Liver Qi Stagnation is the most common problem we have in the USA.

Liver Qi stagnation is usually caused by improper food intake, such as eating pre-packaged foods, fast foods, fatty foods, cold, and/or raw foods, or foods that are wrecked (such as being transported long distances or grown with pesticides). In other words, the typical American diet.

The usual symptoms of stagnant liver Qi may include the following:

• Red face, feeling of heat
• Thirst
• Irritability, depression, moodiness, outbursts of anger
• Feeling a lump in the throat
• Hypochondrial/epigastric distention, pain in your sides
• Irregular/heavy periods (in women)
• Premenstrual tension & breast distension (PMS)

Traditional foods that can help move the Liver Qi and keep the Qi from getting stagnant are:

• HERBS AND SPICES (anise, basil, bay, cardamom, cayenne, cinnamon, cloves, cilantro, curry, fennel, garlic, ginger, horseradish, mint, mustard, nutmeg, oregano, parsley, vanilla)

• BEANS (navy, baby lima, cannellini, and other white beans)

• VEGETABLES (collard greens, green garlic, kohlrabi, leeks, onions, radishes of all types, turnips and their greens, watercress)

• FRUITS (grapefruit, lemon, lime, kumquat, plum, tangerine)

My instructors other recommendations are to eat REAL food. To do this, she recommends the following:

• Eat locally produced food. If it is not locally grown, then eat Organic.
• If not organic, then eat food from a family farm.
• If not from a family farm, then from a local business.
• If not from a local business, then from the region.
• Go to the Farmers Market before trying the Supermarket. Plan your meals around local ingredients you find at the Farmers Market.

Traditional Foods that Move the Liver Qi

Balance a Key For Maintaining Health

Chinese Medicine stresses balance as a key to health. When you are ill, there is a disharmony going on within you. Identifying the cause of the disharmony is important because you can learn how to avoid it, prevent it, or correct it. If you don’t treat the cause of the disease, it is like ”pouring water into a container with a leaky bottom”.

Good health is based on a balance of nutrition, sleep/rest, and exercise. When you are out of balance, you may start to exhibit symptoms in different organs, in your energy level, in your emotional state. Climatic conditions can also cause a disease if there is a relative imbalance between the body’s Qi and an exterior pathogen.

In Western medicine there is emphasis on the external aspect of a disease, such as bacteria and viruses. In Chinese medicine, the emphasis is more on finding out what is out of balance and causing the problem and getting you to return to a state of balance.

So how do you keep from getting sick?

In Chinese Medicine, good health is all about having a balance between exercise, nutrition, and sleep. Diseases may be caused by a weak constitution (what you were born with), or being overworked, or a lack of (or even excessive) exercise. It can also be due to excessive sexual activity (think Charlie Sheen). It can also be related to your diet (of course). In addition, disease can be caused by trauma, poisons & parasites, drugs, and having been given the wrong treatment (woops!). All of these factors can make a person be out of balance and as a result, impact their health.

So when you find your self not feeling well and you are starting to have symptoms, it is your alert that something is out of balance and you can start to look at how to get back in balance. Is my diet out of whack and I have eaten too much fast foods? If so, have a meal filled with nutrients, especially something like soup or warm cooked foods. Is your Qi stagnated? if so, engage in some stretches, exercise, Tai Chi, or Yoga and get the Qi and blood circulating so the nutrients can help combat that new symptom.

Did you know that pain is considered to be a sign of Qi stagnation? It usually says that something is not flowing how and where it should and as a result, fluids are stagnating and are stuck. As a result it hurts. So how do you get unstuck? Acupuncture helps as does movement.

A sore throat can be your alert that your defensive Qi (or defensive mechanism) is weak and you may be inadvertently allowing pathogens into your body. If so, make sure you are drinking enough warm fluids and getting rest You may even decide to take some herbs to help stimulate more of your defensive Qi to be created or get to where it is needed to defend your body.

Chinese medicine looks at everything going on in your life and environment to help assess what imay be out of balance and what needs to be treated or fine tuned. The goal is always to get you back in balance and keep you there.

What I find so fascinating in Chinese medicine is that you can be out of balance in one area and it can show up in unrelated area or organ of your body. For example, if you have unresolved grief, it can show up in your lungs. LUNGS??? Yep. You get symptoms like shortness of breath or even a dry hacking cough if you don't resolve your grief. And if you are a worrier, it knots your Qi and you can have symptoms like fatigue, abdominal distention, constipation, or diarrhea, and even sighing, just from worrying!

Chinese medicine can be pretty interesting.

Balance a Key For Maintaining Health