Frustrated with the healing process? I feel you!

Are you frustrated with the pain that you are dealing with? 

Do you wish that you felt better already? 

I know exactly how you feel. All too often we buy into the idea that relief should be immediate and lasting. Well, I hate to be bearer of bad news but that is unfortunately not how healing works. We think that our journey of well-being is linear, that there should be a consistent upward trend to recovery. I too have felt that. I am usually on the other side of where you are, as the provider, the practitioner, trying to explain to the patient that the healing process may take patience and time. However, I will share with you the journey that I have been on recently that allowed me to see this frustration first hand. 

I had cultivated a fairly consistent exercise regimen last year. I was feeling stronger than I ever had and in my humble opinion, looked the best that I had in all of my adult life. Yet, in late November, as I was working out one morning, I felt my self strain a muscle in my neck. It hurt pretty bad but it wasn’t the first time that I had pushed myself a little too hard and over did it. So I went about it as I usually do performing some acupuncture on myself, massaging the area with arnica cream (there is a Dr. Bronner’s version with peppermint that is fantastic) and a combination of stretch and rest. 

However, it wasn’t getting better. Actually what concerned me was when I noticed that I was losing strength in my right arm and grip. This indicates an issue with the nerve; it could be pinched because of the vertebra, the bones in the neck, the discs in between, or the surrounding muscles. I sought out a chiropractor to examine what this might be. As I had suspected he confirmed that it was in fact an affect on the nerves but not because of the spine but the muscles. He gave me a simple adjustment, some stretches and sent me on my way. The pain still persisted, the weakness in my arm did not improve  and I was getting frustrated. At this point the pain had been going on for a couple of months now.

I finally reached out to my teacher to get some acupuncture. She took the time to work with me and assess what was going on. In addition to my current complaint she looked at what other things might be contributing to my health imbalance. 

After my first session I felt amazingly good. She gave me some homework to do and noticed that some of the points she suggested I work on were helpful. BUT, I still hadn't fully recovered, so I saw her a second time. I felt better but didn’t have the same results as the initial visit. I continued treatments and saw her a third time and felt the improvements, my range of motion in my neck had increased and the pain decreased, the referral pain and the tingling I felt in my arm had subsided significantly.

Today I am feeling much better and I don’t grimace in pain each time I lift my head. However, where I am today is not where I was before I strained the muscle. Even with the acupuncture treatments and the improvements there are times where the pain returns (I was at the office just the other day and I shifted in my chair and I felt the pain come back) There are still days where I am frustrated by the progress or lack of progress but just as I am writing this to remind all of you, it is a reminder to myself that healing takes time, but more importantly to let go of our expectations, of non-attachment, in yoga called vairagya. This is something that I teach my students often in yoga, the idea that we can have control over our actions but not the results. Whenever we expect, whenever we think that something “should” be the case, we set ourselves up for disappointment. Like most things in life, healing is not a linear progression, there will be days where we make leaps and bounds, other days it feels like nothing makes it better. 

Another reminder to myself is that I would be mistaken to think that I would feel the same as I did before. There is no going back in time, there is no perfection in terms of our health, only balance. As a yoga teacher I have the privilege of having a fairly good understanding of my body and so have been able to incorporate some therapeutic movements from my yoga practice into my daily routine, I continue to work on the acupuncture points my teacher suggested and I am reminded of the importance of eating, sleeping, and breathing well. I am striving to cultivate and maintain a balance of health and wellbeing. 

The healing process is not immediate, for some it might take one or two treatments, for others it may take ten to fifteen. Whatever it might be, I encourage you (as a I remind myself) to be patient on this journey, to remember that there often isn’t just one magical cure, but that there are many approaches and aspects to our recovery, and to keep showing up for ourselves and our own health and wellbeing, as we work towards maintaining our balance. 

How can acupuncture help my anxiety?

Before we get into how acupuncture can help with anxiety let’s first take a step back and start with the body-mind, mind-body relationship. In order to understand something we usually break things down and try to see something at the most basic level. For example when we are studying anatomy and first learning about the muscles we look at individual muscles, where they attach to the bones and the actions they have when they contract or lengthen. The rectus femoris muscle, one of the four muscles from the quadricep muscle group, flexes the hip joint and extends the knee. This is useful to know and if one were to strengthen this muscle they might do exercises that flex the hip joint and extend the knee. Yet, in life, things don’t exist in a vacuum. Yes, you might be able to focus on certain muscle groups or work on certain types of movement but it is nearly impossible to completely isolate the use of just one muscle. For example, as you work the rectus femoris your abdominal muscles will also work to stabilize your pelvis. In other words, things are connected.

Similarly, when we experience the world we do so not only with our body but mentally and emotionally as well. It is not possible to separate the body and mind apart from each other when experiencing the various things in our lives. We are a system, a whole, an interconnected being that tries to make sense of both external stimuli to our bodies and minds as well as internal stimuli from our thoughts and how we feel physically. For example, when we get into a car accident we experience the physical effects, possibly whiplash or maybe just a simple cut and a bruise. Yet, we experience this with our minds and our emotions also. We can heal from the physical injury but we may not have been able to reconcile and process the mental-emotional trauma. So now whenever you get into a car or think about driving your heart races a little bit faster. The mental-emotional injury has not yet healed. Now your mind is having an affect on the body. You are no longer physically in danger but the image and the memory of the accident is having an affect on your nervous system.

So how does acupuncture help one’s anxiety. The answer lies in the mind-body, body-mind relationship. Acupuncture theory as well as many theories of eastern medicine believed that this body that we inhabit is a system, it is a whole and so by treating one aspect of it we can have an influence over the other. What helps to distinguish this further for acupuncture is the theory of the organs in acupuncture and how they correspond with the five phases, also know as the five elements. Each organ and element has a characteristic, a lot of the language used to understand this is in metaphor but has a lot of clinical application. Not surprisingly, the Heart is associated with anxiety, as well as the pericardium (the literal heart protector). These organs function because of the intricate relationship it has with the other organs but also the substances it relies on, namely Qi and Blood. However, our Shen, what is often translated to as our spirit is what is most closely associated with our mental emotional state. When any of these things are out of balance the whole system goes out of balance. And so it could be anxiety, depression, anger, obsession, frustration or any number of emotional states that disrupt the Shen or it could be the organs not functioning well, either due to diet, sleep, work, play or any other number of things in our lives that affect us.

However, by using acupuncture points on the body, this can have an effect on the mind and our emotions. We are treating the body to treat the mind. For some this may seem like a far fetched idea and others might call it placebo, but if you ask any of the patients that come to see me about anxiety they would say that it works. With acupuncture have very little to no side effects, would you be willing to give it a try?

Acupressure on the Immune Point

Here is a simple tip to help your overall health. It's an acupressure point that we call the "immune point". whether it's seasonal allergies or you are just getting sick, using this point can be a great way to keep yourself healthy. Credit goes to my teacher Kiiko Matsumoto for the information I share here on this video.

What's causing my headache part II?

In one of my other posts, we spoke about how muscles and trigger points in that muscle, specifically the upper trapezius, could be the cause of headaches. Another reason could be circulation. If we look at a healthy circulatory system what we see is oxygen entering the lungs, from the lungs it enters the bloodstream and moves to the heart. From the heart, the oxygenated blood circulates out to the entire body and to every cell. With this, the body is happy and healthy and has no real cause to be in pain. However if for some reason the oxygenated blood is not reaching the final destination that means that the tissue, the cells are starting to become compromised. This is what we call ischemia. If this is temporary and we are able to restore circulation and oxygenated blood back to the tissues and organs then we might feel some discomfort but it is often not a huge cause for concern. However, if this continues and the oxygen supply is limited then the next possible outcome is injury. The cells and tissues that the cells are providing nutrients to become injured because of the lack of oxygen. If this is remedied and we restore oxygen supply then that is ok but if this continues we move onto the next step which is cell death. In the same way that if we are deprived oxygen our bodies would not survive, our cells also will die if it doesn’t have enough oxygen. 

When we are experiencing a headache it may not be as severe as cell death, but with acupuncture one of the ways that we would look into and address your headache would be to see if it is an issue with circulation. There is a major blood vessel that rises up from the heart, supplies the brain with blood and then descends back down, this is the basilar vertebral artery. 

So rather than constantly taking Advil or Tylenol and providing temporary relief, what if you could uncover the root cause of your headache and work to alleviate that? What if by treating your circulation it helped you to become healthy overall? 

The Five Elements

Earth, Fire, Water, Metal, Wood.

No we are not trying to call upon Captain Planet, although apparently there was a philosopher that went around gallivanting around town wearing a bright purple get up as he expounded his theory of elements, but that’s not what we are talking about here. We are talking about the five elements in Chinese Medicine. Or better, it is considered the five phases. After observing the process and changes of nature they were given the characterization and description of the 5 phases. So what do these elements or phases have to do with our body?

Well, along with noting what each element is characteristic of they also ascribed them to specific Chinese organ pairs. The names of the organs are the same as in western anatomy, but the functions and understanding of these organs are very different. Water is composed of the Kidney and Bladder, Wood is Liver and Gallbladder, Fire has a few more, the Heart, Small Intestine, Pericardium and a unique designation called the Triple Burner, Earth is composed of the Spleen and Stomach and lastly Metal is the Lung and Large Intestine. Along with the characteristics of the elements, each organ also has a characteristic and function. There are descriptions of the physiology of the organ as well as what can be expected in disease. These functions are not only ascribed to our physical condition but our mental/emotional states as well.

It is important to point out that the five elements are meant to represent the organs that each are associated with and that these have a relationship, but that the elements are meant to be symbolic and that we need to look at the functions of the organs themselves. The relationship that these have are the following. There is the generating cycle and the controlling cycle. The generating cycle means that one element supports the next. This is similar in western medicine where the heart and kidneys have a delicate relationship in maintaining blood pressure by the amount of sodium the kidneys retain to how much pressure is being exerted by the heart through the vessels. If you look at the image in this post you can see how Water feeds into Wood and Wood into Fire and so on. We call this the mother and child relationship. By knowing this we can also start to see patterns of disharmony. Sometimes the mother is excessive and smothers the child. At other times the child is excessive and either takes the energy of the mother or will go and flow in the opposite direction attacking the mother. In the controlling cycle the element skips one to control the next, we call this the grandmother. It is there to make sure that the child is well behaved. However there are times where the grandmother over steps and can be overpowering of the child. At other times the child is so excessive that it even overpowers the grandmother.

This observational technique is one of the ways we are able to understand one’s condition of health and also why one might be experiencing and imbalance, resulting in some form of condition. For example, one common relationship we see is between the Wood and Earth. The Liver from the wood is meant to provide a smooth and coherent functioning of our bodily systems and the Spleen from the Earth is responsible for our digestive properties. When these two are in disharmony we can often see a situation of Wood overacting on Earth, which in western terms looks like irritable bowel syndrome.

When western diagnosis or scientific research is unable to offer guidance or treat some of the conditions we have it is not necessarily their fault, they just have a different way of understanding and looking at the body. In Chinese medicine we take a global perspective and look at the relationships between the various systems at play in our body. Albeit the language and descriptions may be somewhat metaphoric, with the 1000 of years of clinical practice and application, this medicine is still practiced today so they were on to something when they looked theses phases and elements.

A Literal Heart to Heart Moment

Our heart is an incredible marvel of biology and science. Not only does it serve the purpose of controlling and pumping the vital substance of blood throughout our body but it is like the command center of many other systems in our body. I was recently introduced to the company HearMath and the research and information that they have put together are astounding. There are two major things that I want to point out. One is the influence our minds have on our heart. They looked at the heart rate of the same person wherein one scenario the person was frustrated and in the other the person was appreciative. What they noticed was that the simple act of being frustrated drastically change the heart rate and made it extremely inconsistent, or what they called incoherent, whereas during the time of appreciation it was much more regular and consistent or coherent. The consistency of the heart matters because when the heart rate is consistent that means that the immune system, hormones, and nervous system function in a more optimal, coordinated effort in keeping us healthy.

So, our thoughts and the way we think has a huge influence on our heart and overall health.

Another fascinating fact is that our heart emits an electromagnetic field that other people in your environment can detect with their nervous system. And this may be something you have felt yourself; when you are in a room full of friends or family and enjoying each other’s company you end up feeling quite positive and well, whereas being in a conflict-filled, tense environment can be extremely draining. Or in another scenario, if you are all moving together, breathing together and having the intention of doing something positive for oneself, like in a yoga class, this personal thought and emotion can have a profound effect on the group as a whole.

What you think and feel affects your heart, your heart can affect those around you and the hearts of those around you can affect your heart. What if we all worked on uplifting ourselves and those around us. What kind of world would that look like?

What's causing my headache? Your traps?

Headaches are quite the common occurrence. I have had them, I am sure you have and any number of people around you have had them. When we are ill, when we are sick, headaches often are part of the package. However there are headaches that occur without any of these other symptoms or we may have a recurring, chronic incidence of headaches.

Regardless of what the reason it is never pleasant. One of the things that we often overlook is the simplest of them all, muscle tension. We have muscles along our neck, the tops of our shoulders, upper back and even muscles along our head. An area that many of us carry tension (I do as well) is the upper back, specifically the upper trapezius muscle. What you may not have know is that pain can travel and affect other areas of the body even if it didn’t originate there. The work of Janet Travell has shed light on this fact with her research into trigger points. If you want a quick breakdown of trigger points and what happens in the muscle and how it affects your body check out this quick youtube video  Each muscle has its own set of patterns and the trapezius just so happens to have one that goes from the upper back, shoulder area up along the neck around the side of the head and into the temples.

After a night of rest usually these headaches can go away, but if the muscular tension persists you are setting yourself up for more future discomfort. What acupuncture can offer which can either supplement your own exercise regimen or even massage is that we get to go into the muscle directly, under the skin, right to the area that may be causing the issue.

After a couple of treatments and you could be in less pain, prevent future discomfort and create a pattern towards better living. Does that sound appealing to you?

What is Yin and Yang?

Foundational to Acupuncture and Chinese medicine is the concept of Yin and Yang. It’s a fairly simple idea but can become very complex and multi layered. It is probably something you have seen more often than thought about or heard about. The symbol is depicted by a circle, one half white with a black dot and the other half black with  white dot, both drawn in a way where they are encircling and merging into and out of each other.

What these two colors indicate is that where there is life there is duality, we have light and heavy, cold and hot, active and passive and so on so forth. It is the simplest way to observe the world around us. Yin and Yang can be applied to anything and everything.

One of the ways that we use this in acupuncture is that it helps us to differentiate the diagnosis. Yin and Yang are broken down to the following;

Yang   /   Yin

Hot   /   Cold

Exterior   /    Interior

Excess   /    Deficient

All aspects of the condition of someone’s symptoms can be differentiated with these categories. If we are talking about place, an exterior condition involves the more superficial aspects of the body closer to the skin. Exterior often refers to some form of outside influence that is affecting the person. For example, if the temperature is cold outside if we have a strong system we are able to combat the advances of the cold but if we are run down and down have the energy to fight this, the cold may invade the body causing us to have a reaction and show symptoms of “catching a cold”. If it is interior we are talking about deeper parts of our body, which would refer more to our organs. We won’t go into depth here but the organs in Acupuncture each have a special function and if they are out of balance they can manifest with their own set of symptoms. Most interior imbalances arise from emotional stress, diet and working too hard. Looking at the difference of hot and cold, if one has a raging fever or there is red, hot swelling or the person just tends to run hot these would point to patterns of heat. However if they have the chills and feeling cold, have a sensation of cold in their joints or their body is cool to the touch that would indicate patterns of cold. Then the last set of differences is the comparison of excess and deficient. When in excess this refers to the body’s ability to be strong and be full of the necessary energy to combat the disease. If one is deficient, this indicates that the body is weak, tired and if there is some form of illness that it is not able to fight against it very well.

This is just a very small part of a much greater, much more complex theory of chinese medicine and acupuncture, but hopefully it give you a glimpse into the way that we think and the way that we see the world. These methods and techniques have been around for centuries. They might not adhere to western, scientific method of analysis, but these practices continue to this day so the proof is in the pudding.